Cold Snow: A Legal Thriller

by John Nicholas

  "The code," said the voice tersely. It had probably already realized who he was.

  "E,f,6, 94—no—95, y,d,d, 31—is it 31?—yes, 31, h, g, v, c, 22—no—62."

  "Impressive, Ordoñez," the man answered. "You remembered the whole thing this time." The mistakes had been no accident, they were not in the written code, but whoever came up with the idea had put them in as insurance.

  "How are you, Levache? Eating anything good?"

  "Grilled catfish and broiled asparagus over a bed of whipped potatoes. You need help, don't you?"

  Ordoñez shook his head slowly—Levache saw through everything. "You're not working right now, are you?"

  "Actually, I am," said Levache, annoyed. "And while I was answering this call, my target appears to have gone off somewhere."

  "So sorry about that. But do you think you'll be finished by tonight?"

  "My dear Alberto, I hope to be finished about twenty minutes from now. But that doesn't mean I want to help you fix yet another botched job."

  "Why not?"

  Levache was even more annoyed now. "Ordoñez, you know why not. You can't get whatever you want, just because you're Potard's favorite."

  "Look. The job is a kid on a deserted highway."

  Levache laughed heartily. "You could not kill a child in the middle of nowhere? This must be a new low."

  "Previously he was wanted alive. But I've given up on that. I want him dead, regardless of my client."

  "I'm not interested," Levache said.

  "Are you saying you can't hit him?"

  "What!?"

  "I've never known you to turn down a moving target, Levache. And this boy is hard to hit. He seems to know all our tricks."

  "I'm listening…"

  "Likely he'll be hiding. Probably in the wilderness. We'll have to track him and then you'll shoot him."

  "All right, Ordoñez," Levache said, dropping his fork. "You've piqued my interest. I'll meet you in Thunder Bay tomorrow morning."

  "Oh, and one other thing…"

  "Yes?"

  "Do you like trains, Levache?"

  Even though the snow was beginning to let up, digging a grave was slow work, and neither Sarah nor Anthony wanted to be the first to ask Alex for help. Since the second gunshot that had brought his friend's life to an end, Alex had not moved an inch. He sat with his knees drawn up to his chest and his head in his arms, not daring to move from the body.

  The body, Sarah thought. Jake is a body.

  It took them three hours to finish the grave in the woods beside the highway, and then they picked up Jake by his hands and feet and lowered him in as carefully as they could. They threw the frozen dirt back onto the grave; Alex, still despondent, did not even seem to notice.

  Sarah knew what was getting to him, the double shocks of Jake's betrayal and Jake's death. He had suddenly learned that his best friend in the world was simply using him as tool to get revenge on his father, and then he had allowed himself to die.

  Alex was…nothing to him, she thought. But he made him pull the trigger anyway.

  Anthony went off into the woods and returned with a large stone with he heaved over the grave. Sarah took a marker from one of the graves and scrawled on the rock:

  Here lies Jacob Daniel Harwell

  b. 1993 d. 2005

  Sarah suddenly remembered the first few lines of an epigram that she had heard long ago. She wrote it on the rock as well:

  May the earth quake for him

  May the storms break for him

  May the trees shake for him

  Their blossoms down.

  By then Anthony realized what she was doing, and took the marker from her. He wrote himself:

  Jake Harwell's life stands as a beacon for all those who would let theirs go to waste.

  It was uncharacteristic of him, but many people act in strange ways during such times.

  After the grave was finished Sarah thought of Alex, taking it the hardest of all. She looked at him, still sitting and hiding himself. She didn't even know whether or not he was crying. She was, but Anthony was not.

  Sarah didn't know what she could say to Alex that would make him feel any better. So, she walked over to him and sat beside him.

  It was a while before she realized he knew she was there. And when he finally looked up, it was a face not streaked with tears or set with unfeeling, but colored with rage.

  "The scum who did it," he said. "The scum. I'll kill him. I'll see him dead. And whoever ordered him to do it. And anybody even remotely connected with him."

  He looked out at the road.

  "This world killed Jake. His death was somebody's fault and I'll find them!"

  "Alex," Sarah began, finding words, "it was Ordoñez. Who else could it have been?"

  "Ordoñez!" Alex said, almost laughing. "A pawn! The man has no conscience and no thoughts of his own. He takes requests. He takes orders.

  "He'll be the first to die. But there will be many others."

  "Alex—"

  "My best friend is dead!" Alex shouted. "I killed him! Somebody's blood will be spilled!"

  They slept without eating, and the next morning Alex seemed to have recovered from his murderous rage. Sarah wouldn't have been surprised, though, if his sights were still set on Alberto Ordoñez. It was impossible for them not to be.

