Switzerland

In better weather, the little ski resort of Chandère would have been beautiful. Backed by majestic peaks, with long flowing slopes running down to the woods around the traditional houses of pale stone and dark timber, it was an almost postcard-perfect representation of the idealised Alpine village. Adding to its picturesque quality was the narrow-gauge steam railway that ran along the valley, connecting it to other equally attractive tourist destinations.

Conditions today, though, were far from their best. Low clouds blotted out the mountain-tops, a stiff, freezing wind driving snowflakes along like tiny knives of ice. The lack of sunlight draped a dismal pall over everything, flattening the scene almost to two dimensions. Even the jolly, toy-like locomotive seemed affected by the gloom, wheezing and straining to pull its carriages into the station.

The train finally clanked to a stop, sooty smoke swirling around the handful of disembarking passengers. Nina was among them, wearing a winter coat and woolly hat to protect herself from the cold. She was carrying a case, but unlike those of the other tourists, hers did not contain the accoutrements of a skiing holiday.

Instead, it held the three statues.

Stikes was waiting for her at the station’s exit, leaning casually against a wall. ‘Dr Wilde! Glad you could make it.’

‘Cut the crap, Stikes,’ she snapped. ‘Where’s Larry?’

‘Where are the statues?’ She held up the case. ‘Good. Although you won’t mind if I check, will you?’

Nina opened the case to reveal the trio of purple figurines within. ‘Satisfied?’

‘For the moment.’ He signalled to two large men standing nearby, who quickly marched to join him. ‘Follow me.’

She expected to be taken to a car, but Stikes instead headed for a tall and boxy building down the street. A cable-car station, steel lines rising up into the murk above the village. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I’m sure the Chandère tourist board will be very disappointed that you don’t know,’ Stikes said amiably. ‘We’re going to the Blauspeer hotel; it’s apparently quite famous. Exclusive, too. It’s one of the Group’s regular haunts for their meetings.’

‘Gee, with a recommendation like that, I’ll book next year’s vacation while I’m here.’

They entered the building. There was a sign on the door; Nina didn’t know sufficient German to translate the whole text, but picked out enough to gather that the hotel served by the aerial tramway was currently closed to the public. The Group had presumably booked the entire place, wanting privacy.

Stikes spoke briefly to a man inside a control booth, then led Nina and his two goons to the waiting gondola. She looked past it up the mountainside. Little was visible through the clouds and blowing snow. Her destination was effectively isolated from the rest of the world. She shivered.

The Englishman opened the cabin door for her. ‘Cold? Get in, it’ll be warmer.’

‘You’re the perfect gentleman,’ she said with a sneer as she entered. Stikes merely smirked and joined her, his men doing the same. A gesture to the booth from the former SAS officer, and the cable car lurched into motion.

Pointedly turning her back on Stikes, Nina went to the front window as the gondola began its ascent. A few buildings passed below, then the woods at the bottom of the hill. The best of the mountain’s ski runs were apparently reserved for the hotel’s residents, a low fence above the railroad separating the rising slopes from the village. The Blauspeer had other attractions than downhill skiing, however; a long luge track coiled down through the trees separating two of the ski runs. There were also what looked like target ranges for biathlon contestants.

‘I should ask the obvious question while we have the time,’ said Stikes. ‘Where’s your husband?’

‘In New York.’

‘No, he’s not. He’s in Switzerland – he took a different flight from you, but I know he’s here.’ His voice became flinty. ‘I warned you what would happen to his father if he tried to interfere.’

‘But he hasn’t interfered, has he? The only reason he’s here is to make sure we get out of the country safely.’ She glanced back at his two silent companions. ‘I’m assuming you’ve got more than just these two clowns watching the place. You’d know if he were in town.’

‘I know Chase,’ said Stikes. ‘He’s not the kind to sit around and wait.’ He looked out into the grey blankness obscuring the mountains. ‘He’s here, somewhere.’

‘If you think so, why don’t you try to make me tell you?’

‘Normally I would, as I’m sure you remember. But I have my orders, so my hands are tied . . . for the moment.’ A small, nasty smile.

