Chapter 6
Sawyer
By six in the morning, the northern sky had turned the color of bruised slate. A
dense wall of low-pressure clouds rolled over the Sawtooth crest, driven by
twenty-eight-knot sustained winds that rattled the metal siding of the vehicle
bay. Sawyer stood beside his Polaris Titan snowmobile, tightening the heavy
ratchet straps over the side-mounted ski rack that held his wide-waisted carbon
powder skis.
Caleb Vance walked down the line of machines, stopping beside Sawyer to inspect
the red avalanche beacon secured to Sawyer’s chest harness. Caleb clicked the
unit’s self-test button, checked the battery percentage readout, and looked
Sawyer directly in the eye.
"Declan runs this mission with full operational command," Caleb said, his voice
flat and authoritative over the rumble of the garage ventilation fans.
"Highway 75 is the only medical and supply corridor into the upper valley. If
that south bowl releases naturally while commuter traffic is on the pass, it
will bury vehicles under twenty feet of debris. You drop the charges where
Declan points, you keep fifty yards of spacing between the sleds, and you keep
your radio on tactical channel two."
"Understood, Captain," Sawyer said, snapping his helmet chin-strap shut.
Declan walked out of the explosives bunker carrying two heavy Cordura blast bags
packed with sixty pounds of cast Pentolite boosters and two reels of
non-electric shock tube. He threw one bag onto Sawyer’s rear cargo rack and
locked the secondary straps with heavy, deliberate pulls.
"We take the old logging road to the eight-thousand-foot saddle, then sidehill
across the north ridge to the blast points," Declan said, his dark eyes meeting
Sawyer’s through the open visor of his helmet. "The snow is light and
wind-scoured on the crest. Keep your throttle pinned and your weight on the
uphill running board. If you roll your sled down that gully, you will walk out
on snowshoes."
"Try to keep up, Ross," Sawyer replied with a sharp grin, dropping his tinted
dual-lens goggles over his eyes.
Declan pulled the manual recoil cord on his Titan with a single, massive yank.
The eight-hundred-cubic-centimeter two-stroke engine roared to life in a cloud
of blue exhaust. Sawyer fired his own machine, revved the throttle twice to
clear the fuel injectors, and followed Declan out into the sub-zero morning
gale.
The ascent up the mountain was brutal, high-speed work. Fresh powder had buried
the logging road in two feet of loose, unsupportive snow, forcing Sawyer to
stand high on the running boards, using his entire body mass to muscle the
four-hundred-pound snowmobile through thirty-degree switchbacks. Declan led the
line with aggressive, military precision, carving a deep trench through the
drifts while Sawyer matched his line fifty yards behind.
They broke out of the tree line onto the exposed knife-edge of Galena Ridge
twenty-five minutes later. The wind here was howling at thirty-five knots,
stripping the snow off the granite crest and sending white plumes flying out
into the void of the south bowl.
Sawyer killed the ignition, swinging his leg over the seat into the knee-deep
powder. Below them, three thousand feet down the sheer mountainside, the thin
black ribbon of Highway 75 wound through the canyon floor. Above the highway,
the massive hanging snow slab they had tested the previous day sat perched like
a loaded spring on top of the fragile depth hoar layer.
Declan stepped off his machine, unbuckling the blast bag from his cargo rack. He
unrolled a fifty-foot length of yellow safety rope and clipped a heavy locking
steel carabiner to Sawyer’s harness.
"Three blast points along the upper cornice," Declan called out over the
screaming gale. "We set two-pound charges with twenty-second delay fuses, toss
them onto the crown face, and trigger the slide before the main blizzard slams
this ridge."
Sawyer pulled his thick leather gloves tight and clipped into the line. "Let's
blow this mountain."