Return to Atlantis: A Novel (45 page)

Face tight with frustration, Eddie whispered, “Go along with him for now.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded as Stikes spoke again. “Well? Do I at least get the courtesy of an answer?”

“I’ll bring the statues to you,” Nina said, to Penrose’s dismay.

“I’m glad to hear it. I’ll send you the details now. Oh, and Nina?” Smug amusement filled the former officer’s voice. “Wrap up warmly.”

I
n better weather, the little ski resort of Chandère would have been beautiful. Backed by majestic peaks, with long flowing slopes running down to the woods around the traditional houses of pale stone and dark timber, it was an almost postcard-perfect representation of the idealized Alpine village. Adding to its picturesque quality was the narrow-gauge steam railway that ran along the valley, connecting it to other equally attractive tourist destinations.

Conditions today, though, were far from their best. Low clouds blotted out the mountaintops, a stiff, freezing wind driving snowflakes along like tiny knives of ice. The lack of sunlight draped a dismal pall over everything, flattening the scene almost to two dimensions. Even the jolly, toy-like locomotive seemed affected by the gloom, wheezing and straining to pull its carriages into the station.

The train finally clanked to a stop, sooty smoke swirling around the handful of disembarking passengers. Nina was among them, wearing a winter coat and woolly hat to protect herself from the cold. She was carrying
a case, but unlike those of the other tourists, hers did not contain the accoutrements of a skiing holiday.

Instead, it held the three statues.

Stikes was waiting for her at the station’s exit, leaning casually against a wall. “Dr. Wilde! Glad you could make it.”

“Cut the crap, Stikes,” she snapped. “Where’s Larry?”

“Where are the statues?” She held up the case. “Good. Although you won’t mind if I check, will you?”

Nina opened the case to reveal the trio of purple figurines within. “Satisfied?”

“For the moment.” He signaled to two large men standing nearby, who quickly marched to join him. “Follow me.”

She expected to be taken to a car, but Stikes instead headed for a tall and boxy building down the street. A cable-car station, steel lines rising up into the murk above the village. “Where are we going?”

“I’m sure the Chandère tourist board will be very disappointed that you don’t know,” Stikes said amiably. “We’re going to the Blauspeer hotel; it’s apparently quite famous. Exclusive, too. It’s one of the Group’s regular haunts for meetings.”

“Gee, with a recommendation like that, I’ll book next year’s vacation while I’m here.”

They entered the building. There was a sign on the door; Nina didn’t know sufficient German to translate the whole text, but picked out enough to gather that the hotel served by the aerial tramway was currently closed to the public. The Group had presumably booked the entire place, wanting privacy.

Stikes spoke briefly to a man inside a control booth, then led Nina and his two goons to the waiting gondola. She looked past it up the mountainside. Little was visible through the clouds and blowing snow. Her destination was effectively isolated from the rest of the world. She shivered.

The Englishman opened the cabin door for her. “Cold? Get in, it’ll be warmer.”

“You’re the perfect gentleman,” she said with a sneer as she entered. Stikes merely smirked and joined her, his men doing the same. A gesture to the booth from the former SAS officer, and the cable car lurched into motion.

Pointedly turning her back on Stikes, Nina went to the front window as the gondola began its ascent. A few buildings passed below, then the woods at the bottom of the hill. The best of the mountain’s ski runs were apparently reserved for the hotel’s residents, a low fence above the railroad separating the rising slopes from the village. The Blauspeer had other attractions than downhill skiing, however; a long luge track coiled down through the trees separating two of the ski runs. There were also what looked like target ranges for biathlon contestants.

“I should ask the obvious question while we have the time,” said Stikes. “Where’s your husband?”

“In New York.”

“No, he’s not. He’s in Switzerland—he took a different flight from you, but I know he’s here.” His voice became flinty. “I warned you what would happen to his father if he tried to interfere.”

