‘He’s not a good skier. Not bad for his age, but nothing like as good as he wants people to think. You noticed those fancy Christies he did just before he stopped? All crap. He’s like a diver making a lot of splash. That boy’s strictly in the après ski playboy class.’
‘I agree. And that’s why he always chooses the Mähder run — the easiest. There are several down the Gotschnagrat, some of them very difficult, including the Wang, but none of the spectators down here in Wolfgang are going to know which one he’s taken.’
Ryderbeit frowned. ‘According to the map, there are half a dozen other runs that are just as easy — here and in Davos. And why does he always choose exactly the same time? It’s too simple, soldier. If I wasn’t a trusting bastard, I’d start suspecting it might be a set-up.’
‘All the other runs,’ said Packer, ‘the Parsenn, the Weissfluhjoch, the one down to Küblis — are either too difficult or too long. And length’s important, because every extra metre means an added security risk. But there’s another reason — and it also explains his regular timing. As we know, whenever he goes skiing, he gives an hour’s warning so they can empty the cable car up the Gotschnagrat and have the runs clear by the time he gets to the top. If he decided to make a different run every day, at a different time, he’d have half the ski lifts, cable cars and runs round Klosters and Davos more or less permanently suspended or closed. And that wouldn’t fit in with his image as the happy monarch on holiday.’
Ryderbeit had squashed out his half-smoked cigar and sat for some time with his lips moving silently; then his good eye swivelled round to Packer. ‘So it looks like being the Mähder run? High-velocity rifle with telescopic sights, at a range of up to 1000 metres. We’d have to do it from one of the higher runs. Pick him off at a downward angle, taking into account rising air currents, distorted distances, as well as snow glare, which in these altitudes can make it seem like you’re shooting underwater. Also, the target’s going to be moving downhill — weaving, changing position every second.’ He paused. ‘I still prefer the idea of the cable car — especially with this schedule he keeps. Fat Man agreed to get me the plastique, and thought it a very smart idea smuggling it into the hut at the bottom, hidden in a big pâté sandwich.’
‘It sounds smart,’ said Packer, ‘but it’s not. Because even if you got into the hut and put the plastique under one of the cable drums — with, say, a two-hour fuse stuck into it — and if the Ruler decided to ride up that afternoon, they not only use that one hour’s notice he gives them to clear the car, but to check every inch of cable as it passes through all the huts — up at the Gotschnagrat station, and the Gotschnaboden, the halfway stop. You might not get caught, but you wouldn’t kill the Ruler either.’
‘Just a lousy old pâté sandwich that someone chucked away behind the winding machinery? Do you think they’d actually taste the pâté — let alone look for the detonator?’
‘You forget you’re in Switzerland, Sammy. They’d hate that sandwich dirtying up their clean little Gotschnabahn hut, whether it contained pâté or plastique.’
Ryderbeit sat back and sighed. ‘You’re not the first person to shoot me down in flames, soldier. But I’m always up there, flying again. Now, try this one for size. I get up in the woods, just under where the cable car passes up to the Gotschnaboden. I’ve got perfect cover, and I’ve also got a .417 Magnum — commonly known as an “elephant gun”. Just as the car gets over the halfway mark, I let fly at the traction cable and twang! — the whole caboosh and its Imperial load goes zinging down the wires, splatter! into that tidy little hut at the bottom. Okay?’
‘Not okay at all. You’re supposed to know about ballistics, aren’t you? Or are guns to you just things with triggers and barrels which are used to blast off at black men and wild animals when they’re not looking?’
‘Easy, soldier.’ Ryderbeit’s eye had become a bright yellow slit, and his knuckles had whitened round his empty wine glass. ‘You tell me what I ought to know about ballistics.’
‘I’ll tell you what you ought to know about those Gotschnabahn cables. The traction cable is over an inch thick, and made up of several hundred spliced steel wires that would take half an hour of oxyacetylene to cut through. It’s also greased twice a day. Any bullet would just bounce off. You could get a hundred bullets hitting the same spot, and they’d hardly make a scratch.’
‘What about the tension cables?’
‘Same story. Except there are two of them.’
Ryderbeit emptied the wine bottle into his glass, and gave his wild cackle. ‘You’re all right, soldier. I was only feeling you out. That idea was just a lead-up. But on the right principle, mind. We both agree that trying to pick him off in the cable car itself would be something like thirty to one against — bearing in mind that he goes up with the thing packed with bodyguards, all about the same height and build as him, and after the first shot — unless one of us got him first time round — they’d all be lying on the floor and we’d need an armour-piercing weapon to get any closer.’
He grinned cunningly. ‘Which is what I propose we do. People walking around on mountains carry a lot of heavy equipment, and there’s no reason why a couple of innocents like us shouldn’t wander