  Alex sat by the grave while the others ate breakfast from their backpacks. Anthony had been looking at a map of Canada since early that morning. Eventually Alex stepped away from the grave and went to join them, where upon Anthony showed them the map.

  "I found something great. How we'll get where we're going."

  He indicated a large circle around most of Manitoba and Ontario. "This is where we are right now. Geographical area called the Canadian Shield. And check out what I found here."

  He pointed to a snake-like line, winding its way across the shield. "Anybody know what this is?"

  Neither of them felt like guessing. "What is it?" Sarah asked.

  "It's a railway! The Trans-Shield Express, to be exact. Runs all the way from Ottawa up to Yellowknife. All we have to do is find it, board it, and jump off near Sawtooth!"

  Alex looked at him incredulously. "You want us to jump on a train?"

  "Is something wrong with that?" Anthony replied. An opportunity for misdemeanor had showed up, and he was happier that he'd been for a while. "We sneak on while it's stopped. Tickets are only taken at the start of the ride, and it's traditionally jumped by all kinds of hobos and drifters."

  "How do we get there?" Sarah wondered.

  "Well, we'll have to cut across the wilderness a bit. But just for maybe a day. Twenty miles at the most."

  "I suppose…it's an idea…" Alex said. "But Ordoñez—I can't just leave. I have to kill him for what he did. He can't just get away with it!"

  "He's an assassin! He's killed hundreds of people!" Anthony growled. "Just because some noble kid wants revenge, that's going to bring him down?"

  "Anthony's right, Alex," Sarah said. "You have to get to Sawtooth. Jake would want you to. Ordoñez probably thinks we're dead. The police definitely do. We're safe from pursuit. We should get there now—or Jake will have died for nothing."

  "I—he—but—" Alex gave up. "You're right. The Trans-Shield Express…not a bad idea."

  "And something else!" A thought had occurred to Sarah. "We'll need a fourth."

  "What?"

  "We have four backpacks. We'll need a fourth person to carry the last one."

  "Well, okay then," Alex said, looking back at the rock. "I'll do it. I'll go for Jake."

  He looked around at his companions still sitting with the map.

  "Get up! Get up! Everybody grab something! Let's go!"

  So the journey began again.

  CHAPTER 15

  Hart

  People deal with tragic losses in different ways. Alex, rather than becoming despondent and reticent, as he had shown signs of doing, was instilled with a burning desire to succeed
in what he had set out to do. Sarah, however, was worried about the way he had taken to acting. In the days since leaving Ridge City he had appeared less like their usual reluctant leader and more like a vigilante: planning Ordoñez's death over and over in his mind and muttering about murders in his sleep. After a certain time with this new Alex, Anthony, who had been appointed armory manager by unspoken decree, refused to let him near their two weapons, even though one was useless.

  The Canadian landscape had been laboring for the past few days under a deep fog and grey sky, giving way occasionally to halfhearted rain and snow. The Quebec Transit that they had stuck to for so long was becoming less civilized, and appeared to be showing the influence of the wilderness around it. At a point in deepest Manitoba, it simply stopped being paved, and became dirt.

  Meanwhile around it, the world was becoming more and more wild and mysterious, and the fog lifted to reveal landscapes that the three of them had never seen before. The dirt road wound through immense forests of spruce and poplar, through deep, wide valleys where animals they didn't know the names of roamed free. Off in the distance they could see huge, snow-capped mountains rising above the prairie.

  Each one is larger than my world used to be, Alex thought one day while the three of them trudged along the road.

  As beautiful as their journey was becoming, supplies were an imminent problem. From the four backpacks they made the stock last as long as they could, eating only two meals a day. However, none of them could deny that the non-perishables were running out. The supply program had given them money, wrongly assuming that they would have been able to reclaim it. They could easily have bought more food with this.

  Unfortunately the Transit did not command the same respect in Manitoba as it did in Quebec and there were very few towns along it. If they had gone a few miles off course in many places, they would have found towns with stores, and perhaps hotels so they wouldn't have to sleep by the road in their worn sleeping bags.

  It was a fear they knew was shared between the three of them that kept them from doing this. They thought that the road was protecting them, and if they left it, they would be alone, lost, crushed by the overpowering openness of the land around them--and perhaps facing other dangers as well. They did not know where Ordoñez was, or the police.

  They were usually so tired out by the pace Alex set that they rarely spoke to each other. Only when it was necessary for the undertaking did they communicate: when to go, when to stop, when to eat, how many miles to do today.

  One day, a week after Ridge City, night was falling, and they made camp in a large birch forest. Now that they had matches, they could have fire, which became a greater blessing every day. They were all sleeping in their heavy jackets now, and rarely changed their clothes. After the fire had been built, Anthony took them aside, again poring over his map.

  "Remember the Trans-Shield Express?" he asked them.

