by David Gilman
He knew the Hungarian girl was a cold-hearted killer, and he also knew that if their roles were reversed she would grab the opportunity that now presented itself.
The engine was idling. She was running straight up the hill towards his vantage point. He was far enough back in the trees not to be seen. She ran hard, but Max was less than thirty meters behind. He was going to catch her. Sharkface blinked the headlights. This way! She sprinted, made up some lost ground and crested the hill.
Sharkface floored the accelerator and two tons of 4?4 traction leapt forward from the trees. Potyncza Jozsa, the smiling Peaches, the chic expert skier, adored by young men and a ruthless killer, took the impact full on. The last thing she saw before life went out of her eyes was a smiling ragged-toothed mouth.
Sharkface slammed on the brakes and skidded five meters-straight at Max, who threw himself to one side. He tumbled and rolled down the incline. By the time he was on his feet, Sharkface had retrieved the pendant, leapt back into the car and roared away, the wheels tearing grass.
Max raced through the trees and caught a final glimpse of the 4?4 as it slowed, dipped out of view and then moments later joined the main road, heading east. It was the wrong way! If there was going to be a problem at CERN, the nuclear research center lay to the west! Then the 4?4 disappeared from view.
Moments later Max’s trembling hand touched Peaches’s neck. She looked as though she were sleeping, curled on her side. But there was no pulse. Conflicting feelings confused him. Was he afraid of touching the girl he had once thought of as a friend, who was now dead-or fearful of resting his hand on a killer?
Corentin checked Sophie’s injuries. She was slipping in and out of consciousness. Thierry tied up the bikers, leaving them facedown, wrists bound to ankles.
“Police will be here any second,” Corentin said. “We’re taking her to the hospital.”
Max nodded. “How badly hurt is she?”
“I don’t know. A crack on her head and something wrong with her leg. There’s blood, look, in her ear. I think it’s a fractured skull. We have to be careful with her.” Corentin turned away, whistled to Thierry to join him.
Max pushed the hair back from her face. “Sophie, what’s going on? I don’t get it.”
Her eyes opened, blinked a few times, and stayed open, as if she were just waking from sleep. “Max?” She smiled. “Thought I was dreaming. Knew it was you. I’m sorry.”
“Why did you steal the pendant? You should have told me everything.”
She was weak but she could hear him. Her voice faltered. “You were sick. You did not trust me.”
Her words hurt, but it was the truth.
The Audi rolled across the grass towards them. Sophie tried to reach something in her jacket pocket. “Max, he’s in the mountains. My phone, get my phone. She told me, Peaches told me. That’s where they have him … in the Citadel.”
Max pulled out her phone. She was losing consciousness again.
“Sophie, hang on. Your dad sent these men to help us. We’re OK now.”
She shook her head. “Sayid …,” she whispered. A brief smile and she reached up her hand to touch his face. “I tried…. Sorry, Max.” And then her eyes closed.
Max held her, not wanting her to die.
Corentin eased her away from Max, checked her pulse. “She’s alive. We’ll get her to Emergency.”
Corentin and Thierry lifted her gently onto the backseat of the Audi.
“Get in,” Thierry told him.
He shook his head. “I can’t. I have to go on and try to stop this thing. Whatever it is. Look after her, Corentin. If you hadn’t been here they’d have killed her. Thanks.”
Max pulled his backpack from the car.
Corentin was behind the wheel and Thierry cradled the unconscious Sophie on the backseat. They had done their job. Max Gordon was not their problem, but Corentin admired the boy.
“And you? What thing? Where are you going?”
It was suddenly all too big a problem. As if someone had told him to climb a sheer wall of ice dragging a Land Rover behind him. “Somewhere called the Citadel. I’ll find it.”
“Other end of the lake,” Thierry told him. “Mountain ranges. You can’t go there-you don’t have the gear. Come with us.”
Max looked at Corentin. They both knew he wouldn’t.
