Chapter 43 - The Snows of Saint-Gothard
The cold hit us like a physical blow.
We emerged from the exhaust grating onto a narrow maintenance ledge hanging three thousand feet above the Saint-Gothard valley. A blinding alpine blizzard whipped through the gorge, the roar of the wind drowning out the groans of the collapsing sanitarium behind us.
"Over there!" Clara pointed through the swirling whiteout.
Two hundred yards down the ridge, near the abandoned funicular platform, the twin turbine engines of an AgustaWestland AW109 helicopter were already spinning up. The aircraft was painted in matte black, unmarked, equipped with high-altitude skids.
And standing near the cabin door, holding a pressurized snow-mask to his bleeding face, was Walter Sterling.
He hadn't died in the blast chute. The collapse had merely redirected him through a secondary maintenance pipe, though he had paid a heavy price; his left arm hung limp, and his gray overcoat was ripped and blackened with soot.
Two armed security contractors in white winter camouflage flanked him, automatic weapons raised against the storm.
"He's taking the extraction bird!" Frank shouted, bringing his rifle to his shoulder. "If he leaves alpine airspace, we'll never trace the Consortium's operational headquarters!"
"He isn't leaving," I said, pulling my sidearm. "Frank, cover Clara and Sarah behind the rock outcropping. I’m ending this now."
"Arthur, no! You're exposed!" Clara yelled.
I didn't stop. I walked out into the clearing, the snow crunching beneath my boots. Thirty years of hiding in the shadows, thirty years of playing the broken, penniless father to protect my family from these vultures—it all ended on this ridge.
One of the mercenaries spotted me and raised his Heckler & Koch MP5.
Before he could pull the trigger, Frank’s rifle barked twice from the rocks. The mercenary dropped instantly into the snow. The second guard turned to fire, but I leveled my SIG Sauer and squeezed the trigger. The round punched through his shoulder, spinning him off his feet and over the icy embankment into the abyss.
Sterling froze, his hand grasping the helicopter’s boarding handle. He turned slowly, staring at me through the blizzard as I approached, the gun leveled squarely at his chest.
"Arthur..." Sterling gasped, his voice cracked with pain and terror. "Be reasonable. The 1994 Covenant is dead. The world has changed. If you kill me, the Consortium will activate the sleeper protocols against your daughter before your plane even reaches New York!"
"The Consortium didn't build the League, Walter," I said, stopping five paces away. "I did. And what I build, I can dismantle."
"You don't have the codes!" he screamed, spitting blood onto the white snow. "The cylinder is locked! It requires a three-tier biometric sequence! You can't read the ledger without me!"
"I don't need to read it," I whispered. "I wrote it."
I aimed the pistol at the helicopter’s rear rotor housing and emptied the remaining four rounds into the delicate hydraulic pitch-control linkage. High-pressure fluid sprayed into the snow, followed by a sickening metallic grinding sound. The pilot frantically cut the throttle as warning alarms blared inside the cockpit, killing the engines before the tail tore itself apart.
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Sterling fell to his knees in the deep snow, staring at the ruined aircraft, then up at me.
"You're stranded on this mountain, Walter," I said coldly. "And the Swiss Federal Police are already ascending the funicular line."
