No words were spoken, as time was still a critical element. Dryer helped Schebel attach the toboggan to the back of one of the snowmobiles, and Miner unzipped the bag carrying the president to make sure his IV was still firmly in place.

The rest of the crew snapped out of their bindings and placed their skis into the specially fitted tubes on the sides of their snowmobiles. There were two riders on each machine, one to drive and another to lay down fire if need be, though Miner knew it wouldn’t be necessary.

He climbed onto the back of the snowmobile driven by Dryer, which would pull the toboggan, and gave the signal to fire up the machines and move out.

11

Scot Harvath’s eyes snapped open as a searing bolt of pain spat him back into consciousness. His entire body ached. The sensation ebbed away, and then another wave came crashing back in.

He had known pain of this magnitude before, as well as soul-chilling cold, during his SEAL training. That training had taught Scot that what the mind believes, the body will achieve. He and his fellow teammates had joked that in SEAL training they had known the most horrific torture ever conceived of by the civilized world, but every single ounce of it had been designed to prepare him for situations just like this. SEALs absolutely, positively never give up. The SEAL motto was, “The only easy day was yesterday,” and even though Scot Harvath’s paychecks now came from the Secret Service, he would always be a SEAL.

Scot moved just a fraction and had to suppress the urge to cry out. It didn’t matter. One of the benefits of the pain, if you could look at it that way, was that his head was clearing and he was regaining control. His body would have no choice but to cooperate with him. Passing out again was not an option. It couldn’t be an option. Scot was acutely aware that with each ten minutes that passed, avalanche survival rates for those buried beneath the snow dropped like a stone.

Harvath painfully pulled himself into a sitting position and wiggled his way over so that he was sitting directly above Amanda Rutledge’s head. He set the Mag-Lite next to him and turned his palms upward. Carefully, he slid both of his hands beneath her back, supporting her head, neck, and shoulders as he rolled her over. She made no sound and continued to breathe in slow, shallow breaths.

“Mandie? It’s Scot. Can you wake up for me? Say something, honey. C’mon.”

Scot removed his small backpack, placed it on the ground next to him, and retrieved his flashlight. He opened Amanda’s eyes, expertly shining the light into each one. Her pupils didn’t constrict. That was a bad sign. He focused his thoughts on getting them to safety.

There was no way to tell how deeply they were buried. In an avalanche, the heavy snow could set up like wet concrete, making it nearly impossible to dig your way out.

Scot remembered his radios and gave them both another try. “Mayday, Mayday. Birdhouse, this is Norseman. We need assistance. Over.

“Deer Valley, Deer Valley, do you copy? Over.”

Nothing but the crackle of static came back. Scot decided to conserve his energy and his oxygen. There were more important things to think about now. Number one, he had to keep Amanda warm and try to stabilize her. Number two, he had to get them both out of this situation alive.

So far he was batting a thousand on the staying-alive part, but their fight was only fifty percent complete. Without any radio contact or anybody knowing where they were trapped, there was no telling how long a search party would take to find them. With the weather the way it was, efforts were going to be severely hampered.

Harvath had opted against having the detail agents carry the avalanche-safety transmitter-receivers so popular with backcountry skiers. The avalanche transmitter-receiver was about the size of a small walkie-talkie and was constantly set on transmit, broadcasting a low-frequency signal, so that if someone were ever trapped in an avalanche, like now, other people in the party could set theirs to receive and start homing in on that person’s location to rescue him or her. Scot was completely against this equipment for several reasons.

One, an unfriendly source could potentially lock in on these signals, and two, with JAR and CAT teams strategically interspersed along their routes, help would always be immediately available via radio contact, if not visually. All things considered, he thought the choice not to outfit agents with the avalanche transmitter-receivers was still the right one. However, Scot had never anticipated that their radios would go out.

As if they didn’t already have enough problems, Scot looked at his watch and realized it was nearing 4:45 P.M. The sun would be setting soon, and as it went down, so would the temperature. If they didn’t get themselves out and to someplace warm, they’d be Popsicles by morning.

12

Harvath slid out of his jacket and placed it over Amanda to help keep her warm. She was lying on snow-covered ground, so the gesture was more symbolic than anything else. Amanda would have been better served with the jacket placed beneath her, but he’d already moved her once and didn’t want to risk it again.

Her pupils not constricting was a sign of abnormal brain function. Despite all of Scot’s efforts to cushion Amanda, she’d probably hit her head during the fall down the mountain. Only a doctor would be able to know for sure what her prognosis was, and that made their situation all the more dire.

As Scot’s head continued to clear, he realized they probably had a little more air available to them than he’d originally thought. He needed to begin the dangerous process of extricating himself and Amanda from their snowy dungeon. He crawled back down toward Amanda’s feet, dragging his backpack with him.

Confident that he was far enough away that a minor cave-in of snow or ice wouldn’t land on Amanda, Scot reached into his pack and withdrew what looked like a telescoping ski pole. The pole was known as an avalanche probe and was used by search parties to feel for avalanche victims beneath the snow. As Scot began extending the device, he breathed a sigh of gratitude that he had been safety conscious enough to bring it along.

He picked an angle that looked to be the safest and easiest to dig out from and began feeding the pole through, careful not to disturb any unstable snow. The pole fed out for what felt like a million miles. They had survived a major avalanche.

Shrugging off the fatigue that leaned on him like a heavy boulder, Harvath assembled his collapsible snow shovel and prayed he wouldn’t bring the icy roof crumbling down on top of them.

Bending his knees and putting one foot against the rock wall behind him for leverage, Scot began the delicate process of digging out. The last thing he wanted to do was to cause a cave-in.

When he felt he had tunneled a sufficient distance forward, he began scraping the snow along the ceiling in front of him. It created an ice spray that rained down on his face and hands. The process was agonizingly slow. Time and again, Scot backed out of the tunnel, pulling the recently shoveled snow toward him, and deposited it within their frigid cave.

On his eleventh grueling trip back into the tunnel, Scot felt the shovel break the surface. He let the crisp plates of frozen snow fall down on him as he dug an exit wide enough to crawl through.

A chill wind howled as he pulled himself through, and the snow was falling harder and blowing faster than before. The sun was completely gone, and Scot couldn’t make out anything below them in the terrible conditions. He sat on the rim with his heavily booted feet resting within the tunnel and took two seconds to catch his breath. It was biting cold, but at this moment he didn’t feel it.