Jack Drummond - Avalanche

Avalanche
by
Jack Drummond

NOTHING CAN STOP IT Every year thousands flock to the exclusive ski resort of Hauts des Aigles to watch the Race du Diable the most exciting and dangerous
downhill race in the world. This year six champions will compete for the prize a rare diamond worth $12 million, donated by a mysterious Russian billionaire.
NO ONE CAN STAND IN ITS PATH But it is not only the six racers who will risk their lives in the coming days. Caught up in their own secret plots and passions,
visitors and townsfolk alike are oblivious to the silent killer waiting for them in the mountains. When the avalanche comes, only three things can save
them. Fate. Courage. And the will to live. WHO WILL SURVIVE?

sphere
First published as a paperback original
in Great Britain in 2007 by Sphere
Reprinted 2008
Copyright Jack Drummond 2007
The right of Jack Drummond to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All characters and events in this publication, other than
those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious
and any resemblance to real persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is published and
without a similar condition including this

condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-7515-3904-2

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Part One

'It begins with a single flake of snow Auguste Garamonde
(1886-1958)The snow came in the night. Silently, softly, like a thief
stealing the landscape. It began shortly before midnight
on the highest ridges of the Col des Aigles, the first few
flakes scurrying ahead of a light breeze. They were small
and light, these first flakes, and the breeze that followed
worried them like a great tornado, whipping them this
way and that, tumbling them along, never letting them
settle. If they found some purchase in a rocky crevice,
on a spiky blade of grass the breeze would seek them
out and send them spinning on their way.

Many miles behind the breeze, rolling in from the far
north-east, from a landlocked, freezing wilderness of birch
and tundra, came a wide bank of low black cloud. Under
cover of darkness it slipped over the peaks and plains of
Burgenland and Styria, then stole across the summit
slopes of the Engadine and Lepontine Alps, snuffing out
the stars as it passed and swallowing up a quarter moon.

By the time this mass of cloud finally reached the
Viallaise Alps and settled over the Col des Aigles, the earlier
breeze had raced on ahead and the snow the clouds carried
fell thick and straight and fat, a twirling ticker-tape of stars

At a little after two in the morning the snow reached
the highest lift-station on the western flanks of Mont
Vialle, and dressed its pitched, chalet-style roof in a quilted
circumflex of white. Soon the cables and pylons and
stationary gondolas that reached up to it, marking the
slopes like a line of music, slid out of sight, wiped off
the page by the advancing shawl of snow.

In Les Hauts des Aigles the snow came in across the
brown sedge meadows of the nursery slopes, the Pas des
Enfants, where the children learned to ski, sweeping over
the lounger-stacked deck of the Auberge des Hauts Aigles,
and banking up against its terrace doors. In minutes every
balustrade in town, every dustbin lid, parked car, window
ledge and roof was layered in white, every streetlight a
golden halo of falling snow.

So much of it, but not a sound. Not a whisper.

So final. So complete.

At the Centre des Pompiers Municipal, on the southern
edge of town near the airstrip, the road crews had started
arriving at a little after ten before the first flakes settled
on the high passes. They came from their homes with
suppers still warm in their bellies, and they parked their
44s in the lee of the building to avoid any drifts that
might build up in the hours to come. One by one, kitted
out in bulging fleece-lined jackets over zip-up gaberdine
work-suits, their boots clomping across the apron of
cement, they came to the sliding hangar doors at the front

of the station. Pulling off gloves to warm hands at the
braziers, they exchanged greetings with the usual, gruff
familiarity, just as theyd done on nine separate occasions
in the last two weeks.

Forty minutes after the call went out, every crew
member had assembled at the fire station. Sprawled out
on the broken-spring sofas that lined the walls of the
crews lounge, or standing round the braziers a couple
of steps outside the hangar doors if they fancied a
smoke, each of the men knew that tonight was the
night. They had lived in the mountains long enough
to smell it in the air, to taste its sweet metallic approach,
and not one of them had needed to hear the meteo that
evening to know that the snow the real snow was
on its way.

Other nights theyd turned up here at the fire station
because they had to, just in case...

Tonight, they all knew, was different.

The first big fall had come early in November and Les
Hauts had thrilled at the prospect of a long and profitable
winter season. But that first snow didnt last and an unseasonable
blue-sky spell of sun and higher-than-average
temperatures saw the snowfields melt back to the heights
like an ebb tide on a steep shore. By mid-December the
slopes were as bare as theyd been in October, and heads
were shaken in the bars and shops and hotels of Les Hauts.
And since then nothing but flurries, just a dusting of icy
grit that stung the eyes, reddened ears and bit at cheeks.
Nothing that settled, nothing that stayed more than an
hour or two.

It was Jules Dessin, the station chief, patrolling the
edges of the yard where the concrete turning circle
gave way to stiffened grass, who saw that first wave of

smile.
Here at last, he thought. Far later than previous years
but, by the looks of it, a heavier fall than forecast.
'Elle arrive] he called out to the waiting men, twenty
metres behind him, huddled around the braziers, smoking
cigarettes, sipping coffee and stamping their feet. lElle
arrive maintenant!
By the time Dessin reached the hangar, word had