Return to Atlantis: A Novel (50 page)

Stikes pushed past them to Sophia. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she replied, shaken—before turning to look at the hatch. Her shock became outrage. “You let him get away!”

“We could have shot him, but I thought you wouldn’t appreciate having the bullets go through you first,” he said testily, before returning to the table. “Ladies, gentlemen, for your own safety I’d recommend that we leave the hotel until I get confirmation that Chase is dead.”

“You want us to run away?” rasped Meerkrieger. “It sounds as if you’re scared of him.”

“Hardly,” the Englishman said, stiffening. “It’s just that Chase has, shall we say, a talent for destruction. I wouldn’t put it past him to set the hotel on fire or cause a gas explosion in an attempt to escape.” His audience’s expressions showed that they had very quickly come around to his way of thinking.

“He won’t try to escape,” said Sophia. She pointed at Nina and Larry. “He’ll try to rescue them.”

“Then we’d better make sure he can’t reach them. Or these.” He picked up the case containing the statues. “We’ll take the cable car down to the village. I’ll call ahead to have transport waiting for us.”

The Group members stood. “Are you sure this is necessary?” Warden asked.

“As long as Chase is running loose, I wouldn’t take any chances. This way, please.”

“You heard him,” said Sophia, jabbing Nina with the Glock.

Everyone hurried for the main exit, Nina and Larry exchanging worried glances.

Eddie ran across the kitchen. He needed to get back upstairs to find Nina and his father, but the closest flight of
steps, just outside the swing doors, would at any moment have mercenaries pounding down it. If he could get past it before they arrived, though, he might be able to find an alternative way up …

He saw fast-moving shadows on the stairwell wall through the circular windows. “Arse!” he muttered as he changed direction for the exterior door.

The swing doors crashed open behind him. Bullets blazed across the kitchen—but he was already pounding up the snow-covered steps outside. Whirling snowflakes pricked his eyes as he reached the top. Wherever he ran, the mercs would be able to follow his trail in the snow and pick him off—he had to buy himself some time.

The bins—

The nearest wheeled container was a few feet away. He grabbed the handles on its side. It shifted slightly, but refused to move from its spot.

If it was chained to the others, he was screwed.

He pulled harder—and with a crackle of ice from around its wheels it jolted away from its fellows. Eddie ran around it and pushed. Boots scraping against the slippery ground, he shoved it toward the stairwell. It was over half full, and the snow piled up on its lid wasn’t making it any lighter. “Come on, come on,” he gasped. “Come
on
, you smelly bastard—”

A cry of “Here, he’s here!” from below—and a submachine gun let rip on full auto, bullets tearing up through the bin’s side and erupting out through the plastic lid amid geysers of snow. Eddie yelled and dropped down, pushing with his shoulder—

The bin lurched sharply as the wheels went over the edge of the top step—and suddenly the whole thing raced away from him, bouncing and crashing down the stairs. The firing stopped, the mercenary trying to retreat into the kitchen—but he was too slow. The bin hit like a charging bull, slamming him backward into the base of the stairwell. The crack of bones was almost lost beneath the echoing boom and clatter of metal and trash.

Eddie was already running for the front of the hotel.

With the bin blocking the kitchen door, Stikes’s men would have to find another exit.

He rounded the corner. The towering windows of the Alpine Lounge glowed above him. From his low angle he couldn’t see much of the room itself, but enough was visible to reveal that it was empty. The Group had left—taking their prisoners with them.

But where?

Movement through the blowing snow gave him an answer. At the hotel’s far end, beyond the skating rink, the cable car emerged from the upper station and began its descent. Its interior lights shone brightly, revealing that it was packed to the brim with passengers.

One of whom had very distinctive red hair.

“Buggeration and fuckery!” Stikes’s doing, he knew; the former officer was making sure Eddie could no longer interfere in the game by taking away the most important pieces. The statues, Nina to make use of them … and Larry to force her to cooperate.

He ran through the snow after the cable car. In a few minutes it would reach the village, and the Group and their captives would be whisked away.

He had to catch up. But he had abandoned his skis after reaching the bottom of the slope, and it would take too long to retrieve them. He needed a faster alternative …

The luge run.

The long wooden shed at its top was almost directly beneath the cable lines. If he could get to a sled, it would be the quickest way down the mountain short of flying.

Movement in the hotel. Two mercenaries barged through a set of glass doors, readying their MP5s—

Eddie altered course, raising his arms to protect his head and diving through a window in the side of a small hut beside the ice rink. His thick coat protected him from the broken glass, but the rough landing still hurt. He jumped up, seeing that the hut’s rear wall was lined with shelves full of ice skates.

He also saw that there was only one exit—a door facing the hotel.

Which would bring him straight into the gunmen’s sights—

The mercenaries opened fire, spraying the hut with bullets. Splinters exploded from the wooden walls. One man was shooting at chest height, the other aiming lower as he swept his gun back and forth in case their target had thrown himself flat.

Their magazines ran dry almost simultaneously. They put in fresh ammunition as they tromped through the snow to the door. Lines of bullet holes ran across the hut’s façade, the largest gap between them little more than six inches. Anyone inside would be Swiss cheese.

The pockmarked door was kicked open—

Apart from broken wood and scattered skates, the hut was empty.

The mercenaries looked at each other, puzzled. There was nowhere their quarry could have exited unseen. One man leaned cautiously through the door to check if he was skulking in a shadowed corner …

A long spike of gleaming steel whisked down from the ceiling and stabbed deep into his eye socket.

