Алистер Маклин - Red Alert

Francia took the bend wide and only saw her as he shot down the slope.

His eyes widened in amazement. How had she stopped so quickly? A bullet cracked inches from his head. Suddenly the hunter had become the hunted. He fired wildly behind him but the bullets went well wide of the mark. He cursed himself for panicking. Then he saw his chance: a ridge directly in front of him. He tucked his body down to increase his speed and as he hit the ridge he pirouetted in mid-air, just one of the freestyle manoeuvres which had brought him such acclaim as a professional skier, and fired at Sabrina on the turn. A bullet ripped through her sleeve, grazing her arm, and she had to call on all her expertise to keep herself from overbalancing and tumbling into the snow.

Francia executed the perfect landing, then looked behind him, the Uzi at the ready for the first sight of Sabrina riding the crest of the ridge.

She still hadn’t appeared by the time he reached the next bend. Now he could lie in wait for her further down the slope. It would be impossible for him to miss her as she took the bend. He smiled to himself as he leaned into the bend. His smile faltered when he saw the precipice fifteen yards in front of him. He tried to stop but lost control and tumbled down the slope. He came to rest within a few feet of the edge and the Uzi disappeared over it. He raised his head fractionally and looked down into the canyon below him. A sheer drop of eight hundred feet. He reached down to unclip his skis. The sudden movement dislodged a piece of ice behind him. It confirmed his worse fears. He was lying on a cornice, a sheet of ice overhanging the precipice. Any movement could cause it to break off. He swallowed nervously and blinked rapidly as the sweat dripped into his eyes. All he could do was wait for help. But for how long?

Sabrina descended the ridge cautiously, the Beretta held tightly in her hand. Her arm was throbbing. She could feel the blood oozing down the inside of her sleeve and into her glove. Her progress was slow and she paused before reaching the bend in the slope. What if Francia was lying in wait for her around the corner, as she had done to him earlier? An Uzi against a Beretta.

She didn’t fancy the odds. She wiped the sweat from her face and inadvertently smeared blood across her cheek. She decided to take the bend as wide as she possibly could. At least that way she would be able to see Francia if he had concealed himself on the other side of the bend. She dug her ski poles into the snow and propelled herself forward. She saw the precipice as she took the corner and came to a halt ten feet away from where he lay. For a moment she thought it was a trap. Then she saw the fear in his eyes.

‘Help me, please,’ he pleaded in English, his eyes riveted on her.

She moved closer, the Beretta still trained on him.

‘You help me, I tell you what you want to know,’ he said in a breathless voice. ‘Please, you must help me.’

‘I’m going to extend my ski pole towards you. Grab hold of the basket. Do you understand?’

He nodded.

She lay flat on the hard surface snow and reached out the ski pole towards him. It didn’t reach his hand. She inched her way forward, knowing she could also be on the cornice. And it could collapse at any moment. It was impossible to know where the mountain ended and the cornice began. There was a sudden crack and another sheet of ice broke off behind him. He gritted his teeth, not daring to look over his shoulder. He was now barely three feet away from the edge of the precipice. She was at full stretch, not daring to move any closer. The pole was within his reach. His fingers touched the tip and he managed to grab hold of it. She gripped the other end of the pole with both hands, steadying herself. Cracks began to appear in the ice around him and as his fingers curled around the basket a section of ice broke underneath him. He slid backwards, his legs now dangling over the edge of the precipice. She dug her skis into the snow, desperately trying to anchor herself, but she felt herself being dragged towards the precipice as Francia continued to slide further over the edge. In desperation he grabbed the basket with both hands but this only served to pull her even closer to the edge. She knew she couldn’t save him and unless she let go of the ski pole she would be dragged over the edge with him. She began to ease the strap off from around her wrist.

‘No, please,’ he screamed, desperately trying to get a better grip on the basket.

She tugged at the strap until it slid off her hand. For a brief moment he clawed frantically at the ice, then he fell, the wind tearing the scream from his lips. She moved back slowly until she felt she had put enough distance between herself and the edge of the precipice, then got to her feet and wiped her sleeve across her glistening face. What if she had tried to outrun him instead of ducking down behind the slope when she did? What chance would she have had to stop at that speed? She would have been the one who went over the precipice. She shuddered. It had been that close.

She sat down in the snow and leaned back against a large tree. Then, taking the two-way radio from her pocket, she called Graham to arrange for a helicopter to pick her up. She had had enough skiing for one day.

‘Are you all right?’ Kolchinsky asked anxiously when Sabrina entered his hotel room.

‘It’s just a graze,’ she replied, touching his arm reassuringly.

‘Where’s Michael?’

‘He’s coming,’ she said, gesturing vaguely to the door behind her.

‘How is he?’

‘I’m okay,’ Graham answered from the doorway.

Kolchinsky winced when he looked round at Graham. His left eye was now half-closed and the white dressing secured over his new stitches contrasted vividly with the discoloured bruising on the left-hand side of his face.

‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ Graham muttered, closing the door behind him.

‘You could have fooled me.’ Kolchinsky smiled grimly.

‘Has Fabio briefed you on what happened this afternoon?’ Sabrina asked, pouring out two cups of coffee from the pot on the tray.

‘He’s told me everything,’ Kolchinsky replied. ‘I was hoping we could all have a meeting as soon as the two of you got back from the hospital. That won’t be possible now. At least not for the time being.’

‘Why, what’s happened?’ Sabrina asked, handing a coffee to Graham.

‘Commissioner Kuhlmann received a call half an hour ago to say that the Francias’ Gazelle helicopter had been found abandoned in a field on the outskirts of Worb. It’s a town about ten miles from here. He’s driven out there with Fabio to take a closer look at it.’

‘No sign of Ubrino or Tommaso Francia?’

‘None at all.’

‘Has Carlo Francia’s body been found?’ Sabrina asked, sitting on the bed.

‘What was left of it,’ Kolchinsky replied.

‘Was anything found at the chalet?’ Graham asked.

‘The police report hasn’t come through yet but you can be sure we’d have been told if they had come up with anything positive.’ Kolchinsky shook his head. ‘No, we won’t have any luck there.’

‘That was to be expected really,’ Sabrina said with a resigned shrug. ‘Ubrino was hardly going to flee the nest without taking the golden egg with him, was he?’

‘Which puts us back to square one again,’ Graham said. ‘And we’ve got less than fifteen hours to go before tomorrow’s deadline. Not that that means anything. We haven’t got a hope in hell of finding him now.’

‘Leaving the Offenbach Centre as our last line of defence,’ Sabrina added, looking at Kolchinsky. ‘What extra security measures are being taken there tomorrow?’

‘Commissioner Kuhlmann has drafted in seventy policemen and thirty policewomen from around the country. They’ll all be in plainclothes.’