The stubble-faced man pushed a folded map through the window. “Take this. You’ll need it.”
Max nodded his thanks. “Corentin, if you know anyone in the French security services, cops, anyone, talk to them. Any contacts you might have.”
“And tell them what?”
“Check back with Laurent Fauvre. He’ll explain.” He snatched the folded drawings and notes from his backpack and shoved them at Corentin. “There’s a triangle. It pointed to CERN, the nuclear research center. Here! Geneva! I was wrong. I got it wrong. The line crossed those mountains, same direction, different location. You tell them there’s going to be something huge, in these mountains. It’s critical. Tell them!” Max pulled the pack onto his shoulders and was already running as Corentin eased the Audi away.
Sirens announced that the police were on the way. Max looked at Sophie’s cell phone. Why was she trying to reach it?
She wanted him to have it. Why? He pressed the buttons, found the text messages and his heart almost thudded to a halt.
Man who takes the animals has Adrien. Bring monk’s pendant and Max to Parc La Grange, Geneva 7. Sayid is with me. I can help.
Your friend, Peaches
Sophie had realized her friend was a liar and had betrayed them all. There was no Adrien. He did not exist. Peaches could not have known that.
But they had captured Sayid.
Today was the seventh. Zabala predicted catastrophe for the morning of the eighth. Max had been wrong about Sophie. She had tried to save Sayid. Abdullah’s words now made sense. She had fought for Max. Now it was up to him to fight for Sayid. He had to get to the mountains to save his friend.
And stop the madness.
25
Panic spiked him. Clawing anxiety was taking hold. He had to get on the lakeside road or back to the train station. Either way it would eat precious time. Slow down and think about it. Taking the road south of Geneva would cross the border into France before he could curve north towards the end of the lake and the mountain kingdom that held Sayid. That route posed the risk that he’d be spotted by the police. And he couldn’t chance being held in custody. Go on the north road around the lake, staying in Switzerland, and he’d sit in traffic. The couple of hours’ journey might take twice as long as that. The lake was seventy-odd kilometers long, and then there was the trek into the mountains-how much time did he have?
Max looked at the rows of fancy yachts and motor cruisers moored at their pontoons in the marina opposite the park. His eyes sought out a boat, any boat, he could take. Steal was the word, he reminded himself. He was going to have to break in and get it started. Then he heard the soft spluttering of powerful engines. A boat snuggled stern-in to the pontoon, where a woman was about to tie the boat’s lines. White leather seats contrasted with the midnight blue hull, which shone like glass. A man had walked to the bow of the speedboat to check that fenders protected the shiny hull. The woman was a few meters away on the quay, trying to slip the rope around a cleat, when Max stepped aboard unseen. The engine idled in neutral. Gripping the walnut steering wheel, he braced his legs and shoved the throttle’s four levers forward. Angry-sounding triple diesel engines, frustrated at having their power curtailed, churned water, the stern drives eager to thrust the scalpel-sharp hull through the calm surface. The man tumbled overboard; the woman screamed, but her voice was already muted by the roaring engines. Like Aladfar! The wind pushed across the raked windshield. The boat surged to thirty knots and the speedometer showed it could reach fifty.
The power scared him. He’d handled speedboats before with his dad, but this was like going from a bicycle to a Formula 1 racing car. He
curved away from the shoreline. Visibility was good, but darkening clouds approached the mountains. Bad weather was going to be his companion in the hours ahead. The police would come after him, but this was what Max wanted. To lead them to the Citadel. This boat was worth a million, so stealing it should get someone’s attention. Max would hopefully have the law at his back when he got there. He pushed the throttle levers forward and the boat nearly leapt out of the water. Max laughed away his fears as the surge gave him flight and he raced the wind.
