“Yes,” Franklin said with a wan smile. He swept an arm toward the sparking machines. “It deserved it.” He blinked, and the tear gummed on his lashes. “I deserve it.”

Evan raised the AK.

The single report echoed around the concrete.

Across the room a series of thuds announced the men’s landing on top of the elevator. From the sound of it, they had numbers. Evan had succeeded in drawing them here to the belly of the chalet.

He buttoned up the guard’s heavy coat. Kicked over a medical cart beneath one of the basement windows. Readied the slender remote in one hand, the Kalashnikov in the other.

He shot out the basement window, then hopped up on the cart and dove through the opening in the glass. As soon as he hit the snow, he clicked the remote, turning on the outdoor lights.

The chalet and grounds lit up like day.

A pair of approaching guards reeled back, clutching at their night-vision goggles, the sudden brightness scalding their retinas. The sniper on the northern slope behind his night-vision scope would likewise be blinded.

With the last of his bullets, Evan stitched a line of holes across the guards’ critical mass, spilling them forward into the snow.

As he tossed the weapon aside, swept up a set of night-vision goggles, and bolted for tree cover at the base of the southern slope, he ran his mental tally.

Two dogs, six guards, two snipers, David, and Dex.

Not a bad night’s work.

39. To the Brink

39

To the Brink

Snow flurried even under the canopy of pines. Evan worked a switchback beneath the trees of the southern slope, sticking to a furrow cut into the mountainside to keep his head low. He had a hitch in his step, and his ribs ached; all that fighting had taken a toll.

He didn’t know the south sniper’s position, so he paused again, snapping the night-vision goggles down over his eyes and peering across the crest. The NVGs cast everything in a green glow.

He swept his gaze up the hillside, caught a set of eyes glinting back at him.

He reeled away, banging against a boulder before realizing that the eyes belonged to a white-tailed deer. It stared dolefully at him across the night before bounding off with a twitch of its legs.

Evan crouched by the boulder, catching his breath and reaching back for the wilderness skills he’d learned as a young man. The three keys to survival: shelter, fire, water. He’d been taught how to pick a spot—high ground, cleared space—and to frame out a hut, shingling leaves over branches. But the current situation wouldn’t allow for that yet. There would be only sporadic rest stops until he was out of the valley and across the range.