Nina turned away again. The ride continued for a couple more minutes before a large, blocky shape finally loomed into view ahead. The Blauspeer hotel stood on relatively flat ground part-way up the mountain, the upper cable-car station actually built into one wing near the start of the luge track. The building looked quite old, timber-framed beneath its high, steeply sloping roof, but Nina suspected its facilities would be ultra-modern and luxurious. An ice-skating rink and an outdoor café overlooking the valley came into view as the cable car approached the end of its climb; considering the conditions, both were unsurprisingly deserted.

The gondola stopped. Stikes, feigning politeness, ushered Nina out. Even inside the station, the wind was stronger and colder than in the village, cutting through her coat. She hurried towards the glass doors leading to the hotel proper.

Warden waited in the expansive lobby beyond. ‘Dr Wilde,’ he said. ‘Welcome. I’m so glad you agreed to come.’

Her voice was as icy as the conditions outside. ‘I wasn’t exactly given a lot of choice.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Don’t pretend you don’t know.’ She jabbed a thumb at Stikes. ‘Your errand boy kidnapped my father-in-law and threatened to kill him if I didn’t bring you the statues.’

‘What?’ He looked at Stikes in genuine surprise. ‘Is this true?’

‘You told me to bring Dr Wilde and the statues here,’ Stikes replied smoothly. ‘I chose the most expeditious way to make sure that happened.’

Warden’s mouth twisted angrily. ‘I wanted her to come here willingly!’ he barked. ‘You idiot!’ Ignoring Stikes’s affronted expression, he turned back to Nina. ‘Dr Wilde, I apologise for this – this outrage. I assure you, I had absolutely no idea that Stikes would exceed his authority like this.’

‘Maybe you should have done what I said and fired him,’ said Nina.

Still fuming, Warden glared at Stikes. ‘Where is he now?’

The Englishman composed himself. ‘He’s in the hotel, and perfectly safe.’

‘Is he a guest or a prisoner?’ asked Nina pointedly.

‘Make sure it’s the former,’ said Warden. ‘Now get out of my sight!’

Stikes stiffened, offering a terse ‘Yes, sir’ as he and his two men headed for the nearby elevators.

Warden muttered something unflattering as he watched them leave, then addressed Nina. ‘Again, I apologise. You’re an absolutely vital part of what the Group hopes to achieve, and I want you to be completely free in your decision to join us. I hope Stikes’s stupidity hasn’t affected that. I’ll make sure your father-in-law is freed, and fully compensated for whatever inconvenience and distress he’s been caused.’

‘I’m sure he’ll appreciate that,’ said Nina. Warden didn’t seem to detect her undercurrent of sarcasm – though she couldn’t help noticing that he was so arrogant as to assume that she would agree to go along with the Group, no matter what. ‘As for what Stikes has done, I don’t think that’ll have much effect on my decision.’

‘I’m very happy to hear that.’ Again, the financier failed to pick up on her not-exactly-buried subtext. ‘In that case, if you’ll come with me, I’ll introduce you to the Group.’

Eddie gazed through the binoculars, holding one gloved hand above the lenses to ward off the blowing snow. ‘So that’s the hotel? Looks like it should have Jack Nicholson as the caretaker.’

He and the group of eight men with him, in white camouflage gear and balaclava masks, were at the top of a ridge about three-quarters of a mile from the Blauspeer hotel and several hundred feet higher. At this distance through the obscuring conditions, the building was barely more than a silhouette against the clouded valley, its shape defined more by its lights than by detailed features.

But Eddie could still see enough to tell that it was heavily guarded. Figures patrolled the grounds, making sure that the hotel’s reclusive VIP guests maintained their privacy.

They were about to be gatecrashed.

His companions were some of Glas’s loyal employees, a retinue of European security personnel urgently assembled on the billionaire’s orders while Eddie was on the flight to Switzerland. A helicopter had made a risky flight into the thickening clouds to drop them on the other side of the mountain, out of sight of the hotel, so they could traverse a pass and approach from a direction that would – in theory – be more lightly guarded. He didn’t know how good the men were, but had been assured that all were ex-military, willing and able to accomplish their mission.

