Hot Ice

by Gregg Loomis

  He declined the assistance of a bellhop with his single bag. Heels clicking on the marble between imitation Oriental rugs, Jason made his way across the faux mahogany lobby to the elevator and then the third floor. The room contained a queen-size bed, two chairs upholstered in a beige that more or less matched the walls and bedspread, and a wooden chair in front of a small desk. Botanical prints in matching frames hung above the bed and desk.

  The decorating equivalent of a dial tone.

  Jason checked his watch, then the menu in a folder on the desk. If he hurried, he could make the later closing of the hotel’s two dining rooms for dinner. Not that he had any great expectations of culinary grandeur. This was, after all, England, where rare roast beef was only seared on the inside rather than burned and flavor had meticulously been cooked out of vegetables. On the upside, though, he had seen Scottish salmon on the list of entrees, a dish even the British seemed unable to ruin.

  The room’s phone rang.

  “Mr. Peters? Sorry to disturb you, sir, but there’s a gentleman here to see you, a Dr. Cravas from the university. Shall I send him up?”

  Jason hesitated before replying. Surely the professor hadn’t followed him to the Marriott to continue drinking. He had hardly had the time to fetch the Grünwelt material he was to deliver in the morning.

  “No. I’m just out of the shower. Can I speak to him?”

  Jason was unable to hear the conversation between the desk clerk and his visitor.

  “Mr. Peters, he says he needs to speak with you face-to-face.”

  Warning bells began to go off.

  “Tell him I’ll be right down soon as I’m dressed. Under no circumstances are you to give him my room number.”

  The clerk sounded offended a guest would find the instruction necessary. “Of course, sir.”

  Jason threw on a fresh pair of pants and shirt and stepped into his shoes. He stuffed the room key in his pocket and went into the hall, pausing to moisten the knob and attach a hair, a telltale sign that would alert him on his return if anyone had entered the room. He passed the bank of elevators, going instead toward a set of doors marked as a fire exit. The doors led to a stairway. At the bottom, he could see an exit out of the hotel.

  Instead, he opened the door, finding himself in a normal hotel corridor. Keeping close to the wall, Jason went down the hallway until he had a limited view of the lobby. There were only two people in it: the desk clerk and a man who sat facing the elevator.

  The angle was such that Jason could not see the man’s face but to the experienced eye, there was little doubt he was armed. Specifically, a shoulder holster. A man with a gun at the small of his back tends to reflexively sit stiffly so the gun butt does not jam into his back. Someone carrying a pistol in an ankle holster would never cross his legs as the man Jason was watching just had. To do so would be too likely to expose the weapon hiding just above the cuff of his trousers.

  This guy, then, had no back or ankle weapon. But the way he unconsciously tugged at his jacket, keeping it zipped despite the indoor warmth, suggested he had something under it he had rather not be seen.

  Jason turned and retraced his steps to the exit.

  He shivered in the cold mist as he hugged the building’s outside wall. He crept along it until he had a view of the small car park across the street, where the hotel parked guests’ vehicles on a first-come, first-served basis. A silver Alfa Romeo 159—a small, sleek four-door sedan—blocked a lane just inside the exit. The plume of exhaust from its tailpipe disappearing into the night told Jason the engine was running. Its driver did not anticipate being there long. Or intended a speedy departure. A speck of orange glowed from the right front. The driver was smoking a cigarette as he waited.

  Jason had a good idea what he was waiting for.

  Bent double so as to make as little of a silhouette as possible, Jason made a dash for the parked cars. It took him less than a minute to find the Morris. Now, if only the boot was unlocked …

  He took a relieved breath as the trunk opened easily. Jason’s fingers probed the small space until they closed around the tire tool, a bar of iron about two feet long.

  Still crouched, Jason approached the Alfa from behind. Creeping to the left rear, the closest thing the car had to a blind spot, he jumped onto the bumper with both feet. Before the car had fully rocked from the impact, he was on all fours, scrambling around the front bumper.

  He waited at the rear right fender as the driver’s door flew open. Jason could see a large man framed against the hotel lights. Though his back was to Jason, he would have bet he was looking at one of the men from the train station. And he was certain that was a gun he saw in the man’s hand. The bulging sound suppressor at its muzzle suggested he intended to use it.

  32

  San Juan

  A Few Hours Earlier

  Carlos was looking over Pedro’s shoulder as they both read the cryptic message on the computer screen: “Missed rail connection north. Will follow to next stop.”

  “How do they know where he is going?” Carlos wanted to know.

  “Simple enough. Where else would he be headed? Remember, the British Institute of Science and Climatology is in Durham, several hours north of London by train. They are the ones who hired the man we took care of in Iceland. It is likely Peters is going to meet Dr. Cravas. We follow the professor and Peters will fall into our net.”

  Carlos cracked his knuckles as he stretched. “The Dr. Cravas. Why not eliminate him too?”

  “Too risky. Something happens to one of the main cogs of the Institute, something suspicious, and we have a criminal investigation. Plus, it is far better to discredit the man than make him a martyr.”

  “How do we know taking care of Peters will silence everyone else who knows about the grapevine? The two people he consulted in Washington, for instance… .”

