Escape Out of Darkness (Maggie Bennett 1)

“No. But they wouldn’t have to be out and about. I heard a helicopter earlier—maybe it was the guards leaving.”

“Maybe. I wish I could trust Van Zandt to get rid of them.”

Mack grunted. The brisk mountain wind was blowing his hair against his high, lined forehead, and his eyes were narrowed against the bright glare of sunshine. Somewhere along the way he’d lost his mirrored sunglasses and never bothered to replace them, and his eyes and his expression could no longer be hidden from her. She almost wished she could have sought the security of not knowing Mack’s doubts equaled her own. “The one thing I trust about Van Zandt is that he really wants Mersot dead. And we’re not going to be able to kill him if he’s surrounded by guards. He’ll have gotten rid of them. It’s up to us to make sure they don’t come back before we’re out of there.”

“Are we really going to kill a stranger, Mack? He’s never done us any harm. …”

“I don’t know,” he said grimly. “Maybe we can reason with him. But if worse comes to worst, we’re going to have to remember he’s behind an obscene amount of the drug deals in the Western world. You might be lucky enough never to have seen someone strung out on heroin. You might have even missed what coke can do to people. I’ve seen far too much of it. Any man who gets obscenely rich trafficking in other people’s pain and despair and death deserves what h

e gets.”

“At your hands?” She couldn’t keep from asking.

The look he gave her was one of exasperation. “No, damn it. Not if I think about it. The whole trick to this, Maggie, is not to think about it. Not to meditate on what we’re supposed to do—just go in and do it. If it’s my life or his, the choice will be easy. I’m just hoping it’ll be that clear.”

It was a deceptively long distance, down across the remote Alpine meadow to the chalet, which seemed to grow larger and larger as they got closer. The barriers were more numerous—barbed wire, no trespassing signs in six languages, locked gates and electrified fences. They ignored them all, keeping at a slow, steady pace.

They skirted the long, winding drive that led into an underground garage, keeping well out of sight of the windows. The security devices were as sophisticated as any Maggie had ever seen: heat and light sensors, microscopic trip wires, probably guards on the lookout from the charming gabled windows. But no one appeared from the depths of the chalet. Everything remained still and silent and deserted.

They reached the north face of the chalet without incidence. According to Van Zandt’s instruction, it was the easiest side to penetrate. French doors led onto a terrace that no one used because of the sharp winds. It wouldn’t be locked. Once inside, they were on their own.

Maggie stared at the door, the empty panes of glass winking in the sunlight. She was about to reach for the handle when Mack pulled her hand back.

“I think it’s wired,” he whispered, his raw voice only a breath of sound in the wind. “Don’t touch it. We’ll look for another way in.”

She nodded, moving back toward the edge of the terrace, when the sound of the dogs stopped her for a moment. She had a healthy respect for attack dogs, and the gun wouldn’t hold off a truly determined pack.

“They’re chained up, Maggie,” Mack said, reading her hesitation almost before she felt it. “Let’s keep on.”

She looked at him. They were almost the same height, his warm hazel eyes on a level with hers. A thousand things ran through her mind, a thousand things she wanted to tell him before it was too late.

But time was already up. They stood there, motionless, as the French door opened into the blinding sunlight. A small, grandfatherly man stood there, with carefully combed strands of white hair plastered to a pink skull, luxurious waxed mustaches adorning his face, dark, cheerful eyes, and a beaming smile greeting them.

“How delightful to have such visitors,” he said affably, his accent only faint. “I was expecting Van Zandt. But you’re equally welcome. Won’t you come in, Mlle. Bennett and M. Pulaski?” And he waved them toward the door with the machine gun that sat far too comfortably in his patrician hands.

twenty-two

“You can drop your guns on the table to your right,” Mersot continued as he followed them into the cool, dim interior of the chalet. “And I would suggest you do it carefully. I’m an old man, and unused to modern weapons such as the one I’m holding. I would hate to make a mistake.”

Maggie placed the small, efficient gun Willis had brought her on the little table by the door, moving away as Mack followed suit. Her mind was working feverishly, her eyes darting around the shadowed hallway, looking for something, anything, that might help them.

“I’m quite alone, Mlle. Bennett,” Mersot said. “But I’m afraid that’s going to work to your disadvantage. Since I feel unable to watch you both while I wait for my men to return, I’m going to have to … er … incapacitate you for the duration.”

“Like hell …” Mack grated, and the machine gun swept around to aim directly at his groin.

“Don’t be a hero, M. Pulaski. My friend Van Zandt has been surprisingly efficient in disposing of my men. I have no choice but to be as efficient while I wait for them to bring him back.”

“Van Zandt?” Maggie queried innocently.

“Don’t waste your energy, mademoiselle. The man is very brilliant in his own way, but he underestimated me quite badly. I’ve had reports on your sojourn during the last two weeks. I knew the moment you reached Switzerland. I know more about you than your own mother, and I know you were innocent enough to think you had a chance of killing me. I hope you’re beginning to realize how foolish that notion was.”

“Foolish indeed,” Mack murmured. “So what are you going to do with us?”

“That remains to be seen. If you can come up with any reason why I might spare your lives, any way you might be useful to me, then I’ll let you live. I’m not a bloodthirsty man, my friends. Just tidy. But if, as I suspect, your continued existence on this planet is only a liability to me, then I’m afraid my men will have to dispose of you. We have marvelous glaciers up here, and crevasses where a body could be frozen till the millennium. In the meantime, if you would be so kind as to follow me?”

“Where are we going?” Maggie asked with matching courtesy.

“I’m going to lock you in my wine cellar, Mlle. Bennett. It’s windowless, and very dark indeed. I don’t imagine I’ll even need to bother tying you up, given your little problem with the dark.”