The demands that Hannah and co are putting on people in there must be horrific for a man to risk his wife’s safety. Now that someone has been murdered, there will be less chance of someone else refusing the terrorists’ demands.

  I cast my gaze across the room and look at the guy whose wife has been shot. Like the others who’ve entered the office, he’s in a state of shock, but he doesn’t quite seem shocked enough to me.

  He’s sitting with his back against a wall. His gaze is at the ceiling and, while I can’t see his face too well, his body language doesn’t speak of anger, or even shock. His wife has just been killed, he should be trying to rip the terrorists’ heads from their shoulders; he ought to be shouting abuse at them, or at the very least, trying to get to his wife in a desperate attempt to save her.

  That he’s doing none of these things makes alarm bells ring in my head. Yes, he might be a couple of stone overweight, and have the pasty skin of someone who rarely goes outdoors, but he should still have enough anger in his gut to react in a more human way.

  I stop my thoughts where they are and look at things from a different angle. Rather than question what the terrorists were asking of the man, I look at reasons why the man wouldn’t have moved heaven and earth to save his wife.

  The first thing I do is remember them as a couple. When I take away the fact they can afford RidgeTop’s inflated prices, I figure he’d punched above his weight in snaring his wife. Set against his pasty bulk, her slim and tanned figure had only accentuated the difference in their appeal. While it is natural to think that such an imbalance would have him acting in a way that was almost subservient, he didn’t. The two of them had bickered with each other and the looks they’d exchanged were anything but loving.

  Where he had been courteous, she’d been waspish and offhand with me and other staff members. That she’s got a good tan, while his skin is ghostly in its whiteness, speaks of her lounging around while he slaves over a desk. It doesn’t take a great leap from there to imagine her cheating on him with a fitness coach or a pool cleaner.

  This would be a huge reason for the guy to refuse Hannah’s demands. When I add in the woman’s acerbic nature I can almost hear their arguments: he’d be throwing accusations of infidelity at her, asking her why she cheated on him when all he did was provide for her.

  Her responses would be that he was always working and was never at home. Maybe she’d been nasty and criticised his manhood or sexual prowess.

  It’s possible she had some dirt on him, and he was forced to tolerate her presence in his life, lest she expose whatever he’d done.

  It’s a terrible thought for me to have, and I hope for humanity’s sake I’m wrong, but I figure he’s chosen to refuse Hannah’s demands so she’d save him the hassle of what would have been a toxic and expensive divorce.

  Whatever the reasons, to my mind he hadn’t fought hard enough to protect her, and has reacted to her death in all the wrong ways. So far as I’m concerned, he’s as guilty as the person who shot her.

  Chapter 19

  Sharon outlines her plan to me and I listen without commenting. If she has her way, there’s every chance she’ll instigate a manhunt that will see us both either mutilated or dead.

  My own thoughts centre on one of us slipping away, without our absence being noticed, and raising the alarm.

  She plans to thrust her knife into Tattoo Neck’s throat and bolt, whereas I’m against taking life.

  ‘That’s not going to work.’ I’m not worried about sparing her feelings. She’s ex-military and ex-Glasgow, there’s no way she’s going to take any offence to a different opinion.

  ‘How?’

  She means why, but being Scottish myself, I understand what she’s asking.

  ‘They’ll be after us in seconds. We’ll be hunted down and killed in no time.’

  ‘What do you reckon we should do then?’

  I outline my plan to her in a few short sentences. It carries a certain amount of danger for her should my absence be noted. After all, she’s the one whose role it is to create a distraction and be the source of confusion.

  She falls silent as she works through my plan in her mind. I’m cool with her finding faults, the more that are found and corrected before the plan is put into action, the better our chances of success will be.

  ‘Do you really think you can get away without them noticing?’

  I shake my head. ‘No, but if I can, we have a chance. If not, I’ll just have to take my chances.’

  ‘It’s not just you, but.’ Sharon appending her sentence with a ‘but’ takes me back to Glasgow faster than any aeroplane ever could. It’s a trait local to Glasgow and one that I’d dropped when I moved to America. It wasn’t a conscious decision, I was just a teenager doing whatever was needed to fit in. ‘If you fail, we’ll all die.’

  I look at her without speaking. She huffs out a breath and shrugs her shoulders.

  ‘If you fail, I’ll not be able to get another chance.’ Sharon nods towards Buzz Cut. ‘We’ve seen their faces, they’ve made no attempt to disguise who they are. When they leave here, we’ll all be dead.’

  The look on her face tells me she knows I’ve worked this out for myself. What it also says is that she trusts me to deliver.

  It’s the second piece of information that sits heaviest on my shoulders; that I’m being trusted to save the lives of all the staff and customers is both humbling and terrifying.

  If Sharon or any of the others knew how much I’m doubting myself, I’m sure they’d feel their trust was misplaced.

  Regardless of their confidence and my lack of it, I know, when the moment for action comes, I’ll do everything I can to ensure I raise the alarm and get help coming our way.

  Chapter 20

  Nathan bangs on the door of Roger Knightly’s chalet and pulls his hood tighter. The snowstorm is ferocious in its intensity, but it’s part and parcel of living and working in a resort that only exists because of skiers and the money they spend to indulge their passion.

