Текст книги "White Fire"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

61

The vile, rotting odor in the air seemed to intensify as Ted waved the burning stick about. The flames licking at its end began to die back into coals, and he pushed it back into the stove.

“Love is the Fire of Life; it either consumes or purifies,” he quoted as he slowly twirled the stick among the flames, as if roasting a marshmallow. There was something awful – after his fierce and passionate ranting – about the calm deliberation with which he now moved. “Let us prepare for the purification.” He pulled the stick from the stove and passed it again before Corrie’s face, with a strangely delicate gesture, gingerly, tentative now – and yet it hovered so close that, although she twisted away, it singed her hair.

Corrie tried to gain control of her galloping panic. She had to reach him, talk him out of this. Her mouth was dry, and it was hard to articulate words through her haze of pain and fear. “Ted, I liked you. I mean I likeyou. I really do.” She swallowed. “Look, let me go and I’ll forget all about this. We’ll go out. Have a beer. Just like before.”

“Right. Sure. You’d say anything now.” Ted began to laugh, a crazy, quiet laugh.

She pulled against the cuff, but it was tight around her wrist, securely fastened to the pipe. “You won’t get in trouble. I won’t tell anyone. We’ll forget all about this.”

Ted did not reply. He pulled the burning brand away, inspected it closely, as one would a tool prior to putting it to use.

“We had good times, Ted, and we can have more. You don’t have to do this. I’m not like those others, I’m just a poor student, I have to wash dishes at the Hotel Sebastian just to pay for my room!” She sobbed, caught herself. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“You need to calm down, Corrie, and accept your fate. It will be by fire – purifying fire. It will cleanse you of your sins. You should thank me, Corrie. I’m giving you a chance to atone for what you did. You’ll suffer, and for that I’m sorry – but it’s for the best.”

The horror of it, the certainty that Ted was telling the truth, closed her throat.

He stepped back, looked around. “I used to play in all these tunnels as a kid.” His voice was different now – it was sorrowful, like one about to perform a necessary but distasteful service. “I knew every inch of these mine buildings up here. I know all this like the back of my hand. This is my childhood, right here. This is where it began, and this is where it will end. That door you came out of? That was the entrance to my playground. Those mines – they were a magicalplayground.”

His tone became freighted with nostalgia, and Corrie had a momentary hope. But then, with terrible rapidity, his demeanor changed utterly. “And look what they did!” This came out as a scream. “Look! This was a nice town once. Friendly. Everyone mingled. Now it’s a fucking tourist trap for billionaires…billionaires and all their toadies, bootlickers, lackeys. People like you! You…!” His voice echoed in the dim space, temporarily drowning out the sound of the storm, the wind, the groaning timbers.

Corrie began to realize, with a kind of awful finality, that nothing she could say would have any effect.

As quickly as it had come, the fit passed again. Ted fell abruptly silent. A tear welled up in one eye, trickled slowly down his cheek. He picked up the gun from the table and snugged it into his waistband. Without looking at her, he turned sharply on his heel and strode away, out of her vision, into a dark area behind the pump engine. Now all she could see was the burning end of his stick, dancing and floating in the darkness, slowly dwindling, until it, too, disappeared.

She waited. All was silent. Had he left? She could hardly believe it. Hope came rushing back. Where had he gone? She looked around, straining to see in the darkness. Nothing.

But no – it was too good to be true. He hadn’t really left. He had to be around somewhere.

And then she smelled a faint whiff of smoke. From the woodstove? No. She strained, peering this way and that into the darkness, the pain in her hand, ribs, and ankle suddenly forgotten. There was more smoke – and then, abruptly, a whole lot more. And now she could see a reddish glow from the far side of the pump engine.

“Ted!”

A gout of flame suddenly appeared out of the blackness, and then another, snaking up the far wall, spreading wildly.

Ted had set the old building on fire.

Corrie cried out, struggled afresh with the handcuffs. The flames mounted upward with terrible speed, great clouds of acrid smoke roiling up. A roar grew in intensity, until it was so ferocious it was a vibration in the air itself. She felt the sudden heat on her face.

It had all happened in mere seconds.

“No! No!” she screamed. And then, through her wild cries, she saw Ted’s tall figure framed in the doorway to the dingy room from which she’d first emerged. She could see the open door to the Sally Goodin Mine, the dewatering tunnel running away into darkness. He was standing absolutely still, staring at the fire, waiting; and as it grew brighter and stronger she could see the expression on his face: one of pure, unmitigated excitement.

