by Gulvin, Jeff
‘ARMED POLICE. STAND STILL.’ His shout resounded in an echo that battered off the bluffs and buttresses to come back at him like a ghost from his past. Dubin froze where he stood. The other officers were up, guns pointed, eight of them, at Dubin’s head and body.
‘No one else move.’ The leading officer spoke to the students, who stared at him, dumbfounded. Again he spoke to Dubin, voice quieter now. ‘Put your arms wide at your sides. Do it now. Look me in the eye. Do not look away from me.’
Dubin did as he was asked, his jaw set, confusion in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something.
‘Do not speak to me. Do exactly as I tell you.’
Dubin did, first dropping to his knees, then falling prostrate and setting his hands in the small of his back, fingers interlocked. The firearms officers dropped on him, clasping his hands so he could not move. Then a few seconds more and plastic handcuffs secured him. They searched him, found no weapon, then wrestled him to his feet. The team leader made the shocked students sit down in the snow, while he called the arrest team up.
Boese saw them pop up from nowhere. He heard the shout and felt it reverberate around him. He saw them drop El Kebir to his knees, and the temptation to kill him like that was so strong, his finger tightened on the trigger. But no, not yet. Not just yet.
Swann, Webb and Logan came out from the side of the hut and marched across the packed snow to where Dubin was now on his feet and watching their approach. He faced Swann, saying nothing, but wearily shaking his head. Swann cautioned him. Webb stood to his right, Logan slightly away to the left. The firearms officers still held their weapons ready, and the team leader was questioning the students.
‘You’re making a mistake, Sergeant,’ Dubin said wearily.
A shot rang out from the hillside. Swann saw the shock in Dubin’s eyes, as blood spurted from the left side of his chest. Then someone else cried out. For a moment, Swann was too stunned to take it in, but then Dubin crumpled at the knees. Swann swung round and saw Logan lying on her side in the snow, eyes glazed with shock, blood seeping from a wound below her collarbone. The round had gone right through Dubin’s chest.
‘Jesus Christ.’ Swann dropped to his knees beside her. The SFO medical technician rushed over to her and drew back the tattered edges of her jacket.
Swann looked at Webb, who was kneeling by Dubin with two fingers against the side of his neck. ‘Dead,’ he muttered, and turned his attention to the radio.
Swann got to his feet again. Logan was breathing heavily and the medic was working away at the hole in her flesh, trying to stem the flow of blood leaking out of her. The other firearms officers were scanning the skyline for movement.
Boese lay where he was. He knew El Kebir was dead, and he had got two in one, which was a bonus. It looked like the black FBI agent, but he could not be sure. The gun was already in the bottom of the crevasse to his right, and he lay for a few moments more, before working his way backwards behind the lee of the rock.
Swann saw the movement, just a flicker at the corner of his eye. ‘There.’ He pointed towards Carn Mor Dearg on the north-east side of the amphitheatre. Webb was alongside him, binoculars to his eyes. Rob considered his options. Swann dropped to his knees beside Logan. Already the sweat was lifting on her brow and she was shivering. The medic had a foil survival blanket open, and he and Swann wrapped her in it, while a second officer staunched the flow of blood.
‘How bad is it?’ Swann asked.
The medic made a face. ‘Hard to tell. Went straight underneath the collar bone.’ He gently prised her over and Swann could see the width of the exit wound, like a fuzzy star shape, with the flesh flaring at the edges of the hole.
‘You’re OK, darling.’ He kissed her brow, easing the flecks of hair back from her eyes.
She shivered. ‘I’m cold.’
Cold, Jack. Cold. Words from the past. Words from nightmares. Steve Brady’s plaintive voice, just before he cut the rope that held them together. Swann was there now, eyes tightly closed, images blurring his mind. And yet rational thought broke in. He spun where he stood and scanned the ridge. He could see no movement, but knew that Boese would be traversing that ridge, back the way he had come, heading south. He must have taken his chances on the Carn Mor Dearg Arete. He looked at Webb, then at Rob and finally at Logan. Rob had fanned his men out across the valley, in the direction of the north-eastern buttresses.