Relief and disappointment mingled as he realized, forty minutes later, that no one was in pursuit-perhaps bureaucracy was to blame, as the border between France and Switzerland cut the lake horizontally. Odds were no one could decide who should be chasing him, and by the time he calmed the throbbing engines and eased the sleek craft into the empty beach, he was still on his own. Against the soaring mountains he felt isolated and vulnerable. But energies other than fear drove him on. Like the engines’ shuddering power, Max felt a gathering storm of anger. Sayid. Was he injured? Was he still alive? They must have taken him at the airport in Biarritz. All this time and Max had had no idea his friend had been captured. The dull ache he felt at the base of his heart was guilt. He should have taken better care of Sayid. Well, he’d make up for that now.
Snow whipped across the peaks, drifting into ravines and crevasses, but no flakes fell from the darkening sky. Max had jogged for several kilometers, the demands on his legs increasing as the narrow track grew ever steeper. A sign stopped him. It was in English, French and German-to make certain there was no misunderstanding. He leveled his breathing. NO ENTRY. ROAD CLOSED 1 KILOMETER AHEAD. SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AREA: WILD ANIMAL RESETTLEMENT. BEWARE WOLVES.
Better than any warning about guard or attack dogs-wolves would stop everyone in their tracks. Max took the map out and balanced his compass, finding the direction of the Citadel’s peaks. He was on course. The contours were steep; the mountain ranges soared to thousands of meters in the near distance. How was he going to get up there? Snow would be a problem; the cold too. As he started jogging again he pushed a nagging thought to the back of his mind: how many wolves were running loose in these mountains? And there were no farms anywhere, no natural prey, so what did they hunt and eat?
As he turned a curve in the road he saw the first barrier. A wire mesh gate several hundred meters along the track. This was an ordinary gate, four meters high, supporting a fence that merged into the rock walls. Another sign repeated the previous warning. Max climbed over. In the distance he could see a snow-swept vehicle. Bobby’s van!
There was no need for caution. Max could see it was abandoned. No footprints were visible, and the van’s sides were corrugated with drifting snow. He yanked open the driver’s door. Stale smells escaped-old packets of food and cigarette butts. As the breeze entered the van something swayed, a trinket hooked over the skeg of a surfboard-Sayid’s misbaha! He’d been here! Max clambered into the back, held it tightly in his fist. If only he could bring his friend back simply by wishing for it. But he knew it was going to take a lot more than a wish-it was going to take a tough, unrelenting search.
There was nothing else he could see that might help him learn any more about his friend. A couple of surfboards, sleeping bags, a mattress. Max rummaged in the van. A couple of packets of crisps and a half-empty bottle of water. He shoved them into his pack and pushed the rear doors open.
A few meters farther along the track, the second obstacle was more challenging-galvanized gates and fencing that ran hundreds of meters up each side of the mountain until it embedded itself into rock face. Razor wire was rolled out several meters beyond that, and ten meters farther on was a secondary electrified fence. He could see that the road went on into the mountains, but even if he got over the gate he would have to cross this no-man’s-land. At each vehicle-crossing point rows of dull red lights illuminated side barriers-like a store’s security gate to stop shoplifters.
The wind gusted; the cold metal van creaked. The clock was ticking. There was no time to scale these mountains to try and get past the barriers. Max climbed up the van’s rear ladder and yanked the restraining straps on Bobby’s covered surfboards.
The one that lay flat in the back of the van, where Sayid had worked out the message from the magic square, stayed as Sayid had intended-unnoticed by anyone, including Max.
