In that instant he knew it was over. Max grunted in pain as his back hit the ground and his body slid, uncontrolled, towards the crowd.
He had dared to win-and lost.
Bobby Morrell was the first to help him up and release the bindings. His look said everything. It had been an awesome jump, and if the landing had worked out as planned, Max would have gone to the top of the leader board. Bobby put his hand behind Max’s neck and touched Max’s forehead with his own. A small, intimate gesture of friendship and respect.
“Another year of this and no one will touch you, man. I swear,” Bobby said quietly. “Not even me.” He gave Max an encouraging smile and went to take his place for his next run.
As Max sat and eased the stiffness out of his leg, a few people leaned forward and patted his shoulder. Some murmured encouragement, others commiserations. They were a good crowd. And most of them knew that even though Max had thrown away the championship, none of them could have achieved what he had done.
Max had wanted so badly to win. He held on to his disappointment. He couldn’t show it in front of everyone. The other board riders were better than him; more experienced, older, had better equipment. That was all true, but his mind was starting to make excuses, and he swore at himself to shut up. He’d done his best. Leave it at that, he told himself, and watch the others as they fight for the final three places.
He stayed for the awards ceremony. Bobby Morrell won, the German girl came second and the French boy third. Max told Bobby he was cutting out for a few hours, while there was still light, but that he’d join the party later.
He slipped quietly away, took the ski lift up to the top of a run and carved his way through the deep, freshly fallen snow. The mountains soared thousands of meters above him, and now that the snowstorm had swept through the valleys, Max found himself in a pristine wilderness.
He went fast, making long, sweeping turns-happiness surging back. He stopped and let his gaze take in the quiet, majestic beauty. No matter what happened in any future competition, it was free-riding up here in these massive snowfields that made him feel this good.
With a gentle rush of the board through knee-deep perfect snow, Max curved a line down the valley. He suddenly realized he was close to the avalanche area where he and Sayid had been the day before.
The snowfall had sculpted the landscape into windswept angles so finely shaped it made everything look sleek and fast, like the leading edge on the bodywork of a fast car. As beautiful as it was, Max knew that avalanches were still a danger, especially if anyone else was on the slopes. He had some mountain knowledge and knew more than most other free-riders just what to look for in these high, dangerous conditions. That was what Sayid had failed to realize yesterday. He saw the off-trail run and wanted to cut up the snow and enjoy the thrill of the deep powder.
Max scanned the rock faces and mountain peaks. In the distance Le Pic du Midi d’Ossau soared like a gargantuan reptile’s head, the slashed summit like a jaw gasping for air at nearly three thousand meters. The malevolent eye of the mountain stared heavenward, ignoring the puny human being on the valley floor.
Max checked the deep gullies above him. There was one couloir, a narrow chute formed by rocks at the top of a cliff, that whispered puffs of snowflakes. Max reasoned that they were due to an updraft of air twisting through the narrow crevices.
Everything seemed fine, but his instincts were prickling, warning him of something being not quite right. He had learned to follow those primal feelings when he was in Africa, where he had grappled with death and survived its swirling darkness. But now … What was it? What was wrong here? Still no sign of movement. The snow embedded the silence. Perhaps he was being overcautious; maybe he was still emotionally uneasy because of losing the competition. No, it was more than that-but he didn’t know what. He glanced down at his father’s watch and realized there was something he could salvage out of the failure.
It was a calculated risk, but he’d try and find Sayid’s beads.
Max took a final glance across the shimmering valley. Satisfied that all appeared to be safe, he eased his board down into the deep snow. Like crushed diamonds, it flurried away as he rode towards the tree line that Sayid had plowed through. Bending down and searching the lower branches, Max spotted the dark shapes against the white backdrop. Draped like a forgotten Christmas-tree decoration, Sayid’s misbaha dangled from a branch. Max picked it up carefully and tucked the ninety-nine strung beads into the pocket of his ski jacket.
It was time to leave; to get Sayid out of the hospital; to pack their bags and go home.
A sudden blur of movement startled him so that he crouched quickly in anticipation of a perceived danger. Three hundred meters away a skier plunged from a high crevice; a black, billowing figure, he dropped ten meters or more, hit the snow with enormous skill and turned his skis in a furious dash across the face of the mountain.
It was one of the weirdest things Max had ever seen.
A bare-headed man, a monk, with a bushy gray beard. His shoulder-length hair streamed behind him, as thick and wild as a horse’s mane. He wore only a cassock, which flapped wildly as the air buffeted him, the hood acting almost like a drogue parachute behind his head. His concentration was so intense he glanced neither left nor right and didn’t see Max.
Moments later, dropping from the same couloir, was another figure. As bizarre as the monk had been, so this skier was menacing-like the Grim Reaper stalking his victim. Sleek, carbon-smooth through the snow, the second man was a phantom, a silent Fury. The only sound he made was that of his skis slashing the surface. Max could barely see him, for as the skier tore through the white shower, he seemed to disappear from view, before suddenly appearing another ten meters down the hill. The ski ghost wore a body-hugging, one-piece ski suit, black helmet and visor; even the skis were black. The reason Max could not see him clearly was that his outfit was fragmented by a disruptive pattern, white shreds of crinkled lines, like the veins of a leaf. It was perfect snow camouflage.
Max hadn’t moved. The monk and his pursuer were level with his line of sight when the phantom, without losing a moment’s pace, lifted one arm quickly behind his neck, grabbed something and brought it forward. It was a rifle, camouflaged with black-and-white stripes, like those used by soldiers and marines for winter warfare. With a practiced, rapid movement he brought the rifle to his shoulder while still skiing at speed.
“No!” Max screamed, his yell echoing across the valley.
In an instant both skiers turned their faces in his direction, but the gunman was the first to react. He stopped in a shower of snow. The rifle never left his shoulder, and Max heard the frightening crack of the gunshot.