Polar Shift by Clive Cussler

cold and fog coated trees with rime. He made the smooth, effortless turns he had learned as a child in Kitzbuhl, Austria.
    At the bottom of the bowl, he shot down Schmidt’s Chute and into a glade. Except for the most dedicated skiers and boarders, most people had hung up their skis to work on their boats and fishing gear. It seemed that he was the master of the mountain.
    But as Schroeder broke out of the trees into the open, two skiers emerged from a copse of fir trees.
    They skied a few hundred feet behind him, one on either side of the trail. He moved at the same steady pace, making short radius turns that would give the newcomers room. Instead of passing, they matched him turn for turn, until they were skiing three abreast. A long-dormant mental radar kicked on. Too late. The skiers closed on him like the jaws of a pair of pliers.
    The old man pulled over to the edge of the trail. His escorts skidded to hockey stops in sprays of snow, one above him and the other below. Their muscular physiques pushed tightly against the fabric of their identical, one-piece silver suits. Their faces were hidden by their mirrored goggles. Only their jaws were visible.
    The men stared at him without speaking. They were playing a game of silent intimidation.
    He showed his teeth in an alligator smile. “Mornin’,” he said cheerfully in the western accent he had cultivated through the years. “They don’t make days better than this.”
    The uphill skier said in a slow, Southern drawl, “You’re Karl Schroeder, if I’m not mistaken.”
    The name he had discarded decades before sounded shockingly alien to his ears, but he held his smile.
    â€œI’m afraid you are mistaken, friend. My name is Svensen. Arne Svensen.”
    Taking his time, the skier planted his ski poles into the snow, removed one glove, reached inside his suit and extracted a PPK Walther pistol. “Let’s not play games, Arne. We’ve authenticated your identity with fingerprints.”
    Impossible.
    â€œI’m afraid you’ve confused me with someone else.”
    The man chuckled. “Don’t you remember? We were standing behind you at the bar.”
    The old man combed his memory and recalled an incident at the Hell Roaring Saloon, the après-ski watering hole at the bottom of the mountain. He had been pounding down beers as only an Austrian can. He had come back to his stool from a restroom break and found his half-filled beer mug had vanished. The bar was busy, and he assumed another customer had mistakenly walked off with his drink.
    â€œThe beer mug,” he said. “That was you.”
    The man nodded. “We watched you for an hour, but it was worth the wait. You left us a full set of fingerprints. We’ve been on your ass ever since.”
    The schuss-schuss of skis came from up-trail.
    â€œDon’t do anything stupid,” said the man, glancing uphill. He covered the gun with his gloved hand.
    A moment later, a lone skier flew by in a blur and disappeared down the trail without slowing.
    Schroeder had known that his transformation from cold-blooded warrior to human being would leave him vulnerable. But he had come to believe that his new identity had successfully insulated him from his old life. The gun pointed at his heart was persuasive evidence to the contrary.
    â€œWhat do you want?” Schroeder said. He spoke with the world-weariness of a fugitive who had been run to ground.
    â€œI want you to shut up and do what I say. They tell me you’re an ex-soldier, so you know how to follow orders.”
    â€œSome soldier,” the other man said with undisguised scorn. “All I see from here is an over-the-hill guy crapping his pants.”
    They both laughed.
    Good.
    They knew he had been in the military, but he guessed they didn’t know that he had graduated from one of the world’s most notorious killing schools. He had kept his martial arts and marksmanship