Vespers Rising (The 39 Clues #11)(55)

Then a terrible shrieking sound resounded through the cabin, and the cable gave way. The car lurched, and some of the passengers were slammed to the floor. They began to slide toward the closed doors. Dan and Amy barely stayed on their feet. Screams filled the cabin.

“What’s happening?” someone yelled in terror.

“We’re all right!” the operator shouted above the screams. “We can’t fall! There’s one cable left. We’re all right! We’re all right,” he kept repeating in English, then French, then Italian, then German, as though by saying it over and over it would make it real. But there was a sheen of perspiration on his face, and Dan could see fear in his eyes.

“He’s coming back again!” a man shouted.

Amy took Dan’s hand. He knew now what Amy had already guessed. The Vesper wasn’t trying to scare them. He was going to kill them.

The whirring blades angled to the left, ready to cut the final cable and send them plunging to their death.

It’s going to end here, like this?

The formula was in his head, the formula that could make him the most powerful person in the world. They had decided months ago that it was too dangerous to exist. Too dangerous to ingest.

But if he had done it, if he had taken it, could he have dispatched Casper Wyoming back in the chalet? He would have had the strength of a Tomas. If he’d had the cunning of a Lucian, would he have seen ahead and baited a trap instead of walking into one? If he’d thought more creatively, like a Janus, would he have come up with another way to escape, instead of climbing aboard a death trap? If he’d had the inventiveness of an Ekaterina, could he now figure out a way to get the cable car moving and away from this madman in a copter?

If I had it all — every power — could I have escaped this moment?

Dan faced the helicopter. He hadn’t learned not to be afraid, but he had learned that turning away was not an option. He wanted the last thing he saw to be that guy’s face, so the Vespers would know that Dan Cahill hadn’t been scared. The terror that gripped him — his enemy would not see it.

“Polizia!” someone yelled.

Someone else was sobbing as the police helicopter flew at terrific speed toward the rogue helicopter. Dan could see Bruno’s furious face as he dipped his copter sharply to the right and zoomed away, with the police in pursuit.

A few people were crying. The American man hugged his wife and rocked her from side to side. A tall German skier gave a short, strangled laugh. Relief made them all giddy for a moment. Until they remembered that they were still dangling over a staggering drop on only one cable.

“The rescue helicopter is on its way,” the operator said. “We should see it in a moment.”

“And then what?” Amy asked. “How will they fix the cable?”

The operator looked at her kindly. “They can’t fix it,” he said. “They’re going to airlift us out.”

“Air — airlift?”

“A rescue worker will be lowered by cable from the helicopter and he’ll take one group out at a time. Don’t worry, they are very good at their jobs,” the operator said.

Dan suddenly realized that he was freezing. The car wasn’t heated, and condensation was beginning to build on the windows and ice over. It was difficult to see out now. Which was probably a good thing, being that Amy was a weenie about heights.

“Did they catch the helicopter pilot?” Dan asked the operator.

He shook his head. “Not yet. They’ll get him.”

Soon they heard the whirring of the blades. They could just glimpse the rescue helicopter approaching. Dangling at the end of a long cable was a rescue worker in a red parka. The helicopter flew higher, and they felt the slight bump as the rescue worker landed against the cable car. A second later the doors opened, and he swung in.

The noise of the copter was loud in their ears. He motioned to the man and wife close to him, and then to Dan and Amy. Slings were attached to the cable, and the man and his wife were already slipping into them.

“I have to sit in that and be towed in midair?” Amy asked. Her face looked terror stricken. “Dan, I can’t do this.”

“Are you kidding me? Of course you can. You’ve been on the top of Mount Everest! This is cake.” He didn’t like the look on Amy’s face. His sister was madbrave when she was in the moment. It was the waiting that did her in.

“Come on.” He urged her forward. “Can this be any worse than the time I made you jump off the balcony in that Cairo museum?”

Amy laughed weakly, but she moved forward and sat gingerly in the contraption. The rescue worker snapped her in.

Dan stepped into the sling.

“Ready?” the rescue worker shouted.

Everyone else nodded, and Amy’s weak “Not really” was swallowed by the rush of wind as they stepped off the cable car into midair.

Dan felt the jolt of the cable and the blast of cold air in his face. Clouds were building in layers around the mountain, and the tiny pellets of snow striking his cheeks felt like ice. They swung at the bottom of the cable as the helicopter started down the mountain. Dan looked down and gulped. Amy kept her eyes closed.

They were probably in the air for about five minutes or so, but it felt longer. Finally, he saw far below a cluster of rescue workers clad in red parkas standing in a clearing near an alpine hut. The helicopter flew lower and lower, and he saw them waiting, arms outstretched. The helicopter hovered above, and in seconds, a rescuer had grabbed his legs. He almost toppled onto the guy. Now that relief was coursing through him, his muscles felt like slush.