Corrie squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, prayed – prayed for the first time in her life – for a quick and merciful end.

And then, as the flames began to lick up all around, consuming the wooden building on all sides, bringing with them unbearable heat, Ted turned and vanished into the mountain.

The flames roared all around Corrie, so loudly that she couldn’t even hear her own screams.

62

At three o’clock in the afternoon, Mike Kloster had pulled his VMC 1500 snowcat with its eight-way hydraulic grooming blade out of the equipment shed, getting it ready for the night ahead. Twenty inches of snow had fallen over the last forty-eight hours, and at least another eight were on the way. This was going to be a long night – and it was Christmas Eve, no less.

Turning up the heat in the cab, he let the machine warm up while he pulled over the tow frame and began bolting it on to the rear. As he bent over the hitch, he sensed a presence behind him. Straightening up again, he turned to see a bizarre figure approaching, bundled up in a black coat and trilby hat, wearing heavy boots. He looked almost clown-like.

He was about to make a wisecrack when his gaze fell on the man’s face. It was as cold and pale as the surrounding landscape, with eyes like chips of ice, and the words died in Kloster’s throat.

“Um, this is a restricted area—” he began, but the man was already removing something from his coat, a worn alligator wallet, which fell open to reveal a badge.

“Agent Pendergast. FBI.”

Kloster stared at the badge. FBI? For real? But before he could even answer, the man went on.

“Your name, if you please?”

“Kloster. Mike Kloster.”

“Mr. Kloster, unbolt that device immediately and get in the cab. You are going to take me up the mountain.”

“Well, I’ve got to, you know, get some kind of authorization before—”

“You will do as I instruct, or you will be charged with impeding a federal officer.”

The tone of voice was so absolute, and so convincing, that Mike Kloster decided he would do exactly as this man said. “Yes, sir.” He unhitched the tow frame and climbed into the cab, sliding behind the wheel. The man got into the passenger side, his movements remarkably agile given the ungainly dress.

“Um, where are we going?”

“To the Christmas Mine.”

“Where’s that?”

“It is above the old Smuggler’s Cirque mine complex where the Ireland Pump building is situated.”

“Oh. Sure. I know where that is.”

“Then proceed, if you please. Quickly.”

Kloster engaged the gears, raised the front groomer blade, and started up the slopes. He thought of radioing his boss to tell him what was going on, but decided against it. The guy was a pain in the ass and he might just put up a fuss. Better to tell him after the fact. His passenger was FBI, after all, and what better excuse was there?

As they climbed, curiosity began to get the better of Kloster. “So, what’s this all about?” he asked in a friendly way.

The pale-faced man did not answer. He didn’t appear to have heard.

The VMC had an awesome sound system, and Kloster had his iPod all docked and ready to go. He reached out to turn it on.

“No,” said the man.

Kloster snatched back his hand as if it had been bitten.

“Make this machine go faster, please.”

“Well, we’re not supposed to take it over three thousand rpms—”

“I’ll thank you to do as I say.”

“Yes, sir.”

He throttled up, the groomer crawling a little faster up the mountain. The snow had started again and now the wind was blowing as well. The flakes were of the tiny, BB-pellet variety – from long experience, Kloster knew every variety of snowflake there was – and they bounced and ticked noisily off the windscreen. Kloster put on the wipers and flicked the lights to high. The cluster of beams stabbed into the grayness, the pellets of snow flashing through. At three thirty it was already starting to get dark.

“How long?” the man asked.

“Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, to the mine buildings. I don’t think this machine’ll get any higher than that – the slopes are too steep above Smuggler’s Cirque. The avalanche danger is pretty extreme, too. They’re gonna be setting off avalanche charges all Christmas Day, I bet, with this new snow.”

He realized he was babbling – this man sure made him nervous – but again the agent didn’t even acknowledge having heard.

At the top of the ski slope, Kloster took the service road that led to the top of the ridge, where it joined the network of snowmobile trails. Arriving at the trails, he was surprised to see fresh snowmobile tracks. Whoever it was, they were hard-core, venturing out on a day like this. He continued on, wondering just what the heck his passenger was after…

And then, above the dark spruce trees, he saw something. A glow, up on the mountain. Instinctively he slowed, staring.