  “Once we have Peters, he will tell us where the grapevine and the photos showing it in the glacier are. Without those, grapes in Iceland become just one more lie told by those who do not believe in human-induced global warming.”

  “But what makes us more believable than them?”

  Pedro took a box of Russian cigarettes from his shirt pocket. With one between his lips, he rasped a wooden match across the sole of his shoe. “The essential gullibility of those who hate the American rich. Anything that harms the big corporations is desirable to them and therefore true. That is the marvelous thing about the global-warming cause: It pits the industrialized countries, particularly America, against the environment. No one wants to admit they don’t care about the environment.”

  “But both China and India originate much more CO2 than America. Why do our members not protest?”

  Pedro showed teeth the color of old piano keys in a smile as he exhaled a jet of smoke. “You have done what the Americans call ‘your homework.’ Both China and India are ‘developing’ nations. Would you deny them their chance to become fully modernized? That is hardly the social and economic justice so loved by our friends in America and Western Europe.”

  Carlos fanned the smoke away from his face. “But the corporations are owned by American capitalists. And retirement funds, pension plans …”

  “The American politicians have done a marvelous job of making the very beneficiaries of the capitalist system forget that fact. They vilify the corporations as though the companies exist on their own instead of being comprised of millions of stockholders, many of whom are retired teachers, steelworkers, policemen. That is one more reason we shall prevail.”

  “And we will prevail?”

  The question hung in the air like the cigarette’s smoke before Pedro nodded. “Of course.”

  33

  Durham

  The first thing the man with the gun did was to turn toward the back of the Alfa Romeo, the source of the jolt to the car. It was a mistake Jason had counted on.

  Just as the man’s other foot touched the pavement of the parking lot, Jason lunged. The sound of mov
ement made the car’s driver spin, his face meeting the swinging tire tool with a crunch that crushed his right orbital bone, eye cavity, and blinded the other eye with a bloody mask.

  Before his victim could even scream with pain, Jason backhanded the iron rod, bringing it up smartly against the wrist of the hand holding the weapon. The gun clattered to the pavement.

  Pain, severe pain, tends to momentarily paralyze, and Jason used that instant to bring the tire tool down again, this time against the man’s knee, a blow that sent him sprawling with a shriek of agony. He lay face-up on the pavement.

  Snatching up the gun, Jason tucked it into his waistband and sat astride the man now moaning as he cradled his ruined face in his hands. Placing the iron tool across the man’s throat, Jason leaned forward. Not enough pressure to close off all breath, but enough so the man got the idea.

  “Move and your neck snaps like a matchstick,” Jason growled. “Understand?”

  The head nodded.

  “Good. Now, I’m going to ask a few questions. For every right answer, I let up a little on the pressure. For every wrong answer, you strangle. First, who sent you?”

  “Fuck you.”

  The words were followed by a gurgling sound as Jason leaned forward, putting more weight on the bar across the man’s neck.

  “Wrong answer. Let’s try again. Who sent you?”

  “Get fucked.”

  Jason sighed. His interrogation techniques simply weren’t working these days. On the bright side, Maria wasn’t here. He put his full weight on the tire tool. Even in the dim light from the hotel across the street, he could see the undamaged eye bulge. Killing a man like this wasn’t what he had in mind, but this guy’s effort to kill him in the train station this morning didn’t discourage him either.

  “Last chance.”

  The form beneath him went rigid and then limp. Playing possum, or passed out from lack of oxygen? Jason wasn’t inclined to take a chance. Replacing his hands on the bar with his knees, he began to search the inert form’s pockets. His first find was the long Spetsnaz knife. He tucked it into his belt next to the gun. A few pound notes in a wallet, along with a British driver’s license Jason would have bet was a forgery. A jacket pocket proved more fruitful: a matchbook with printing on it, too dim in this light to read. Probably just advertising, but even the language might give more of a clue than Jason possessed at the moment. Professionals like this guy didn’t normally carry around stuff that might disclose where they had been. But smokers kept matches.

  A moan from the ground redirected Jason’s attention to the man prone on the pavement. His pal in the hotel lobby would be returning to the car when Jason didn’t come downstairs. Jason wrestled the semiconscious man out of his jacket and took the knife from his waist to slash the sleeves into strips with which he bound hands and feet.

  He balled up the remaining material and used the knife’s tip to pry the waking man’s jaws open before stuffing his mouth with the fabric. An effective gag if reflexive retching didn’t choke the man on his own vomit.

  Jason had neither the time nor inclination to concern himself.

  He opened the Alfa’s small trunk and felt around the edge of the inside. He could discover no inside release as required by the ever-meddlesome US Department of Transportation, probably one of several reasons Alfas were not sold in the United States. That, along with lack of side airbags and the Italians’ understandable disinclination to crash-test an otherwise perfectly salable car. Though largely socialist in their politics, Europeans did not favor the nanny state where their automobiles were concerned.

  Jason dragged the bound man to the rear of the car. Despite desperate wriggling and muted grunts of protest, he managed to get the man draped over the edge of the trunk and then dump in the lower torso. He slammed the lid shut and climbed into the driver’s seat to wait.