That assurance was about to be tested. He tilted the binoculars down to the mountainside below. It was one of the hotel’s slopes – a black run, steep and potentially dangerous, even deadly, to anyone not an expert skier. The poles of a ski lift were visible off to one side, but it was not running. The only way down was to ski.

Eddie had done a considerable amount of that during his SAS training, but mostly cross-country rather than downhill, and it had been some years since he had been on a skiing holiday. Now that he thought about it, the last time had been during his marriage to Sophia, over seven years before. Christ, where had the time gone? He hoped he hadn’t become too rusty.

He would find out soon enough. The already grim sky was steadily darkening as evening drew in. They would have to move quickly – not least because Nina would be inside by now.

He continued his sweep of the slope. Before setting out, he had surveyed the area using online aerial photos; as expected, he spotted a small building at the bottom of the ski lift. It was the perfect place for a guard to find respite from the wind . . .

‘Thermal,’ he said. A man produced a device resembling a compact video camera and handed it to him. Eddie switched it on and peered through the eyepiece at the hut.

Someone was there, a humanoid shape in bright blues, yellows and reds standing out against the cold grey blankness of the snow. He panned the thermal imager across the vista below. More figures popped out from their surroundings, some standing watch in the shelter of buildings and trees, others trudging through the open along well-trodden patrol routes. ‘How many guards?’ asked one of the men.

‘I count, let’s see . . . four at the bottom of the slope, and another eight or nine nearer the hotel.’ Even through the thermal imager, it was impossible to miss that all the guards were armed with MP5 sub-machine guns. He gave the gadget back to its owner, who conducted his own scan while Eddie checked the sky. Conditions were steadily worsening, the wind-driven snow getting thicker as the landscape dropped deeper into shadow. ‘Okay, get ready.’

The team quickly began to don their skis as Eddie took back the thermal imager and checked the guards’ locations again. According to Glas, with whom he had spoken via Penrose before leaving New York, the Group maintained its own private security force; the men protecting the hotel were professional mercenaries. Even in law-abiding Switzerland, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill an intruder, relying on the power and influence of their employers to cover it up. Moreover, Stikes was now in charge of them, and Eddie knew first-hand just how merciless the former officer and his subordinates could be.

To reach the hotel, he knew that his team would have to be just as ruthless. If they were caught, they would be killed. Their only chance of success – the only way to rescue both Nina and his father, and put an end to the Group’s plans – was to take out the mercenaries first.

He checked his weapon: a white-painted Heckler & Koch MP7 Personal Defence Weapon – an extremely compact sub-machine gun – equipped with suppressor and red-dot sight. The other men were similarly equipped, with a single exception. One man also carried a skeletal Steyr SSG 08 sniper rifle, with a thermal scope and a hefty silencer.

‘How good are you with that?’ Eddie asked its owner, a German named Amsel.

‘I have the Schützenschnur in Gold,’ Amsel replied proudly.

‘Yeah, that’s pretty good.’ It was the German army’s marksmanship award; Glas seemed to have picked his men well. ‘Okay, you set up here, and I’ll spot.’

Amsel was comfortable enough in his skills to not even bother removing his skis as he lay at the crest of the ridge and prepared his rifle. Eddie scanned the slope with the thermal imager once more. The four men on the outer perimeter were still in position, all but one stationary in whatever shelter they could find. The fourth was traipsing across the base of the ski run, heading for the lift. The Englishman frowned. They only had one gun capable of hitting a target from this distance – if Amsel took out one guard and the other saw his comrade fall, he might raise the alarm before the German could take his second shot . . .

‘You’ve got to be fast,’ he said, watching intently as the glowing figure closed the gap to his companion. The two guards were only fifty metres apart, easily able to see each other even through the snow. ‘The guy walking across – get him first, then the one by the ski lift. Quick!’

