Ali was up. Veena gave her a huge, good luck hug. As Ali and her coach left, Connor ducked inside the tent, holding the flap for them. He looked like a powdered donut. The storm must have intensified. We greeted each other with corny smiles that I was glad Brown and the rest of my team couldn’t see.
Veena, Nate, Connor, and I gathered around the TV to watch Ali’s run. She did well, but her score wasn’t good enough to put her on the podium. As Darya and her coach left, the lights flooded on over the pipe so the riders and spectators could see. Veena bit her lip as she watched.
Despite the heavy snow falling, Darya rode fast into the pipe, gathering speed. She crisscrossed the bottom, her jumps higher and tricks more commanding than I’d seen her pull before. Her last trick, something involving twists, flips, and a grab, drew oohs from the others.
“She pulled it off,” Connor said.
“Strong run,” Nate said.
“What was that trick?” I asked.
“Cab triple cork 1440 mute. No one’s landed it in a contest before,” Veena whispered to me, her eyes still on the screen.
Darya skidded to a stop at the bottom of the pipe and pumped a fist. Only one other rider went out to give her a half-hearted hug. I doubted Darya cared. She’d put down a winning run, and she knew it. Sure enough, a few minutes later her score came in from the judges. Darya had carved straight through Veena and Jia-Li to the gold medal spot.
Veena retreated to her corner again. Nate went with her, talking to her in a low voice.
The standings as Jia-Li finished her run: Darya had the gold medal, Veena silver, and Jia-Li bronze. Mei and Ali were fourth and fifth.
Veena paced, her lips moving silently, and she took deep, centering breaths. The announcer called her name, and she slipped on her helmet, buckling it quickly. She reached for Sona and nodded to us.
“I’m ready.”
And that’s when the tent flap opened and all hell broke loose.
Twenty-One
A masked man wearing head to toe black busted in with a semi-automatic assault rifle in his hands.
We all froze. The man swung the muzzle toward us and expertly shot Connor in the left leg. He went down yelling. Veena threw Sona up in front of her like a shield. I pulled her to the ground, my body on top. Nate dove into a corner.
Connor moaned. His contorted face hurt to see, but at least he wasn’t dead.
A second man entered the tent and stood over Veena and me, his weapon pointed at my back. I craned around to see him.
“Move,” he said in English. His accent was the same as the kidnappers at Copper Mountain.
I felt sick and faint, but I shook my head.
“Move, or I will shoot you both.”
Two other armed men entered the tent, standing guard. Where the hell were the Swiss security people with their weapons? I only had my baton under my coat. The first man shoved the muzzle of his weapon into Veena’s face and looked pointedly at me. His expression was calm. Bad news.
“Move,” he said again.
I moved.
“Stay calm,” I told Veena, although adrenaline poured through me. She whimpered, and her eyes were frantic.
“Put your back against the tent, hands in front,” the man said to me. I stayed where I was; I didn’t want to move that far from Veena, but when he pointed his gun carefully at my chest, I had no choice. Grappling for his weapon was a bad idea with Veena so close.
He aimed at me while one of the other men hauled her up. The third dragged Connor to his feet. He howled in pain when he had to put weight on his injured leg. Veena’s teary, wide eyes met mine. Then the men swept Connor and her out of the tent.
One, two, three seconds passed as I jabbed my watch and flew to the tent flap. Brown picked up right away.
“They got Veena,” I choked out. “And they shot Connor in the leg and took him, too.” Why the hell did they take an injured bystander?
Brown cursed. “I’ll get Ice and Owl up there. Stay there, Green. We need you to tell Swiss security what happened.” We disconnected.
I freed my baton and peeked outside. The sun was sinking over the western peaks. The top of the pipe was relatively empty now, thankfully, but a few small groups of spectators and trainers huddled together, clearly frightened. Two men, the missing Swiss security guards, lay on the ground, blood staining the snow around them. I called Brown again, telling him to send paramedics.
I scooped up the guards’ rifles, slung them across my back with their straps, and turned to the nearest person. “Which direction did they go?”
The woman, fear paling her already fair skin, pointed uphill, past the café, in the direction of the glacier that rose over the resort. Thank God everyone here spoke English. “They took snowmobiles.”
Engines growled up the hill from below—probably Cooley, Kovitch, and more useless Swiss security. The announcer chattered on, either unaware of what happened or maybe not wanting to start a panic. I could see a few people peering uphill through the snow, probably looking for Veena. She was supposed to be laying down an Olympic gold run right now.
My head swiveled, searching. There. A snowmobile was parked behind the athletes’ tent. I ran to it, strapped on the helmet, goggles attached, that had been left on the back, and turned the keys in the ignition. I had to search for the headlight switch, but I found it and threw it on.
If I survived this, I’d be fired for disobeying direct orders. I’d probably never work in the security field again. But there was no way I would sit around telling the story a thousand times while the kidnappers got away with Veena
