Up from the Avalanche

Six strangers queued up in the ski line at the top of Bluegrass Mountain, each waiting anxiously to take their turns conquering the challenging, steep slope and carving their names into alpine history.

Carl Jensen led off. He had graduated at the top of his MIT engineering class but found himself unable to climb beyond

the first rung of the executive ladder.

Waiting behind him, Jan Smithson, an internationally-renowned artist whose work populated the mansions and museums the world over, but who had suffered through three violent and unsatisfying marriages.

Anxiously shifting from one foot to another, Carey Tomlinson, the second most successful Formula One race car driver in the world. The sport’s top trophy had slipped from her grasp in a number of close calls, all at the hands of seemingly less talented male competitors.

Scanning the faces of his fellow skiers, the fourth in line, Harry Blanchard, a jewel thief who had scored some of the most valuable gems on the planet and had successfully eluded capture. He now had in his hotel room safe the McCarthy emerald, the most valuable piece on the market. The gem’s notoriety made it nearly impossible to dispose of it without winding up with a multi-year sentence in the state pen.

Taking his first shot at skiing, Alpine, New Hampshire patrolman Philip Daniels. Daniels had the instincts necessary to crack the most difficult cases, but his drinking problems and lack of drive had kept him parked in the traffic enforcement division for most of his 15-year career.

Last in line, but perhaps the most dangerous, Ali Basheerd, a former Israeli fighter pilot and munitions expert looking to sell his talents to the highest bidding terrorist organization.

Each of the six felt an easy glide down the slope would help provide the answers they sought.

They didn’t count on the blizzard that suddenly swept into the area as they reached the bottom of the slope, leaving them stranded with no way to get back up to the summit.

Then, as Jensen pushed his way through the four-foot drifts, he ploughed his way directly into the door of an abandoned hunting lodge. He helped each of his companions into the small but adequate front room.

Once they seated themselves around the large table in the center of the room, Tomlinson took the lead in speaking out:

“Before we do anything else we should find a way to keep this room warm,” she said. “I think some of us should look for dry firewood right outside the cabin. I volunteer to lead that party.”

Jensen raised his hand, as did Daniels and Basheerd.

Smithson and Blanchard said they would look around for matches to start a fire in the fireplace, and possibly some food.

The hunt for firewood took about an hour as the searchers moved mounds of heavy snow out of the way.

As they manually plowed around the forest, Tomlinson, Jensen and Daniels noticed that Basheerd spent more time watching them than looking for fuel. When he turned his back for an instant they signalled each other to cautiously keep an eye on him.

Eventually, they gathered about a dozen logs and branches and headed back to the cabin.

In their absence, Smithson and Blanchard had found some matches, a dusty bottle of whiskey and about a week’s worth of food some hunters had left behind.

The group sat near the fireplace and, as the room warmed up, they passed around the bottle of alcohol and the food. As the liquor began to take effect, the tongues of the cabin mates began to loosen.

Jensen complained about the no-talent business school dropouts blocking his way to the C-suite, while Smithson said how much her art had suffered because of the boorish low-lifes with whom she had wasted her life and Tomlinson attacked the male-dominated world revolving around the racing circuit.

Daniels passed when it came his turn at the whiskey bottle.

“That stuff has caused my life to go down the sewer so far,” he said. “I could have become the lead detective or chief of my small town police department if I didn’t fall victim to the bottle. Not to lecture, but the bad turns in your lives will get much worse if you sell your soul to booze. I learned that lesson the hard way.”

Unlike the others, Blanchard and Basheerd held their comments much closer to their vests.

Blanchard said he had spent his life in the jewelry trade, but would not open up about his profession much beyond that.

Basheerd angrily cried, “My life has been no picnic, but none of you seated here can help me. Keep your noses out of my business or I will show you the meaning of real suffering.”

The others looked around, surprised that someone struggling to find a way out of the wilderness would have such a negative attitude towards those he might have to depend on for his own survival.

Despite their apparently very different outlooks on life the two most secretive party members began to establish a bond. Basheerd and Blanchard left the inner circle and went off to a darkened corner where they began a very animated discussion.

“I sense in you someone who wants to bargain if he just finds the market in which to bargain,” the jewel thief said. “So happens I can get my hands on a piece of merchandise that will purchase a better life for me and an excellent bargaining chip for you once we get out of this hell hole.”

He revealed that he had stolen and hidden the world’s most valuable gem and was looking for a place on which to unload it without drawing attention to himself from the authorities.