  Pulling the pistol from his waistband, he was not surprised to recognize another GSh-18 like the one he had seen in Iceland. He pushed the catch and dropped the clip into the palm of his hand, holding it up to make sure it was fully loaded before clicking it back into place. As he eased back the slide, brass gleamed from the chamber. The weapon was loaded and cocked. He put it on the passenger seat while he reached for the box of cigarettes the man in the trunk had left on the dashboard.

  Jason did not have long to wait. A form hurriedly exited the Marriott, blurred in the penumbra between the hotel’s lights and the night’s drizzly gloom. Turning his head away from the approaching figure, Jason lit a cigarette with a match from the book he had taken. Without thinking, he inhaled, sucking a caustic stream of smoke down his throat. He had to struggle not to give himself away by coughing.

  The passenger door opened and the courtesy light confirmed that this man was one of the two he had seen at King’s Cross that morning.

  “Do come in and have a seat,” Jason said mildly, pressing the automatic against the underside of the other man’s chin as he stubbed out the cigarette. “But be sure to keep your hands right there on the dashboard.”

  The man silently complied. “Where’s Uri?” the man asked before his lips tightened.

  “Inspecting the baggage, I’d imagine. Now, keep your hands where I can see them.

  “Good boy! Now, take your left hand and slowly, and I mean real slowly, reach inside your jacket, remove your pistol, holding it between your thumb and forefinger, and drop it on the floor.”

  Jason sensed, rather than saw, a flicker of resistance, an instant when the man was considering his options. He pressed the gun’s muzzle a little harder against the bottom of the man’s chin. “Don’t even think about not doing exactly as you are told. I really would prefer not to make a bloody mess of this nice car. But then, I’m not the one who would have to explain to Mr. Hertz.”

  The gun came out from under the jacket, held between thumb and forefinger like the tail of a dead rat.

  “You’re doing swell. Now drop it.”

  The pistol thumped against the car’s carpeted floor mat.

  “Now the knife.”

  The man spoke for the first time, the accent light but noticeable. “What knife?”

  This time Jason jammed the gun’s business end into the soft flesh under the chin. “We’re not playing games, Ivan. Either the knife hits the floor or your brains hit the ceiling. Your choice.”

  The knife followed the gun.

  “Very good. Now I’m going to ask you a few questions… .”

  “Fuck you.”

  Spetsnaz training must include a pretty limited English vocabulary. Jason tipped the barrel of the automatic down and squeezed the trigger. It was no contest between the shot muffled by the silencer and the terrified shriek of the man who was now looking at a hole in the slack of his trousers just between his crotch and his leg.

  The sound suppressor was against the man’s jaw again. “Unless you have ambitions to join a girls’ choir, I’d suggest you answer the question.”

  Even in the dim light, Jason could see the man’s eyes widen in fright.

  “First and last time: Who sent you?”

  Jason could almost smell the panic seething beneath the surface. “The sex-change operation will commence on three. One, two …”

  It happened so quickly, Jason was caught off guard. With a lunge, his captive opened the car door and was rolling across the pavement. With the grace of an acrobat, he was on his feet and sprinting into the darkness. Jason blamed himself for not locking the Alfa’s door or at least making sure it was fully closed. He never seriously considered shooting. The potential consequences—police, indefinite detainment, explanations—far outweighed any benefit. Besides, the man’s anguished yell may well have the local constabulary on its way already as it was.

  As indeed it had.

  The desk clerk was either too sleepy or too polite to ask questions about a mid-evening departure when Jason signed the credit card slip for the entire night despite his brief stay. As he turned from the desk, keys to the Morris a
nd single bag in hand, he could see forms across the street silhouetted against flashing blue lights.

  He handed the clerk a twenty-pound note. “A favor: after I’ve been gone about twenty minutes, suggest the police check the trunk, er, boot, of the Alfa.”

  He was repaid by a puzzled expression and the polite disdain the British have for invasive questions.

  34

  Delta Flight 1204

  Eight Hours Later

  Jason hated transoceanic flights, even more so in economy class. Hours of being crammed into close quarters with nearly two hundred strangers, none of whom had paid the same price for their ticket. Even military transport was more generous with legroom.

  Add to that the all-night drive from Durham to London that had forced him to drink what he guessed was more coffee than the little car’s gas tank would have held. Certainly enough to make him promise his souring stomach that he would swear off the stuff for the next twenty years.

  In the wee hours of the morning, he left the Morris beside the embassy and handed the keys to a somewhat puzzled Marine security guard at the gate. By this time, the Underground’s first trains of the day were beginning to run. A quick check revealed the number of police in the tube stations from the day before had been sharply reduced: only one automatic weapon–carrying officer that Jason could see. Still, he made himself extremely camera shy, shielding his face from the overhead lenses as much as he could without being obvious.

  He had dozed off during the ride to St. Pancras Station, where he purchased a Eurostar ticket for the two-hour-and-fifteen-minute Chunnel ride to Paris, falling asleep again as the train left the station. From de Gaulle he would return to Washington by a route he hoped sufficiently circuitous to have eluded anyone looking for him, whether Scotland Yard or former Spetsnaz.