"Fine. If you're that good we can go to the top of the lift."
They rode side by side on the double chairlift, rising through the ground mist that still had not been burned away, breaking out of the mist and into the cold, bright sun at fifteen hundred meters, with the snow and the trees far below them. Gaily colored figures dotted the snow, curving and cavorting, and far below and to the right the perpetual snow plume blew from the top of the Eiger. They passed the first station, riding on, their skis lifted clear of the landing stage, and then they were up and rising again, the valley below shrinking to a checkerboard of green and white. Far to their left, like a piece of white paper folded to a sharp edge and then crumpled and thrown on a table, was the razorback outline of the Devil's Ridge. Vasily nudged Krasin, and pointed to it.
"The Devil's Ridge, comrade," he said in Russian. "Can you see it?"
"We are all alone, but speak in English." Krasin frowned. "Yes, I can see it. What of it?"
"A very dangerous piece of terrain. For experts only." Vasily screwed up his voice into an apologetic whine. "I know it is forbidden to ask certain questions, but I must know two things."
"Ask."
"May I assume that the target is an expert skier?"
He could not be sure, but it seemed that Krasin, under goggles and scarf, was grinning slightly. "Yes, you may assume that. What else?"
"Only as far as location. May I assume that the mountain in question will contain a piece of terrain generally similar to the Devil's Ridge?"
Now he was sure of it. Krasin was grinning broadly. "Yes, Vasily Ivanovich, why not? We can arrange it. You may assume that."
"Good. In that case my plan may have some merit."
They left the chairlift at the top station and skied around the terminal to the left, dropping down and through a tight whip that brought them out onto a gentle trail that edged a meadow of snow. They skied roughly in tandem with Vasily always in front, forcing himself to ski loosely, easily, and telling himself: Stay in front, stay in front. Don't drop back. When he sees you in front he feels safe. Stay up.
Past the meadow the trail dipped down again, and they ran more rapidly now—still not pushing, just swinging with the hill. Then they topped a rise, and below them was the Devil's Ridge. Vasily turned into his stop slowly, slowly, praying that Krasin
would do the same. Then the two men stood together viewing the terrain below.
The ridge was a simple drop of two hundred meters connecting two plateaus, a sheer and murderous strip of snow no more than ten feet wide at any point. On either side the ridge fell away into perpendicular ravines. Along these sides the guides had planted pitons in the rock supporting long red flags that marked the acceptable limits of danger. The wind whipped the flags in a frenzied arabesque.
"Red flags," said Vasily. "Appropriate."
"Indeed."
"Frightening, isn't it?"
Krasin grunted. "I've skied worse."
"No doubt you have." Vasily pointed below with a ski pole. "You see how the terrain lies. Only one man can ski it at a time. Or two men in tandem. But not two side by side. Agreed?"
"That's obvious."
"Very well, then. I'm going to make a demonstration. Let us assume that you are the hunter and I am the target. Is that acceptable?"
"Pardon. Did you say that you would play the part of the target?" Krasin fought not to show his surprise.
"Exactly. Now, will your target be armed?"
"I don't think so."
"That's excellent. Neither am I. To continue. I will be the target and I will start first. You will follow immediately after, attempting to overtake me. You will follow every move 1 make, every turn. Since we are of roughly equal ability, I should be able to stay ahead. Then, at some point along the ridge—I'm not quite sure where yet—I will stop. You will stop also. I will then demonstrate how it will be possible to extract the target so that it looks like nothing more than a tragic accident. Agreed?"
Very casually, Krasin asked, "You'll be ahead of me at all times?"
"You wouldn't want your target behind you, would you? If the man were the least bit aware ..."
Krasin laughed. "Go ahead then. I'll follow."
I've got him, thought Vasily. The bastard is so intent on killing that he can't see or feel anything else. He's sure of me now; he can smell the meat. He's got me all set up to tumble over the side of that ridge whenever he feels like giving the shove. God, how he must be laughing inside. I set myself up for him and he's having a hard time keeping down the giggles.
