Killer Mountain

“Goodbye, Cilla.”

The door closed quietly behind him. Great Haystack’s General Manager gripped the sides of her desk with whitening fingers, her eyes unseeing gray pools.

Back at Wally’s house he read the note again. Can she be serious? She seemed so in the ski area office. If true, was their love really so ephemeral? To me it means one man period. Her clear gray eyes looking into his very soul that cold October evening. They’d camped at the edge of Sawyer Pond, feeling the warmth of the fire. And something else, somewhere in a relationship that wasn’t even that, a tiny candle had found life and its survival hung on the next words he spoke. The mountains had thrown off their summer clothing, ready to pull up white blankets for the long winter’s sleep. Cilla, trying to shrug out of a ten-year growth of protective shell, her insides trembling from exposure, waited his response. And when it came, a sigh, and the candle was allowed to flame: that’s good, because you’re the one man.

Coward? She’d fought a man many pounds and several inches bigger than him when Hudson was wounded and unable to defend himself. Fought and held him off until Hudson had recovered enough to step in. Cilla was afraid of nothing on earth. Except emotions. Hers had been battered at age fifteen, as had her body, by the man who’d killed her mother. Tae quon do and the impenetrable shell had been her answer. And the shell was back.

He mounted Wally’s stairs to their bedroom. The few things left from the fire were gone. The recent violence had triggered a defense mechanism, Kevlar-cloaking still unfamiliarly exposed emotions, protecting them from further damage. Because he, Hudson, hadn’t done his job.

Or had she really just gotten tired of the turmoil. Part of her had indeed loved the peace and solitude of the ashram. Part of her? Was it only ego that convinced him she had to be happier as his wife than buried in the ashram’s catacombs? Perhaps he was the misfit, their life together the aberration. He sat on the guest room bed. No. That’s bullshit.

Could he be seeing this wrong? Might it be a bluff, a way to uninvolve him? Why? She was the one in harm’s way, and had he half a brain he would have seen the result coming. At the house after the attack, instead of being angry - her home had just been destroyed! - she’d gone quiet, was already starting to withdraw. And yesterday, almost no communication. Might she have been more hurt in the explosions than she’d admit? Like her head? Yes, that could be an answer. Would she get over it? Who knows. But for now, she needs time. More, he felt a growing conviction that Cilla might be right; that he, Hudson, had brought the bear to the door. Though she didn’t know any of it, the men who’d invaded their house were Russian, and only days before their appearance he’d been nursing his head in a Russian hospital, the likely result of too many questions asked in a place where none were welcome. Maybe the very best thing he could do for Cilla was to get far away from her. Give her time to recover.

He went back downstairs and stood at the French doors looking out over Wally’s deck. Out there were men preparing defenses against unknown assailants. And he could care less. He almost wished for a fight. He’d have someplace for the anger.

Bartlett Police Chief Solomon had merely been told there’d been an accident at the Rogers’ home. It was being handled, thank you, and no help needed from the police. He didn’t like it, but wasn’t prepared to take on the FBI. Hudson thought he might like it considerably less before this thing was over. Remarkably, Wally had escaped with minor cuts and bruises. Cilla hadn’t, though her wounds weren’t visible. Cilla.

Frances had told him Gold’s theory of protection from the chimney. Poor Bob. Aswim in his own emotional stew, Hudson felt the unease of guilt; he had brought him into it.

The kitchen door opened, and Krestinski came through to the living room taking off his overcoat. “That trip doesn’t get any shorter. Got any coffee?”

“If I get you some will you do a little analysis with me?”

“Got something?”

“No. I need to.” He’d told no one of Cilla’s departure, but he knew Frances must have briefed Krestinski, and the look in the agent’s eyes sickened him. He bruskly thrust him the mug of fresh coffee. “Anything new?”

“We announced the death yesterday. Autopsy showed nothing. He died the same as Evans’ others. We’re working with CDC.”

“Is this a plague?”

“Not yet, at least not officially.”

“But you think it is?”

“It’s something we don’t understand.”

“But it’s connected to the drug people.”

Krestinski looked at him silently.

“Oh for Christ’s sake! Don’t go all Fibbi on me. It’s our tails they’re after.”

“I know.”

“Well? They’re trying to silence us because they think we know something. We don’t. If you do, tell me.”

Krestinski sighed. “In Stewart…”

“You saying that that was a criminal act?”

“It’s why I got involved.”

“Is this the case that held you up getting to St. Petersburg?”

“Yes.” Krestinski studied the floor. “The Bureau isn’t sure it’s any of our business, but they’ve let me stay on it.”

“And you still are.”

“For the present.”

“What does that mean?”

The FBI agent looked up. “Until I tell my boss that my parents have been taken in Russia and may be being held to make me get the FBI off the case.”

“You’ve heard from them?”

“Yesterday. Dressed up in more diplomatic language, it basically told me that I needed to get the Bureau out of the Stewart incident to have my parents released. A sick traveler was to blame, they said, and there is concern that if the source of the virus were known it would create an international incident. The danger being now over, let sleeping hounds lie. I haven’t brought our people into it, or I’ll be pulled off the case. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“John, let yourself be taken off. It can’t be worth your parents’ lives. Once they see you can’t…”

“Once they see my parents are no longer of use to them, they’ll dispose of them. Don’t you see, it really doesn’t make any difference what I do. My parents were as good as dead as soon as they were taken.”

“You don’t believe the story of a sick Russian traveler.”

“I might have before I found out what’s happening here.”

“What’s the purpose, John? Russians kill off Americans in Stewart, Massachusetts and Bartlett, New Hampshire? What on earth for. And isn’t that an act of war?”

“Not the Russian government, Russian mafia.”

“Is there a difference nowadays?”

“Politically, yes. The US can’t just go drop bugs on a St. Petersburg suburb in retaliation, even if we could prove what’s happening has a Russian source.”

“Sturgis knew.”

“And they silenced him. Now you’ve got to keep your heads down.”

“Because they think he told us. So what do we do?”

“You don’t do anything. You stay here, and let us do our work.”

“What work is that, John? What is it your herd of agents is doing besides scaring off the deer? We’re completely on the defensive here. Whether or not the United States is in a war, we sure are here. And Cilla is in the front lines.”

“Not just Cilla.”

“Think I’m a danger to her?” Krestinski gave his head a small shake, which Hudson took to mean he hadn’t really made up his mind, but it was a possibility. “We need information. From what I can see, the only one left is Loni Sturgis. I’d like to talk to her.”