Sons

by Michael Halfhill

  With barely enough strength to make it across the ice and rock and onto the warmer surface of the plateau, Alexandra rolled onto her side and gulped frigid air into her oxygen-starved lungs. Stunned and exhausted, she could only mouth a silent plea for help. Colin broke away from Louis’s grip and bent down, smoothing the tangled hair from her face.

  “Where the hell’s that damn Arab!” Louis grumbled.

  As if in answer to his incautious remark, Ben heaved himself up onto the flat surface of the plateau. He darted a scornful sidelong glance at Louis, then called out in Arabic. Nothing. He called again. Only the wind answered. He stood still, ears cocked, hoping to catch a voice.

  “We have to go on. Something seems to have delayed my colleagues.”

  In a rare display of machismo, Louis stepped in front of Ben. “What about my money. You said I’d get paid when I delivered the boy. Well, you’ve got yours, now where’s mine?”

  Ben ignored the challenge and looked past Louis. He regarded Alexandra, exhausted and lying in a weeping heap.

  Weak Americans. They are all alike.

  He said to Louis, “We will leave her. She is done for.”

  Colin screamed. “No! She’ll die!”

  “That’s the idea, stupid!” Louis sneered.

  “I’m not leaving her!” Colin screamed. He struggled to his feet and swung a feeble fist at Louis.

  Alexandra watched in horror as the older man, taller and stronger, cuffed Colin with a backhand, sending him sprawling across the sharp gray shale. The skin on Colin’s palms tore open as he scrabbled across the loose, ice-covered stone. Blood quickly formed cold clots as the sharp rock bit deep into his bare flesh. His right cheek began to swell from the blow.

  Alexandra crawled to her lover and reached out a trembling hand just as Louis wheeled around and swung his ice axe at Colin. Missing his intended mark, he caught Alexandra on her left shoulder, ripping through her parka and slicing her flesh.

  “Ahh!” she cried, as she rolled around on the ground. “Mama! Mama!”

  Colin forced himself up on aching legs. “Leave her alone, you filthy bastard!” he said, his words barely audible against the mounting wind.

  Wild with bloodlust and frustrated fury, Louis again turned on Colin. Swinging the axe in a haphazard arc he bellowed, “You little brat, I’ll kill you myself!”

  Forty-Five

  JAN and Joachim inched their way along a ledge formed from the blue ice that made up the glacier’s main crevasse. A coil of nylon rope wound around their waists connected the two men. Caught in the icy cleft’s twin embrace, they stopped to catch their breath. The walls of the crevasse looked like watery crystal shimmering in pale northern sunlight. The strong wind gusting through the frozen fissure had blown away most of the snow that had fallen the previous day. Footsteps in the now shallow snow were the only signs that they were on the right track. Jan recognized the imprint of the Deerstalker boots that he had made especially for Colin.

  “Listen,” Joachim said.

  Jan strained his ears, but no sound seeped below the rim of the mighty glacier.

  “I don’t hear anything,” he said.

  “Shhh, I thought I heard voices.”

  Jan listened again, harder this time. Yes, he could hear them too. Two, perhaps three people, somewhere ahead.

  He nodded. Just ahead.

  Joachim fingered the Glock 9mm pistol in the breast pocket of his Arctic parka. Passing over it, he drew out the seven-inch assassin’s knife he had bought at a weapons show in Chicago the previous year. Perfectly balanced for throwing, the knife fitted the situation he and Jan found themselves in, and it was mercifully silent.

  Jan stopped and tapped Joachim on the shoulder, pointing to messy depressions made by Colin and whoever was ahead. The footprints shifted onto the ledge on the other side of the narrow slit that fell away into darkness.

  Jan whispered, “Let out some rope. I’ll cross over. You stay a little behind.”

  Joachim nodded. He wished Hansford Ward or Sonya Jelski was here. Two against an unknown number was not a good thing. Both agents were trained and, when necessary, very ruthless, but Han retired from killing people and was living the good life in Paris, while Sonya was nursing her latest newborn.

  Jan washed the worried look from his face and smiled at the big Israeli. He nodded, took a deep breath of cold, searing air into his lungs, and stepped across the chasm.