And then without allowing himself to think any further he pushed himself over the top of the rise, poled twice deeply, and within ten feet was flying down the spine of the ridge, knees bent and body tucked into a racing crouch. Behind him he heard a grunt as Krasin took off after him, and then he had time only to concentrate on the red flags flashing by, counting their number. Jig right, jig left, the snow hard and firm under his skis, the wind a cutting edge at his nose. Eighteen, nineteen, flag twenty; no way to look back to see if Yuri is following closely, but he has to be, has to, wants to be close, ready to kill. Thirty-five, thirty-six; I hope you're as good as you say you are, Yuri—a real kanone; hard and fast, coming up now, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, now.
At the fiftieth flag he slammed on the brakes, sideslipped right to square with the fall line, and, still crouched close to the snow, dug his edges in to hold. It was a hard, fast check, not too difficult for a top-notch skier, and behind him he heard Yuri grunt as he made the same motion, went into the turn.
Yuri's skis made the turn. Yuri didn't. His safety bindings, set to pop loose and free his feet at one hundred and seven pounds of pressure, now popped at only fifty-eight. The skis went one way and Yuri went another, the only way he could go: pitching headfirst over the line of red banners, rolling once before he reached the edge, and now dragging his skis by their safety straps after him; rolled once more in a jumble of metal and flesh that turned into a pinwheel tumbling over the side and plummeting down to the stark rocks below.
He screamed once. Y-y-y-y-y-y-y. And then he was gone.
Vasily peered after him. He could see nothing, hear nothing.
"That's the way, Yuri," he said softly. "That's how you would do it."
Vasily shivered. He felt something rise within him, and he fought it down. It was the first time in his life that he had ever personally killed a man.
But not the last, he told himself. They're after me, and I've got to get out, and the only way I can do it is to eliminate all five of them. Four of them now. Goodbye, Yuri. I wonder if you could have been telling me the truth. Doubtful, very doubtful. And of no significance, because I made the decision a few days ago, and you were on the list. I've just shortened the odds.
Whatever revulsion he had felt at first was gone now, vanished as if it had never existed. How easy it was, he thought. How simple.
But then he shivered again. The rest would not be simple, and it was a task he could not possibly accomplish alone. Anyway, not if I want to live through it, and spend my declining years playing Gauguin, painting brown-skinned girls on some decadent Micronesian island. He smiled at this vision.
No, not alone. That decision had been made.
He straightened up, sweating and shivering in the icy wind. He skied the rest of the Devil's Ridge slowly and carefully, but when he came to the far plateau he picked up speed and began the quickest possible descent of the mountain. At the bottom, in the parking lot, he slung his skis and poles onto the rack of the rented Opel and drove quickly to his hotel. In his room he drank three fingers of neat vodka, showered, changed his clothes, and drank another three fingers while the hotel switchboard put through his call to Washington.
"Chalice," he said when she answered—"do you know who this is?"
"Yes, of course." As always, she was calm.
"I must be brief. Have there been any changes in your traveling plans?"
"None. I'm going north tonight
to meet—"
"Your other friend," he interjected quickly.
"And then south tomorrow, together."
"The same country? The same places?"
"But you knew all that. Why do you ask? My sophisticated darling, are you finally jealous?"
He laughed grimly. "Not at all. Something unforeseen has happened."
"Something bad. I can tell from your voice."
"Well, that depends." He thought for a moment. "Do you know what I mean when I say the place of the pyramid?"
She was silent, while the transatlantic cable crackled with distant voices. Then, "There are several."
"The magical one."
"Yes, now I know."
"Good. Now listen carefully." He gave her instructions in terse sentences. He said several very serious things, and then some mildly sentimental things as well. He mentioned no names of places or people. When the instructions were finished, he asked, "Are you sure you understand everything?"
"Perfectly."
"One thing more. Your friend should be very careful right now. Very careful indeed."
"In what way?"
"The most important way."
"Am I to tell him that?"
"Certainly not. I mentioned it for your benefit only. Don't get in the way."
He said goodbye, hung up, packed his two bags and took them down to the car himself. He removed his skis and poles from the car and locked them into the hotel's rack on the porch. He said farewell to them regretfully. He went inside, paid his bill, left his tips, and pulled away from the hotel less than forty minutes after he had arrived there from the slopes.
