Red Snow (7 page)

The next day

Whistler awoke to a sky full of snow and the need to rethink plans. Only diehard skiers and boarders would spend the day on the slopes. Olympic hopefuls would give it a try—after all, that’s why they were here—but if the forecast delivered, most would forsake the whiteout for indoors. And the El Dorado Resort would mine even more gold than expected. Eureka!

“Good morning,” Jenny answered the phone in her perkiest voice. “Hospitality.”

“Give me the manager.”

“I’m sorry. Mr. Hawksworth is currently engaged.”

“Interrupt him,” snapped the female caller.

“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” Jenny countered, deflecting rudeness with patience, as she’d been taught.

“There’s a
dead
man in your hotel. Do I get to speak to your boss now? Or would you rather I grab his attention by screaming blue murder in the lobby?”

“One moment, please,” Jenny said, just as lively as before. Then she got up from her desk, knocked on Hawksworth’s door, and barged in to alert the hospitality czar.

“Impeccable” was the best word to describe Niles Hawksworth. He was a spiffy-looking gent in an elegant Armani suit, whose clean-shaven scalp emphasized his handsome face, as if hair was a distraction used to hide flaws. No detail was too small for the hawk-like eyes, and no function too big for the military tactician in his soul. In short, Hawksworth was a consummate hotelier.

“Not now, Jenny. I’m
not
to be disturbed. Didn’t I make that clear to you?”

“Yes, Mr. Hawksworth, but—”

“No
buts
about it. The Olympics are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for any hotel. If ‘Going for the Gold’ is a success tonight, the El Dorado will be
the
place to be come February. A reputation like that will draw the elite for decades.”

“But, Mr. Hawksworth, there’s a
dead
man in the resort!”

The hospitality manager blinked.

“Who says?” he asked.

“The pushy woman on line one. She insists on speaking with you.”

“A dead man! Good Lord. We can’t have Olympians spreading
that
news at ‘Going for the Gold.’”

Handing Jenny pen and pad to record what was said, he punched on the speakerphone.

“Niles Hawksworth, hospitality manager.”

“There’s a dead cop in room 807,” mumbled the caller. “Have Special X figure it out.”

*     *     *

Scarlett slammed down the receiver and smiled to herself. With a gloved finger, she emptied her mouth of the gauze pads she’d used to muffle her voice.

Let the games begin, she thought as she opened the door to the confining phone booth.

*     *     *

Meanwhile, the clock ticked on …

About seventy miles south, in the heart of Vancouver, the Omega Countdown Clock ticked off the seconds remaining until the Winter Games began, on February 12. Back when that towering piece of wood, metal, glass, and Swiss electronics had its official kickoff, protestors had stormed the podium to shout what sounded like “4Q—2010!” into the microphone. Scruffy-looking people wearing bandanas booed, jeered, and waved placards stating “Stop the Clock!” “Bread, Not Circuses!” and “Smash the Wrecking Balls of Gentrification!” The officers sent to suppress that mini-riot were pelted with balloons filled with paint and papier-mâché balls stuffed with rocks. To thwart vandals from wrecking the clock, security cameras watched it night and day over the next three years. Because the cops in the Special X office in Whistler Village faced the same deadline, a digital image of the Countdown Clock was beamed via satellite to a screen mounted on the wall above Sergeant Dane Winter’s head.

“It’s freaking me out,” said Corporal Jackie Hett.

“What is?” Dane asked, glancing up from his half of their partners’ desk.

“The Countdown Clock. I chose the wrong side of the desk. Every time I look up, I see seconds slipping away. And the shrinking numbers remind me of the odds against.”

“Against what?”

“Doomsday,” she said frankly. “I can’t shake the feeling that something wicked this way comes.”

“By the picking of my thumbs,” Dane said, crossing himself. “I’m partnered with a
witch
.”