‘You won’t catch him,’ Swann said. ‘Webb, get on that radio and tell the locals to swamp the southern car park.’ Dropping to one knee, Swann scrabbled in his backpack for his mittens. He threw them on the ground, then untied his crampons. His twin short axes already lay in the snow. ‘Where’s the guidebook?’ he said. ‘Where’s the fucking guidebook?’ He found it, flipped through the pages and looked again at the ridge. ‘It’ll take him two hours or more to get round this valley,’ he said. ‘Two more, at least, to make it to his car.’
‘You don’t know he’s going south,’ Webb said.
‘Where else is there to go?’ Swann stared at him, burning now, a rage growing inside him. He found what he was looking for in the guidebook and stood up, trembling slightly. The wind howled across the Diamir face in his mind and Brady wobbled on the rope below him.
Webb moved alongside. ‘What’re you thinking about, Jack?’
Swann looked back at Logan, where the medical technicians were already doing all that could be done for her. ‘There’s nothing I can do here,’ he said. ‘The only way to cut Boese off is to climb.’ He scanned the page of the guidebook, then gauged the distance to the bottom of the route on foot. Webb took the book from him and Swann tramped to where Mick Rob was standing. ‘I want your guns,’ he said.
Rob stared at him. ‘What’re you going to do?’
‘Climb Zero Gully and cut him off on the ridge.’
‘Jack.’ Webb’s voice from behind him. ‘Zero Gully is a thousand feet. There’s no fucking belays. It’ll take you three hours.’
Swann shook his head at him. ‘I don’t need belays. And it’ll take an hour and a half, because I’ll be climbing solo.’
Webb stared at him. ‘Jack, it’s grade five.’
Swann ignored him and turned to Rob again. ‘Guns.’
Rob hesitated.
‘I’m a shot, Mick. Pink ticket. It’s called instant arming, remember.’ He held out his hands. ‘There’s no other choice. Keep your boys after him if you want to, but you’re not going to catch him. Now give me your fucking guns.’
Rob unhooked his MP5 and passed his pistol as well. Swann swung the carbine over his shoulder and stuffed the pistol inside his jacket. He bent and kissed Logan and then he turned, looked at Webb and hesitated. ‘I have to do this.’
Webb nodded. ‘I know you do. Good luck.’
Swann left them then, heading for the Observatory Ridge, to climb Zero Gully alone.
Boese was moving freely now; good cover and no way they could catch him. The rifle lay somewhere in the belly of the mountain and he still had his pistol. They would get choppers up, but already clouds were drifting ominously across the sky and he had all the documents he needed if he got stopped. The valley was out of sight now; the wind had lifted and he picked a careful path along the line of the ridge. There was a feeling of quiet satisfaction inside him, revenge was indeed sweet—all the sweeter by the unexpected bonus of two in one. Poor Jack Swann, another girlfriend down.
Swann hiked to the base of Zero Gully, not thinking about the climb. Sweat on his arms, on his calves, and gathering in his groin. He relived that moment again, having a hand on Dubin’s arm and then bang and Dubin down and with him, Cheyenne Logan. The gully was dead ahead now, and he had no rope and no partner, just himself and his need and his fear. He did not know how badly Logan was hurt, but the rescue helicopter needed to get here quickly. Still he could hear no engine.
He knew the climb from other people, but had never made the ascent himself. First climbed in 1957 by Hamish MacInnes. One thousand
feet, the most serious of the big three in this area. Nowhere to belay properly and very exposed. He stared up the slopes to the face, the snow still deep here, and the wind seemed, to howl in his head. The trees were barely moving though. Cloud was rolling in, and he wondered how much of it was in his head. Thoughts buzzed like flies and he could do nothing to quiet them. The others were out of sight now, and again he thought of Logan, then of the futility of Rob sending his men after Boese. He was too far away to catch, and he might yet turn north and fool them. But somehow Swann didn’t think so. He would have figured that any attack team would use the climbing hut to deploy, and he had deliberately circumnavigated the ridge to be on the north-east side. Maximum effect, as always with Boese.
The ground steepened beneath his feet and he had to invert his axes and start driving the picks into the hard-packed ice. His breath bounced off the wall, and he was aware of the tiny icicles that were forming on his lips. He licked them away and concentrated on looking up, feeling the sudden gradient as his crampon points dug home and his calves began to feel the strain. He climbed up the gully, hand over hand, aiming for the stance below the chimney. Here he was exposed, there he would be less so, but it was still three hundred feet above his head. He got higher and higher and Boese’s features lay etched in his mind.