The mercenary screamed and fell backward against his companion as Eddie dropped from the rafters, having used the same concealment tactic as Stikes’s men had in the Alpine Lounge—with equal effectiveness. He wore a skating boot on his right fist like a misshapen boxing glove, the tail of its blade coated in blood. The mortally wounded man collapsed, the other merc trying to bring his MP5 back up.

The blade slashed again, sweeping across the second man’s neck and sending an arcing cascade of gore over the clean white snow. Gurgling, the mercenary clutched helplessly at his slit throat, then slumped on top of his comrade.

Eddie tossed the boot away and snatched up an MP5, then resumed his run for the luge track. He spotted the cable car again as he neared the top of the slope, now
little more than a small box of light fading into the snowy darkness below. Was he too late to catch it?

Only one way to find out. He raced into the shed, the open-ended building a garage of sorts for sleds. Some were luges, designed to be ridden feetfirst; others were “skeletons,” where the rider lay on his stomach to make a headfirst descent.

It only now occurred to him that he had no idea how to control either.

“It’s a sledge, how hard can it be?” Not quite convinced, he slung the gun and pulled a luge into the open. It had a leather strap resembling reins attached to its front, but there was no apparent steering mechanism on the runners. The only way to guide it was presumably by shifting his weight.

He would have to figure it out on the way down. Hauling it to the top of the track, Eddie was about to take his seat when he heard shouts from the ice rink. The two corpses had been found—and their discoverers were already following him, weapons at the ready—

Eddie threw himself bodily onto the luge as the first shots whizzed past him. His momentum sent it slithering onto the track … where it picked up speed with alarming rapidity.

He was in completely the wrong position to control it, lying prone with his head at the front and legs dangling off the back. He frantically grabbed the strap and pulled it tight, then looked ahead. Snowflakes stabbed at his eyes, forcing him to squint. There was just enough residual twilight for him to make out the line of the track, its sides marked by raised walls of snow and ice—and he was veering straight for one of them.

“Shit!” He pulled hard on the reins, leaning as far as he dared in the opposite direction. The luge’s runners rasped over the icy ground as it skidded, going almost side-on down the track before he shoved down the toe of one boot to act as an anchor and swing him back into line.

He was only doing about 30 miles per hour—but lying
just inches off the ground with his head out front like a bony bumper, it felt more like 130. The ride was horribly rough, not even the snow on the track smoothing his descent. Another curve ahead. He shifted his weight again, the sled this time turning in a slightly more controlled manner. The wall whipped past a handbreadth away.

The lights of the cable car swung back into view as he came out of the bend. He was already gaining. If he kept up this pace—and didn’t kill himself first—he would overtake it well before it reached the village …

A new sound over the grind of metal on ice. An engine.

The harsh rasp was unmistakable. A snowmobile.

He didn’t dare look back to find it. The luge was still gaining speed, the track twisting through a stand of trees. Another wall rushed at him; he slammed down a foot and rolled almost fully on his side to swerve away from it. Too fast, nearly out of control—but the snowmobile was closing, its engine snarling as it bounced over the terrain. He was trapped by the track’s confines, but the other driver could take the quickest route to intercept him.

The luge plowed through a hump of snow, the explosion of powder briefly blinding him. Gasping, he put both feet down to slow the sledge, the ice scraping viciously against his toes.

Another curve, his sleeve brushing the wall as he strained to make the turn. The snowmobile’s engine was briefly muffled as he passed behind a large snowbank. He had almost caught up with the cable car—

The snowmobile’s muted roar suddenly became a terrifying howl as it burst over the top of the bank and swept down into the track directly behind him.

Its headlight pinned him in its glaring beam. Eddie now had a clear view of the track ahead, but a crash was no longer the greatest danger. He looked back. The snowmobile was less than ten feet behind, twin front skis slashing through the ice.

The engine revved. The gap closed. He brought the luge skittering around another bend. The snowmobile followed, its rider feathering the throttle to hold it in a controlled skid before applying full power again. The light grew brighter.

Eddie braced himself—

One of the skis bashed against his foot. The impact knocked the sled around, sending him at a wall. He desperately tried to counter it, but overcompensated. The luge wriggled like a fish beneath him, almost throwing him off. He was forced to jam both feet down against the track to keep control—and the snowmobile rammed him again, harder. Pain shot through his ankle as his foot was almost crushed under the skid.

The snowmobile dropped back slightly, then revved again, rushing forward to run him over …

Another curve—and the wall was partly covered by a snowdrift. Eddie flung the luge into a sharp turn. It hit the wall—but the drift was just thick enough for the runners to ride up over it.

Even so, the impact flipped him off the sled. He sailed helplessly through the air. Trees loomed ahead—

He missed a trunk by less than a foot, smacking down in deep snow beyond it. The luge thunked off the tree and spun away in pieces.

His pursuer turned hard to follow him. The machine slammed over the wall, going airborne—

And smashing straight into a tree.

The snowmobile exploded, a boiling orange fireball lighting up the little forest. Eddie shielded his head as burning debris rained down around him. He waited a few seconds, then cautiously sat up.

The snow had cushioned his landing, but he was still sore and woozy, ankle throbbing from its run-in with the skid. He shifted, putting experimental weight on it. The effort made him wince as pain spiked through the joint. He was still able to move, but running after the cable car would hurt …

The cable car! He looked up. It would pass almost
directly overhead in seconds. He was still some way from the village, and without the sled there was no way he could possibly catch up before it reached the lower station. The MP5 was also gone, lost in the snow. He stared helplessly at the gondola as it rumbled over the trees.

Someone stared back at him.

Stikes.