The FBI agent saw it, too. “What is that?” he asked sharply.

“I don’t know.” Kloster squinted upward. He could make out, beyond and above the trees, the upper part of Smuggler’s Cirque. The steep slopes and peaks were bathed in a flickering yellow glow. “Looks like a fire.”

The pale man leaned forward, gripping the dashboard, his eyes so bright and hard they unnerved Kloster. “Where?”

“Damn, I’d say it’s in that old mine complex.”

Even as they watched, the glow grew in intensity, and now Kloster could see dark smoke billowing upward into the snowstorm.

“Fast. Now.”

“Right, sure.” Kloster really gunned it this time, the VMC churning across the snow at top speed – only twenty miles an hour, but plenty fast for an unwieldy groomer.

“Faster.”

“It’s pegged, sorry.”

Even as he made the last turn before the tree line, he could see that the fire in the cirque was big. Huge, in fact. Flames were shooting up at least a hundred feet, sending up towering pillars of sparks and black smoke, as thick as a volcanic eruption. It had to be the Ireland Pump Engine building itself – nothing else up there was big enough to produce that kind of inferno. Even so, it couldn’t be a natural fire – nothing natural could spread so fast and so fiercely. It occurred to Kloster that this must be the work of the arsonist, and he felt a stab of fear, which was not reassured by the strange intensity of the man next to him. He kept the pedal to the metal.

The last stubby trees slid past them and they were now on the bare ridge. The snow was shallower here, due to wind scouring, and Kloster was able to eke out a few more miles per hour. God, it was like a firestorm up there, mushroom clouds of smoke and flame pummeling the sky, and he fancied he could even hear the sound of it above the roar of the diesel engines.

They crossed the last part of the ridge and headed up the lip to the hanging valley above. The snow grew deeper again and the VMC churned its way forward. They cleared the lip and, instinctually, Kloster stopped. It was indeed the Ireland building, and it had burned so fast, so furiously, that all that remained was a burning skeleton of timbers – which even as they watched collapsed with a thunderous cracking noise, sending up a colossal cascade of sparks. It left the Ireland Pump itself standing alone, naked, the paint peeling and smoking. The fire began to die as quickly as it had exploded: when the building collapsed, huge piles of snow had fallen from the roof into the burning rubble, sending up volatile plumes of steam.

Kloster stared, stunned by the violence of the scene, the utter suddenness of the building’s immolation.

“Move closer,” the man ordered.

He eased the groomer forward. The wooden frame had been consumed with remarkable speed, and the cascade of snow from the collapsing roof and the continuing blizzard were damping down what remained of the fire. None of the other buildings had burned – their snow-laden roofs were protecting them from the incredible shower of sparks that rained downward all around them like the detritus of countless fireworks.

Kloster eased the cat among the old mining structures. “This is as far as I’d better go,” he said. But instead of the argument he expected, the pale man simply opened the door and got out. Kloster watched, first in amazement, and then horror, as the man walked toward the smoking, fire-licked remains of the structure and circled it slowly, like a panther, close – way too close.

* * *

Pendergast stared into the hellish scene. The air around him was alive with falling sparks mingled with snowflakes, which dusted his hat and coat, hissing out in the dampness. The engine and all its pipework had survived intact, but the building was utterly gone. Plumes of smoke and steam billowed up from hundreds of little pockets of heat, and timbers lay scattered about, hissing and smoking, with tongues of fire flickering here and there. There was an acrid stench, along with the whiff of something else: singed hair and burnt meat. All that could be heard now was the low hiss of steam, the crackle and pop of isolated fires, and the sound of the wind moaning through the ruins. He made a circuit around the perimeter of the fire. There was enough light from the many dying fires to see everything.

At a certain point he paused abruptly.

Now, moving ever so slowly, he stepped deeper into the fire zone, raising the scarf to cover his mouth against the acrid smoke. Winding his way among pipes and valves, his feet crunching on the cracked cement floor littered with nails and glass, he approached the thing that had stopped him in his tracks. It resembled a long, black log, and it, too, was hissing and smoking. As he got closer he confirmed it was the remains of a human body, which had been handcuffed to a set of pipes. Even though the arm had burned off, and the body had dropped to the floor, a carbonized hand remained in the cuffs, the fingers curled up like the legs of a dead spider, blackened bones sticking out from where the wrist should have been.

