Her own speed and the gradient of the slope translated into a bundle of movement - arms, legs (her skis still attached; she had her bindings set for racing), snow and then more arms and legs. And more snow. The wind was taken from her, and her right shoulder which, since the episode on the Russian oligarch’s superyacht tended to ‘pop-out’, did just that - but thankfully only long enough for it to quickly find its way back into its proper place.
Shit! That hurt.
Friction and impact slowed Sam’s decent and, in a defensive manoeuvre when she felt she was coming out of the next tumble, she dug her heels into the ground. Her momentum swung her body upright, at which point she twisted her feet so her skis pointed downhill. And then she was off - upright and unbalanced, covered in snow, but back on two legs.
Shaken, not stirred.
She skid-stopped as soon as she was ready - and just before the slope ran out and turned right into the trees.
She was panting - and waiting. She needed a second to stop her brain from spinning and get her world back into focus. Check. Her shoulder hurt, but not overly so. All limbs intact. All OK.
Concussion?
I don’t think so.
Eyesight? Yes, that works … where’s the idiot?
There he was. The skier who had knocked her down. Twenty metres from her, up the slope. The skier with the unmistakable red jacket with distinctive blue flashes. With a white helmet she could easily pick out in a crowd.
Except there wasn’t a crowd. They were among the first on the slopes heading to Inneralpbach, which was at the far end of the resort. Only the most committed got this far, this early.
She looked beyond the man, further up the slope. A couple of lads were on their way down. Competent skiers, but not experts. She looked again at the man. He was staring directly at her whilst unzipping his jacket - halfway to his waist, leaving a single pole planted in the snow.
What?!
What was he reaching for?
The two skiers didn’t stop. They shot past Sam at a reasonable pace just as she saw the man’s hand hesitate inside his jacket. Keeping something hidden. But not that well-hidden. She could see enough.
He was holding the stock of a handgun.
She had a split second.
She didn’t waste it.
She was off.
Sam didn’t give the man with the red ski jacket a second glance. Like a langlaufer, she ran her skis down a short, low-gradient schuss that cut a track between tight pines. Soon she was right behind the lads - two had become three. As they shot out of the trees and made the last major turn into the long run home, she was skiing beside them; among them. Egging them on, blurting out, ‘Wollen-Sie ein Rennen?’ She got ahead, racing hard and then letting them catch her.
They were up for it. Loving it.
All the time Sam glanced behind, keeping an eye on the man with the red ski jacket. He was a competent skier, but no Franz Klammer. Soon laddish youth and some decent Army ski-training had stolen them 20 metres. Then 40.
They were close to the end of the slope; the village, all cuckoo clock and snowy roofs. And the lift, a big steel and wooden building spewing cables, came into focus. Sam needed a plan. She had two choices: catch the bubble back up the mountain and out-ski her pursuer; or dash into the village and lose herself in the crowd.
The man with the red ski jacket wouldn’t shoot her in the village. Would he?
But she had no transport in Inneralpbach. She’d need to catch a ski bus. Which meant hanging around at a bus stop. Possibly forever … that’s what it would feel like.
That’s not going to do. She needed to break clean from the man with the red ski jacket with blue flashes. In retrospect the sort of fashion sense she’d expect from a likely killer.
The two lads skid-stopped and yelled something with the word ‘Fräulein’ in it. Sam ignored them and kept her skis parallel, nipping and turning past skiers and walkers milling around at the bottom of the bubble.
Her momentum kept her going until she hit the ice and gravel of the lift’s car park. She skidded to a halt, unclipped her right ski off with her left (a trick an Army instructor had taught her - it always looked so cool) and, still in one movement, used her right boot to release her left ski. They were in her arms, and she was waddling/striding to the metal stairs that led to the bubble lift in a couple of seconds. She didn’t look behind.