“But he hasn’t interfered, has he? The only reason he’s here is to make sure we get out of the country safely.” She glanced back at his two silent companions. “I’m assuming you’ve got more than just these two clowns watching the place. You’d know if he were in town.”

“I know Chase,” said Stikes. “He’s not the kind to sit around and wait.” He looked out into the gray blankness obscuring the mountains. “He’s here, somewhere.”

“If you think so, why don’t you try to make me tell you?”

“Normally I would, as I’m sure you remember. But I have my orders, so my hands are tied … for the moment.” A small, nasty smile.

Nina turned away again. The ride continued for a couple more minutes before a large, blocky shape finally loomed into view ahead. The Blauspeer hotel stood on relatively flat ground partway up the mountain, the
upper cable-car station actually built into one wing near the start of the luge track. The building looked quite old, timber-framed beneath its high, steeply sloping roof, but Nina suspected its facilities would be ultramodern and luxurious. An ice-skating rink and an outdoor café overlooking the valley came into view as the cable car approached the end of its climb; considering the conditions, both were unsurprisingly deserted.

The gondola stopped. Stikes, feigning politeness, ushered Nina out. Even inside the station, the wind was stronger and colder than in the village, cutting through her coat. She hurried toward the glass doors leading to the hotel proper.

Warden waited in the expansive lobby beyond. “Dr. Wilde,” he said. “Welcome. I’m so glad you agreed to come.”

Her voice was as icy as the conditions outside. “I wasn’t exactly given a lot of choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know.” She jabbed a thumb at Stikes. “Your errand boy kidnapped my father-in-law and threatened to kill him if I didn’t bring you the statues.”

“What?” He looked at Stikes in genuine surprise. “Is this true?”

“You told me to bring Dr. Wilde and the statues here,” Stikes replied smoothly. “I chose the most expeditious way to make sure that happened.”

Warden’s mouth twisted angrily. “I wanted her to come here
willingly
!” he barked. “You idiot!” Ignoring Stikes’s affronted expression, he turned back to Nina. “Dr. Wilde, I apologize for this—this outrage. I assure you, I had absolutely no idea that Stikes would exceed his authority like this.”

“Maybe you should have done what I said and fired him,” said Nina.

Still fuming, Warden glared at Stikes. “Where is he now?”

The Englishman composed himself. “He’s in the hotel, and perfectly safe.”

“Is he a guest or a prisoner?” asked Nina pointedly.

“Make sure it’s the former,” said Warden. “Now get out of my sight!”

Stikes stiffened, offering a terse “Yes,
sir
” as he and his two men headed for the nearby elevators.

Warden muttered something unflattering as he watched them leave, then addressed Nina. “Again, I apologize. You’re an absolutely vital part of what the Group hopes to achieve, and I want you to be completely free in your decision to join us. I hope Stikes’s stupidity hasn’t affected that. I’ll make sure your father-in-law is freed, and fully compensated for whatever inconvenience and distress he’s been caused.”

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that,” said Nina. Warden didn’t seem to detect her undercurrent of sarcasm—though she couldn’t help noticing that he was so arrogant as to assume that she would agree to go along with the Group, no matter what. “As for what Stikes has done, I don’t think that’ll have much effect on my decision.”

“I’m very happy to hear that.” Again, the financier failed to pick up on her not-exactly-buried subtext. “In that case, if you’ll come with me, I’ll introduce you to the Group.”

Eddie gazed through the binoculars, holding one gloved hand above the lenses to ward off the blowing snow. “So that’s the hotel? Looks like it should have Jack Nicholson as the caretaker.”

He and the group of eight men with him, in white camouflage gear and balaclava masks, were at the top of a ridge about three-quarters of a mile from the Blauspeer hotel and several hundred feet higher. At this distance through the obscuring conditions, the building was barely more than a silhouette against the clouded
valley, its shape defined more by its lights than by detailed features.

But Eddie could still see enough to tell that it was heavily guarded. Figures patrolled the grounds, making sure that the hotel’s reclusive VIP guests maintained their privacy.