  When Knightly opens the door, he looks as he always does: unshaven and red-eyed. That he is a high-functioning alcoholic is an open secret, yet he’s been allowed to keep his job because, even when he is full of bourbon, he is better at it than any of his contemporaries.

  When people pay the kind of money the customers of RidgeTop are asked to, they want the very best of skiing; the slopes have to be perfect, and this is achieved with snow groomers.

  Every night a gang of snow groomers, or piste bashers as they are better known, ascend the mountain. Their great wide tracks haul them up impossible gradients as their ploughs level drifts. The tracks destroy clumps of snow and the comb at the back leaves a perfect surface for skiers.

  Roger Knightly has been driving the piste bashers on the RidgeTop slopes since the resort opened, and his knowledge of the mountain is legendary. Where other operators rely on modern piste bashers – with their wealth of technological gizmos such as GPS systems that not only pinpoint their location, but also give readings about snow depth – Knightly relies on experience and instinct. The fact his piste basher is more than thirty years old, and considered to be un-driveable by the other operators, is something that appeals to the cent-sensitive company accountants.

  When he eventually stops working, they will have to replace not just the man who drives the machine, but the machine itself. At upwards of $300,000 apiece, Knightly is cut a lot of slack to defer the expense of replacing him for as long as possible. It doesn’t hurt that he maintains his piste basher himself and refuses to let anyone else touch it.

  ‘What d’you want?’

  Knightly’s breath carries enough bourbon fumes to suggest at least a half bottle has been consumed, but Nathan doesn’t let it bother him. Drunk or sober, if anyone can get up the mountain tonight, it’s Roger Knightly.

  In the general course of things, he’d have been out there by now, but there is little point in grooming the slopes when there is continuing heavy snowfall, and a strong wind creating drifts. On nights like this the piste bashers remain in their sheds, ascending the mountain in the early hours. It puts more pressure on their operators, but when the weather is a factor it’s the only way.

  ‘There’s something going on up at RidgeTop. I can’t raise Steve and they’re not responding to emails or phone calls.’

  A wry twist caresses Knightly’s mouth into a grimaced smile. ‘So what do you want me to do about it?’

  ‘Take a guess.’ Nathan knows Knightly well enough to know that, despite his fondness for bourbon, he is smart enough to read between the lines. ‘The question is, are you going to offer me a solution or become another part of the problem?’

  ‘Seriously, what do you want me to do? Drive up there, knock on the door and ask if everything’s okay? You’ve been watching too many movies.’

  Nathan ignores Knightly’s sarcasm. ‘No, I want you to take me up there so I can find out what the hell’s going on. Trust me, there’s something wrong up there and we’ve got a lot of very wealthy and influential people as our customers. If I’m right, the bad publicity could close this resort and then where would we be?’

  ‘Gimme five minutes to get my stuff together; and get yourself some warmer clothes – if you’re going walkabout up there, it’s gonna be a lot colder than it is down here.’

  Chapter 21

  Sharon stands in line and waits for Tattoo Neck to pull her and Boulder forward. There’re two other guys standing with them, along with a woman in her sixties.

  It’s rude of her, but Sharon makes sure she’s in front of the other woman in the queue. For Boulder’s plan to work, they must be in the same group as they’re led to the restroom.

  As luck would have it, Tattoo Neck waves all five people forward at once.

  ‘Use the men’s room, and the men’s room only.’

  Boulder had predicted this would be the case and it’s what they were banking on.

  Sharon lets Boulder enter the restroom first and turns to face Tattoo Neck.

  Her role is to distract him long enough for Boulder to make his escape. She also has to block the other two guys from witnessing anything.

  ‘I can’t go in there.’ Sharon glares up at Tattoo Neck and shakes her head to emphasise her point.

  He shrugs at her. ‘It’s there or nowhere.’

  ‘You don’t understand. I need to go to the ladies’.’

  ‘Why?’

  His tone is becoming more aggressive, but that doesn’t matter to Sharon, the two of them arguing will eat up time and create a better distraction for Boulder.

  Sharon glances up and down the corridor as if she is reluctant to speak. Everything she is doing is designed to use up valuable seconds.

  ‘Because I need to get something from the ladies’ that isn’t available in the men’s room.’

  Incomprehension covers the terrorist’s face until he makes the connection. Then there is a brief spell as he debates with himself. He gives a sharp nod. ‘Go on then.’

  As Sharon makes her way to the ladies’ restroom, she is aware of the other woman following her. This can only be a good thing as it will help to muddy the waters.

  As she waits in a cubicle, to give the illusion she is using the restroom, she offers silent prayers that Boulder has made his escape without detection.

  Boulder’s idea of her claiming to need sanitary products was a good one; like so many macho guys, Tattoo Neck had shied away from talk of a woman’s menstrual cycle and, by doing so, he’d allowed Sharon to create an environment where there was room for confusion and mistakes.

  When she exits, she finds that Tattoo Neck has positioned himself at a point in the corridor where he can watch the doors of both restrooms.