Pendergast sank to his knees. It was an involuntary motion, as if all the strength was suddenly drained from his body, forcing him down against his will. His head fell forward and his hands clasped together. A sound came from his mouth – low, barely audible, but undeniably the by-product of a grief beyond words.

63

Pendergast did not linger long over the charred body. He rose, a tall figure among the smoking ruins, his cold gaze surveying the burnt remains of the pump building. For a moment, he remained as immobile as a statue, only his two pale eyes exploring the scene, pausing here and there to take in some invisible detail.

A minute passed. And then his eyes turned back to the corpse. He reached into his coat, slid out his custom Les Baer 1911 Colt, ejected the magazine, checked it, slid it back into place, and racked a round into the chamber. The firearm remained in his right hand.

Now he began to move forward, a small flashlight appearing in his other hand. The heat of the fire had melted much of the snow in the immediate vicinity of the area, leaving puddles of water and even, here and there, exposed brown grass, now quickly being reblanketed with snow. He made a circuit of the ruined building, peering through the falling snow, stepping over the innumerable piles of charred and smoking debris. Darkness was falling, and the snow thickened on his shoulders and hat, making him appear like a wandering ghost.

At the far side of the devastation, where the flanks of the mountainside began to rise up, he paused to examine a small, scorched wooden door, which covered what appeared to be a tunnel entrance. After a moment he knelt and examined the handle, the nearby ground, and then the door itself. He grasped the handle and tested the door, finding it locked from the inside – padlocked, apparently.

Pendergast rose and – with a sudden explosion of movement – stove in the door with a massive kick. He grasped the broken pieces and ripped them out by main force with his hands, throwing them aside. As quickly as it had come, the furious violence passed. He knelt, shining the light inside. The beam revealed an empty dewatering tunnel running straight into the mountain.

He turned the light to the ground. There were fresh scuffs and various confused marks in the dust, both coming and going. A moment of stasis…and then he was suddenly in motion, trotting alongside the pipe as smoothly as a cat, his coat billowing behind him, the Colt in his hand gleaming faintly in the dimness.

The pipe ended in a low stream of water that interrupted the tracks. Moving forward, Pendergast came to an intersection; continued on; reached another, and then – trying to think like his quarry – took a right, where the tunnel abruptly changed slope and ascended steeply to a higher level.

The tunnel continued for a quarter mile, deep into the mountain, until it struck what had once been a complex mineral seam, perhaps a dozen feet wide. This seam almost immediately divided the tunnel into a warren of shafts, crawl spaces, and alcoves, the spaces that remained after the ancient mining operation had cleared out every vein and pocket of a complex ore body that had once threaded this way and that through the heart of the mountain.

Pendergast paused. He understood that his quarry would have anticipated pursuit, and as a result had led his presumed pursuer to this very place: this maze of tunnels, where he, with his undoubtedly superior knowledge of the mine complex, would have the advantage. Pendergast sensed it was very likely his presence had already been noted. The prudent course of action would be to retreat and return with additional manpower.

But that would not do. Not at all. His quarry might use such a delay to escape. And besides, it would deprive Pendergast of what he needed to do so very badly that he could taste the bile of it in his mouth.

He doused the light and listened. His preternaturally acute sense of hearing picked up many sounds – the steady drip of water, the faint movement of air, the occasional tick-tickof settling rock and wooden cribbing.

But there was no light, no telltale sound or scent. And yet he sensed, he knew, that his quarry – Ted Roman – was near and well aware of his presence.

He turned the light back on and examined the surrounding area. Much of the rock in this section of the mine was rotten, shot through with cracks and seams, and extra cribbing had been placed to hold it up. He stepped over to a vertical member, removed a knife from his pocket, and pushed it into the wood. It sank into the cribbing like butter, all the way to the hilt. He pulled it out and pried away at the wood, pulling off big, dusty pieces.

The wood was thoroughly weakened by dry rot. It might not be hard to bring it down…but that would lead to unpredictable consequences.

He ceased moving and paused, frozen in place, listening. He heard a faint sound, the tiny drop of a pebble. It was impossible, in the echoing spaces, to tell whence it came. It almost seemed to him deliberate, a tease. He waited. Another ping of rock against rock. And now he knew for certain that Ted Roman was playing with him.

A fatal mistake.

