He followed the Frenchman into the small building, glancing over his shoulder at the street behind him as he stepped out of the cold. This was the building that serviced a funicular train that went up the mountain toward the Vallée Blanche, Les grandes jorasses and Les drus.
Inside the old building Baupin had a friendly conversation with an older man who was standing behind the ticket kiosk. A moment later the man disappeared through a doorway and when he returned he was clutching various ski paraphernalia — carve skis, masks, goggles and poles.
Harry realized it was a set-up straight away and smiled. “Now I see what’s going on.”
Baupin shrugged and smiled. “Gilbert is an old friend of mine. The only place you can get a good look at Szabo’s place is from the mountain. He is a very private man and has excellent security, but not even he can block the view of the clinic from the slopes. We go up in the train, you see the property where your friend is being held, and then we ski back down to Chamonix the old-fashioned way.”
“That’s possible?”
“Yes, and quicker than the train. Heavy snow this year means we have enough snow to ski from the top of the mountains all the way down to the town. C’est possible, and more than that — we are meeting an associate of mine at the top. He staked out the property last night and this morning I had him go ahead and watch Szabo’s place from up here in case he flew away before we got there.”
Harry was nervous at the mention of another agent. “Who is this associate?”
“Michel Perec, an old friend of mine. He trained me when I joined the DRM.”
They stepped onto the train with their ski equipment and moments later it was pulling them along the valley and slowly ascending the northern slopes of the range leading up to the famous Vallée Blanche ski run and the Mer de Glace. Montenvers Railway had been taking tourists from the town all the way up the side of Aiguilles de Chamonix since 1908, and as it clattered its way up to six thousand feet above the town Baupin pointed to the window.
“There,” he said. “You see over the river to the north of the town.” He handed him a small pair of portable binoculars.
Harry followed where the Frenchman was pointing and raised the binoculars to his eyes. “Yes.”
“That area over there is Moussoux. Very expensive and highly desired by some of the richest in Europe. The Hotel Ciel is the large property not far from the Brévent cable car station. That is Szabo’s wellness clinic.”
“The place with the enormous glass window wall on the front and the steel roof?”
Baupin nodded once. “Oui. That is where your friends are being held.”
Harry now saw why Baupin had wanted to take the train. The hotel was modest but in sprawling grounds, and it would be impossible to see from any location other than an elevated position like this. A small forest of pine trees surrounded the building on all sides and the entire property was set well back from the surrounding neighbors. “What is that to the right?” he asked. “The garage block?”
“Yes.”
“Looks closest to the tree line.”
“Oui.”
“Probably the least risky way inside the building.”
“I think so.”
For a few moments the view mesmerized him, but then his mind turned to Lucia and he swore he would kill Szabo if anything had happened to her.
Baupin’s elbow nudged him back to reality. “There — the station on the ridge… this is our stop.”
They stepped out of the small station and were immediately confronted with the sun flashing on the glacier in the valley in front of them. The Mer de Glace, or sea of ice, is the largest glacier in France, around five miles long and six hundred feet deep, and seeing it with your own eyes never got old. Harry lowered his sunglasses and stared at it in silence for a few moments while Baupin scanned the crowd in the outside restaurant for his contact. “C’est beau, n’est-ce-pas?” he said absent-mindedly.
“Yes,” Harry said. “It really is.”
A line of tourists were making their way to the Ice Grotto — a small cave accessed by a cable car that descended from the train station.
“It’s manmade,” Baupin said casually. “Carved into the glacier by hand, and every summer they have to cut it back out again, but it brings in the tourist euros. A better view is this way.”
Harry followed Baupin as he walked along to the Restaurant le Panoramique, perched on the side of the western slope of the mountain. Closer now, he stepped up onto the open deck and could still hardly believe the views of the valley in front of him, and snaking its way along the bottom was another clearer view of the Mer de Glace itself. It had been so long since he had been here he had forgotten how breathtaking it truly was.
“The Sea of Ice,” Baupin said with pride.
Before Harry could register his amazement, a man with a round face and jolly, red cheeks approached them and then opened his arms. He and Baupin hugged and after a few solid pats on the back they turned to the Englishman.
“This is Michel,” Baupin said. “And Michel, this is Harry Bane.”
They shook hands and Michel gestured for them to sit at a small table beside the balcony rail where he ordered some coffees. Things soon turned to business when Michel opened a small, paper notebook and began reading from a page of scrawled pencil. “Your man Szabo has been busy,” he began. “He arrived yesterday from his main residence in Vienna, and since then many cars have come and gone from the compound. Then just before dawn a chopper landed at the Chamonix Heliport west of Argentière, and a number of gorillas got out with an older man in a tweed jacket and a young woman.”
“That’s our guys,” Harry said.
“They climbed into a black SUV and drove south along the valley until they reached Szabo’s hotel. They went through the gates and then they were out of sight. I’m sorry.”
“Do you have anything else?” Baupin asked. “Have you counted security, or weapons?”
“As a matter of…”
The thin laser beam swept up from nowhere and a second after the red dot arrived in the center of Michel’s face he was dead, blasted back over his chair with the force of the sniper’s rifle. With the back of his skull blown out, Michel Perec smashed into the wooden decking and triggered a hysterical reaction among those enjoying a quiet coffee beside the glacier.
“Down!” Harry yelled, but Baupin was already hitting the deck.
“They must be further up the mountain,” the Frenchman said, ignoring the death of his old friend and mentor as his mind raced to find the assassins. As he spoke two more shots were fired, fracturing the safety glass of the balcony beside them.
“Over there,” Harry said, jutting his chin toward the west. Beyond the restaurant’s viewing platform a man in black was skiing away from them at speed, weaving his way artfully through the tourists on the Mer de Glace.
“After him!” Harry said. “No bastard’s shooting at me and getting away with it.”
“Wait…” Baupin searched Michel’s jacket and pulled out a SIG Sauer. He checked the magazine was full and stuffed it into his belt. “You cannot hunt without a weapon.”
Normally skiing the Vallée Blanche without a guide was a bad idea, but Harry had no option, and he knew Baupin probably had more knowledge of the glacier than most of the guides working here anyway. He sat down and fitted his ski boots, opening the clips and centering the tongue between the plastic cuffs.
Baupin also fastened the clips and Velcro straps on his right boot and then the same for the left, making them tight to avoid the blisters that were so easy to get when skiing on the slopes. Then they stood up and moved over to the snow where they clipped on their skis.