They were about to be gate-crashed.

His companions were some of Glas’s loyal employees, a retinue of European security personnel urgently assembled on the billionaire’s orders while Eddie was on the flight to Switzerland. A helicopter had made a risky flight into the thickening clouds to drop them on the other side of the mountain, out of sight of the hotel, so they could traverse a pass and approach from a direction that would—in theory—be more lightly guarded. He didn’t know how good the men were, but had been assured that all were ex-military, willing and able to accomplish their mission.

That assurance was about to be tested. He tilted the binoculars down to the mountainside below. It was one of the hotel’s slopes—a black run, steep and potentially dangerous, even deadly, to anyone not an expert skier. The poles of a ski lift were visible off to one side, but it was not running. The only way down was to ski.

Eddie had done a considerable amount of that during his SAS training, but mostly cross-country rather than downhill, and it had been some years since he had been on a skiing holiday. Now that he thought about it, the last time had been during his marriage to Sophia, over seven years before. Christ, where had the time gone? He hoped he hadn’t become too rusty.

He would find out soon enough. The already grim sky was steadily darkening as evening drew in. They would have to move quickly—not least because Nina would be inside by now.

He continued his sweep of the slope. Before setting out, he had surveyed the area using online aerial photos; as expected, he spotted a small building at the bottom of
the ski lift. It was the perfect place for a guard to find respite from the wind …

“Thermal,” he said. A man produced a device resembling a compact video camera and handed it to him. Eddie switched it on and peered through the eyepiece at the hut.

Someone was there, a humanoid shape in bright blues, yellows, and reds standing out against the cold gray blankness of the snow. He panned the thermal imager across the vista below. More figures popped out from their surroundings, some standing watch in the shelter of buildings and trees, others trudging through the open along well-trodden patrol routes. “How many guards?” asked one of the men.

“I count, let’s see … four at the bottom of the slope, and another eight or nine nearer the hotel.” Even through the thermal imager, it was impossible to miss that all the guards were armed with MP5 submachine guns. He gave the gadget back to its owner, who conducted his own scan while Eddie checked the sky. Conditions were steadily worsening, the wind-driven snow getting thicker as the landscape dropped deeper into shadow. “Okay, get ready.”

The team members quickly began to don their skis as Eddie took back the thermal imager and checked the guards’ locations again. According to Glas, with whom he had spoken via Penrose before leaving New York, the Group maintained its own private security force; the men protecting the hotel were professional mercenaries. Even in law-abiding Switzerland, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill an intruder, relying on the power and influence of their employers to cover it up. Moreover, Stikes was now in charge of them, and Eddie knew firsthand just how merciless the former officer and his subordinates could be.

To reach the hotel, he knew that his team would have to be just as ruthless. If they were caught, they would be killed. Their only chance of success—the only way to
rescue both Nina and his father, and put an end to the Group’s plans—was to take out the mercenaries first.

He checked his weapon: a white-painted Heckler & Koch MP7 personal defense weapon—an extremely compact submachine gun—equipped with suppressor and red-dot sight. The other men were similarly equipped, with a single exception. One man also carried a skeletal Steyr SSG 08 sniper rifle, with a thermal scope and a hefty silencer.

“How good are you with that?” Eddie asked its owner, a German named Amsel.

“I have the Schützenschnur in gold,” Amsel replied proudly.

“Yeah, that’s pretty good.” It was the German army’s marksmanship award; Glas seemed to have picked his men well. “Okay, you set up here, and I’ll spot.”

Amsel was comfortable enough in his skills to not even bother removing his skis as he lay at the crest of the ridge and prepared his rifle. Eddie scanned the slope with the thermal imager once more. The four men on the outer perimeter were still in position, all but one stationary in whatever shelter they could find. The fourth was traipsing across the base of the ski run, heading for the lift. The Englishman frowned. They only had one gun capable of hitting a target from this distance—if Amsel took out one guard and the other saw his comrade fall, he might raise the alarm before the German could take his second shot …