THE TRAIL cut away sharply to the left and Osborn followed it. He was looking for Von Holden’s tracks in the snow but he’d seen nothing so far and the snow wasn’t falling fast enough to cover them. Perplexed and fearful that he might be going the wrong way, he came to the top of a rise and stopped. Looking back, he could see only a swirl of snow and darkness. Dropping down to one knee, he looked over the side. Below him a narrow trail snaked downward along the edge of a cliff, but there seemed no way to get to it. There was no way to know if it was the trail Von Holden would use, anyway. It could be one of dozens.
Osborn stood and was about to turn back when he saw them. Fresh tracks, tight against the side of the cliff. Someone had passed that way and not long before. They’d gone down close against the inside edge of the trail that cut along the face of a sheer cliff. Whoever it had been must have found the way down several hundred yards or more up the trail. But trying to find where that was could take hours and by then the tracks would be covered.
Moving to one side, Osborn thought it might be possible to drop over the side and slide. It wasn’t far. Twenty feet at most. Still, it was dangerous. Everything here was tundra. Just rock and ice and snow. No trees, roots or branches, nothing to grab on to. With no way of knowing what was on the far side, if he got going too fast and was unable to stop, he could sail headlong over the side and into a gaping chasm and drop thousands of feet like a stone.
Osborn was willing to chance it anyway, when he saw a sharp outcropping of stone that fell away directly to the trail below. It was covered with a massive buildup of icicles caused by a constant melting and refreezing of glacier ice. They looked sturdy enough to use for handholds. Venturing out on the rock, he dropped down, eased to the edge and slid over the side. The trail here was no more than fifteen feet below him. If the icicles held, he would be down in no time. Reaching out, he took hold of an icicle three or four inches in diameter and tested it. It held his weight easily and he swung around, starting down. Feeling for a foothold, he got a toe in and started to pull his upper hand free to grab the icicle below it. But his hand wouldn’t move. The warmth of his skin had bonded it to the ice. He was stuck, his right hand above his head, his left foot extended to a toehold far below him. His only choice was to jerk his hand free. Which meant tearing the skin from it. But there was no alternative. If he clung much longer, he would freeze to death right there.
Taking a deep breath, Osborn counted to three and tugged. There was a searing pain and his hand came free. But the motion cost him his toehold and he rocketed off, sliding on his back. A second later he hit sheer ice and picked up speed. Desperately, he used his hands, his feet, elbows—anything to slow the rate of his descent, but it didn’t work. He went faster and faster. Suddenly he saw darkness open up below him and he knew he was going over the side.
In a last desperate attempt he grabbed out at the only rock he saw with his left hand. His hand slid off, but the crook of his arm caught around it and he stopped, his feet only inches from the edge.
He could feel his entire body shudder and begin to tremble. Lying back, he dug a heel into the snow. Then another. Wind came in a gust, and the snow blew savagely. Closing his eyes, Osborn prayed that he had not come this far, these many years, to freeze to death above a wild and godless glacier. It would make his life useless. And he refused to have his life be useless!
Beside him was a solid crack in the stone face of the rook wall. Easing up on his side, he swung one foot over the other and kicked a toehold in the snow. Then, rolling over on his stomach, he grasped the crack with both hands and pulled himself up. A little bit more and he got a knee into the crack, and then a foot. Finally he could stand.
Von Holden was above him. Maybe thirty yards directly up the cliff face, standing back against the edge. He’d been on the trail when Osborn slid past him. If he’d been five feet closer, Osborn would have taken him over the side with him.
Looking down, he could just see the American clinging to the stone facing above a two-thousand-foot drop. If he was going to climb back up, he would have to do it over an impossible incline of ice and rock made even more treacherous by the wind and falling snow. Von Holden, at this point, was less than three hundred yards of steep, twisting trail from the opening of the air shaft. It would be treacherous going, but even in the snow it could be made in no more than ten or fifteen minutes. And Osborn could not possibly climb—if he could climb at all—from where he was to the spot where Von Holden stood, in those minutes, let alone get down to where Von Holden was going. Once inside the air shaft, Von Holden would vanish.
Yes, the police would come but unless they stayed around for a week or more until he reemerged, which was highly doubtful, they would assume Vera had summoned them there to cover Von Holden’s escape elsewhere. Either that or they’d believe he’d plunged into a crevasse or disappeared into one of the hundreds of bottomless holes in the Aletsch glacier. One way or another they would leave, taking Vera with them as an accessory to the murder of the Frankfurt police.
As for Osborn, even if he did somehow manage to survive the night where he was, his story would be no better than hers. He’d chased a man out onto the mountain. And then what? Where was he? How would Osborn answer that? Of course it would be better if he were dead. To that end Von Holden could venture to the edge and risk a shot at him in the darkness. But that would be ho good all around. The footing was bad enough as it was and if he slipped or fired and missed, none of it was worth it. And if he hit Osborn—killed or wounded him, even if he fell— they would know Von Holden had been there, thus corroborating Vera’s story. And a further hunt would be on. No. Better to let him stay where he was and trust he would either fall or freeze to death. That was the correct thinking. The reason Scholl had made him
151
OSBORN’S FACE and shoulders were flat against rock. The toes of his Reeboks dug in tight to what seemed little more than a two-inch ledge in the stone. Beneath him was cold, empty darkness. He had no idea how far he would fall if he slipped, except that a large stone above had somehow come loose and bounced past him. He’d listened but he never heard it land. Looking up, he tried to see the trail, but an icy overhang blocked his view. The crack he was standing on ran horizontally across the face of the rock wall that he clung to. He could go either left or right but not up, and after moving several feet in both directions he found the ledge to the right opened up more easily. The ledge widened and there were jagged pieces of rock overhead he could use as handholds. Despite the cold, his right hand, where the skin had pulled off as he’d torn free of the icicle, felt like someone was pressing a hot iron against it. And it made closing his fingers over the rock handholds excruciating. But in a way it was good because if focused his attention. Made him think only of the pain and how best to grasp onto a knot of rock without losing his grip. Hand right. Grab on. Foot right, slide, find footing, test it. Weight shift. Balance. Left hand, left foot the same.
Now he was at the edge of the cliff face, where it bent inward toward a kind of steep ravine. A chute, they called it in skiing. A couloir. But with the snow and wind it was impossible to tell if the crack kept running or simply stopped. If the crack stopped there on the edge, he doubted he could go back and reverse the moves he’d made to get here, Osborn stopped and put a hand to his mouth and blew on it. Then did the same with the other. His watch had somehow worked its way up inside his sleeve and would be impossible to get out without severely testing his balance so he had no idea how long he’d been out there. What he did know was that it was many hours until daylight and if he stopped moving, he’d die of hypothermia within minutes. Suddenly there was a break in the clouds and for the briefest instant the moon came out. To his immediate right and down ten or twelve feet was a wide ledge that led back toward the mountain. It looked icy and slick but wide enough for him to walk on. Then he saw something else. A narrow trail winding downward toward the glacier. And on it, a man with a backpack.
As quickly as the moon appeared it vanished and the wind picked up. Blowing snow stung Osborn’s face like shards of shattered glass fired from a high-pressure hose, and he had to turn his head back into the mountain. The ledge is there, he thought. It’s wide enough to hold you. Whatever force has brought you this far has given you another chance. Trust it.
Inching to the edge, Osborn put out a foot. There was nothing but air. Trust it, Paul. Trust what you saw.