Sam took the stairs two at a time (I must get lighter ski boots!), flashed her forearm at the ticket machine which registered the pass in her jacket, and pushed the rotating bar with her thigh which gave way, affording access to the bubble lift.
The ‘bubble cars’ arrived about every ten seconds. There were nearly always three cars on the platform at any one point. One just about to leave, one accepting passengers, and one just arriving. Designed to carry no more than eight skiers, they were all suspended from an oval-shaped chain and wire contraption inside the terminal - and all of them moved at a very sedentary pace. If red-jacket-with-blue-flashes man was on her heels he could well join her in the same car. Which would make for an uncomfortable ride.
Sam didn’t lose momentum. A car was about to leave the farther side of the oval as it prepared itself to be whipped up the mountain by a second, faster-moving wire.
She waddled quickly after it. She slipped past a red-and-white chain which was meant to stop skiers getting onto the car as its doors closed and it was transferred to the speeding wire back up the mountain.
Sam squeezed between the closing doors, one boot caught between the rubber that provided the seal. If she didn’t get it inside the car, she might lose it.
She heard the shout, ‘Was zur hölle machst du?!’, from the lift operator as she forced the doors open far enough to retrieve her errant boot. Thankfully he didn’t stop the car.
She had made it and she still hadn’t looked behind.
Phew.
Breathe.
All skis, poles and covered in snow from her earlier fall, she realised that she was not alone in the bubble. The elegant woman with the cream parka was squatting on the plastic bum rail. Skis in one hand, poles in another.
She was beautiful. Her sharp, regal features framed poetically by the ruff of the white fur. A touch of red lipstick, and enough rouge to highlight her Aryan cheekbones.
She smiled disarmingly at Sam.
‘Grüß Gott.’
Sam checked herself. She knew she looked a sight. She knew that she was red-faced and sweaty. That her auburn curls escaping the side of her helmet would be frosted with snow, collected on the fall. She held her skis and poles in a muddle, like a teenage beginner after a hard day in ski school.
Elegance versus catastrophe.
Oh well.
‘Grüß Gott,’ she replied sheepishly.
The bubble launched. Sam rearranged her skis and poles, placing the ends on the floor. She wiped the condensation from the window and peered at the bubble behind her. She couldn’t make out anything in the second car, there was too much condensation on the windows. A quick glance downwards picked out the car park and the metal stairs rising to the lift’s entrance. There, at the bottom of the stairs, was red-jacket-with-blue-flashes man. He was breathing hard and on his mobile.
She had lost him.
For now?
Chapter 2
Punat Bay, Krk, Croatia
Jakov Vuković pulled hard on the oars of his single scull. The boat shot forward then lost some momentum as the cold, salty water of the bay dragged against the shiny hull. With his feet strapped onto the end of the rails, he used his legs to pull his backside towards his feet as the heads of the oars flew backward, parallel with the surface of the water ready to be planted again. In. Drive. Draw. Recover.
In. Drive. Draw. Recover. Work hard!
He reckoned he was close to 22[RJ3] strokes-per -minute. Once he was completely warm he’d up that stroke-rate to 26 and try and hold it for 125 strokes. At that rate he would cover about 800 metres. Then he’d warm down
for a further 25 strokes towards the end of the bay - where the Krk peninsula closes in on the Punat coastline. There the water would become choppy as it opened onto the Adriatic; it wasn’t the safest place to row. So, he’d slowly manoeuvre the boat around until it was facing back into the bay.
Then he’d start again. Do another run.
And then another.
It was hard but necessary winter training. He had his first race in two months and the nationals a month after that. He’d be ready. This year he’d definitely be ready.
Getting warm on the water was tricky this early in the season. It wasn’t like being a runner - although he did plenty of training runs on the track. Warming up as a runner was a matter of wearing the right clothing and working your muscles hard. Good clothing retained the heat your muscles produced. Here, on the water, he was constantly being soaked with something that felt close to ice melt. The wind generated by his own speed cooled the dampness further. As his body delivered heat, the conditions sapped it away. The cold was distracting. And working cool muscles wasn’t the best form of training. But needs must.
