Page 79 of Mountain Target

“I think I was the last person to see him,” Irina said. “And that was two days ago.”

“So, where has he been all this time?”

“Up in the mountains, obviously,” Liam said. “With the measuring equipment.”

“You think he’s been staying up in the hut this whole time?” Ry asked, doubtfully. “It gets cold up there at night.”

“What’s he saying about aftershocks?” Damien asked. “Can you play it again?”

“I may be able to answer that one,” Gilles said from his corner. “Aftershocks are common after an earthquake, even weeks later. What’s rare is for them to suddenly stop, which is what Dr. Bristow is saying is happening.”

“What do you mean by rare, exactly?” Beau asked curtly. They needed straight answers, not scientific hypotheses.

Gilles stood up straighter, pushing his glasses up against the bridge of his nose.

“Dr. Bristow is asking us to check the blue line. That’s the line our model drew on the map, before the first earthquake. He’s warning us that another earthquake is coming, along that same line.”

Fuck.

“Bring it up on the screen. I want to see that map right now,” the colonel ordered.

Liam tapped away on his laptop for a few seconds until the image suddenly appeared.

Beau’s gaze followed the blue line, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw it bypassed the town of Chamonix completely. There were ski slopes along the way—some investors might be unhappy about that, but Beau couldn’t care less about infrastructure damage.

And then, his heart stopped as he read the name of the small village just below.

Megève.

No.

Please, God.

No.

“How long do we have?” he asked, projecting a calm he no longer felt.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Gilles stuttered. “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you. We need to go up there to find Dr. Bristow and bring him back. And you,” he said, pointing at the map, “you need to evacuate all these places.”

Silence fell across the room, that single word rendering them all speechless. Everyone except the colonel.

“I’ll make the calls. Damien, I want you and your team to get up there now and bring Dr. Bristow back, along with the data. Beau, Megève is the most populated town along the blue line. You and your team will head out there and assist in the evacuation of civilians. I’ll make sure you have all the support you need. I want updates every hour, on the hour.”

Beau thanked his lucky stars that the colonel had assigned Megève to him. He would have done whatever he had to do to get there, but this made things easier.

Less than ten minutes after it’d started, the briefing meeting was over.

“Get your things,” Beau told his team. We leave in five minutes.” To Alex, he said, “I’ll be right back. I need to make a call.”

He dialed Valentina’s number and let it ring five, six, seven times, until it went to voice mail.

Fuck.

She probably doesn’t want to hear from me.

He tried again, with the same result, but this time left a voice message. “Valentina, this is Beau. Please call me as soon as you get this message. It’s an emergency.”

“Beau? Is everything okay?” Alex asked.