  Once on the slippery shelf, Jan held onto the frozen wall like a babe at its mother’s breast. Half out of his mind with rage and fear for his son, he prayed from the psalm of David, Oh Lord, Thou hast seen my wrong. Judge now my cause.

  “You okay?” Joachim whispered.

  Jan merely nodded, afraid to speak for fear of losing his concentration, all of which centered on not falling backward into the void. Slowly, he turned, moving along in tandem with Joachim as they followed the ridge toward the voices.

  Forty-Six

  PHYSICALLY and emotionally exhausted, Colin could only wait for Louis’s axe to fall on him.

  “Stop!” Ben stepped in between Colin and Louis. “The son of the infidel belongs to me!”

  “Wrong! He belongs to me!”

  Everyone turned to see who had spoken.

  Jan stood at the rim of the crevasse with no visible weapon, arms at his side.

  Joachim stood off to one side. Jan had been firm in his instructions. You handle the Arab, Louis Carew is mine. Understand?

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jan saw Colin kneeling with Alexandra in his arms.

  Alive!

  “Thank you God,” he whispered.

  “Colin, look! It’s your dad. He’s come for us!” Alexandra wept as she fell back into Colin’s arms.

  Colin stared as if his father was a mirage. He came… he came!

  Louis raised the ice axe, advancing on Jan. Laughing, he said, “Phillips, you son of a bitch! Who the hell do you think you are, some cartoon superhero? You’re not going to ruin my life again!”

  Jan leapt forward, hitting the ground and rolling underneath the swinging axe. The swift move caught Louis at the knees with a cracking sound, causing him to fall back onto the hard ice pack. Stunned, he lay immobile, his lungs aching for air.

  Jan was not much better off. His shoulder, now badly bruised, ached from the impact. Getting up, Jan staggered to where Louis lay, heaved him to his feet, only to knock him down again with a savage blow.

  Ben watched, fascinated, as the two men fought. I wonder which one of these fools I will end up killing.

  Jan dragged Louis once again to his feet and swung him around in a circle before letting him go. Exhausted, both men sagged to the ground. Jan fell back onto the rock-strewn ground. Rubbing his shoulder, he looked over at his son.

  During the fight, the flare gun Louis brought from the Beechcraft slipped out of the side pocket of his jacket. The snub-nosed pistol had skittered along the ground, stopping just inches from where Colin cradled Alexandra in his arms.

  Colin looked at the gun, so tantalizingly close.

  Alexandra looked at the gun too, and then at Colin. “Yes,” she whispered.

  This is all my fault, Colin thought. I have to do something!

  Colin licked his chapped lips and glanced at the gun. He looked at Ben, expecting the Arab to grab for it. Instead, Ben stood, looking past him with a puzzled look on his face.

  Colin craned his neck around and saw a big man walking out of the heavily swirling mist toward them. The air was getting colder, and the man’s breath puffed out like a steam locomotive. Is this the mysterious associate Ben talked about?

  Jan also saw the man stepping out of the fog that had begun to move across the plateau. He scrambled to his feet and pulled Louis, bruised and defeated, up on unsteady legs.

  “Damn it, Victor! I told you to stay behind!” Jan yelled.

  Victor yelled back, “Never mind that now. I’ve come for my son.”

  Ben now realized the struggle was no longer t
wo against two. The arrival of Louis’s father threatened not only his life, but also his sworn mission to Allah. He brought out his stun gun. A tiny blue light blinked, “Battery Depleted.” He swore in Arabic, reached around to his back, and drew a Bowie knife from a leather sheath fastened to his belt, the very knife he used to snuff out the lives of Allah’s foes.

  Colin, with Alexandra in his arms, drew back as Ben moved toward them.

  The weather, which had produced the heavy gray fog, now added sleet mixed with snow. From out of this icy haze, Joachim Nussbaum bore down on the murderer of so many innocents.

  “Drop the knife!”

  Ben whirled around at the sound of the heavily accented voice. A Jew! Better still! Allah is indeed great and merciful. He rewards me in all things!

  Ben eyed the big man, now only a few feet away, and weighed his options. Kill the infidel’s son, or begin a fight to the death with the Israeli. The Arab turned on Colin just as Joachim closed on him. The Israeli grabbed Ben’s collar, pulling him back.