As he turned at the end of the bay the light from the rising sun, which was still behind the mountains in the east, bounced off the clouds and presented him with the early stages of dawn. Fabulous. He started again.
In. Drive. Draw. Recover. In. Drive. Draw. Recover.
Soon he’d be opposite Samostan Island and its monastery, about halfway along his training run. He didn’t like to hang about at that point. The place - the island - was spooky. Sitting in the middle of the bay it was and always had been a subject of rumour, speculation and mystery.
It lived up to its reputation even today. No one was allowed onto the island. Its shore was cordoned off with swimming buoys, about 50 metres out. There was a sign on every other buoy explicitly forbidding landing. On shore there was an intact, if ancient, stone wall about a metre and a half high. Behind the wall a thick mass of Mediterranean pines; slightly bent, addled trunks supporting a low, splodge of thick, dark spiky green foliage. All you could see of the monastery was a limestone-white, square bell tower topped with a low-pitched red roof poking above the pines. The bell only rang on Sundays - a distant, haunting sound.
The village was rife with rumour as to what the monks did in the monastery. Every bar had a different story. ‘The cellars are full of missing children, chained to the floor and fed on cockroaches.’ ‘The monks are all over a hundred years old; the island’s well holds magical water that keeps them alive.’ And, his favourite: ‘The monastery is a cover for an international organisation of lizard-like people who run the world.’
What was for sure was that no one he’d met had ever set foot on the island. A couple of mute monks rowed over twice a week to collect food, and there was talk of a small pleasure craft coming round from Krk in the night to drop off and collect visitors. But he’d never seen it. Punat was a very catholic village and everyone knew to give the monks their space. That rule had been passed down through the generations. Tourists were kept away by the signs on the buoys, and when a stray pedalo had beached a couple of years ago, a monk had very quickly shooed the tourists away.
But that didn’t stop the rumours.
As his arms and legs screamed out for mercy, he glanced to his right. Yes, there it was. The small, but very mysterious island of Samostan.
As he sculled, his progress back up the bay was slowed as a sudden gust of the Bora wind blew down from the mountains. The wind cut right through him as the originally pond-like water spawned white horses atop six-inch waves. If it carried on like this he’d have to paddle in.
Fuck!
He caught a crab - that is, his right oar hit the water a split second early and immediately its and his body’s position were all at odds with each other. The oar, which was connected to the boat by a metal ring, reared up, catching Jakov under the arm with such force that it ripped the ligaments below his shoulder.
No!
The end of the right oar continued its flight upwards, lifting and skewing him out of the boat - but his feet were strapped onto the rail and they wouldn’t allow the oar to finish its job. The right oar snapped out from under his arm the moment his left oar dug deep into the sea. It sprang aggressively under the boat, twisting the hull, lifting it out of the water. One oar had propelled him in one direction and now the other, the boat and his strapped feet[RJ4] wanted him to go the other way.
The next thing he knew he was in the sea, the boat on its side and still toppling, his body floundering with his feet tied onto the rail. The icy cold of the water jolted him; it dimmed any pain he felt in his right arm and the other bits of his body which had suffered the force of the pivoting oars. But it didn’t dim the fear of what would happen next.
I have to get my feet free.
Twisting his body, he lifted his head above the surface of the water and took a breath. Then, with both eyes open he ducked under the surface of the water and reached for the straps that held his feet in place.
One … make it! Two …
He was free.
And then the pain hit him, so much so he almost passed out. His right arm was useless and his left hurt like hell.
His head was just above water and he took a breath - but he hadn’t quite calculated where his mouth was with reference to the choppy surface. His lungs took in, what seemed to him, a couple of litres of icy salt water.
Jakov coughed and spluttered, the violent movement sending pulses of pain down his arm. Calm down! He coughed some more, and more pain came. Once he was breathing again, he trod water for a second. And then his primeval instincts kicked in.
