She reached the head of the stairs when she heard the sound of an engine being started. The plane? No, smaller. Snowmobile. She quickly slipped boots into bindings, tightened them and poled off down the snow-covered stairs that in summer were trod by thousands of hikers and sightseers. Could the shots have been heard inside the Observatory? Unlikely. The living quarters were on the floor below ground, and the fierce wind dispersed noise.
The snow on the Auto Road had been packed down by the passage of Snowcats; for her it would be a novice trail to the base. Which was the problem. She couldn’t outrun the snowmobile on the gentle grade; it wasn’t steep enough for gravity to make the difference. And she was stuck with it.
The cone at the top of Mt. Washington is sprinkled with rocks, lining the sides of the Auto Road and limiting access to it. Constant winds keep them scoured clean, and it takes a very good snow year for these rocks on the lee face to be covered. This hadn’t been one of those years. There was no way for skis to get through; they were confined to one narrow track on which she could be overtaken. Another shot, this one the louder bark of a rifle. The snowmobile had started after her. If she were hit it wouldn’t matter where she skied or how well; a wound of any kind that hampered her physically would eventually prove fatal, as they’d be able to hunt her down. Somewhere underneath was the awareness that failure on her part would also be fatal to many thousands of others, and with this understanding came the pressure of time. They hadn’t yet spread the pods. Her actions might move them to act faster, and once the beast was out of the bottle…
Her mind went swiftly over what she knew of the mountain. If skis couldn’t navigate through the field of ice-covered rocks, neither could the snowmobile. Once through those on her right she would be in the upper snow fields and… There was a chance! She was about five hundred feet from the summit when she stopped, slipped out of the skis - noting their metal edges with relief - and with them in hand, started clambering through the jagged stones. A giant hand of wind pushed at her back. A shot ricocheted off a chunk of ice. She bent low, darting from side to side. The whine of another shot, but the sound of the snowmobile was fading. There was no way they’d be able to follow in that machine. She heard them starting over the rocks on foot and focused on keeping a fast pace without falling. She was breathing hard when she reached covering snow and stepped into the skis again. A deep breath and she was off; she’d escaped!
She headed in the general direction of Lion’s Head, the trail they’d climbed the previous day, but her goal was Tuckerman, the awesome ravine with 55 degree walls, whose Headwall is the Mecca of springtime skiers - expert daredevils who carve check turns down the precipice, now closed to them until the end of avalanche season. Beyond the base of the Ravine is its bowl and a rise called the Little Headwall from which the Sherburne Ski Trail sinks below tree line. Once in the evergreens, she’d have cover all the way to the Appalachian Mountain Club center, a bustling complex with guides, winter hikers and service personnel on New Hampshire’s Route 16. And telephones. That would leave the men following little time to dump their deadly tanks; maybe so little they’d be forced to make a run for it.
She wished for her own skis, something broader than the narrow cross-countrys. And better edges, these weren’t made to grip Tuckerman’s sheer walls. She was almost at the Ravine when there was the sound of another engine, and above the noise, rifle fire! It couldn’t be from the snowmobile... The helicopter! Damn! Mt. Washington has a bald head, no sanctuary tree clumps in which to hide. She could only keep going and hope the swaying of the plane hampered their aim, feeling the wash of its blade as she reached the Headwall. She crested the lip, her whole being suddenly alive to the breath-taking thousand foot drop that opened before her, but straining to focus on just the first few feet for a turning spot. A volley of fire followed her over the edge.
Then an ominous groan from the mountainside. Cilla had heard that sound before. Her one trip abroad, skiing in the Alps. And she never wanted to again. They’d lost a member of their touring group that day to an avalanche that had swept down the side of the mountain taking everything in its path. She herself had been buried for over an hour when they dug her out. This time the shots had started it, or the plane. There was no looking for a place to turn; it was head to the bottom and pray.
Over a half century before, a daring skier had won himself a race and a place in history by taking the Tuckerman Headwall without turning. No other racer had done it, or come close. Oddly for a run over frozen ground, the race was called the Inferno, and had been abandoned until recent years. But the name Toni Matt would never be forgotten in skiing lore. She knew his skis had been wider and more supportive than those she was wearing. Her only hope lay in modern ski technology, that hers might be stronger. She spread her legs wide for balance, and crouched low over the skinny ‘boards’. Behind her was growing thunder. A flash of relief; she’d apparently come over the lip at a good point. Under the snow, lurked giant boulders. If one lay in her path and the snow wasn’t deep enough it was all over, for there’d be no way to turn. Apparently none did. Her speed continued to increase; she was blind from tearing, would have cheerfully sold her soul for a pair of goggles. The thought flashed through her mind that perhaps she already had, for the devil was behind her, and this was her inferno. She hurtled down the mountainside with speed closing on eighty miles an hour, hands holding poles locked close to her skis, reaching the Ravine’s floor almost at the same instant as the cloud bearing hundreds of tons of snow and ice. A clod hit her back staggering her as she shot up the Little Headwall, but she regained a measure of control and crested it as the avalanche settled with a WHOMP that shook the ground around her. At her speed there was no way to quickly stop the plastic boards under her feet, certainly no genuflecting turns, the sort usually employed with that type ski. She risked a quick swipe at her eyes with a frozen glove in an effort to clear them, then bolted into the Sherburne Trail, gradually gaining enough control to slow her speed. She’d made it! The thought had no sooner appeared in her mind than her right ski caught on a projecting chunk of ice, and she flew through the air, tumbling down the trail, ending up in a gnarled hemlock. For the second time that day she lost consciousness.
Chapter 43
“The place has become a hospital annex,” growled E. Wallace Carver, from the bed he felt he’d left a year or two ago.
“Your family keeps my work interesting,” agreed Dr. Jim Evans. “There’s nothing wrong with you though, that a few days in your own bed won’t cure. You’re exhausted. When did you last get some sleep?”
“On the plane. Damnit, Jim, don’t fuss around me like an old woman. Take care of Loni.”
“Her leg’s fine. You wouldn’t be if she hadn’t insisted you get back home. Think you’re still in your twenties?”
“Seductive female. Cilla had to call the governor to get on a military plane. Loni cozied up to a colonel.”
“You made it hard for her. She tells me it took two airmen to drag you onto the plane.”
“Jim, Hudson’s out there somewhere, in the Arizona desert. The body they found wasn’t his. I should be there.”