Amsel nodded, adjusting his grip on the Steyr as he brought his eye to the scope and hunted for his first target. ‘Come on, come on . . .’ Eddie muttered. The guard was still closing on the man by the lift – who had turned to watch his approach, raising a hand in nonchalant greeting. Any closer, and it would be instantly obvious that the walker had been shot—

A deep, flat whoomph came from the Steyr’s suppressor as it muffled the sound of the shot, Amsel jerking backwards with the recoil. The sniper was using subsonic ammunition to minimise noise, but the bullet’s relatively low speed meant it would take over two seconds to reach its target. Eddie watched the shimmering shape in the thermal imager, hoping that Amsel was as good as he boasted . . .

The man suddenly staggered, what looked like a white halo flaring around his head – a spray of hot blood. Eddie immediately panned across to the ski lift. The man there was reacting with surprise, a puff of warm breath leaving his mouth as he called out to his companion. He had seen him fall, but through the blowing snow didn’t yet know why.

He would soon realise that this was more than a simple stumble, though. Eddie heard Amsel shift position as he found his next target, but kept his electronically enhanced gaze fixed on the ski lift. The man called out again, the glow of his breath brighter, more forceful.

The rifle thumped a second time. Eddie kept watching, tension rising. The guard fumbled for something on his chest.

A radio.

He raised it to his mouth—

Another halo. The guard slumped into the snow, a hot white pool slowly forming round his head.

‘Good shot,’ said Eddie. But he had no time to offer more than cursory praise, already moving his sight back across the slope to find the remaining sentries. ‘Next one’s by the little clump of trees off to the right, then the last one’s near that hut with the sign on top.’

Amsel confirmed that he had spotted them. Two more silenced shots, and the perimeter was clear. Eddie stood and put on his own skis. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘let’s piste off.’

The nine men began their rapid descent towards the hotel.

Warden brought Nina to a set of wooden doors. A sign beside them read Alpin Gesellschaftsraum: the Alpine Lounge. ‘Here we are,’ he told her.

He pushed open the doors theatrically and stepped through. Nina followed him into what was surely the Blauspeer’s centre-piece, a huge Gothic room with a high vaulted ceiling criss-crossed by thick beams of dark timber, tall windows looking out over the valley. The view was currently obscured by snow, but Nina’s eyes were on the room’s occupants rather than the scenery outside.

Bright spotlights on the lowest beams shone down to illuminate a large circular table at the room’s centre. Around it sat fourteen people, twelve of them men, all at least middle-aged and the oldest well into his eighties.

The Group. The secretive organisation pulling the strings of governments all over the world. A meeting of nearly unimaginable power and wealth . . . yet unknown to almost everybody whose lives it affected.

There were two unoccupied seats. Warden went to one, gesturing at the other beside it. ‘We’d be honoured if you’d join us for dinner, Dr Wilde,’ he said. ‘Please, sit down.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, taking in the calculating gazes regarding her as she sat and put the case on the table. There were no place settings, but she saw several large cloth-draped catering trolleys near an open dumbwaiter; presumably the Group’s members had business to discuss before they ate.

She was not just involved in that business. She was that business.

Nina tried to will away the knot in her stomach as Warden took his seat and made introductions. The oldest, Rudolf Meerkrieger, German media magnate controlling newspapers and broadcasting stations in over thirty countries. Anisim Gorchakov, the oligarch with his hand on the taps of the vast Russian natural gas reserves that fed the homes and industries of Europe and beyond. Sheik Fawwaz al-Faisal, head of a Middle Eastern consortium that decided the region’s supply – and hence the price – of oil on a daily basis. The rotund Bull brothers, Frederick and William, American identical twins distinguishable only by the colours of their ties who had made their colossal joint fortune in hedge funds by speculating on commodities like fuel and food, driving up prices and cashing in on shortages. Victoria Brannigan, Australian heiress to a mining and refining empire that produced the raw materials on which the world’s manufacturers depended, and the Dutch Caspar Van der Zee, in charge of the shipping fleet that carried those materials to where they were needed and the finished products made from them back to consumers.

And the others, different but the same, the invisible hand controlling the market revealed in plain sight. The men and women whose word could appoint or topple leaders, turn famine into glut and back again, all in service of their hunger for profit – and urge to control.

‘So, I finally get to meet you all,’ said Nina once the round of greetings was concluded. ‘Well, not all. Mr Takashi couldn’t make it, obviously.’