  “Allah will not be fed on the blood of innocents today, murderer!”

  Wheeling around, Ben shouted, “We shall see, cousin, who is stronger!”

  The two men struggled across the loose rock. Arm to arm, knife to knife, the two enemies lashed at one another. The cold air made each lunge an ordeal in itself. In a desperate move, Ben pushed Joachim back and swung a deadly arc, cutting the ex-spy across the back of his wrist, slicing down into vein and sinew. Joachim howled as pain swept up his arm. Another, much stronger pain followed as Ben plunged his blade into Joachim’s side.

  The big man sagged to his knees. The sleet and snow mix changed over to all snow and began to fall in gentle sheets.

  Yanking his Bowie knife from Joachim’s weeping ribs, he turned his fury toward Colin.

  Through it all, Victor Carew stood confused. Who are these people?

  Joachim’s fall was a disaster. Until this moment, he had seemed invincible. Now Jan and Victor stood alone and unarmed against a ferocious maniac.

  Jan prayed under his breath, God, if you love me, give me strength. Then he reached down and snatched Louis’s ice axe from the ground. From a kneeling position, he hurled the axe in one swift movement, hitting Ben with a glancing blow, painful, though not fatal.

  Alexandra, weak from exposure, fainted in Colin’s arms. He laid her down gently and then grabbed the flare gun.

  Jan’s challenge infuriated Ben. The Arab knelt down, picked up Louis’s ice axe, grinned at Jan, and then threw it aside.

  “Now you will know that Allah is great,” he bellowed.

  A dull pop followed by a whoosh of hot air slowed the Arab’s charge. Ben stopped, looked at Jan, and then staggered forward. He dropped the knife and gave a bewildered groan. A phosphorescent fire glowed in his intestines. For a pain-racked moment, the Arab tore at his steaming guts. He staggered sideways, turned, and plunged headlong over the rim of the crevasse, landing first on the shelf he had just climbed, and then into the abyss.

  An eerie calm settled momentarily over the plateau. Jan grabbed Louis by the neck and gave him a hard shake. “Louis, I’m going to my son. If you make one false move, so help me God, I will kill you!”

  Louis shrugged and stepped back toward the oncoming blitz of snow and fog.

  Jan turned and rushed to his son’s side. Colin was kneeling, head down and sobbing, the smoking flare gun still clutched in his hand. Jan pulled him to his breast. “You’re safe now, son, you’re safe.”

  Colin pushed himself away from Jan. “I’m okay, but Zan’s hurt! She’s bleeding!”

  A few feet away, Louis and Victor engaged in a battle of words. Absorbed in their private pain, it was as if the life and death struggle that had just taken place had never happened. Jan heard only fragmented phrases before the gusting wind snatched them away.

  “Get away from me, old man! I can’t be what you want. Can’t you see that?” Louis cried. “I tried. I really tried, but you never liked me! Nothing I ever did was good enough, or important enough. It was all you could do to have me in the house. It’s true, and you know it!”

  Louis doubled over with the pain of his sorrow. Years of stifled emotion erupted like a sleeping volcano.

  “I wanted so much to be like you—strong and ruthless—all business—no nonsense. Well take a look around, this sure as hell isn’t nonsense.”

  “Louis, I’m your father. I love you. We can fix this thing. We’ve done it before.”

  Louis’s earlier fury seeped away, replaced with self-loathing and despair. He shook his head and knuckled tears from his eyes.

  “It’s too late… too late for that now.”

  “No, Louie, you’re wrong, son. I’m here for you now. Maybe I wasn’t there for you in the past. Maybe I didn’t understand, but I do now! C’mon, we’ll make a go of it, just you and me. After all this is over, we’ll go away someplace where we can start over again. Louie, I want to love you for who you are, not for who I think you should be… just like when you were a boy. I—”

  Louis shook his head. His words, drowned in a mix of sobs and mumbles, became even more incoherent. The wind carried his voice away as the blinding snow continued its relentless progress across the plateau. Only a few hundred yards to go and it would swallow them all in wall of white.

  Jan grabbed a piece of rock and threw it at the two men. Puzzled, Victor turned see Jan waving to him. “Come on, Victor, I need you,” he yelled.

