next move should be. The president’s life, his daughter’s, and the lives of no less than thirty Secret Service agents were in his hands.
“Sir!” cried Palmer as she came running up to Hollenbeck with her notepad. “Deer Valley says that there was an avalanche.”
“Shit! Give me the w’s,” said Hollenbeck, which was Service slang for “who, what, where, when, and how many.”
Palmer looked down at her pad and began reading off her list of facts. “Apparently, this was a pretty big one. Several ski patrollers heard it and, knowing what it was, called it in to their base as a potential. Only two patrols actually got a visual and confirmed it.”
“Why only two?”
“Look at the way it’s snowing outside. With weather this bad, you’d have to be practically on top of anything to see it.”
“All right, so several patrols heard what sounded like an avalanche and called it in as a potential, while only two could actually give a positive visual on it. And they also called it in?”
“Correct, sir.”
“How? I thought their radios were down.”
“Yes, they are.”
“Then how did they do it?”
“Apparently, they used a citizen’s band radio inside one of their ski patrol huts.”
“A CB?”
“The call came through loud and clear.”
“Why do you suppose a CB would work, but not our gear and not Deer Valley’s regular radios?”
“Apples and oranges.”
“What do you mean, ‘apples and oranges’?”
“The CB uses a different frequency than those used by the Secret Service or Deer Valley. The weird thing is that our gear is much more sophisticated. Everyone else should be having problems, not us.”
Hollenbeck agreed and tucked that nugget away for later while he proceeded with the matter at hand. “Okay, Palmer. Now for the ten-thousand-dollar question. Where did the avalanche begin?”
“According to the ski patrol, it began at Squaw Peak.”
Hollenbeck’s hand shot through a stack of papers and laminated charts on his desk, pulling out the topographical map the Secret Service’s TAT, or Threat Assessment Team, had prepared. It detailed all of the president’s known and potential ski routes, along with rotating postings for the JAR and CAT teams. Hollenbeck had a photographic memory and knew exactly where Squaw Peak was, but hoped in his heart of hearts that he was wrong. He wasn’t.
Squaw Peak was the highest peak of Deer Valley, and it fed directly into the basin the president and his daughter were skiing through.
In anticipation of Hollenbeck’s next question, Palmer said, “The slide was on this side of the mountain and would have funneled a wall of snow, ice, and debris directly along the routes of Hat Trick and Goldilocks.”
For the first time in ten minutes, Hollenbeck sat back down in his chair.
10
With almost a straight vertical drop and so much that could have gone wrong with the descent, Miner’s Lions had done an exceptional job. His men deserved their sobriquet. They certainly had the hearts of lions. In assembling the best-trained force-for-hire in the world, Miner had revived Switzerland’s illustrious mercenary tradition. It seemed only fitting that his men should carry a name that honored their predecessors.
Not far from the heart of the city of Lucerne was a majestic monument carved into a sheer rock face. It depicted a lion resting on a shield bearing the Swiss coat of arms and paid tribute to the 786 members of the Swiss Guard who died defending King Louis and Marie Antoinette during an attack on the Tuileries in 1792. Even the American author Mark Twain had called it the most “moving” piece of rock in the world. Upon Miner’s suggestion, his men had taken the name and had been his band of courageous and deadly Lions ever since.
It took the Lions ten minutes to make their descent. When they emerged from the icy crevice, the lead skiers took off their skies and began removing a series of snow-white tarps that hid three Ski-Doo snowmobiles.
No words were spoken, as time was still a critical element. Dryer helped Schebel attach the toboggan to the back of one of the snowmobiles, and Miner unzipped the bag carrying the president to make sure his IV was still firmly in place.
The rest of the crew snapped out of their bindings and placed their skis into the specially fitted tubes on the sides of their snowmobiles. There were two riders on each machine, one to drive and another to lay down fire if need be, though Miner knew it wouldn’t be necessary.
He climbed onto the back of the snowmobile driven by Dryer, which would pull the toboggan, and gave the signal to fire up the machines and move out.
11
Scot Harvath’s eyes snapped open as a searing bolt of pain spat him back into consciousness. His entire body ached. The sensation ebbed away, and then another wave came crashing back in.
He had known pain of this magnitude before, as well as soul-chilling cold, during his SEAL training. That training had taught Scot that what the mind believes, the body will achieve. He and his fellow teammates had joked that in SEAL training they had known the most horrific torture ever conceived of by the civilized world, but every single ounce of it had been designed to prepare him for situations just like this. SEALs absolutely, positively never give up. The SEAL motto was, “The only easy day was yesterday,” and even though Scot Harvath’s paychecks now came from the Secret Service, he would always be a SEAL.
Scot moved just a fraction and had to suppress the urge to cry out. It didn’t matter. One of the benefits of the pain, if you could look at it that way, was that his head was clearing and he was regaining control. His body would have no choice but to cooperate with him. Passing out again was not an option. It couldn’t be an option. Scot was acutely aware that with each ten minutes that passed, avalanche survival rates for those buried beneath the snow dropped like a stone.
Harvath painfully pulled himself into a sitting position and wiggled his way over so that he was sitting directly above Amanda Rutledge’s head. He set the Mag-Lite next to him and turned his palms upward. Carefully, he slid both of his hands beneath her back, supporting her head, neck, and shoulders as he rolled her over. She made no sound and continued to breathe in slow, shallow breaths.
“Mandie? It’s Scot. Can you wake up for me? Say something, honey. C’mon.”
Scot removed his small backpack, placed it on the ground next to him, and retrieved his flashlight. He opened Amanda’s eyes, expertly shining the light into each one. Her pupils didn’t constrict. That was a bad sign. He focused his thoughts on getting them to safety.
There was no way to tell how deeply they were buried. In an avalanche, the heavy snow could set up like wet concrete, making it nearly impossible to dig your way out.
Scot remembered his radios and gave them both another try. “Mayday, Mayday. Birdhouse, this is Norseman. We need assistance. Over.
“Deer Valley, Deer Valley, do you copy? Over.”
Nothing but the crackle of static came back. Scot decided to conserve his energy and his oxygen. There were more important things to think about now. Number one, he had to keep Amanda warm and try to stabilize her. Number two, he had to get them both out of this situation alive.
So far he was batting a thousand on the staying-alive part, but their fight was only fifty percent complete. Without any radio contact or anybody knowing where they were trapped, there was no telling how long a search