‘No, unfortunately,’ said Warden. ‘A shame – he was the one who convinced us of the potential value of earth energy. If it can be harnessed, of course – but with your help, that will now be possible.’ He indicated the case. ‘One of the reasons we chose this hotel for our meeting is that this mountain is a natural earth energy confluence point. When you put the statues together, it should produce the same effect as it did in Tokyo, and allow you to pinpoint the location of the meteorite.’

Nina saw that not a single member of the Group showed any regret over Takashi’s death. To them, it was a mere inconvenience – nothing to become emotional about. ‘Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ she said dismissively.

That produced emotion: muted shock, constrained outrage at the minor yet unmistakable challenge. They had assumed she was there to become a willing part of their plan; resistance was evidently not on the agenda. ‘Is there a problem, Dr Wilde?’ asked Meerkrieger, his aged voice creaking like tree bark.

‘I have a few questions I’d like answered first.’

‘Of course,’ said Warden smoothly. ‘We want you to be completely comfortable with your role. What would you like to know?’

‘More about the meteorite, the Atlantean sky stone, first of all. You think it’s composed of a naturally superconducting material, yes?’

Warden nodded. ‘That’s right. We don’t know how big it is, but hopefully it’ll allow the extraction of enough of the metal to supply multiple earth energy collection stations.’

‘But there’s more to it, isn’t there? The connection I felt to it when I put the three statues together in Japan suggests that the stone has some intimate link with life on earth, as if it’s somehow integral to its creation.’

No words were spoken by her audience, but Nina immediately sensed a change in attitude from the watching billionaires. Eyes fractionally narrowed, forehead furrows deepened almost imperceptibly. Caution, concern, even outright suspicion that she knew more than she was supposed to. ‘Don’t you think?’ she added, trying to prompt a response.

‘That’s our theory, yes,’ Warden eventually said. ‘The basic building blocks of life were seeded by comets soon after the planet’s creation, but the sky stone brought something more . . . complex. We don’t know where it came from – Mars, maybe Venus before it overheated, some other planet that doesn’t even exist any more. It doesn’t matter. What does is the end result. Through whatever chain of events, life began on earth after that meteorite fell, perhaps even jump-started by earth energy. It’s part of our world – and it’s part of us.’

‘Mm-hmm.’ Nina nodded. ‘But your interest in that side of things is purely scientific, right? Your primary goal is harnessing earth energy.’

‘That’s right,’ said one of the Bull brothers. ‘What else could it be?’

‘Are you suggesting we’ve got another interest?’ the other asked in an accusatory tone.

‘Maybe you can tell me. You see, I had a private chat with one of the Group’s members before coming here.’ Her words immediately set the cat amongst the pigeons, paranoid glances shooting back and forth. She enjoyed their discomfort before clarifying, ‘A former member, I should say.’

‘Glas,’ Warden hissed.

‘Yeah.’

‘Where did you talk to him?’ Brannigan demanded sharply.

‘On his submarine.’

That produced mutterings around the circular table. Gorchakov banged a fist. ‘I knew it! It was the only way he could have disappeared completely. I told you to have the American navy find it!’ he said to Warden.

The Group’s chairman held up his hands in an attempt to restore order. ‘The oceans are rather large, Anisim,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t exactly ask President Cole to divert half his carrier groups on your hunch, could I?’ As the consternation settled, he turned back to Nina. ‘So, you spoke to Glas. What did he tell you?’

‘Well, once we got past the initial awkwardness about the whole him-trying-to-kill-me issue, he was very talkative. He told me why he’d been trying to kill me.’

‘So that you couldn’t help us,’ said Warden. ‘I told you, he was desperate to maintain the profits of his energy business.’

‘That’s strange, because these two guys here –’ she indicated Gorchakov and al-Faisal – ‘should be in the same boat, but they don’t seem at all worried. No, what Glas told me was that there’s more to your plan than just gaining a monopoly on earth energy. There’s something else you want a monopoly on, isn’t there?’

Warden’s expression was slowly turning cold. ‘And what would that be, Dr Wilde?’

