The Eiger Sanction

'The vomit on the floor?'

'Right.'

'A woman might do that.'

'There's a woman in this?'

'Bidet's wife. She could have worn male clothing. And that limp might have been anything—a twisted ankle coming down the stairs.'

'You got yourself quite a can of worms there, baby.'

For some perverse reason, Jonathan enjoyed drawing Pope along the mental maze he had wandered through for the last two nights. 'Oh, it's more a can of worms than you think. Considering that this whole affair centers on a formula for germ warfare, it's kind of interesting that one of these men owns a company that makes aerosol containers.'

'Which one?'

'Bidet.'

Pope leaned forward, his eyes squeezed up in concentration. 'You might be onto something there.'

Jonathan smiled to himself. 'I might be. But then, another of them is in the business of making insecticides —and there is reason to believe that they made nastier things during the war.'

'One of the two of them, right? Is that the way you figure it?' Pope looked up suddenly, the light of an idea in his eyes, 'or maybe both of them!'

'That's a possibility, Pope. But then—why? Neither of them needs the money. They could have hired the thing done. Now the third climber—Meyer—he's poor. And he needed money to make this climb.'

Pope nodded significantly. 'Meyer could be your man.' Then he looked into Jonathan's eyes and blushed with the angry realization that he was being put on. He tossed off the rest of his drink. 'When are you going to make your hit?'

'Oh, I thought I would wait until I knew which one was the target.'

'I'll hang around the hotel until it's done.'

'No, you won't. You're going to go right back to the States.'

'No way pal.'

'We'll see. One more thing before you go. Mellough told me that you were the one who paid him for Henri Baq's sanction. Is that right?'

'We found out he was playing switchy-changey with the other side.'

'But it was you who set him up?'

'That's my job, pal.'

Jonathan nodded, a distant look in his eyes. 'Well, I guess that's about it.' He rose to see Pope to the door. 'You should be pleased with yourself, you know. Even though I'm the man in the box, I can't help admiring the skill with which you've set me up.'

Pope stopped in the middle of the room and looked at Jonathan narrowly, trying to decide whether he was being put on again. He decided he was not. 'You know, pal? Maybe if we had given each other a chance, we might have become friends.'

'Who knows, Pope?'

'Oh. About your gun. I've got one waiting for you at the desk. A CII standard with no serial number and a silencer. It's gift wrapped in a candy box.'

Jonathan opened the door for Pope, who stepped out then turned back, bracing his weight against the frame, one hand on either side of the opening. 'What was all that about 'wasting' me?'

Jonathan noticed that Pope's fingers had curled into the crack of the door. That was going to hurt. 'You really want to know?'

Sensing a put-on again, Pope set his face into its toughest expression. 'One thing you'd better keep in mind, baby. So far as I'm concerned, you irregulars are the most expendable things since paper contraceptives.'

'Right.'

Two of Pope's fingers broke as Jonathan slammed the door on them. When he jerked it open again, the scream of pain was in Pope's eyes, but it did not have time to get to his throat. Jonathan grabbed him by his belt and snatched him forward into an ascending knee. It was a luck shot. Jonathan felt the squish of the testicles. Pope doubled over with a nasal grunt that spurted snot onto his chin. Jonathan grasped the collar of his coat and propelled him into the room, driving his head against the wall. Pope's knees crumpled, but Jonathan dragged him to his feet and snapped the checked sports coat down over his arms before he could pass out. Jonathan guided Pope's fall so that he toppled face down across the bed, where he lay with his face in the mattress and his arms pinned to his sides by the jacket. Jonathan's thumbs stiffened as he sighted the spot just below the ribs where the kidneys could be devastated.

But he did not drive the thumbs in.

He paused, confused and suddenly empty. He was going to let Pope go. He knew he was going to, although he could hardly believe it. Pope had arranged Henri Baq's death! Pope had set him up as a decoy! Pope had even said something about Jemima.

And he was going to let Pope go. He looked down at the crumpled form, at the silly sports coat, at the toed- in flop of the unconscious legs, but he felt none of the cold hate that usually sustained him in combat. For the moment, something was missing in him.

He rolled Pope over and went into the bathroom, where he dipped a towel into the toilet, holding it by one end until it was sodden. Back in the room, he dropped the towel over Pope's face, the shock of the cold water producing an automatic convulsion in the unconscious body. Then Jonathan poured himself a small Laphroaig and sat in the chair again, waiting for Pope to come around.

With an unmanly amount of strangled groaning, Pope eventually regained consciousness. He tried twice to sit up before succeeding. The total of his pain—the fingers, the groin, the throbbing head—was so great that he could not tug his jacket back up. He slid off the bed and sat on the floor, bewildered.

Jonathan spoke quietly. 'You're going to be all right, Pope. For a few days, you may walk a little oddly, but with proper medical attention you'll be just fine. But you won't be of any use here. So you're going to go back to the States as soon as possible. Do you understand that?'

Pope stared at him with bulbous, confused eyes. He still did not know what had happened to him.

Jonathan enunciated slowly. 'You are going back to the States. Right now. And I am never going to see you again. That's right, isn't it?'

Pope nodded heavily.

Jonathan helped him to his feet and, bearing most of his weight, to the door. Pope clung to the frame for support. The teacher in Jonathan exerted itself. 'To waste: to tear up, to harm, to inflict or cause to be inflicted physical punishment upon.'

Pope clawed his way out, and Jonathan closed the door.

Jonathan opened the back of his portable typewriter and got out makings for a smoke. He sat deep in the chair, holding the smoke as long as he could on the top of his lungs before letting it out. Henri Baq had been a friend. And he had let Pope go.

Jemima had sat across from him in the dim interior of the cafe for a silent quarter of an hour, her eyes investigating his face and its distant, involute expression. 'It's not the silence that bothers me,' she said at last. 'It's the politeness.'

Jonathan tugged his mind back to the present. 'Pardon me?'

She smiled sadly. 'That's what I mean.'

Jonathan drew a deep breath and focused himself on her. 'I'm sorry. My mind is on tomorrow.'

'You keep saying things like that—I'm sorry, and pardon me, and please pass the salt. And you know what really bothers me?'

'What?'

'I don't even have the salt.'

Jonathan laughed. 'You're fantastic, madame.'

'Yeah, but what does it get me? Excuses. Pardons. Sorrys.'

He smiled. 'You're right. I've been miserable company. I'm—'