Detonator by Andy McNab Read Free Book Online Page B

me of his dad. No, he wasn’t kidding.
    I carried my bloodstained T-shirt and his Brindisi strip ten metres in from the track, scraped back some loose earth and leaf litter behind a tree and buried it. Being caught with Frank’s son would compromise me big-time. Having the dead man’s blood on my clothing and his would be even more difficult to explain.

8
     
    We made it to the outskirts of Courchevel 1850 an hour or so before last light. The ATV had done what it said on the cowling; I’d managed to go the whole way without spending any more time on tarmac than we had to.
    I pulled up beneath an empty chairlift on the high ground. We were still sheltered by trees, but had a clear view of the layout of the resort. Hotels and apartment blocks rubbed shoulders with cable-car stations and overpriced restaurants.
    Further up the valley, the dying rays of the sun glinted off the canopy of a Bell Jetranger coming in to land at the Altiport, the airfield of choice for the super-rich that popped out there for the weekend. Snow still dusted the peaks that dominated the skyline behind it.
    I’d seen Frank’s place before. But from the front, not the back. I asked Stefan to ID it and he pointed at the middle building in a row of massive fairy-tale chalets with gently sloping roofs and wide eaves a few hundred metres to our left.
    I could see that he was straining to get in there, like a puppy on a lead. I steadied him with a hand on the shoulder. ‘Mate, we can’t rush this. Whoever fucked up your dad on the mountain might be paying it a visit …’
    I swept the binos across the rear of the property. Massive picture windows on the top floor reflected knock-out views of the upper slopes. Most of the shutters on those below were closed, either against the sunlight or because nobody was home.
    A party-size Jacuzzi took pride of place in a walled terrace that separated the back door from the granite hillside. The whole set-up had been built to repel boarders, but you could obviously ski straight in there during the winter, through a steel security gate set into an archway.
    I couldn’t see any sign of movement, inside or out.
    I’d definitely been to this three-storey slice of paradise, though I still couldn’t remember exactly when. Whatever, poor people obviously weren’t allowed in this part of town: we were looking at Oligarch Central.
    Before hitting Frank’s place, I had to hide my day sack. If everything went to rat-shit in there I needed to have travel docs and cash securely in a place I could get back to. I tucked it behind the bright orange padding that surrounded the base of the nearest chairlift pylon, then parked the ATV behind the one fifty metres below. It wasn’t completely out of sight, but you’d have to be right on top of the thing before you pinged it.
    I swung Stefan off the saddle. ‘How’s that ankle? Do you think you can walk?’
    He nodded, and gave me the gritty, determined look I’d seen on the hillside. But after a couple of paces I knew it still wasn’t working. I picked him up and carried him back to our original vantage-point. He started to shiver. The temperature was dropping now. I hadn’t noticed.
    I sat him down beside me and brought up the binos again. Nothing had changed. No big lads had emerged to enjoy an early-evening vodka on the balcony. I checked out the various approaches to the rear entrance for concealment and ease of access. A four-metre-wide alleyway separated it from the palaces on either side. They seemed to be empty too.
    I wondered about leaping from the slope on to the top of the wall, but binned the idea almost immediately. A keypad was set into the stonework beside the security gate, with a camera above it. Two more cameras were mounted at each end of the rear elevation. Short of shooting them off the walls, all I could do was hope that if anyone unfriendly was inside they weren’t watching the monitors.
    I turned to Stefan. He was following my every move, eyes like