Three hours later, he left the offices of the Credit Suisse on the Paradeplatz in Zurich and went by taxi to the railroad station. He traveled second class to Milan, sitting up all night with two drunken Italian wine salesmen and two chattering American girls from Oklahoma City, and by the time he reached Milan's Malpensa Airport he was weary and red-eyed. Using a Canadian passport, paying in cash with Canadian dollars, he bought a first- class ticket to Mexico City by way of Madrid and Montreal. The 747 was only half full. He explained to the stewardess that he did not want to be disturbed for the movie.
Vasily raised the armrests, stretched out, swallowed a pill, and was soon asleep. He slept easily and without dreams, waking at intervals of several hours. At Montreal's Mirabel Airport he had to disembark. Aboard again, he swallowed another pill.
The final time he awoke, completely refreshed, he saw the snowcapped peak of Popocatepetl through the haze of smog that covered the Mexican plateau.
5
Garbage cans clanked in the alley, an oil truck ground through its gears, tires swished on pavement; all these early-morning New York sounds drifted up through the cold February air. In the warmth of his fifth-floor apartment, Eddie Mancuso sat cross- legged on the living-room carpet checking his diving equipment. Eddie heard none of the early-morning sounds. His drifting mind was victim to the nagging unease that had preyed upon it for so long.
All right—so you made your decision and now you've got to make it work. But how? All five of them. How? Think. No, don't. No thinking now. Thinking time starts tomorrow on the beach at Cozumel with Chalice lying there beside you. Christ, I need this. A week of relaxing and diving, and then maybe I can figure this out while I show her Chankanab Lagoon, and then the ruins . . . Palenque, Uxmal, Chichen-Itza. Maybe then, but not now. Right now all I've got to do is get the two of us on that plane this afternoon. After that there'll be time for thinking.
Although his mind was drifting, he handled the equipment carefully, thoughtfully, with an almost tender touch, refusing to compromise on this one simple and necessary task he had set for himself before the girl awoke. The Scubapro fins, mask, and swivel snorkel were in fine shape; good enough for years to come, for he bought only what he believed to be the best. He inhaled the deep, satisfying smell of good rubber. He inspected the shiny MR12-11 regulator and then, admiring its workmanship and tolerances as only a craftsman could, stuffed it into the big orange dive bag. Then came the pressure and depth gauges, weight belt, wet suit, neoprene boots, modular light, dive knife and sheath, spear gun, the Nikonos and six rolls of Ektachrome, the wraparound Calypso Compensator and harness.
That task completed, he began a check of Chalice's equipment. Everything passed inspection except the BC vest. It was old and threadbare, dating back to a time before he had known her. Christ, it's practically falling apart, he thought. We get attached to these things and we forget when it's time to throw them away. Then the old reliable pops and lets you down. She'll have to get another one in Mexico.
Then he grinned in sudden decision. Over the past three years there had been precious few chances to buy anything for Chalice. She was very much her own woman, had money of her own, and disliked being gifted. But this was a question of need. There was plenty of time before the plane, and a new Calypso wraparound was a present she could hardly object to.
There was enough time to clear away two brandy snifters, wash and dry them, and return the bottle of Remy to the bar. Looking around the living room, he decided that it was a great pad and that he was going to miss it. Some good women had crossed the threshold, and no one had ever asked for the complaint book. Least of all me, he thought, and especially not now, not with what's fast asleep in the bedroom. Crazy, wild, but it works, and that's what counts. If it keeps on working, I could stick with this one for a stretch. Tahiti, Bali . . . why not? Dive the Truk Lagoon. If I get out, if I can do it. The thought came back to burn him like a match held too long between the fingers.
He went to the closet where his suits hung. He bought them at either Brooks Brothers or Barney's, the choice having nothing to do with the price. It had to do only with whether he felt that day like Eddie Mancuso from Avenue B or Edward J. Mancuso, Director, Manhattan Security Research Systems, Inc., which was what his business card declared. Most of the time it didn't matter. He wore his suits when he went out to dinner or down to Williamsburg for conferences. The rest of the time he wore a duffel coat or a windbreaker, depending on the season, and a pair of jeans faded by wear, not by some Village boutique.