Swim - you fool, swim!
And that’s what he did. With one working arm.
He reached the island’s white swimming buoys in a couple of minutes and took a short rest clinging onto the air-filled plastic ball. By now he was shivering uncontrollably. He had to keep moving.
It took him another three or so minutes to make it to the rocky shore of the island. He hit his knee badly on an underwater craggy outcrop and, what with everything else, he couldn’t stop himself from sobbing. Sobbing in pain, but also in relief that he had made it ashore. He was safe.
At least from drowning. As he crawled awkwardly off the rocks, the wind continued to leach any temperature his body’s shivering was generating.
He was getting colder and colder.
On hands and knees he picked his way off the shoreline and into some bushes.
Next was the rock wall. It looked bigger close up than from the shore. With monumental effort he stood, using a couple of protruding rocks to steady himself. Once upright, he had a quick look behind him to see if there was any movement on the water. Maybe someone had spotted him going over and taken a boat out to rescue him?
No. The village, which was in the westerly lee of the mountains, was still cloaked in early morning darkness. There were a few lights on the harbourside, but no sign of movement.
He faced the wall.
This is going to be tricky.
He put his hands on the top layer of stones, and found a foothold. He tried to lift his torso onto the top of the wall, but his wet foot slipped - and he fell.
Fuck!
Fuck. That hurt.
And still the shivering continued.
He took a deep breath and literally gritted his chattering teeth. His next attempt was successful and, leaving his right arm to dangle, he managed to get both legs on top of and then over the wall, the sharp, jagged limestone rocks digging into his stomach.
He fell on the other side of the wall, clump, and was surprised that his landing wasn’t accompanied by any new pain. He looked around him. It was dark. Almost like night. He was on a tarmac path? A newly laid path? He touched it with a flat hand to check that he was right. Yes, it was tarmac. It seemed to run parallel with the wall.
Jakov stood up gingerly, holding his right arm with his left - it hurt so much more if it were left to hang free. He looked further inl
and: pine trees, the gnarled-bark trunks leaving the earth at different angles. None of them was straight.
At man-height it was all impenetrably black.
No, hang on.
He squinted in the darkness.
In the trees, maybe five metres, was a fence. A tall green wire fence, possibly two metres high. It looked new and sturdy, topped with very efficient barbed wire. Definitely designed to keep people out. He was stuck. The sea and a nasty rock wall on one side; an impenetrable fence on the other.
And his body was a useless, shivering wreck.
What’s that noise?
It was then that he realised he was in real trouble.
It started as a far-off yelp. Which soon became a series of angry barks. No, not angry: vicious. He would have been comfortable if the terrifying noise was coming from the woods. He would have felt protected by the fence. But it wasn’t. It was coming from behind him. Along the tarmac path. Just around the corner. And the barks were getting louder.
He turned away from the noise to run. But his legs wouldn’t carry him. He was exhausted. He took a few, pathetic shuffling steps. And then the Doberman was on him, launching open-mouthed at his flaccid arm.
Jakov went down with the dog at his side, its teeth closing on his lower arm. He really wanted to care, to fight. But his brain made the decision that the best thing to do now was to shut down.
Just before it did, a question flashed into his dimming consciousness: do monks have attack dogs?
His brain didn’t wait for an answer.
Englischer Garten, Munich, Germany
The taxi dropped Sam off at the end 0f Gellertstraße. She was effectively working blind. She was looking for a huge pad somewhere near Munich’s main park, Englischer Garten. And that’s all the instructions she’d been able to give the taxi driver: ‘Großes Haus, Englischer Garten. Bitte.’ The taxi driver, in a typically efficient German way, had replied ‘Ja!’, smiled at the mad Englishwoman and pulled the mustard yellow Mercedes into the heavy city traffic.
For Good Men to Do Nothing Page 3