Actually, Dane was the envy of every male cop in Special X. Who wouldn’t want to be teamed with this Amazon? With her flaming red hair, hypnotic green eyes, and statuesque figure, Jackie was a fantasy female right out of Greek myth. Like the legendary warriors, she was also armed to the teeth. A blue Kevlar vest protected her chest, and the belt buckled around her waist held an armory: a nine-mill on one hip, a Taser on the other, and the whole thing backed up by pepper spray, extra magazines, a portable radio, an extendable baton, and a set of handcuffs. Unlike the Amazons, she hadn’t cut off her right breast so she could shoot a bow more freely. But that was okay with the men of Special X.

Ooh-la-la.

As far as Dane was concerned, Jackie could slap her cuffs on him any day of the week.

All of which stayed unexpressed, since he was her boss.

But dreams are free.

*     *     *

Jackie Hett had a crush on her boss. As likely as not, when she glanced up from her work, it wasn’t to look at the Countdown Clock but to feast her eyes on Dane.

But for the chevron on his shoulder—three stripes, plus crown, not her two—they were dressed like twins. Sandy-haired and cobalt-eyed, he stood just over six feet. Beneath the blue vest and long-sleeved gray shirt with blue tie, Dane was athletically slim. Basketball or soccer—not hockey or football—would be his game. The sexual balance at Whistler tilted Jackie’s way. At 53.6 percent male, the town was the most testosterone-charged in B.C. Boy toys came up for a few years to ski and have fun, making it a woman’s hunting ground. So why was Jackie attracted to the one guy she couldn’t bag?

No sex, please, we’re Mounties.

She was one Mountie who
wouldn’t
get her man.

Sex with your boss was a snake, not a ladder.

“It’s like playing with alphabet soup,” Jackie complained.

“What is?” asked Dane.

“The number of acronyms in VISU,” she said, waving the security report in her hand. “We’ve got CSIS and CSOR and JTF-2, and Christ knows how many more. Acronyms within acronyms fill every document. When I’m commissioner, we’ll go back to labels with meaning. Scotland Yard, flying patrol—that sort of thing. When I was a girl, at least I could rearrange letters to spell
words
.”

“In your alphabet soup?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you?”

“Spoon around for letters to make words?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Who didn’t?”

“So what’s the answer?”

“To what?”

“The obvious question.”

Dane shrugged. “Obviously, the obvious question isn’t so obvious to me.”

“A, B, C, D,” Jackie said. “That’s a clue.”

“It is?”

“E, F, G, H. That’s another.”

“Beats me.”

“Tsk-tsk,” Jackie clucked. “And you call yourself a detective? The obvious question for any kid is, Does
every
can of alphabet soup contain all twenty-six letters?”

“Does it?”

“Now that would be cheating. You know it’s a sin to blab the end of a mystery.”

The phone on Dane’s half of the desk rang.

“Sergeant Winter,” he answered while jotting “Buy alphabet soup” on his notepad.

“Niles Hawksworth, hospitality manager at the El Dorado Resort. It may be a hoax, but we just received a call to say there’s a dead officer in room 807.”

*     *     *

VISU had the staggering task of building an impenetrable shield against terrorist attacks during the Olympics. From its operations base in the old Motorola building, a huge office complex near the Fraser River, the unit was gearing up to protect more than one hundred venues. Its territory spread from the airport near the U.S. border to the mountain slopes, and included countless smuggling coves on the world’s most indented coastline.

No event presents a better target for terrorists and political zealots than the Olympics. The massacre of eleven Israeli competitors by Palestinian gunmen at the 1972 Munich games had proved that. The threat was palpably real—the rise in militant extremism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bombs going off in London, Madrid, and elsewhere—and there were gaps in the shield. Security, by its nature, is never 100 percent foolproof. You can secure an Olympic village or an isolated venue, but you can’t secure an entire city and a hundred-mile swath around it, unless you turn the area into a police state.

A Stalag behind barbed wire.

And even a stronghold can be breached.

VISU was assigned to protect 5,000 athletes and officials, 10,000 media, 25,000 volunteers, and 250,000 visitors from hazards ranging from fire to a hail of manmade junk plunging from outer space. The nightmare scenario was a dirty bomb, a radiation device offloaded from a ship at sea and smuggled ashore by a motorboat putting in to one of the coves.

