Douglas Preston - White Fire

Pretty soon she had the feel of the controls and was moving at a good clip, twenty miles per hour, the machine throwing up a wake of snow behind. It was unexpectedly exhilarating, flashing through the spruce trees, the frosty air rushing by, magnificent mountain peaks all around. She was plenty warm in her many layers.

As she attained the ridge, she came to the main snowmobile trail, conveniently marked with a sign. The heavy snow had obliterated any snowmobile tracks that might have been there, but the road cut itself was clearly visible as it went up Maroon Ridge, marked by tall posts with Day-Glo orange cards.

She continued on. As the altitude increased, the trees became smaller and stunted, some mere lumps of snow — and then, quite suddenly, she emerged above the tree line. She stopped to check her map — all good. The views were outstanding: Roaring Fork itself was spread out in the valley below, a miniature village, doll-like, cloaked in white. To her left, the ski area rose into the mountains in ribbons of white trails. The lifts were still running, but only the most hard-core skiers seemed to be out. Behind her stood the awe-inspiring peaks of the Continental Divide, fourteen thousand feet high.

According to the map, she was already halfway to the area of old mining buildings in the cirque.

She suddenly heard a distant buzzing sound coming up from below and halted to listen better. It was a snowmobile engine. Looking back down the route she had come up, she caught a glimpse of a black dot coming around one of the hairpin turns of the trail before vanishing into the trees.

She felt a wave of panic. Someone was following her. Or could it be just another snowmobiler? No — coincidence was one thing, but this was the third time that day she’d had the feeling she was being followed. It had to be the stalker — Kermode’s hired thug, she was certain, the person who had menaced her, killed her dog. At the thought a fresh surge of fear swept over her. This wasn’t an adventure. This was sheer foolhardiness: she’d placed herself in a vulnerable position, alone on the mountain, far from help.

She immediately took out her cell phone. No service.

The sound of the engine grew rapidly. She didn’t have much time.

Her mind raced. She couldn’t turn around and go back — there was only one trail down, unless she went straight down the almost vertical ridge. She couldn’t pull off the trail and hide — the machine made such obvious tracks. And the snow was too deep for her to abandon the snowmobile and go on foot.

It began to sink in that she had put herself in real trouble. The best thing, she decided, would be to continue on up to the mine, break in if she could, and get away from the stalker in there. She had a map of the Christmas Mine and he surely did not.

Even as she started up the trail again, she saw the snowmobile come around the final bend before the tree line, accelerating toward her.

Goosing the throttle, she tore up the trail, notching the snowmobile up to thirty miles an hour, then thirty-five, then forty. The machine practically flew, an almost sheer cliff to one side of the trail, on the other a steep wall of snow. In another five minutes the trail came over the lip of a hanging valley and she found herself in the old mining complex, nestled in the broad hollow marked on the map as Smuggler’s Cirque: surrounded by high ridges, with derelict mining buildings scattered about, their sagging rooflines mantled with snow, some mere piles of broken boards. She paused briefly to orient herself with the map. The Christmas Mine was higher still, on a steep slope halfway up the mountainside, directly above the old buildings. Smuggler’s Wall. Map in hand, she squinted upward in the gray light, locating the entrance. The official snowmobile trail ended here, but the map showed an old mining road, still extant, that led up to the mine. As she looked at the steep wall of the cirque she made out the road cut, switchbacking up in a series of terrifying hairpin turns, with heavy drifts of snow lying across it.

Again, she could hear the snowmobile closing in behind her.

Stuffing away the map, she gunned the engine, riding past the old buildings and heading for the far side of the bowl, where the slope climbed upward again. She was surprised to see fresh snowmobile tracks among the buildings, somewhat snowed over but clearly made earlier in the day.

She reached the base of the road cut. This was going to be scary. But even as she contemplated the almost vertical wall above her, the sound of the pursuing snowmobile grew louder and she turned to see it coming over the rim of the cirque, not half a mile away.

Revving the throttle, she started up the trail, keeping as much to the inside edge as she could, blasting through drifts and fins of snow. The first hairpin turn was so steep and narrow, it just about stopped her heart. As she crawled around it, decelerating sharply, she almost became stuck in a drift and her efforts to get loose sent snow cascading down in a plume, the snowmobile tipping. She gunned it hard, spewing snow, and just managed to get back on the track. She paused, breathing hard, terrified by the yawning white space below her. It occurred to her that the avalanche danger on this steep slope must be high. She could see her pursuer was now riding through the old mining complex, following in her tracks. He was close enough for her to see the rifle slung over his shoulder.

She realized she had allowed herself to become cornered on the mountain. The road ended at the mine, and there was nothing but vertical cliffs above. And a killer below.

She made it past another half a dozen terrifying turns, driving recklessly through the deep snow, not letting the machine stop and settle. She finally reached the entrance to the Christmas Mine, marked by a rickety trestle and a square opening of massive, rotten timbers. She pulled the snowmobile right up to the opening, tore off her helmet, pulled up the seat, and hauled out her backpack. As soon as the engine was off she could hear the roar of the other snowmobile, much closer.

The door was set back into the tunnel about ten feet, which meant it was not drifted up with snow. The entrance had a rusted door set into a plate of riveted steel, deeply pitted by age, fixed with a heavy, ancient padlock.

The engine sound got louder. Corrie began to panic. She stripped off her gloves, grabbed her lock-pick tools, and tried to insert a bump key, but it was immediately apparent the lock was frozen with rust and unpickable. Even as she fumbled around she could hear the approaching roar of the snowmobile.

She grabbed the bolt cutters from her pack, but they were not heavy enough for the jaws to fit over the thick bar of the lock. They did, however, fit partway across the hasp. She jammed the jaws of the cutter over the hasp and drew down hard, the jaws closing with much effort. Taking the hammer, she gave the partially cut hasp a tremendous blow, then another, bending it enough for her to cut it the rest of the way through. Even so, everything was so solid with rust she had to pound the pieces with the hammer to shake them loose.

She threw herself against the iron door but it hardly budged, letting out a great screech of protesting metal.

The approaching snowmobile engine gave a sudden roar; she saw a flurry of snow; and then it appeared at the mouth of the mine, driven by a man in a black helmet and puffy snowsuit. He rose from the machine, undoing his helmet and unshipping his rifle at the same time.

With an involuntary cry she threw herself against the door, almost dislocating her shoulder in the process, and with a loud scree it budged open just enough for her to squeeze through. Grabbing her backpack she rammed herself through the opening, then turned and threw herself back against the iron, thrusting the door shut again — just as there came a deafening boom from the rifle, with a round clanging off the door and ricocheting into the mine, sending up sparks as it splintered on the rocks behind her.