  "The train you mentioned?" Alex said. "What about it?"

  "I've got some good news, some bad news and some more bad news. Which one first?" Anthony said.

  "I've always had the bad news first. It makes the good news seem better," Sarah put in.

  "Good point," Alex said. "Okay. Give us both pieces of bad news and then the good news."

  "You got it. Okay, I read about the train on the back of this map, and it turns out security is really tight since a bunch of guys tried to put a bomb on it a few years ago."

  Alex laughed. "I can think of better places to put a bomb."

  Anthony continued as if Alex hadn't spoken. "So if we try to sneak on, they'll catch us, and not only will the cops think we're terrorists, they'll know we're alive."

  "I'm willing to take the risk," Alex said.

  "You're an idiot," Sarah said sharply. "Being dead is our only cover. If that's blown it's back to court for all of us, and nobody will believe us this time. We fled, remember?"

  Alex considered this for a moment, then grudgingly agreed. He leaned closer to the fire and shivered.

  "So we'll have to buy tickets." Anthony began again, still as if nothing had happened. "And that'll chew up most of our funding. We'll have enough cash left to fill these backpacks one more time. But hey, when we get on the train, we'll barely need it anyway.

  "The other bad news is how we get there. This road stops just a few miles from here, a few hours' walk. From there, there's no way to get the train's nearest stop except--" He ran his finger along a stretch of blank map, "--off the road."

  Sarah stared at him blankly. "Leave the road?"

  "That's right. I'm guessing about fifteen, maybe twenty miles across pure wilderness."

  "You're crazy," Alex said.

  "You want to get to Sawtooth, don't you?" Anthony snapped. "If we keep hiking like this, Ordoñez will get all of us!"

  The mention of Ordoñez convinced Alex. "So, what's the good news?"

  Anthony grinned. "The good news! Half a day away from here there's a town."

  Alex and Sarah sat up at this. "How big?" Alex asked.

  "Big enough for food, I think."

  Sarah looked at the dot on the map that Anthony was pointing to, across the white space, to the dotted line marking the railroad. "Then that should be our point to leave the road."

  "Exactly!" Anthony looked very happy that they had understood him.

  "All right," Alex said, obviously jealous that Anthony had made such a good plan before him. "Somebody get some more firewood, I did it last night. Then we should go to bed."

  The next day, after a short meal and five hours walking, the buildings of a small village appeared out of the mist. Beyond them the road ended. Innocuous end for such a mighty road, Alex thought, not sure whether or not to laugh.

  A badly maintained sign just in front of the first building bore a word, which had evidently once been "Porcupine" but was now closer to

  P RCU IN

  It seemed an odd name, until Alex vaguely remembered a tidbit from his old school Geography class in another lifetime: the Porcupine mountains in Manitoba.

  As they walked through the streets all of them noticed people looking at them oddly. Alex was aware of his appearance. He had not shaved since a week before he left Woodsbrook, and he was beginning to feel beard stubble on his face. His clothes were dirty and sweaty, he had not showered in longer than he hadn't shaved, and presumably he smelled worse than he looked.

  Sarah looked about the same as Alex except without the problem of facial hair. Anthony was the scariest and filthiest of them all; besides his face being hairier than Alex's, his wound (which he still would not explain) had reopened and was bleeding so badly that every few days had to tear strips off his shirt to make new bandages.

  As all of them were in need of rest and bathing, Sarah suggested they look for a hotel. Looking around the only street, Alex saw a building, which seemed promising. The moment they stepped inside, however, it was clear he had been mistaken.

  It was a bar, filled with what appeared to be the entire population of the town. Their unshaven appearances fit right into the ambience. Several flickering neon signs, advertising beers nobody would drink if they had a choice, were spaced at intervals around the wall. Men and women sat at tables conversing in thick Canadian accents over large mugs of liquids that might at one point have been drinks. There was no music but the clutter of voices provided soundtrack enough, and the smoke hanging in the air drifted restlessly, mirroring the lives of most of the people in the room. The walls, old wood paneling, were stained with the dirt and grime of ages.

  Alex's eyes were drawn to the strangest sight in the room: a boy, who looked barely older than Alex was, sitting at the end of the bar, gulping from a mug of beer. Alex began walking toward the bartender.

  "What are you doing!?" Sarah grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back.

  "Relax! I was just going to ask him if this place has a hotel!"

  "Maybe they'll give us a drink…or a cigarette…" Anthony looked happier than he had been in a whil
e.

  Alex, trying to look more confident than he felt, strode up to the counter. The bartender, wiping a mug with a rag, looked up.

  "What the hell do you think yer doin'?" he growled, in a deep, gravelly voice.

  "I just wanted to ask--"

  "I ain't gonna serve ya."

  "I'm not looking for--".