Jesse grabbed a radio and hand mic out of the charger, then went to the locker room for his gear. He traded his blue parka for his red ski patrol parka with its yellow cross, then grabbed his skis, boots, and his helmet. Five minutes later, he and Ben were skiing to the locked facility where they kept the explosives. Kevin was already there, sitting pretty on the blue Sherpa, his skis in the rack. The snowmobile had been custom-built so that it could carry a team of four patrollers, together with gear, skis, and a patient on a litter.
“Did you bring coffee?” Kevin called out.
“There wasn’t any left,” Ben shouted.
“Fuck!”
Jesse stepped out of his skis and propped them against the building, then swiped his ID, opened the door, and flipped on the light. It took him and Ben all of five minutes to gather what they needed—a dozen charges, and double that number of fuses and pull-tab igniters. They packed the igniters and fuses separately from the charges and piled all of it onto the back of the Sherpa. Then they stowed their poles and skis in the rack and climbed aboard the snowmobile.
Jesse called up to Kevin. “We’re good to go.”
The Sherpa’s engine roared as they headed up the mountain.
* * *
Jesse watchedwhile Kevin studied the terrain. The man was an expert at knowing when to call a slope safe. It was one of the most important jobs at the resort. If he fucked up, people could die.
Jesse was learning to read the landscape, but it would take years before he’d have anything approaching Kevin’s skill. Still, some things were obvious even to him. That big cornice hanging from the cliff at the top of the ridge would have to be blasted into oblivion. That would dump more snow onto the slope below, which would have to be bombed, too.
Yeah, they had their work cut out for them.
Kevin pointed. “Let’s take down that cornice. Two charges—one high, one low.”
The goal was to trigger a series of small avalanches so that the shifting layers of snow would be settled before skiers hit the slopes.
Jesse prepared the charges. Not much bigger than cans of soup, each held two pounds of pentolite—a chalky mix of trinitrotoluene, aka TNT, and pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN. A single charge could easily blow the three of them to shit if mishandled.
Ben bent down to watch. “Did you work with pentolite as a Ranger?”
Jesse chuckled at the idea of Rangers throwing soup cans. “Uncle Sam had more powerful shit for us to play with.” He inserted the fuses, then attached the igniters. He held out one charge for Ben, kept the other for himself. “You ready?”
Ben nodded. “Let’s do this.”
They got into position, then synced their movements, igniting the fuses at the same time. They had 90 seconds to throw and take cover before the charges exploded.
Kevin watched from behind. “Jesse, you throw high. Ben, go low.”
“Got it. On three,” Jesse said. “One, two, three.”
He threw his charge, aiming for the top of the cornice. “Fire in the hole!”
They skied away, taking cover behind a large boulder, the seconds ticking by.
BAM!
A cloud of snow fell around them, bits of rock striking the boulder.
They skied out from behind their cover to find the cornice gone, its weight of snow scattered on the slope below them.
Kevin opened his mouth to say something but was cut off.
WHOOMP!
A deep rumble filled the air as the snow on the slope below them shifted.
Kevin grinned. “This slope is primed to slide.”
“So … more charges then?” asked Ben.