Explosive Evidence (K-9 Avalanche Rescue #2)

Chapter One

“You’re sure this is the right one?” The man’s voice had a pinched quality. Each word produced a puff of frost in the frigid night air. A flashlight beam played across the expanse of tan stucco wall. “I don’t see any way in. Where’s the door?”

“We can’t use the door.” The second voice, male like the first, was a low growl.

“Cameras and alarms. We’ll go in around back.

” He led the way along the side of the building and around to the rear, stopping four feet from the corner.

The duffel bag he’d been carrying made a loud, clanking sound as he dumped it in the snow at their feet.

“Careful!” the first man whispered. “Somebody will hear.”

“Nobody will hear. They’re all at the New Year’s party.” He jerked his head toward the front of the building, where a bright glow lit the sky.

“Wish I was at a party.” The first man stomped his feet. “I’m freezing to death out here.”

“Stop whining and kill the light.”

The flashlight off, the two black-clad men became invisible in the inky darkness. Then a blueish glow emanated from two feet off the ground. The gruff-voiced man had switched on a headlamp, the beam a narrow beacon shining wherever he looked. He zipped open the duffel and removed a power tool.

“What is that?” the first man asked.

“Multi-tool fitted with a diamond blade. We’re going to make our own door.”

“Are you out of your mind? Everyone within a quarter mile will hear the noise.”

The gruff-voiced man checked his watch. “Not in a couple of minutes.” He pulled out a respirator and slipped it on, added safety goggles and earmuffs. “You might want to step back. The dust this makes is no joke.”

The first man opened his mouth to protest again, but just then a deafening BOOM! shook the air around them, followed by a chorus of Ahhs! and Ohhs! Almost immediately, what sounded like a full orchestra struck up a rousing march.

The gruff-voiced man started the saw and began cutting into the stucco and concrete of the back of the building.

The first man glanced overhead as a cascade of golden stars, red and green balls and other colorful fireworks bloomed against the night sky.

More explosions sent rockets into the air, followed by pinwheels and cascades of light.

Between the fireworks and the music, he almost couldn’t hear the whine of the saw.

Still, how long would this New Year’s Eve show last?

He shifted from foot to foot, as much out of nervousness as an attempt to stay warm.

“Don’t just stand there. Help me get rid of this stuff.” The gruff-voiced man handed up a chunk of concrete the size of a man’s head.

“What should I do with it?”

“There’s a dumpster on the side of the building. Chuck it in there.”

“Why not just leave it all here?”

“Because we don’t want anyone to notice the hole. Not until it’s too late.”

How anyone wasn’t going to notice a hole large enough for a person to climb through, the first man didn’t know, but his partner was already sawing again, making further conversation impossible.

He made six trips to the dumpster carrying heavy chunks of stucco and concrete before the second man had cut out an opening wide enough for him to squeeze through.

He handed the saw to the first man. “Get that back in the bag while I get what we need.” Not waiting for a reply, he crawled into the building.

The first man returned the saw to the bag, then waited.

The music and the fireworks ceased, though he could still hear voices and laughter from the revelers at the annual New Year’s Eve bash at SkyCrest Resort.

His friends were probably there, drinking beer and mulled cider and hot toddies, waiting for the torchlight parade down the mountain that always followed the fireworks display.

Last year, he had skied in that parade, carrying a flickering electric torch and wishing he hadn’t had that third hot toddy, afraid he was going to wipe out in front of everybody and make a fool of himself. But he had managed to stay upright.

“Here. Shove as much of this as you can into the bag.” The second man handed off two shoe-box-size parcels, and the first man wedged them into the duffel. The second man dragged out a second duffel, which sagged with a heavy weight.

“What’s in there?” the first man asked.

“Everything we need to show these people who this mountain really belongs to.”

The first man shouldered his duffel. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Just a sec.” The second man felt around in his pockets and pulled out a tube of adhesive.

He smeared this around the edges of the opening he had just cut.

Then he unrolled a scroll of what might have been wallpaper and smoothed it over the opening.

In the dim light, it blended in with the wall.

The second man straightened and stepped back, then scooped up a couple of handfuls of snow and tossed them around the bottom of the opening.