It took twenty minutes of backbreaking effort to climb the eighty-odd meters to a narrow plateau. Once there he cast aside the windsurfer’s cover, readied the board, pulled on his goggles, shoved his feet into the supports and heaved up the sail. It crackled with energy. The wind funneled through crevasses and curves, snatched at the board’s wing and hurtled him forward. He nudged the sail, pulled the wishbone control bar to him and shredded the face of the snow wave. He needed speed, direction and a jump-off point to clear those inhospitable fences. This was Bobby’s own windsurfer. The champion had the fastest and the best, and Max didn’t know if he could handle it. Built for speed, the short board skimmed across the snowfield. Max tugged on the wishbone and the twelve-square-meter racing sail responded, the rigid aerofoil holding him on course. The wind gusted and he trimmed the sail again; it pulled at his shoulder sockets, while the cold air stung his cheeks. This was flying! He was really moving now. But it was no joy ride. He was speeding towards the lip of the rock’s curved snow face. When he hit that he would be plucked into the air, thrown like a sycamore seed into the wind, spiraling away-how helplessly he didn’t know. The angle of his takeoff dictated he would gain a lot of height quickly and then somersault. He was suddenly back in Mont la Croix and his snowboarding failure. He had to get a mighty lift here; control the topsy-turvy spin or he was finished. The razor wire could savage him and leave him bleeding to death, or, if he hit the electric fence, he was toast.
The board hissed across the snow. The wind chased him, white flurries tumbling ahead of the board’s snout. Max saw the void, the wind’s swirling confusion, the point of no return. Wham! The wind socked him, nearly wrenching the wishbone from his hands.
Silence. The board left the ground. A whoosh of air. The blurred, transparent sail creaked with pressure as it cartwheeled through space. Giddying images of the wire and electric fence swirled below him. Could he clear them? Did he have the distance? He seemed to be in the air forever. The board righted itself; he shifted his weight instinctively, helping the board find its balance. He thumped into the ground, nearly lost control, exactly as he had at the snowboarding competition, but this time he let the seat of his pants drag down in the snow and used the sail’s wishbone to keep the board steady. He had cleared everything by barely a few meters.
Max yelled a triumphant cry. That was better than any competition prize.
With a quick glance behind him, he saw Tishenko’s defenses. He’d beaten them. It gave him an added boost of strength. Nothing could stop him now. He was getting closer to the mountain and the man who held his friend. And closer to impending disaster.
Tishenko descended inside his mountain. Machinery and piping lay snug against the rock face: this was where the engineers and construction workers left all their equipment. The hoist lift was far removed from the supersmooth lifts that usually whisked him to his high lair. The open platform was used for bringing equipment down into this cavernous chamber.
Running water ran between the back of the cages and the wall, a sluice carrying melting ice that had tumbled into underground caverns and, as water will, sought out the line of least resistance. This was where Tishenko had kept captured animals over the years-before he honored them with the hunt.
Tishenko walked along the cages, the strong animal smell drawing him closer to one in particular. The additional chill of the cold water soothed the heat that seemed to always lie beneath the layer of his burnt skin. This was the last beast held captive. There had been no need to build the big square cages at this end of the cavern. Only the front wall, from where Tishenko’s men could toss dead fish and blubber-rich seal to
the great creature, was rigid with bars. The remaining walls were translucent sheets of ice.
The near-freezing water from the sluice spilled into a pool before continuing on its journey. Ideal for one of the most fearsome creatures from the far north. The polar bear’s head broke the surface of the water, and it gazed at him. With a flurry of water the giant dragged itself clear and raised itself up to its full height.
Tishenko measured him with his eyes. He was magnificent. Over three meters high, weighing six hundred kilograms. Massive strength and unrivaled hunting skills. Frightening. Take the DNA of a wild hunting beast and merge it with human intelligence. What creature might be born from such a genetic union?
Climate change meant the bears were losing the ice earlier each year in the frozen wastelands of the Arctic. Their food resources were becoming scarcer and their aggression towards humans more pronounced. Tishenko had paid a small fortune to have him captured and brought here. He was the biggest, most aggressive male they could find. His DNA had been taken; now he would be the last animal Tishenko would hunt down before …
The thought of tomorrow stopped him. Tomorrow would be the most awesome of days.
His phone rang.
Sharkface had returned.
Max climbed around what appeared to be a massive entrance at the base of the mountain and, as he clambered hundreds of meters up the side of the mountain, he saw Sharkface’s 4?4 pass beneath him and disappear from view. He told himself he’d made the correct decision by stealing the boat. Sharkface must have been held up by traffic.