“Ninety seconds.”

Dryer led the way, wearing special night-vision-style goggles. Eight days before, he had marked some of these same trees with a special paint that upon contact with air, oxidized and became invisible to the human eye. The goggles now allowed Dryer to pick up the paint’s unique chemical signature and follow the escape route he had marked through the maze of trees.

Finally, the flat ground grew steeper and they picked up more speed. Klaus knew they would be out of the woods in only a few more seconds.

Miner had taught his men that the plan depended on absolutely perfect timing. If the toboggan flipped over, or one of them stumbled, all would be lost. There was no margin for error.

“Thirty seconds.”

The team, now out of the trees, rapidly cut a diagonal path across the dangerously steep mountain face.

Gravity and the toboggan’s smooth round bottom began causing it to slide downhill, instead of across the face. Schebel, an experienced sled-dog driver, put his weight on the up-mountain side of the toboggan to help it stay on course.

Snow and ice screamed from the back of the rig as it dug into the mountain and fought against the unnatural course it was being forced to take. If Schebel lost it now, both he and the president would be hurled into the valley.

The toboggan continued to edge out of Schebel’s control. He leaned harder into the yoke and tried to right the toboggan’s course. He cursed Dryer for not computing the grade of the mountain better and Miner for not outfitting the toboggan with a sharp set of runners like a bobsled.

Schebel was the biggest and strongest of the group, and that’s why he had been chosen to pull the toboggan. It looked as if he wasn’t strong enough, though. Everything they had trained for and risked was going to be lost.

Schebel tried again to put all of his weight on his uphill ski. The result was disastrous. The toboggan careened wildly out of control so that it faced straight down the mountain. It began to pull Schebel backward. He cursed again, sure he was going to be killed. Schebel and the president slid rapidly down the mountain instead of across it.

In a last-ditch attempt to get control of the sled, Schebel threw all of his considerable bulk onto his opposite ski. For what felt like an eternity, nothing happened. The toboggan pitched hard, as if it was going to flip over and carry Schebel with it. Then, a miracle occurred.

As the toboggan was close to capsizing, its upper seam caught in the frozen snow and acted like the edge of a ski, putting it and Schebel back on course. He was downhill from the rest of the team, but he saw Dryer change direction and make his way down toward an outcropping of rock. As long as the toboggan cooperated and stayed on this new course, Schebel would be okay.

While Miner resumed the final seconds of his countdown, Dryer saw two enormous boulders looming in front of them. The boulders, which looked impassable from this distance, marked the head of a small, incredibly steep and dangerous chute.

Compared to this one, Death Chute was child’s play, but for six of the world’s top mercenaries who had spent their entire lives challenging the world’s most unforgiving mountains, it would not pose a problem.

When Dryer was within meters of the small passageway, Miner reached for something strapped to his chest. It was a small black transmitter with a strip of red electrical tape wrapped around its rubber antenna. When Miner had a hold of it, he depressed its only button.

A sound like the crack of a rifle, followed by the roar of a thunderhead, reverberated from far above them as they began their arduous descent.

The icy snow whipped against the Secret Service’s mobile command center, and every agent inside was looking directly at their chief of operations, Tom Hollenbeck.

“We have had no visual or radio contact with either protective detail going on nine minutes. Visibility is also severely impaired. I am upgrading the current situation to Hostile 2 until further notice. I want the president’s residence locked down and all duty agents that are raisable to report in. The perimeter is to be locked and lit. I want the backup tactical units on deck and ready to deploy. The rest of you know your jobs, so let’s move.”

Hollenbeck finished issuing orders and then turned his attention to the window as he tried to peer through the sea of snow. A group of counterassault agents waited outside for their orders, which they knew would be next to come.

For some reason, the radios within a hundred yards of the command center still worked, so Hollenbeck didn’t need to go outside to address the waiting agents. “I want both Hat Trick’s and Goldilocks’s intercept teams to mobilize immediately. You are to assess the situation and report back in person ASAP to Birdhouse unless radio contact can be reestablished. Until then, you are to assume that we are operating dark under a hostile scenario. Your objective is to compile a sit rep and get it to me as quickly as possible. This is not an escort service. I repeat, not an escort service. As soon as you know anything, I want you back here. Don’t waste any time. Any questions?” asked Hollenbeck sternly.

“Negative. Teams One and Two, understood. Out,” came the response from the intercept leader outside the command center. Within seconds, the two four-man teams of Secret Service agents clad in insulated Nomex jumpsuits and medium-weight body armor had their Polaris snowmobiles fired up and were heading to intercept their respective “packages.”

“Can we get anything aloft in this?” asked Hollenbeck of one of his operational assistants.

“From here, no. It looks as if things are supposed to be getting worse. We’ve got the president’s Marine Corps White Top at the bottom of the hill, but even as good as those pilots are, this weather is impossible and their helicopters aren’t made for it. The best we could do is scramble a Black Hawk from Hill Air Force Base.”

“How long would it take?”

“Ten minutes to get it up and twenty to thirty more to get on site, but there isn’t much they can do searchwise with the visibility cut down to less than nothing.”

“Call Hill and have them put one on standby. I want those rotors spinning until I say otherwise.”

The operational assistant turned away from Hollenbeck and patched through on the com link to Hill Air Force Base to order up the bird.

“Longo,” barked Hollenbeck, growing tenser by the moment, “are we green yet on those Motorolas?”

“We are still no go. Situation dark on all communications.”

“Palmer?”

“Sorry, sir. Still nothing on the Smocks either.”

Just when Agent Hollenbeck thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, he heard the resort’s avalanche sirens begin their low, mournful wail.