‘Power. Over everybody. For ever. If you find the meteorite, you’ll have a genetic Rosetta Stone that will let you create a virus to modify human DNA, to give you control over an obedient and pliant population. Am I getting warm?’

A lengthy silence. First to speak was al-Faisal. ‘Glas should have been eliminated the moment he opposed the plan,’ he growled.

‘I’ll take that as a big yes,’ said Nina. ‘So, y’know, I really don’t think I want to be a part of this. I have an old-fashioned notion that people have the right to decide how they’re going to live their own lives – and by people I mean everybody, not some self-appointed elite. Crazy, I know.’

The masks of civility were rapidly falling away from the others at the table. ‘You’ll do what you’re damn well told,’ snarled William Bull.

‘You think “the people” have ever controlled their own lives?’ his brother went on. ‘That’s fairytale liberal claptrap! There have always been the rulers, and the ruled. That’s the way it is.’

‘We just want to put an end to all the wasteful over-consumption and in-fighting,’ added Brannigan.

‘An end to conflict,’ said Warden. ‘That wasn’t a lie. We will bring order and peace to the world. Finally.’

‘Peace on your terms,’ Nina sneered.

‘Peace is peace.’

‘Does that include resting in peace? How many people will be killed by your virus?’

‘No more than three per cent of the global populace, we estimate,’ said Frederick Bull, as calmly as if discussing how many people owned a particular brand of phone. ‘But population control is part of our long-term plans anyway.’

She regarded him in disgust. ‘So the price of your peace is over two hundred million dead – and genetic slavery for everyone else? Wow, what a bargain.’ She shoved back her chair and stood, picking up the case. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway, because you can’t achieve anything without my cooperation. And I’m sure as hell not going to give it.’

‘Your cooperation,’ said Warden coldly, ‘doesn’t have to be voluntary. If necessary, it will be forced.’

‘You mean like this?’ Nina reached into her jacket and whipped out a gun – Sophia’s Glock. She thrust it at Warden’s face, making him recoil in shock. Gasps of fright came from the others.

‘Stikes didn’t search her?’ said Meerkrieger in disbelief.

‘I said you should have fired him,’ Nina told Warden, who was shaking with fury. ‘Okay, I want you to tell your security goons to withdraw. I’m going to take the statues, and I’m going to take Larry Chase, and we’re going to leave—’

A slow handclap echoed through the room. Nina spun to see Stikes standing nonchalantly at one of the side doors, giving her mocking applause. She snapped the gun round at the former soldier. ‘Oh, put it down, Dr Wilde,’ he said, raising his open hands to show they were empty. ‘We both know you’re not going to shoot an unarmed man.’

‘I’m willing to bet you’re not unarmed,’ Nina said coldly, the Glock not wavering.

‘Actually, I am. But he’s not.’ Stikes nodded towards another door across the room.

‘Yeah, like I’m going to fall for that—’

‘Nina!’ The voice was English, shocked – and frightened despite an attempt at bravado.

Larry Chase.

She had no choice but to look. Larry was shoved into the room by a large man holding his collar with one hand – and pressing a gun into his back with the other. ‘Larry! Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, but – what the hell’s going on?’ He stared at the people around the table in confusion. ‘That’s Caspar Van der Zee! What is this?’

‘It’s a meeting of the secret rulers of the world,’ said Stikes, with a tinge of derision. ‘Now, Dr Wilde, put down the gun. I know we can’t shoot you, but –’ his lips curled sadistically – ‘I will have Daddy Chase over there shot, in such a way that it takes him several excruciating hours to die. You’ve got ten seconds.’

‘If you shoot him, I’ll kill you!’ Nina warned.

‘You wouldn’t have come here at all if you were willing to let him die. Three, two—’

With an anguished look at her father-in-law, she tossed the gun on to the table. ‘Good,’ said Stikes, smirking. ‘Now, sit back down. I think it’s time we all finally saw what happens when you put the statues together, don’t you?’

Nina reluctantly returned to her seat as Larry was pushed to the table. She was filled with concern – for both of them – but another thought dominated her mind.

Where was Eddie?