One hundred feet below the chimney, the wind got up, and his left foothold was looser than he would have liked. He paused, breathing hard, and leant his weight on the points of his right boot, while seeking securer ground. He kicked in with his left foot and tested the hold, lying against the ice for a moment. The wall was not sheer, but he was high up, and if he slipped, his axes could do nothing to save him. He saw again the blood that leaked from Logan’s wound and it mixed with the bloodied features of Brady, his foot all bent up, and the weight on the rope unbearable.
Swann felt that weight now and Boese’s face began to break up in his mind. In its place, flashes of red and white tissue, the puffed and half-closed eyes. He shook his head, steeling himself, and climbed on. Almost to the chimney now, and he swung with his left-hand axe. It bit and splintered and fell away, the loop only saving it from slipping off his wrist altogether. He felt the rush of adrenalin from his skull to his toes, and hung there on one axe and one point, while an arm and a leg flailed free. He bit down on his lip, forced the seizure of trembling from his limbs, then swung the axe again. It bit and held. He cursed under his breath and kicked in with his cramponed foot.
Boese was watching the skyline as he heard the drone, then whump whump of rotor blades. The orange helicopter swung in low over the amphitheatre. He ignored it, keeping out of sight, and then moved on when it dropped below the horizon. He would hear it again taking off, and the next one after that would be the police looking for him. He kept his eyes fixed on the ridge and pressed on, nimble-footed, glad of the rigorous years of self-discipline. Not much further now and he would be at the abseil arete. There, he would need to be careful, go a little more slowly, the mountain walls were steep.
Swann was in the chimney, climbing for all he was worth, the sweat rolling in little rivers off his forehead and soaking his clothes. The sun was gone and the clouds were massed and the wind had risen still further. He knew then it would snow, and images of blizzard and the shoulder of Nanga Parbat filled his mind. Brady had wanted to go on. He had wanted to go back, but had bowed to Brady’s experience, though the clouds settled about them.
‘You crazy fucking fool,’ he said aloud, forcing the words from between his teeth. ‘It was your own fault.’ He climbed on, sweating up that chimney, suddenly aware that he was climbing as freely and well as he had ever done. He did not know how much time had passed, an hour or so, maybe, of hard slog up that shaft, with the wind on his back and the valley eight hundred feet below. No rope, nothing between himself and all the forces of gravity. One wrong move and he would die in Scotland today. But he had two kids and he still had Logan, and Boese was out there waiting. Brady faded, like mist in the early morning, and Swann reached the top of the chimney. He paused, resting on his axes, and the valley swam before his eyes. The sweat had dried to a frozen point on his nose and he shook his head to clear the block in his ears. Now, traverse right to the amphitheatre and narrowest gully. After that, he was almost home.
He moved right, slipped again and shouted at the top of his lungs. Far, far to his left, Boese heard the cry and paused, his head cocked like a hunting dog. He felt in the waistband of his trousers for his gun. Swann climbed on, moving across the wall now, taking sideways steps like a spider. He could see the gully and the funnel that lifted from it, and he no longer looked at the ground. Brady was gone now, faded to dust, nothing in his mind but thoughts of his daughters and Logan, and a calmness he had never known before. He felt renewed, as if climbers of old were watching him with pride in their eyes. One thousand feet of grade five ice-climb, with no rope and no partner to protect you. He knew then he would make it, knew then that Brady was buried for ever; and, above all else, he knew he would be ahead of Ismael Boese.
Another twenty minutes and he was on the easy slopes that led to the top of the ridge. Now he moved more cautiously. For the first time, he was aware of the carbine slung across his back. He listened, head away from the wall, for sounds that should not be there. But all he could hear was the rush of the wind and the ice-crack as it shifted.
Boese was beyond the arete now and moving more swiftly again. He had his rhythm and, as yet, had heard no police helicopter. The first flurries of snow were falling. If it got any worse, they would not come. He had heard one shout bouncing off the mountain walls, but then nothing. He was cautious, however, even though his instincts told him there was no way anyone from the valley floor could get to him before he reached his car. He moved on, picking out his footholds and working the line of the ridge.
