two more coming down from the north, all three nosing their way through serrated whitecaps.
Slowly the cacophony of voices died away, leaving only the wind whistling through the trees and snow- muffled shouts of “all aboard!” from the dock area. The loudspeakers, which had been repeating the evacuation notice every thirty seconds, stopped broadcasting.
“Getting colder,” Remi said, hugging herself.
Sam, having heeded the guidebook’s advice, pulled their Wind-breakers and knit caps from his backpack. Remi donned the clothes and pulled her hands into her sweatshirt’s sleeves.
“Think they left with the others?” she asked.
“Depends on what Kholkov thinks we did. The safe bet would have been to wait for the last boat and look for us in the departing crowds.”
“Still, something tells me we’d better assume the worst.”
“I agree.”
They waited a full hour after the last boat had disappeared up the fjord. Filled with fat snowflakes, the wind was gusting heavily, shaking the tree canopies. Pinecones thumped to the ground and leaves skittered through the underbrush. Snow began collecting behind tree trunks and on the grass, but immediately melted as it touched the sun-warmed gravel paths, creating tendrils of steam that were whipped into tiny vortexes by the wind.
“Let’s have a look around,” Sam said. “Find someplace to warm up.”
They picked their way back to the path and followed it inland to a clearing where they found a log cabin with a low-slung mansard roof and block windows. It was a long structure, measuring nearly a hundred feet, with a stairway rising up its rear wall to a door. Sam and Remi climbed up it and tried the door. It was unlocked. They pushed through and found themselves in a loft with a balcony overlooking the lower level. The interior was dark save what little gray seeped through the tarnished glass windows.
“It’s not the Four Seasons, but at least we’re out of the wind,” Sam said.
“Comfort is relative,” Remi said with a smile, brushing snow off her sweatshirt.
They found a warm corner and sat down.
They waited another thirty minutes, enough time, they hoped, for any staff members who had stayed behind to catch a final boat back to Schonau. Whether any caretakers had stayed behind Sam and Remi didn’t know, but they’d cross that bridge if it arose. Outside the wind had slackened slightly, giving way to heavy snow. Pine boughs scraped the sides of the cabin like skeletal fingers.
Remi jerked her head around, as though she’d heard something.
Sam mouthed,
She put her fingers to her lips and pointed toward the window. A few moments later Sam heard it: footsteps crunching through the snow. Silence, then a thunk of a boot on wood. Someone was mounting the stairs outside. Sam got up, crept to the door, locked it, then returned to Remi. A moment later the doorknob gave a squeak, then a rattle. Silence again. The footsteps thumped down the stairs, then began crunching through the snow again.
A door on the lower level opened.
Remi huddled closer to Sam, who put an arm around her shoulders.
Footsteps again, this time a pair of them. They moved into the cabin and stopped. A flashlight panned over the ceiling, skimmed along the loft railing, then clicked off.
“Hello?” a voice called in German. “Park staff. Is anyone here?”
Remi looked at Sam, her mouth forming a question. He shook his head and mouthed,
“Anyone here? There’s been a weather evacuation.” Kholkov called in German again, then a few seconds later, “No one here. Let’s check the other buildings.”
More footsteps. The door banged shut.
Sam held his palm up to Remi, then put his finger to his lips.
A minute passed. Two. Five.
From below there came the faint scuff of a shoe on wood.
“They’re not here,” Kholkov said in English.
“What makes you think they’re still here at all?” a second voice asked.
“It’s what I would do. And I know how they think; they’re too stubborn to let a little weather turn them back. Let’s go.”
The door opened, shut. Footsteps crunched through the snow and faded away. On hands and knees Sam crawled to the railing and peeked through. He turned and gave Remi a thumbs-up.
“My heart’s pounding like a jackhammer,” she said.
“Join the club.”
“We’re going to have to be careful about our footprints.”
“So are they. In fact, let’s use them while we can.”
CHAPTER 48
They slipped out the door, climbed down the steps, and followed Kholkov’s footprints out of the clearing, stopping every ten feet to look and listen. They were being overly cautious, they knew, but the Russian was a professional at this. There was a very real chance the man would double back and wait in ambush. Their best chance was to locate Kholkov and his partner and keep them in sight while remaining hidden themselves.
The weather was not going to make this easy. The snow was falling more heavily and the visibility had dropped to less than a hundred feet. Already Kholkov’s footprints were filling in. After fifteen minutes of stop-and- start progress they reached an intersection of pathways. Left and right branches led to another pair of stucco/wood cabins, while straight ahead stood a barnlike outbuilding. Beyond that, barely visible through the falling snow, they could see the dark roof of the chapel’s lodge.
To the left, a muffled thump: a door swinging shut.
Sam and Remi ducked off the path and dropped to their bellies in the undergrowth. Ten seconds later a pair of snow-blurred figures appeared on the path to their left, tromped through the intersection, and disappeared into the trees on their way to the other cabin. A minute later came the squeak of door hinges.
Sam slipped back onto the path, crept to the intersection, and looked right. He turned and signaled Remi forward. Together they hurried down the opposite path, to the cabin Kholkov had just left. They ducked inside and eased the door shut. Sam went to the window and knelt down to keep watch. Remi joined him.
After ten minutes Kholkov and his partner materialized out of the snow and turned right at the intersection, heading toward the chapel lodge. Within seconds the weather had swallowed them again.
“How long do we wait?” Remi asked.
Sam fished the brochure from his pocket and checked the tour map. “One more building between here and the chapel. Whether they’ve already searched it or not is anyone’s guess.”
“So we keep going and hope we see them before they see us.”
“Maybe,” Sam said, his eyes distant. “Maybe not.” He dug through his backpack and came up with their camera. He called up the pictures on the LCD screen and began studying them one by one. “There.” He handed Remi the camera. “I shot this while we were circling the dock.”
It was a picture of the boathouse. Through its partially open barn doors was the white nose of a speedboat. “It’s got to be for emergencies,” Remi said. “I count two more behind that one.”
In reply, Sam grinned devilishly and nodded.
“I know that look,” Remi said. “The mental gears are turning. Let’s hear it.”
“A little MacGyver-inspired goose chase.”
Remi said, “As ruses go, it’s a bit transparent.”
“I agree, but they’ll still have the same the dilemma: follow, split up, or sit tight. They can’t afford not to