Come February, air force fighters would patrol restricted skies, and navy destroyers would guard the waterfront. CSOR—the Canadian Special Operations Regiment—would defend against biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. JTF-2 commandos, the 350 best counter-terrorists, would act as snipers and bodyguards.

Regular policing would fall to an army of cops with bomb-sniffing dogs, as well as to hostage negotiators and riot squads. There would be miles of fencing delineating safe zones with limited access points. Everything would be watched by surveillance cameras, and biometric software would identify known terrorists by measuring their facial features and analyzing their walks.

Special X was but a cog in that giant machine.

The Special External Section of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police predated the world’s current obsession with acronyms. If not, it would now be known as SES or—with a little fudging of the abbreviation—SEX. Imagine the jokes that would spawn!

Tied to Interpol—the International Criminal Police Organization—Special X investigated crimes committed in Canada but with links outside the borders. It kept tabs on violent troublemakers and would hunt down any killer if a murder took place at the Olympics. With the countdown on and time running out, the last thing the officers stationed at Whistler needed was the death of one of their own.

Though it was a short trudge from the Special X detachment to the El Dorado Resort, Dane and Jackie were white with snow by the time they pushed through the revolving door. Bundled up in fur hats with earflaps, storm parkas, scarves, mitts, and boots, they brushed themselves off. Their plumes of breath evaporated as they entered the hotel, but their cheeks stayed flushed from the chill outside.

A fretting Niles Hawksworth met them in the lobby.

“This is
most
inconvenient,” fumed the manager. “No doubt it’s a hoax perpetrated by one of our competitors to undermine tonight’s event. It’s a cutthroat business, trying to go for the gold.”

“You’ve touched nothing?” Dane asked.

“Of course not,” Hawksworth replied, offended that anyone would think he didn’t do things just so.

The three rode an elevator to the eighth floor and angled along a hallway wide enough to allow drunks to wobble shouldered skis. Even so, the wallpaper had scars. The door to room 807 was blocked by a security guard with a pair of bolt cutters.

The sergeant rapped on the wood.

“Police,” Dane announced.

Three times he knocked, and three times got no reply.

“Who rents the room?”

“A company called Ecuador Exploration,” Hawksworth stated. “They’re new to us.”

“How does the door work?”

“Three locks. Combination keycard and deadbolt, and a swing-bar door guard. I have a master key to override the first two. Ken here has bolt cutters for the bar.”

“Allow me,” Dane said, holding out his hand. “Fingerprints,” he added.

Hawksworth passed him the master key, and the Mountie stuck it in the slot. That popped the electronic lock and automatically twisted the deadbolt. Cautiously, Dane used his gloved hand to depress the handle, careful not to smudge any prints. The door swung open about an inch before the knob caught in the swing bar.

“There,” he said, indicating where the guard should cut.

Ken eased the bolt cutters through the gap between the door and its frame to snip the metal.

Crunch!

The knob fell to the floor and the door swung wide.

“Jesus Christ!” Jackie gasped, staring at the bed.

Dane stood stunned.

“There’ll be hell to pay for this,” he swore to himself.

It wasn’t blue murder.

It was gold.

Snow was falling in fat white flakes as the potential podium topper stood in line for the chairlift. Too bad the weather wasn’t conducive to a little spying. With all the competitors here to test the terrain before the real thing, he’d hoped to be able to eyeball their performance-enhancement teams and compare them to his own.

Whiteout, however, meant a blind eye.

“Look upon the Olympics as going to war,” Will’s coach had said. “Strategy counts. So does spying.”

As in war, it was all about national pride. As host of the world’s top winter sports event, Canada had shoveled over $100 million into its Own the Podium program, designed to identify top athletes and whip them into shape. Will had been fussed over by a gaggle of physiotherapists, biomechanists, sports psychologists, and conditioning gurus. They’d put reflective stickers on his knee and ankle joints and then videotaped him jumping for a computer to detect any “muscle activation abnormality.” Wind-tunnel testing had helped him shave seconds off the clock.