Swann saw a hiker work his way along Observatory Ridge, as he crested it fifty yards away. He must have climbed for an hour and a half at least, and now his limbs were weak and he still had work to do. He looked for an ambush point, keeping his head low. He worked his way to the south, away from Ben Nevis itself, cutting a path through the boulders and snow. The hiker was heading away from him now. He could still see him, and if they both kept going, they would ultimately converge. He ducked his head once more, the carbine in his hands, and eased himself below the line of the ridge. The hiker had his head down, concentrating, unaware of the danger. Swann’s mind stilled and all memory was banished. This was just himself and his prey. His anger was gone and he was a police officer again. He kept moving across the ridge and knew he would come up ten yards behind the hiker. It had to be Boese, the timing was just about perfect, given the movement he had seen. He slowed still further, aware of the scraping sound his crampons made on the flakes of ice. The hiker moved ahead, small, nimble, like a goat. Swann saw blond hair, long and tied in a ponytail under the woollen hat. All at once he wondered. He saw no gun, no sniper’s rifle and suddenly his resolve faltered. He climbed back on to the ridge, fifteen yards behind the hiker.
‘Armed police. Stand still,’ he said. Not loud, just sharp and firm. The hiker stopped where he was.
Swann’s ice axes hung from his wrist loops, like two appendages to his gun. The man stood still, back to him, and slowly he raised his hands. Then he turned, a silly smile on his very Caucasian face. Swann baulked for a second, but he did not lower the gun.
‘Bitte?’ the young man said, blue eyes, blond hair, his hands still over his head. ‘Please. I do not understand.’
Swann stared at him, unable to believe the coincidence, and yet it was possible. Many walkers travelled this path: climbers, going to and from the abseil point on the arete. He stared at the man, looking at his eyes, taking another three paces forward.
‘Please,’ the man said again and gestured very slowly with his hand. ‘The snow is coming. We have to get off the mountain.’
‘Who are you?’ Swann demanded.
‘Ich bin … Sorry. My English is not s
o good. Please, sir. The gun. I am very frightened.’
‘Who are you?’ Swann demanded again.
‘My name is Rudy Maaber. I’m German. Holiday. Walking.’ He indicated his backpack and Swann lowered the barrel of the gun. Fear stalked the young man’s eyes and Swann silently cursed himself.
‘I’m a police officer,’ he said more gently. ‘There’s been a shooting here today. I need to see some identification.’
‘Of course.’ The young man was trying to smile. ‘Please.’ His hand started to snake towards his back. Swann lifted the gun barrel once more.
‘Please. Please. You are frightening me, sir. I have a package. How you say, a belt. My passport is in a belt.’
‘Money belt,’ Swann said.
‘That’s right. Money belt.’ He smiled again. ‘I’m a student from Hamburg University. I have my papers. Please, do not point the gun.’
Swann relaxed, exhausted by the exertions of the climb and the disappointment in his own judgement. He stood taller and let the barrel of the MP5 swing towards the ground. The German’s hand inched behind him, slowly, slowly, the smile still on his face, hope suddenly in his eyes. Swann watched him wearily and then a strange thought rode across his mind, why doesn’t he use both hands? He’ll need both hands to work the belt to the front, so he can open the zip.
And then the hand moved fast. Swann brought up the barrel of the MP5 and shot him, double tap, right in the chest. The man jerked and his arms flailed, the hand behind him coming away empty. Swann saw the look of surprise in his face and then the blood running over his lips, and he knew he had hit his lungs. The man fell to his knees, clutching his chest, and looked Swann in the eyes. He muttered something in German and then, ‘You have killed me. Why have you killed me?’ He rocked on his knees, blood dripping from his nose and mouth. His eyes had begun to glaze, yet still he knelt, seeming to scrabble or scratch at his back. Swann took a pace towards him, the carbine a dead weight in his hands. Then the man stopped moving. He did not fall, but Swann saw the life vanish before his eyes. Again, he was alone on a mountain, with the stench of death in his soul. He stood a long time, the wind tugging at his hair. Finally, he laid the carbine on the ground, pulled his ice axes from their wrist loops, and knelt before the German. His eyes were still open, but they were dull, like cold glass. No breath played against Swann’s palm when he lifted it to the bloodied mouth.