Then the detail heard what sounded like the crack of a rifle, followed by the low rumble of a thunderhead. Scot had been around mountains too long not to recognize that sound.

Avalanche.

Despite his formfitting winter assault fatigues lined with a revolutionary new weatherproof thermal composite, Hassan Useff lay in his coffin of snow and shivered. He had been one of the toughest kids growing up in his balmy, south Lebanon village and was now one of the Middle East’s finest snipers, but the cold and being buried alive beneath two feet of snow were beginning to get to him. When the hideous repetition of his own raspy breathing was finally interrupted by two squelch clicks over his earpiece, the fear and cold immediately disappeared, replaced by a rush of adrenaline surging through his stiff body.

Useff tensed and released his muscles several times to relieve some of the stiffness in his joints. Cradling the high-tech glare gun in his gloved hands, he heard an almost imperceptible whine as he powered the weapon up.

Two more clicks over the earpiece and he readied himself to spring from his snowy grave.

Buried completely from view in several more snowy crypts nearby, Gerhard Miner and five more of his “Lions” were about to undertake the most daring mission of their lives.

”Son of a bitch,” cursed Sam Harper to himself as his ski clipped the edge of another rock. He loved skiing, but hated having to follow the president down Death Chute. He had fallen a little bit behind and was glad that several of the younger guys on the detail were able to keep up with the commander in chief.

The biggest consolation of all was that Ahern and Houchins were behind him. At least he wouldn’t be the last one to ski up when the party rested in the flat area among the trees before tackling the final vertical drop.

When Harper reached the beginning of the trees, everything began to happen in what, had he survived, he would have described as a split-second flash.

Three final squelch clicks came over Hassan Useff’s earpiece, signaling that the last members of the president’s Secret Service detail were entering the heavily treed area. Springing from his icy hideaway, Useff began pulsing his glare gun as his fellow team member, Klaus Dryer, did the same twenty meters away.

The results were exactly as planned. Even with their UV-protective ski goggles, the entire protective detail, as well as the president, was dazzled.

The glare guns were Russian copies of the nonlethal weapon developed by the American Air Force’s Phillips Laboratory. First brought into action in Somalia in 1995, the purpose of the high-tech laser weapon was to temporarily blind and disorient an enemy.

Temporarily was all Miner’s team needed.

Useff and Dryer’s cross-pulsing in the narrow alley formed by the trees created a blinding laser funnel that the president’s team couldn’t escape. This included the members of the Secret Service countersniper unit, known as JAR, or Just Another Rifle, who were posted strategically throughout the trees along this leg of the president’s run.

Completely blinded and disoriented, several agents lost their balance and wiped out before they even had a chance to come to a complete stop. Those agents who had already been in the process of slowing down and could stop, instinctively drew their weapons, but they had one major problem. They couldn’t see a thing.

Not knowing where their fellow agents were or, more important, where the president was, every single agent, weapon drawn or not, had been rendered not only totally useless, but helpless as well.

Useff gave the go command over his lip mike as he shouldered the glare gun and switched off the safety of his silenced German-manufactured Heckler amp; Koch MP5 submachine gun. The pleasure of being able to freely kill so many agents of the Great Satan was almost unbearable. He had already shot two Secret Service agents before the rest of the team had fully sprung from their hiding places.

As the Lions’ silenced machine gun rounds drummed into the bodies of the defenseless Secret Service agents, Miner made his way toward where the president had fallen.

“Harp, Harp,” mumbled the president from where he lay in the snow, still blind and disoriented but alert enough to call out for the head of his protective detail as he tried to raise himself into a seated position.

Miner dropped to his knees next to him and removed the president’s gloves and jacket. As he helped him sit up, he placed a copy of USA Today on his chest, pulling the president’s hands in so he could feel it. Instinctively, the president grabbed hold of it. Miner shot several quick Polaroids and slipped the slowly developing pictures into his pocket. Then he took the paper away and, with a pair of trauma scissors, began to cut through the left sleeves of the president’s sweater and turtleneck.

“Toboggan! Where is that toboggan?” Miner yelled.

“Harper? What’s happening?” repeated the president.

“There’s been an accident, Mr. President,” responded Miner in perfectly American accented English. “You need to lie back now and remain still, while we start an IV.”

“Who are you? Where’s Harper? What’s happened to my eyes? I can’t see.”

“Please, Mr. President. You need to be completely quiet and completely still. My team is attending to the others. There you go. Let’s just lie back. Good.” Miner knew the effects of the glare gun would be wearing off soon. From his pack, he withdrew an insulated medical pouch, unzipped it, pulled out a bag of saline solution, and began an IV on the president, who continued to call for members of his protective detail and complain about his eyes.

Once the IV was in place, Miner filled a syringe with a strong sedative called Versed and piggybacked it into the IV line. The effect was almost instantaneous. The president’s eyes rolled back, closed, and his body went limp.

As one of Miner’s men rushed past, towing an all-white ski-patrol-style transport toboggan, Dryer made his way over to Hassan Useff.

Without even turning, Useff began speaking, knowing Dryer was behind him. “This is Sam Harper, head of the president’s protective detail, is it not?”

Though Harper was badly injured from his fall and couldn’t see who was standing above him speaking, he knew the Middle Eastern accent didn’t belong to anyone on his team. “Yeah, I’m Sam Harper, and whoever you are, you are in a lot of trouble. Give yourself up.”

“Typical American arrogance. Even in the face of death,” said Useff.

“Fuck you,” snarled Harper as he attempted to draw his weapon.

“Once again, typical. Is nothing original in this country?” asked Useff as he squeezed off a three-round burst into the career Secret Service agent and father of two’s head.

Ever since Dryer had recruited Useff for this assignment, he had marveled at the man’s hatred for the United States. That hate, coupled with the Lebanese man’s intense religious fervor, made him perfect for this job. Hassan Useff was the only non-Swiss on the team.

As he began walking away, Useff said, “Protecting the president, he should have been the best. A pity he won’t be remembered that way. The pathetic coward never even fired a shot.”

When Useff had his back completely turned, Dryer withdrew an empty Evian bottle from the pack he was carrying and picked up Harper’s SIG-Sauer P229. “I think the Americans might beg to differ,” were the last words Hassan Useff heard before the.357 bullet, effectively muffled by being shot through the plastic bottle, ripped through the back of his skull, killing him instantly.

Dryer placed the SIG-Sauer in Harper’s dead hand. He then withdrew a model 68 Skorpion machine pistol with a silencer and fired indiscriminately into the bodies of the dead Secret Service agents lying around him. He blew through two more twenty-round magazines before placing the Skorpion on the ground next to Useff and shouldering the dead Muslim’s glare gun and H amp;K.