He parted the suits with one hand and with the other slipped a steel key into an almost invisible keyhole in the wood paneling at the back of the closet. The paneling, a metal door with a plywood sheath, swung open smoothly, and he flicked a light switch. Banks of fluorescent tubes illuminated the miniature laboratory, the glassware and burners, the racks of bottles, the cage of white mice, the one lonesome guinea pig, and the busy, buzzing hornets in their plastic nest.
The laboratory of the mad scientist. That's what Chalice had named it when he first had shown it to her in a breach of security that would have driven the Colonial Squad up the wall, had they known about it. Not even the Squad itself knew where he did his research. The laboratory of the mad scientist, but after the joke she had been deadly serious, wanting to see and understand everything. He had tried to explain as much as he could, but it was hard going. He knew too many things intuitively, and could not articulate them except to other people in the business who spoke his own language. But for all of that, the girl had been an eager listener, and had asked the right sort of questions, her eyes intent and the tip of her tongue working over her lips as he described his wares.
Working quickly and economically, he transferred ether to a gauze pad and killed the mice—a preferable fate to starvation while he was away. He debated over the guinea pig, wondering who might have a use for it. The hornets would survive, and there might be use for them someday. He turned off the light, locked the closet door, and went into the bedroom to look for his Norwegian sweater and heavy gloves. Chalice was a pleasing mound under the electric blanket on the oversize bed, long dark-gold hair swirling on the pillow. He tried to collect the sweater quietly, but she heard the sound of the drawer opening and opened a blurry eye.
"Time to go?" she murmured.
"No, go back to sleep." He be
nt to kiss her hot cheek. "I'm going out for a while. I'll be back soon."
"Where?"
"Tell you later. It's a surprise."
Both her eyes were open now, less blurred, and she was smiling. She flipped the blanket off her. Her nude body gleamed in the glow of the bedside lamp. "Surprise me now," she said. "Come back to bed."
For a moment he was tempted; then he laughed and said, "When I come back. If there's time."
"Please, Eddie. Now."
He replaced the blanket over her, still laughing. "Later. Go back to sleep now."
He left then, and when she heard the door close and lock she stirred in the bed. She knew that she would not fall back to sleep easily, and she felt a bubble of resentment building. It's not fair, she decided. I wake up feeling all warm, and wet, and all I get is a promise. Maybe later. But I want it now. Not fair, not fair, she repeated, sliding her hands up over her body, relishing the smoothness of her skin. She cupped her breasts and molded them, slid palms over nipples and felt the tactile tissue rise. She knew then that she was going to do it—so unfair to be left that way—and her right hand slid down again from breast to belly to bush, diving finger first into familiar folds. As the circle of warmth began to spread, she fixed herself on a fantasy, thinking first of Eddie's short, lithe, olive-toned body; and then, the pique of her resentment still with her, she discarded that sight for a vision of Vasily's pale skin and angular grace, his long, narrow cock coming closer and closer, touching her cheek, her lips, her tongue . . .
She was still far from climax when she heard the unmistakable sound of scratching at the front door.
Kelly waited patiently, sitting behind the wheel of the pale-blue Mercury, watching the entrance of the apartment building on East Eighty-second Street. The neighborhood was quiet at that time of the morning. Even the rumble of the traffic from York Avenue was muted. Kelly knew how to wait. To pass the time, he played word games with himself, complicated games involving the letters on license plates. He composed fictional football teams, compiled lists of songs from the Fifties and Sixties, and in extreme times recited to himself the longer poems of Edgar Allan Poe. All this while he watched the entrance to the building and the doorman standing just within the glass doors. He was prepared to wait all day; he had done so in the past. On this particular morning, however, his luck was in. He had been staked out for less than two hours when Eddie Mancuso came out of the building.
THE DEATH FREAK -- An Eddie Mancuso Thriller (Eddie Mancuso And Vasily Borgneff Book 1) Page 4