With the light on, acting as if he had heard nothing, unsuspecting, Pendergast chose a tunnel at random and passed down it. After a few steps he halted to discard his bulky coat, gloves, and hat, and stuff them into an out-of-the-way alcove. It was much warmer here, deep in the mine – and the coat was too constricting for the work that lay ahead of him.

The tunnel twisted and turned, dipped and rose, dividing and redividing. Many small tunnels, stopes, and shafts branched off in odd directions. Old mining equipment, pulleys, cages, cables, buckets, carts, and rotting ropes were strewn about in various stages of decay. At several points, vertical shafts sank down into darkness. Pendergast examined each one of these carefully, shining his light on the descending walls and testing the depths with a dropped pebble.

At one shaft, he lingered somewhat longer. It took two seconds for the pebble to hit bottom; a quick mental calculation indicated the distance would be twenty meters, or about sixty feet. Sufficient. He examined the rock making up the wall of the shaft and found it rough, solid, with enough adequate footholds: suitable for the purpose he had in mind.

Now, making a detour around the shaft, he stumbled and fell hard, the flashlight dropping to the ground with a clatter and going out. With a curse, Pendergast lit a match and tried to edge around the shaft, but the match went out, burning his fingers, and he dropped it with another muttered deprecation. He got up and tried to light another match. It sputtered to life and he took several steps, but he was moving too fast now and the light went out again, right at the edge of the deep pit; he slipped and, in the process, swept a loose rock off the edge, giving a loud cry as he himself went over. His powerful fingers grasped a fissure just below the edge of the shaft, and he swung his body down so that he was dangling into the dark void, out of sight of the tunnel above. He abruptly cut off his cry when the rock he had dislodged crashed into the bottom.

Silence. Dangling, he found a purchase for his toes, his knees well flexed, giving him the leverage he needed. He waited, clinging to the edge of the shaft, listening intently.

Soon he could hear Roman cautiously making his way down the tunnel. The beam of a flashlight flickered over the lip of the shaft as the sound of movement paused. Then, ever so slowly, he heard the man advance toward the pit. Pendergast’s muscles tensed as he sensed the man creeping toward the edge he hid beneath. A moment later, Roman’s face appeared, bloodshot eyes wild, flashlight in one hand, handgun in the other.

Uncoiling like a snake, Pendergast leapt up and grabbed Roman’s wrist, yanking him forward and pulling him toward the void. With a scream of surprise and dismay, Roman reared back, his gun and flashlight skittering off across the rocky ground as he used both hands to fend off the attack and counteract the pull. He was immensely strong and quick, surprisingly so, and he managed to correct the sudden imbalance and dig in his heels, striking at Pendergast’s forearm with a bear-like roar of rage. But Pendergast was up and over the edge in a flash, Roman scrabbling backward. Pendergast raised his own gun to fire, but it was now black and Roman, anticipating the shot, threw himself sideways. The bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the rock floor, but the flash of the discharge betrayed Roman’s position. Pendergast fired again, but now the muzzle flash revealed nothing: Roman had vanished.

Pendergast dug into his suit and pulled out his backup light: a handheld LED. Roman had apparently launched himself into a narrow, low-ceilinged seam that angled down steeply from the main tunnel. Dropping to his knees, Pendergast crawled into the seam and followed. Ahead, he could hear Roman in panicked flight, scrabbling along the low passage, gasping in fear. He, too, it seemed, had a second light: Pendergast could make out a jerky glow in the darkness of the seam ahead.

Relentlessly, Pendergast pursued his quarry. But as hard as he pushed, Roman stayed well ahead. The young man was in peak physical condition and had the advantage of knowing the tunnels, their fantastic complexity only adding to his edge. Pendergast was doing little more than moving blind, following the sound, the light, and – occasionally – the tracks.

Now Pendergast entered an area of large tunnels, cracks, and yawning, vertical chimneys. Still he pursued with monomaniacal intensity. Roman, Pendergast knew, had lost his weapon and was in a state of panic; Pendergast retained his weapon and his wits. To heighten Roman’s terror and keep him off balance, now and then Pendergast would fire a round in the direction of the fleeing man, the bullet cracking and zinging as it tore through the tunnels ahead. There was little chance he would hit Roman, but that was not his intention: the deafening roar of the gun, and the terrifying ricochet of the rounds, was having the desired psychological effect.