“We have a super skier,” stated their report.

Meanwhile, 150 researchers at dozens of Canadian universities were at work on Top Secret, a high-tech program developed to give golden boys like Will the tenth- or hundredth-of-a-second edge required to nab a gold medal. Top Secret alchemists reduced friction on suits and helmets, matched ski waxes to weather conditions, and timed the release of their best innovations so it would be too late for foreign spies to copy them.

For Will, however, the ski was on the other foot. Wars, he knew, are won by spying on the competition, and today would have been the ideal opportunity to check out his rivals for clues to what was hidden up their sleeves.

If not for this veil of snow.

Sport could be
so
unfair.

But all that vanished from his mind as Will clomped onto the spot where the chairlift would sweep him away. A curvy creature filling out a red ski suit slid into place beside him. A pulled-down toque, a pulled-up turtleneck, and yellow goggles masked her face. But if her looks complemented the hourglass below, Will felt he just might salvage the day. The benefit of having a physique like his was having a physique like his. He had the stamina to rock the sexual fantasies of any snow bunny he considered worth his down time.

Show yourself, lady.

The chairlift scooped them off the ground and carried them up into the blinding snowfall. The only sound was the bending and flexing of the cable as it circled the bullwheel and slipped over the support towers. The mountain air smelled crystalline and misted from their lungs. Reaching up behind their heads, Will grasped the restraining bar and pulled it down so they could support their skis on the footrest.

“You’re Will Finch!” the woman said, pushing the goggles up on her brow.

Her features
did
complement her figure.

“What’s your name?”

“Scarlett.”

“In from where?”

“Vegas.”

“Sin City.”

“So they say.”

“What do you do?”

“Showgirl.”

“I should have guessed.” He looked her up and down. “Too bad I missed the show.”

“You can still catch it.”

“How?”

“By a command performance.”

“You move fast.”

The femme fatale pouted. “I’ve only got this ride.”

“Is the show worth it?”

“You decide. I once worked as a stripper.”

Like fish in a barrel, thought Will.

Flakes tumbled around them like dandruff off the scalp of God. They seemed to be the only skiers in this frozen Garden of Eden, and Will had no doubt they’d soon be as naked as Adam and Eve. The snake was stirring.

The sudden yelp of pain from Scarlett took him by surprise. One of her legs jerked like a frog hit by electric current in a school biology lab.

“Charley horse!” she gasped through gritted teeth.

“Stretch it out,” said Will.

“I can’t! The footrest’s in the way.”

Here was an opportunity for Will to play Galahad. The surest cure for a muscle cramp was to extend the leg, pushing down with the heel and pointing the toes toward the face. Slipping a hand under her thigh to lift the troublesome limb, Will grabbed the restraining bar and released it.

Bending forward, he reached down to massage her calf, and that’s when Scarlett looped the metal dog collar about his neck. Hooking one end of the leash around the chairlift frame, the Ice Pick Killer pushed him as hard as she could. Will was propelled from the seat high above the slope and dropped like a prisoner through the trapdoor of a gallows.

Zzhhhh
…

His weight cinched the noose tight, while the razor blade inside the collar sliced into his flesh and didn’t stop constricting until it had sundered one vertebra from another.

Scarlett gripped Will’s head by the hair as his decapitated body plunged in a geyser of blood that reddened the snow.

The siren swapped the head for the trophy she carried in her backpack and tied it to the chairlift frame. Just short of the bullwheel at the top of the run, she skied off on her escape route.

A voice from the chair behind was in hysterics.

*     *     *

At the foot of the chairlift, an Austrian couple sidestepped onto the marks to wait for the next carrier. The seat spun around the bullwheel and scooped the lovebirds up. As the newlyweds leaned together to snuggle for the ride, they found themselves confronting a grisly chaperone.

A shrunken human head hung from the chairlift frame.