Even the office staff were peeking out windows as Cilla glided up to the group on the snow. Britton was jovial and condescending.
“Shall we ride up together?”
“No. We start here.”
Britton laughed shortly. “And see whose chair is fastest?”
“We
“Damn right. We ski the
“Right, so let’s start. This red flare is yours; you set it off on the top to show you’ve reached it and are starting down. I have the white flare.”
Puzzled. “For the timer?”
“We won’t need a timer. Whoever reaches the bottom first wins. This is just so the spectators can tell where we are.”
“They’ll
“Fine. Go.” She turned to her left and started across the snow.”
“Hey! Where are you going? The lift is over here.”
Cilla stopped and turned back to him. “Weren’t we talking about stamina? Working the body not a machine?”
“So?”
“The lift is a machine. As you said, we’re racing the whole mountain. Both ways.” She turned back and headed for the bottom of Bale Out.
There was a stunned look in Britton’s eyes as her words sank in. Then with a roar he took off after her, poling hard across the flats. They reached the trail mouth at the same time and started to climb together. Britton, practically running, skis slapping the snow, moved quickly ahead, herringboning his way up. Cilla concentrated on steady rhythm.
Bale Out was a gentle grade at the bottom growing increasingly steep and sprouting giant moguls the last five hundred feet of its two-mile length. By the time Cilla reached halfway, Britton was a full hundred feet ahead, his breath coming in great gasps. She smiled to herself, the Marine was definitely gung ho. Maybe she shouldn’t have put down the Corps, but she had to get him angry enough. As a kid she had often climbed trails to ski - after school when the lifts had shut down. She doubted Kurt had ever climbed more than fifty feet before. There was a trick to it; one he would have automatically fallen into had his fury with her left him with a cooler head. Pace. That’s all. He wouldn’t have started one of his all day hikes at a run. But she had given him the opportunity to embarrass her, and then hidden the pea under a different shell at the last minute. He’d had no time to plan, just react.
They were nearly even at the foot of the mogul field. The Marine was blowing like a whale heading for the beach. His head was down, but there was a look of grim determination on his face. The massive mounds required different technique; the downhill sides were steep to climb over, but if you tried to go up in between, your skis slipped backwards. Cilla sidestepped up them and reached the top with Britton fifty feet behind. She set off her flare, knowing the effect of the burst of white light on those watching - which was nearly everybody that worked for Great Haystack plus more than a few curious recreational skiers. A little showmanship Hudson would have appreciated.
The run down was anticlimax. A loud cheer went up as she rounded the last turn in the trail and came into view of those watching. She sprayed snow on her stop and gave a little finishing hop. When Britton appeared the cheer had a sarcastic tone, which became more raucous when they could see he was covered with snow as though he’d gotten buried in a fall. The mountain manager skied through the spectators without a word - a rigid snowman - and disappeared around a corner of the base station.
Cilla watched him go, wondering if she had made her point. Or an enemy.
“Let me tell you a story.”
John Krestinski sat back in his desk chair and folded his hands prepared to listen. Their dinner had been cut short by an Agency “emergency” - a daily occurrence according to the FBI man. The office had managed coffee.
“A couple of men broke into our house two weeks ago. I came home to find a thug heading for the kitchen where Cilla had run to get a knife.” Hudson propped his chin on a fist. “They’d gone right upstairs and burst in on her in our bedroom; one had a knife and the other a gun. They made Cilla go downstairs with them. She caught one in the throat and made it to the kitchen when I got into it.” He leaned back in the padded chair. “She could have handled it herself if it hadn’t been for the gun.”
Krestinski did not disagree with this assessment; in fact he wondered if the thugs realized how dangerous their choice of houses had been. The FBI man studied his friend, seeing a tall, rather ordinary looking man with light brown hair and mild eyes, until you noticed the powerful shoulders underneath the suit coat, and the tanned skin that in February Boston signaled either a just-returned vacationer or someone who was outdoors more winter hours than sensible New Englanders. “I’ve seen what happens when someone tries to tackle the two of you together. Did they survive?”
“Got away.” Hudson grinned sheepishly.
“Surprise. They say anything?”
“Just that she should go with them, in a heavily accented voice. Where we don’t know; they’d only gotten to the foot of the stairs when she broke away.”
“And you didn’t call Chief Solomon, I’m sure. You telling me this in an official capacity?”
“No. Cilla said something about it being the wrong decade. I think her intuition took her further than her conscious mind. John, they were Russian.”
Krestinski had been bringing his coffee to his mouth. The cup stopped halfway. “Russian. You sure?”
“Yeah, I guess I am. Cilla heard one say some words. She thought they might be Swedish; they weren’t. I want to put it down as just a random robbery attempt.” He shook his head. “Do you hear me talking? `Just’ a robbery, as though it were a common everyday occurrence in Bartlett, New Hampshire for a house to be invaded by men with knife and gun. But what she heard was a Russian curse.”
The FBI agent pursed his lips. “Hudson, you live way up there in the sticks. If you were in a half-civilized part of the world you’d know Russians are a growing part of the New England population. From my end of things, they are now one of the major drug trade players in this section of the country. It’s no longer just the old Italian mafia. They were followed by the Columbians, then the Jamaicans, and then the Asians. Now maybe it’s Russians. They started in the Boston area where a lot of them went to work in the taxi business; others, like most immigrating national groups, formed mobs when they found people weren’t falling all over themselves to hire them. And that they could make money faster taking it than earning it. They’re now spreading out over the Northeast. I’m surprised you haven’t seen them at Great Haystack.”
“I’m not. If they skied, it wouldn’t be Alpine.”
Krestinski looked out the window at the lights of City Hall Plaza. He’d sometimes searched to see if he could identify vestiges of what used to be Scollay Square, made famous by the Old Howard vaudeville theater; more so by the strippers who performed there. “Yes. And I’m talking a lot of crap. There’s no way they should be in your area.”
Hudson nodded.
“I’m trying to avoid thinking your errand for me might have brought harm to your family.”
“So am I. But I hadn’t met or seen a Russian in years. I go to their country, where I’m bonked on the head, and a few days after I’m back, there are Russians invading my bedroom. Is it farfetched to connect the two? Maybe it is, I don’t know. I’ve been putting that question to myself the past week and finally decided to let you take a shot at it.”
“You think the one who attacked you in St. Petersburg wasn’t just after your wallet.”