Roman seemed to be going somewhere, and it soon became clear – as the air in the tunnels grew steadily fresher and colder – that he was heading outside. Into the storm…where Pendergast, having jettisoned his outerwear, would be at an additional disadvantage. Ted Roman might be beside himself with fear – but he was still able to think ahead and strategize.

A few minutes later, Pendergast’s suspicions were confirmed: he rounded a corner and saw, directly ahead, a rusty steel wall with a door in it, open, swinging in the wind, the sound of the storm filling the entranceway. Rushing to the door, Pendergast shone his flashlight out into the murk. All was black; night had settled. The dim light disclosed a mine entrance, broken trestle, and the plunging slope of the cirque, falling away at a fifty-degree angle. The beam did not penetrate far, but nevertheless he could make out Roman’s footprints in the deep snow, floundering off into the storm. Farther below, through the murk, he could see a cluster of glowing pinpoints – the smoldering remains of the pump building – and the lights of the idling snowcat nearby.

He turned off his light. He could just see the faint, bobbing glow of Roman’s flashlight, descending the steep slope, about a hundred yards to one side. The man was moving slowly. Pendergast raised his weapon. It would be an exceptionally difficult shot, due to the high winds and the added complication of altitude. Nevertheless, Pendergast took a careful bead on the wavering light, mentally compensating for windage and drop. Very slowly, he squeezed the trigger. The firearm kicked with the shot, the report loud against the mountainside, the rolling echoes coming back from several directions.

A miss.

The figure kept moving, faster now, floundering downhill, getting ever farther out of range. Pendergast, without winter clothing, had no hope of catching him.

Ignoring the snow that stung his face and the vicious wind that penetrated his suit, Pendergast took another bead and fired, missing again. The chance for a hit was becoming nil. But then – as he took aim a third time – he heard something: a muffled crack, followed by a low-frequency rumble.

Above and ahead of Pendergast, the heavy snow surface was fracturing into large plates, the plates detaching and sliding downward, slowly at first, then faster and faster, breaking up and tumbling into chaos. It was an avalanche, triggered by the noise of his shots and, no doubt, Roman’s own floundering about. With a growing roar the churning front of snow blasted past the mine entrance. The air was suddenly opaque, full of roiling, violent snow, and the gust of its passing knocked Pendergast backward as it thundered by him.

Within thirty seconds the roar had subsided. It had been a small slide. The slope before Pendergast was now swept clean of deep snow, the residual, trickling streams of it sliding down the mountain in rills. All was silent save for the cry of the wind.

Pendergast glanced downward to where Roman’s bobbing flashlight had been. There was nothing now but a deep expanse of snow rubble. There were no signs of movement; no calls for help – nothing.

For a moment, Pendergast just stared down into the darkness. For the briefest of moments – as the blood rage that had taken possession of him still pulsed through his veins – he grimly contemplated the justice of the situation. But even as he stared, his fury ebbed. It was as if the avalanche had scoured his mind clear. He paused to consider what, subconsciously, he’d already understood until the sight of Corrie’s burnt corpse swept all logic from his mind: that Ted Roman was as much a victim as Corrie herself. The true evil lay elsewhere.

With a muffled cry, he sprang from the mine entrance into the snow and struggled down the slope, coatless, sliding and floundering to where the avalanche had piled up along the top of the cirque. It took a few minutes to get there, and by the time he reached the spot he was half frozen.

“Roman!” he cried. “Ted Roman!”

No reply but the wind.

Now Pendergast jammed one ear into the snow to listen. Just barely, he could hear a strange, muffled, horrifying sound, almost like a cow bawling: Muuuuuuuuu muuuuuu, muuuu muuuu.

It seemed to be coming from the edge of the snow rubble. Moving toward it in the bitter cold, Pendergast began to dig frantically, with his bare hands. But the snow was compacted by the pressure of the avalanche, his hands inadequate to the task. Without jacket or hat, the cold had penetrated to his skin, and he weakened, his hands numbing to uselessness.

Where was Roman? He listened again, placing his ear against the hard-packed snow, trying to warm his hands.

Muuu…muuu…

It was rapidly growing fainter. The man was suffocating.

He dug and dug, and then paused to listen again. Nothing. And now he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a light coming up the slope. Ignoring it, he kept digging. A moment later a pair of strong hands grasped him and gently pulled him away. It was Kloster, the snowcat operator, with a shovel and a long rod in his hands.