  To further distract him, she walks across the corridor and stands in front of him. ‘Thank you. You didn’t have to do that, but the fact you did is greatly appreciated.’ As she goes back to her space on the floor of the dining room, Sharon wonders if Tattoo Neck had been able to tell the smile and the thanks she had given him were false.

  Chapter 22

  When the bartender doesn’t return from the men’s room, Daniel wonders if he’s the only one who’s noticed. He’s sure the server has, but she’d been talking to him, so he’s confident that she’s in cahoots with him.

  The bartender seemed like a decent guy, unlike Double M, the former wrestler who is now in charge of the World Federation of Wrestling. He is nothing like as cool as he seems on the TV. He’d been rude when Mom had taken him over and introduced him; her explaining how he always cheered for Double M had been so embarrassing, he wished he’d never pointed out the wrestler to her.

  His pops had always said you should never meet your heroes, and this afternoon had taught Daniel why.

  Daniel casts his eyes towards the clock and sees that a full ten minutes have passed since the people who went to the washroom in the same group as the bartender had returned. The bartender hasn’t come back with them, which means he must still be in the toilet.

  Except, Daniel doesn’t think he is still in there – the way he’d watched the men with guns, and their woman boss, had been different to everyone else.

  The bartender hadn’t looked at them in fear, he’d been checking them out, observing their movements and, from what Daniel could gauge, looking for a way to stop them doing what they were doing.

  In Daniel’s mind, the bartender is a spy, or a cop working undercover. Before long, he’d call in the army and they’d all be rescued from the evil men who’d taken over the resort.

  He also likes the idea that the bartender used to be a crack soldier, and he will return with a pair of blazing guns and shoot all the terrorists dead. It would be cool to see them get what they deserve.

  As much as his mind is creating fantasies, Daniel knows the truth is a different matter. The bartender is just that: a bartender. He isn’t a hero, or any kind of undercover agent, he is nothing more than a man who pours drinks.

  A commotion causes Daniel to turn his head and look at where Double M is standing. In his wrestling days Michael Malone was known as the All-American Hero, before he’d morphed into the faux bureaucrat at the head of the WFW company.

  Standing at six nine, he is a big man who used to use his great strength to throw his opponents around the ring as if they were ragdolls. Daniel can remember watching Double M fighting all the modern greats and beating them.

  Double M was a mean wrestler who’d pummel his opponents long past the point necessary to allow him to pin them.

  Daniel knows all the wrestlers’ moves by heart and he remembers Double M’s finishing one: The Leveller. It had incapacitated so many of those who’d stood against him in the ring. When his opponent was reeling from the beating he’d dished out, Double M would launch them against the ring’s ropes and, when they were catapulted back at him, he’d lift a size fourteen boot into their chin.

  The Leveller was always preceded by a ritualistic beating of the chest and three slaps to the right thigh.

  As Daniel watches Double M beat his chest like a gorilla, he fears for Michael Malone as a man far more than he had ever feared for him as a wrestler.

  Chapter 23

  I crawl along the top of the air conditioning duct, taking care to keep my weight to the sides where the metal has more strength in case the thin metal of the top flexes and makes a noise that gives my position away.

  As soon as I had entered the men’s room, I clambered up the wall of one of the stalls, popped a ceiling tile, and slid myself into the opening between the false and real ceilings. I’d helped the maintenance guy make a repair to the air conditioning duct a couple of days ago, which had made me aware of the space between the ceilings.

  Now all I have to do is follow the boxy metal until I’m in a part of the hotel where I can climb down and raise the alarm. It’s just as well I have the duct to follow: I can’t see a thing and I daren’t use the torch on my cell phone in case a terrorist below sees the light through a chink in the ceiling tiles.

  It sounds simple, and in theory it is, but this crawl space has twenty years of accumulated dust and it’s all I can do not to sneeze as every movement I make disturbs enough particles to send a whole new cloud billowing up.

  The duct is warm to the touch as heated air is pumped throughout the hotel in a bid to combat the temperature outside. Fortunately, the heat in the ducting isn’t so great that it burns my hands.

  I follow the duct round a corner and bump my head against a supporting wall. My groping fingers tell me that the duct disappears through the wall, but there’s not a chance I can squeeze myself through the three-inch gap I can feel above it.

  By my calculations, I’ve passed over the ladies’ restroom, and I’m above the corridor that runs from the dining room and bar to the part of the hotel that houses all the suites.

  If I was to lift a ceiling tile and hang down before dropping, I’d still have at least six feet to fall. The drop holds no fear whatsoever for me, but the fact I’d almost certainly make a noise upon landing means it’s a non-starter. For me to thump down so close to the terrorists would be stupid at best, suicidal at worst.

  I consider taking off my shoes to land barefoot but dismiss the idea. If I have to take on a terrorist after dropping down, I’m certain I’ll need my kicks to have the maximum effect and there won’t be time for tying laces.

  The last thing I want to do is get into a fight with a terrorist. Not only are they all heavily armed and trained fighters, the noise is sure to bring the other terrorists running.

  I feel again where the duct goes through the wall. While there’s no chance of me getting through the gap above it, there may be a space to one side, or some loose bricks I can remove.