  Louis gestured for Victor to follow. “Go on, Dad, help the Phillips kid. Go on, I said!”

  Reluctantly, Victor ran to where Jan knelt. “Can I help? What can I do?” Victor said.

  “Yes, go check on Joachim.”

  Victor nodded and hurried over to where Joachim lay, breathing heavily.

  Jan pulled out his cell phone, punched in a number, and prayed. Alexandra roused from her faint and groaned.

  “Zan,” Jan said, “do you think you can walk?”

  “I think so,” was her weak response. Blood trickled in clotted blots from her jacket cuff.

  “I’ll take care of her,” Colin said.

  Alexandra gave a weak smile. “Love you,” she murmured into Colin’s breast.

  Jan snapped the cell phone off. His voice raw from shouting, he pressed his mouth to Colin’s ear. “A helicopter will be here in a few minutes. They’ll drop a harness. Get Zan into it. Be sure to hang onto the belaying line to keep her from swaying. Then you go up. Understand?”

  Colin nodded.

  “Okay, I have to help the others,” Jan said.

  He gave his son a reassuring smile and then ran to join Victor. Joachim sat lopsided, pressing his hand against the gash in his side.

  Moments later, the thundering sound of a helicopter’s rotors swept over them, the Mundus emblem of a bright yellow and red flame surrounded by protecting wings emblazoned on its sides.

  “I am okay,” he yelled, competing with the chopper’s roar.

  Jan had witnessed the stabbing. Unconvinced, he yelled back, “You sure?”

  Joachim nodded. He stood, swayed, and leaned his heavy frame on Jan’s slim shoulder. A few minutes later, Jan looked up just as one of the copter’s crew pulled Colin safely inside.

  Suddenly, Victor shouted, “Where’s Louis?”

  Panicked, the older Carew chased in circles, calling, “Louis! Louis! Son, where are you!”

  Jan stopped and turned, looking for any sign of his son’s tormentor as Victor dashed toward the oncoming storm.

  “Victor! No! Come back! Victor!” Jan cried, his words no match for the wind as he shouted after the older man.

  Joachim groaned, distracting Jan. When he looked around again, Victor too had disappeared into the churning mass of snow.

  Above the roar of wind and snow the chopper’s bullhorn operator shouted, “Mr. Phillips, we have to go now! Get on the harness!”

  SAFELY within the cocoon of the B/A609 helicopter, Jan quickly ordered the chopper to Reykjavik’s Lanspitaliti
Hospital. Two female medics tended to Joachim and Alexandra’s wounds. Both were strapped onto stretchers to keep them from tossing around as the twin-engine chopper twirled through the fierce storm that now swarmed over the Murderküll glacier. One woman gave each a sedative as well as a strong dose of antibiotics, while another slathered an antibiotic salve on Colin’s hands and wrists, then wrapped a light thermal bandage over them.

  Jan continued to hold Colin in a tight embrace.

  “He should be okay, Mr. Phillips,” the medic said. “No frostbite, thank God, but you’re going to suffocate him if you hold him any tighter!”

  Jan smiled apologetically and eased his hold on his son.

  “What about Zan?” Colin asked.

  The medic looked over at Alexandra, then to Colin.

  “She’s suffering from exposure. The wound needs stitching, but it’s not serious. As they say, a little blood goes a long way.” The medic smiled at Colin. “You two were lucky—very lucky. They don’t call that glacier Murderküll for nothing.”

  The vibration and roar of the big chopper’s motors, combined with fatigue and sore vocal cords, made conversation pointless. Colin slipped into a dazed sleep.

  Jan looked through a side window to the frozen world below. There was no trace of Victor or Louis Carew. Both men were lost. He thought of Victor’s tortured plea. Louie, I love you for who you are… just like when you were a boy, and then he recalled a line from Shakespeare… they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain.

  Jan hung his head and wept unashamed tears.

  Forty-Seven

  THE rescue helicopter swooped from the cloudy sky and landed with pinpoint accuracy on the Lanspitaliti Hospital helipad. During the flight from the glacier, Jan had called Dagmar, alerting her that they did indeed have casualties and that the chopper was heading to the hospital. As soon as the rotors stopped, emergency personnel raced out to whisk Alexandra and Joachim to the emergency room.