“You have guessed correctly,” Basheerd replied. “I am trying to help finance an underground operation to topple forces that are destroying a major player in the Middle East. The merchandise of which you speak might help me purchase the cooperation of revolutionaries willing to sacrifice for my cause.”

They began to map out their escape from the cabin and their route to reaching the brass ring.

Meanwhile, Basheerd’s strange behavior during the search for the firewood and his secretive meetings with Blanchard began to awaken Daniels’ long-dormant detective instincts.

The patrolman resolved to work his way into their confidence so he could claw his way into a share of their booty.

“You and Basheerd seem smarter than the rest of this crew. “ Daniels said to Blanchard. “I think my background as a detective could come in handy for you. The three of us working together can survive. Not sure the others have the smarts to do so. In any event, once we find a way out, I suppose we can send someone back for the others if we figure it’s worth the risk and the effort.”

“”What can you offer us besides your bragging about your police credentials? How do we know you will not turn us in?”, the thief asked.

“I have contacts inside the department who can help us out confidentially without blowing our cover. I owe the police nothing. The organization refused to recognize my talents. They kept my career on hold. I would like nothing better than to pay them back.”

“If such an alliance exists I will have to bounce the idea of letting you in off my partner,” Blanchard said. “We don’t have much time because the fire soon will die and the food will run out. I’ll get back to you soon. If you say anything to the others you will not survive the night.”

Basheerd, who trusted few people, agreed to let in the new member of their trio, but said he would keep an eagle eye on every move the cop made.

Turns out Daniels’ police career had taken a few turns other than his bout with alcohol abuse. He and one other detective had gone on a special assignment to bust a major narcotics trafficking operation. They decided not to report some of the proceeds from a drug sale and kept the profits for themselves.

Daniels used a smartphone he had secretly stashed in his backpack to contact his fellow drug pusher. The snowstorm in the area played havoc with the spotty rural Wi-Fi, but they finally reached the second crooked cop. He agrees to get the trio out of the cabin, but demanded a cut of the profits from the sale of Blanchard’s gem. Fearing for their lives but in little position to bargain, the three men agreed to split the profits with the friend. One catch, he lived 50 miles away and it would take an hour to get to the cabin. Could they hold out?

In another section of the cabin Jensen, Smithson and Tomlinson worked out their own plan of escape. The engineer had carried his I-phone with him, but the other two had left theirs behind in the ski lodge because they wanted to vacation away from the constant annoyances of modern tech. The I-phone proved practically useless in its current condition because the snow falling from the cabin roof had damaged it.

After fiddling with the device for nearly an hour, applying every bit of engineering knowhow he had, Jensen did get the phone back in operating order. Since they had not heard from the other three skiers for some time they decided to summon help and search for the second trio once they reached safety.

Of course, the aspiring terrorist, the jewel thief and the disgruntled cop thought for sure they’d escape first. After all, money talks, and Blanchard hoped to get his hands on a sum that would shout the loudest to Daniels’ police buddy. If the friend did not cooperate then Basheerd stood ready to persuade him with threats of injury or even death.

The other three also had some advantages on their side. Jensen had the technical background to coordinate their escape from the snow-encrusted cabin. Also, Tomlinson had an analytical mind that had mapped out winning strategies in the world’s most challenging racing venues. Thinking outside the box came naturally to the artist Smithson, who believed her creative outlook would formulate solutions that never entered the mind of her two tech expert partners.

After several days both sides received answers to their prayers as the International Ski Patrol broke through the snow drifts enveloping the cabin and rescued all six of the trapped skiers.

The rescue had a down side for the trio who had gone down the wrong slopes in their lives. Honor among thieves proved Blanchard’s downfall when his partner in the emerald heist who knew the combination for the safe broke into his hotel room and fled to Mexico with the McCarthy gem. Daniels’ former police superiors busted the drug ring and persuaded his fellow dealer to cop a plea in exchange for spilling his guts about the plan to buy the rescue of the lawman gone bad. The Israeli police arrested Basheerd for plotting with radicals to form a new terrorist network.

Jensen and Tomlinson began developing a new electric Formula One racer which, they predicted, would win every competition in the circuit within the next two years. The art world took another look at Smithson’s work and, because of her unique creativity and her vast knowledge of every facet of the creative sphere. the Louvre named her as its new director. She married Jacques Cruset, the art critic for The New York Times.