Page 90 of The House of Cross

Mercifully, after what seemed a long descent, the trail hit a wide, windswept shelf devoid of trees. The driver led me to the other end and slowed to a stop in front of a wall of rock, saplings and scrub brush sticking out from ice and snow.

I halted my sled twenty-five yards behind him, and I was starting to wonder what was happening when a piece of the mountain about the size of a barn door began to slide back. Light poured out and got stronger the more the door retracted, revealing a vaulted space beyond the swirling snow.

The sled in front of me drove inside onto a concrete floor and stopped. I did the same and raised my visor, squinting at the bright lights.

The door closed behind us.

I looked all around. The room was a solid two hundred feet deep and seventy-five wide, with a ceiling that had to be thirty feet high. At least twenty snowmobiles were parked to my left. To my right, a small white Bell helicopter was up on a massive dolly that was lashed in place.

“Stay where you are, Dr. Cross,” the woman with the hoarse voice said through my helmet radio. “You need to be scanned.”

The last driver of the seven who’d chased me was off his machine; two women in their forties and two men in their thirties came through a door on the opposite side of the space. The men carried machine guns. The women held detection wands.

The snowmobile driver removed his helmet and then a hood beneath, revealing the same buff bald guy we’d seen at the warming hut much earlier in the day. He scowled at me while unclipping his weapon from its harness.

“You don’t look happy to see me, Mr. Bean,” I said as the two other men and women approached.

“You killed six of my mates,” Bean said, cradling the gun, his expression stony.

“They shot first. And by the way, one of you killed a Canadian Mountie.”

“Not likely. I saw it. She had an accident, didn’t she? Lost her way, she did. What you did, however—ambushing us—that was cold-blooded murder.”

“Perspective is everything,” I said evenly, watching him like you’d watch a snake at close quarters.

Before Bean could reply, the women came up wearing dark fleece leggings and tops. They studied me with some interest as they ran the wands over me, stopping on my left chest.

“Avalanche transceiver,” I said.

“Show us,” one of them said.

Bean turned and stalked away while I lost the helmet, the heavy boots, and the coverall. I dropped it all on the floor beside the sled, then took off my parka to show them the transceiver strapped to my torso.

One of the women cut the transceiver off while the other waved her wand over the pockets of the parka. I was happy they were empty.

When she was done, she nodded to one of the armed men.

“Let him shower, give him slippers, then take him to level four.”

CHAPTER 68

FLANKED BY TWO ARMEDmen, I passed through a door into a narrow hallway. As we walked, I steeled myself with three internal goals.

Number one: Find Bree and John.

Number two: Escape.

Number three: Get to the guns and survival gear.

They took me into a locker room, told me to shower, and left me jeans, long underwear, a shirt, a wool sweater, and socks and slippers.

As I showered, I thought about Willow’s Jiobit fob now out in the snowstorm and wondered whether its signal would carry. I prayed it would as they put zip ties on me and led me into an elevator that rose smoothly and slowed to a stop.

The door slid back, revealing a foyer of sorts with doublewooden doors on the other side. Standing there, guarded by three armed men, were Bree and John.

I felt a huge weight fall from my shoulders. They were both alive.

“Alex!” Bree gasped and came over fast to me, her wrists in restraints as well.

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