“Somebody walking by would never notice,” he said.

Then he shouldered his own duffel. “Let’s get out of here. ”

They raced off into the dark, not stopping until they reached the side street where they’d parked the car. They threw the duffels into the back seat, and the first man got behind the wheel.

He started the car and was about to back out when something cold touched his cheek. He tried to turn his head, and the cold turned to a sharp pain.

“Hold still,” the second man said. “Unless you want your face sliced open.”

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“Just making a point.” He chuckled. “Just remember what we talked about. A word of this to anyone, and your life will get really difficult. What’s left of it.” He withdrew the blade. “Now get us out of here.”

“Why did I ever in my life think this would be a good idea?” Connor Donaldson groused to no one as he trudged from his truck to the munitions magazine on the far edge of SkyCrest Resort.

He pulled a sled behind him, the kind used to transport supplies around the ski resort, cutting a path across the expanse of empty parking lot.

The small, square concrete building sat by itself at the far edge of the lot.

“This is no way to start a new year,” Connor said out loud to no one but himself. He had made it to bed about 1:00 a.m., after the New Year’s Eve fireworks and torchlight parade, and he was feeling every bit of that lost sleep, not to mention the several beers he had enjoyed with friends.

At 5:30 in the morning, New Year’s Day, the resort was dark and silent, only the amber glow of the security lights rimming the parking lot illuminating his path.

Holiday decorations—crossed wooden skis trimmed with red velvet bows and greenery—decorated each light pole, but Connor noticed someone had draped a homemade banner over one of the poles.

Save Blaine Mountain! was lettered in blue paint across the banner.

Security would have that down before the resort opened in a couple of hours—not that there weren’t plenty of similar banners and posters all around town.

While many people were excited about SkyCrest’s proposed expansion into new terrain, the opposition was doing a good job of making themselves heard.

Connor had mixed feelings about the plans for new lifts, runs and condos, but it wasn’t his decision to make. He only hoped the addition of new terrain would mean hiring more patrollers to help with the increased workload.

A bark from the darkness to his right distracted Connor from his personal pity party. “Farley!” he shouted and switched on a flashlight, sweeping the beam across the snow until he spotted the dog.

The goldendoodle in the red ski patrol vest had his front paws on a low wall that separated the parking lot from the street, his attention focused on movement by the dumpster.

Connor took a few steps toward his dog. A furry face with triangular ears and a pointed snout peered over the top of the half-open dumpster, then the fox bounded away.

“Farley!” Connor called again. “Come!”

The dog whirled around and raced across the parking lot to join Connor, puffs of snow flying up around his paws.

“Quit messing around,” Connor said. “We’ve got work to do.”

He trudged the rest of the way to the munitions storage, Farley scampering in front of him, unfazed by the man’s grumpiness.

Connor took out his keys and unlocked the double locks, then shoved open the heavy steel door.

He flicked on the overhead light, then moved directly to the boxes of explosives stacked along the wall to his left.

Each box contained two dozen cast boosters—two-pound cylinders loaded with Pentex explosive that had the destructive capacity of several sticks of dynamite.

Connor took his time loading the sled, handling each box carefully. Even sleep-deprived and slightly hungover, the training that had been drilled into him in the United States Army didn’t desert him.

He added boxes of detonator assemblies, then logged what he had taken from stock on a clipboard by the door.

Every log entry for the past three seasons was accompanied by his initials.

He was the munitions man at SkyCrest Resort, though the job carried no particular cachet.

He was merely the man most likely to be blown to pieces if there was ever an accident.

Not that there would be. But the possibility was there, adding spice to the morning.

He snapped a fitted tarp over the load, then turned to look for his dog. “Farley?”

A bark emanated from somewhere behind a stack of boxes, deep in the interior of the storage building.

“What are you doing back there?” Connor called, annoyed. “Come!”

The dog stuck his head around the tower of boxes and whined.

“Come!” Connor ordered, with more force.

The dog came, head down. He nudged at Connor’s leg and whined again, plaintive and urgent.

“We don’t have time for games,” Connor said. He moved toward the door.