The Day After Tomorrow

VON HOLDEN came up on his elbows and inched forward. Where were they? They’d come right up to the edge of the light and then disappeared from view. It should have been simple. He’d tested Osborn by showing himself and Vera in the Ice Palace tunnel. If Osborn had followed them he would have dragged him into the side tunnel where he’d taken Vera and killed him there. But he hadn’t. Which was why he’d used Vera now. She’d been a drawing card, nothing more. He knew Osborn had seen them board the train together in Bern. The last time he’d seen her she’d been arrested by the German police in Berlin. What could he think but that she and Von Holden were- co-conspirators, fleeing the disaster at Charlottenburg. Filled with rage and betrayal, Osborn would find a way to free her and no matter her argument otherwise would make her take him to Von Holden, either as a hostage or bargaining chip.

A gust of wind twisted a snow devil across the snow in front of him. Wind. He didn’t like it. Any more than he liked the snow. Looking up, he saw a line of clouds advancing from the west. And it was getting colder. He should have killed them sooner, as soon as they’d started toward the ski school, but taking out two people and getting rid of their bodies that close to the main building was risky, especially when it might jeopardize his main objective. The air tunnel was eighty yards away from it, in the dark and snow, distant enough to be safe for the killing. And Osborn, upset and unbalanced, would follow his footprints straight toward it. The two shots a split second apart wouldn’t make a sound. Then Von Holden would take their bodies to the back of the dog runs where the cliffs fell sharply away and toss them over into the black nothing of the abyss. Osborn first, and then

“Von Holden!” Osborn’s voice echoed out of the darkness. “Vera’s gone back to telephone the police. I thought you might like to know that.”

Von Holden started, then scrambled backward and slid behind a rock outcropping. Whatever had happened had abruptly turned against him. Even if the police were called, it would be an hour or more before they got there. He would have to forget everything else and move on.

Directly in front of him, like some ghostly sentinel, the Jungfrau rose up more than two thousand feet. A hundred yards to his right and down maybe forty feet, a rocky path led around the face of the cliff on which Jungfraujoch was built. Three-quarters of the way down that, hidden by a rock formation, was a secondary air shaft that had been opened in 1944 when the impenetrable system of tunnels and elevators had been constructed below the weather station inside the glacier. If he could reach that before the police came, he could hide. For a week, two weeks. Longer, if need be.

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OSBORN HUNCHED a few feet to the side of the dog run and listened. But all he heard was the soft coo of the wind as little by little it increased in intensity. Before he’d gone out with McVey in Berlin he’d changed to a pair of black high-top Reeboks. Other than that he was still dressed in the shirt and business suit he’d been wearing since he got there. Not much at eleven thousand feet in the dark and snow, with the wind picking up.

In one incredible instant Osborn’s anger and distrust of Vera had vanished. It was what she’d said and what he’d seen in her eyes when she’d said it. The challenge to him of who he really was and what he really believed.

In that moment doubt disappeared and he remembered pulling her back away from the dog run and down into the snow on the far side of the cages, holding her against him, both crying, sharing the realization of what had happened, and of what he had almost let happen. Then he’d sent her back.

For a moment she’d been stunned. They’d both go back. Von Holden wouldn’t come after them in there, not with the bright lights and other people around.

“What if he does?” Osborn had said. And he was right. Von Holden was capable of anything.

“There is a blonde woman, an American,” he told her; “she’ll be waiting to take the train down. Her name is Connie. She’s a good person. Take the train with her to Kleine Scheidegg and call the Swiss police from there. Have them get in touch with a Detective Remmer of the German Federal Police at Bad Godesberg.”

He remembered her staring at him for a long time. He wasn’t staying behind only to protect her. It was why he’d come after Von Holden in the first place, why he’d done what he had to Albert Merriman in Paris, why he’d gone to Berlin with McVey. It was for himself and for his father, and there was no going back until it was finished. It was then she’d pressed her lips to his and turned to go.

As she did, he pulled her back. His eyes were alive. He was already shifting gears. Preparing for the next. Asking her deliberately if she knew what was inside the case Von Holden had carried from Berlin.

“He said they were documents exposing the neo-Nazi conspirators. But I’m sure it’s not true.”

Osborn watched her move back through the shadows and toward the safety of the main building. Seconds passed and there was a shaft of light as the door opened and she went inside, then there was darkness, as it closed behind her. Instantly his thoughts went to what Von Holden really carried in the rucksack. Without a doubt they were documents, but they would hardly be a listing of prominent neo-Nazis, instead they would be about the cryosurgery. Reports, discourses on how it was done. The procedures for freezing and thawing, software instructions for the computers, design schematics for the instruments, perhaps even his father’s scalpel. They would be one of a kind, which was why he was guarding them so carefully. For whatever evil the process had been conceived, to the world of medicine the procedure was fantastic, and no matter what happened it was imperative the notes be protected.

Suddenly Osborn realized he had been drifting; Von Holden could easily be coming up behind him. He looked around quickly but saw nothing. Then, checking the .38’s firing action, making sure it hadn’t frozen in the cold, he slid the gun in his waistband and glanced back toward the main building. By now Vera should have reached it and be inside looking for Connie.

Moving up, he eased along the edge of the dog run until he saw the light of the tunnel. The footprints, he was certain, had been a trick to draw him into the light. Von Holden had crossed toward the tunnel but would not have gone back to it, it was too confining and he could be trapped, especially if someone came through from the other side.

To Osborn’s right the Jungfrau itself rose almost straight up. To his left the land dipped down and seemed to level off a little. Blowing on his hands to warm them, he moved off in that direction. Assuming he was right, it was the only logical way Von Holden would have gone.

Ubermorgen, and the box that housed it inside his backpack, remained Von Holden’s fundamental concern. As it should have for the last survivor of the Organization’s hierarchy. Sector 5, “Entscheidend Verfahren,” the Conclusive Procedure, had been intended for this kind of emergency. That it had become more difficult than anticipated was the reason he had been chosen in the first place and why he had survived. Perhaps, he thought optimistically, the worst might be over. There was every chance that the lower elevators had not been destroyed in the fire because the air shaft above them would have worked as a chimney, an exhaust for the heat, thus sparing the mechanical workings below.

The thought of still reaching the elevators, and the sense that he was executing his duty as a soldier, lifted him as he worked his way along the rock shale path against the face of the cliff. The falling snow, the increasing wind and cold, would hinder Osborn as much as himself. Probably more so because Osborn would not have his training in mountain survival. The advantage would extend his window of escape. His chance, to get to the air shaft and inside with all traces covered by the snow.

That left only Osborn and himself, and time.

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