CHAPTER 67

THE DRIVER TOOK AN old trail off the southern meadow that led through dense forest and a wetland. It took all my strength to keep the machine from bogging down before it reached the other side and a cleared trail that ran in switchbacks up the north flank of the butte and the old mine.

I imagined cresting and seeing some kind of structure to the north. But even after we passed the hulking shadow of the abandoned building, there was nothing on the flat top but snow in my headlights, blackness all around, and that red light on the back of the sled in front of me.

On the far southwest side of the plateau, we took another switchback trail down into a maelstrom of wind and snow. I could sense a very big drop-off to my right, and I kept trying to keep the machine hard left.

Mercifully, after what seemed a long descent, the trail hit a wide, windswept shelf devoid of trees. The driver led me to the other end and slowed to a stop in front of a wall of rock, saplings and scrub brush sticking out from ice and snow.

I halted my sled twenty-five yards behind him, and I was starting to wonder what was happening when a piece of the mountain about the size of a barn door began to slide back. Light poured out and got stronger the more the door retracted, revealing a vaulted space beyond the swirling snow.

The sled in front of me drove inside onto a concrete floor and stopped. I did the same and raised my visor, squinting at the bright lights.

The door closed behind us.

I looked all around. The room was a solid two hundred feet deep and seventy-five wide, with a ceiling that had to be thirty feet high. At least twenty snowmobiles were parked to my left. To my right, a small white Bell helicopter was up on a massive dolly that was lashed in place.

“Stay where you are, Dr. Cross,” the woman with the hoarse voice said through my helmet radio. “You need to be scanned.”

The last driver of the seven who’d chased me was off his machine; two women in their forties and two men in their thirties came through a door on the opposite side of the space. The men carried machine guns. The women held detection wands.

The snowmobile driver removed his helmet and then a hood beneath, revealing the same buff bald guy we’d seen at the warming hut much earlier in the day. He scowled at me while unclipping his weapon from its harness.

“You don’t look happy to see me, Mr. Bean,” I said as the two other men and women approached.

“You killed six of my mates,” Bean said, cradling the gun, his expression stony.

“They shot first. And by the way, one of you killed a Canadian Mountie.”

“Not likely. I saw it. She had an accident, didn’t she? Lost her way, she did. What you did, however—ambushing us—that was cold-blooded murder.”

“Perspective is everything,” I said evenly, watching him like you’d watch a snake at close quarters.

Before Bean could reply, the women came up wearing dark fleece leggings and tops. They studied me with some interest as they ran the wands over me, stopping on my left chest.

“Avalanche transceiver,” I said.

“Show us,” one of them said.

Bean turned and stalked away while I lost the helmet, the heavy boots, and the coverall. I dropped it all on the floor beside the sled, then took off my parka to show them the transceiver strapped to my torso.

One of the women cut the transceiver off while the other waved her wand over the pockets of the parka. I was happy they were empty.

When she was done, she nodded to one of the armed men.

“Let him shower, give him slippers, then take him to level four.”