Osborn smiled and thanked her for the information, then looked at her blankly until she took her hand away. It wasn’t that aggressive women bothered him, it was that he was thinking about something else. Wishing that besides McVey’s .38, he had at least one vial of the muscle-relaxing succinylcholine he’d prepared in Paris for his attack on Albert Merriman.
141
VON HOLDEN, too, was watching the mountains, looking for a wisp of cloud or undue snow-devil activity that would indicate the wind was picking up and weather might be approaching. But he saw none and for a change it was a good sign. It would make things easier later on if there was a problem and he had to go out on the mountain.
Vera sat across, looking at him. He was somewhere else, lost in thought. Increasingly, something about him was troubling her. But it was vague and she couldn’t put her finger on it. Yes, he was a policeman. Yes, he was taking her to Paul Osborn. It had to be true because she’d been released from jail in his custody and he knew things that were unknowable if he was not who he said he was. Still, something wasn’t right and she wished she knew what it was. Glancing up, she saw his nylon rucksack riding in the luggage rack overhead. He’d been carrying it with him since Berlin and she’d never really thought about it until now—what it was, what was inside.
“Evidence,” Von Holden said quietly.
The train was climbing steeply now, with rock formations, rushing mountain streams and waterfalls dropping away sharply at either side.
“Documents and other things exposing the core of the neo-Nazi movement. Names, places, financial data.”
The car in which they rode had a half-dozen other passengers as did the car in front of them. The cog engine on the tiny, two-car train pushed from behind. Vera was becoming aggressive, and Von Holden didn’t like it. The trauma caused by her ordeal in Berlin and capped by the killings in Frankfurt was wearing off. She was becoming aware, beginning to examine her situation, to probe, maybe even doubt. It meant he had to stay a step ahead, offer something of himself to keep her trust.
“I think it’s safe to tell your our destination is Jungfraujoch station.” He smiled. “They call it the Top of Europe. You can send a card from the highest post office on the continent.”
“That’s where Paul is.”
“Yes, as well as a guarded repository for the documents.”
“What happens when we get there?”
“That’s not for me to say. My orders were to safely deliver you and the documents. After that”—he smiled again—”I will go home, hopefully.”
Suddenly the train plunged into a tunnel and the only light was from the electric lamps inside the train.
“Twenty minutes more,” Von Holden said. Vera relaxed and leaned back against the seat. For the moment she’s satisfied, he thought. Once they reached Jungfraujoch station they would leave the train with the other passengers, then go immediately to the weather station. After that, what Vera thought or did would make no difference, because once inside they would vanish into its depths and no one, on earth could find them.
Abruptly the train slowed and they came into Eigerwand, a small railway station carved into the rocky tunnel inside the north face of the Eiger. The train pulled effortlessly onto a siding and stopped, leaving the main rail free so that another train could pass on the way down. The driver opened the doors and invited everyone out to enjoy the view and take photographs.
“Come.” Von Holden smiled and stood up. “For the time being we’re tourists like everyone else. We should relax and enjoy it.”
Leaving the train, they crossed the platform with the other passengers and walked into one of several short tunnels where enormous windows had been cut into the face of the mountain. From there they could see for miles back across the sunlit valley floor toward Kleine Scheidegg and Grindelwald and Interlaken, the way they had come. Von Holden had seen it two dozen times and each time it was more impressive than the last, as if seeing the world from the mountain’s point of view. Behind them the driver sounded his whistle and the other passengers started back for the train.
It was then Von Holden saw the train behind them approaching Kleine Scheidegg. Suddenly his breath caught and he felt his heart begin to palpitate. There was a pulsing behind his eyes and curtains of red and green started to come.
“Are you all right?” Vera asked.
For a brief moment Von Holden wavered, then he exhaled sharply, pulling himself out of it.
“Yes, thank you. . . .” He took her arm and they started back. “The altitude, perhaps.” It was a lie. His attack had not been because of the altitude, or weariness, or anything else. It had been real. The
Osborn was on that train.
142
OSBORN FELT the press of gravity as the train began to move out of Kleine Scheidegg and start up the long grade toward the face of the Eiger. The bleached-blonde divorcee—her name was Connie and she was a divorcee, twice in fact—kept trying to talk to him. Finally he excused himself and went into the front car. He needed to think. In little more than forty minutes they would reach Jungfraujoch. He had to know what he was going to do, right from the moment the train came into the station and he stepped off. Once again he felt the heft of McVey’s .38 in his waistband. For some reason it made him think about avalanches. More than once a gunshot had set off a thundering avalanche. Mountain teams and ski areas used recoilless rifles to start them on purpose, to clear them away before opening the snow areas to the public. But it was barely mid-October and the weather was clear. An avalanche should be the last thing on his mind.
But it wasn’t.
His subconscious was working toward something. What was it? This was early October, but Von Holden was purposely going into snow country. Jungfraujoch was at an altitude of more than eleven thousand feet and built on top of or within a glacier. Inside were tourist sideshows, rooms carved out of the glacial ice.
Ice.
Cold. Deep cold. A glacier was as cold as you got in nature. Especially if you could get deep inside it. Men and animals had been found in it, perfectly preserved for centuries. Was it possible Jungfraujoch was the place where the experimental surgeries had been done? Was Jungfraujoch, seemingly a tourist attraction, really a cover for a secret medical facility deep within the glacier itself?
The grinding of the engine cogs and the click, click of the wheels over the rails became more pronounced.
Suddenly Osborn was pushing back into the other car.
“Connie,” he said, sliding onto the seat next to her. “You’ve been to Jungfraujoch before.”
“Sure have, darlin’.”
“Is there any place that’s off limits to tourists?”
“What you got in mind, darlin’?” Connie smiled and teasingly ran her fake ruby red nails along the top of his thigh.
Osborn was sure she was a riot after a couple of martinis, but that was something he never wanted to find out.
