by Trevanian
And indeed Jean-Paul was dour that morning. He was tense and irritable and their waiter—never a model of skill and intelligence—received the brunt of his displeasure. It was Jonathan's belief that Jean-Paul was struggling with inner doubts about age and ability now that the moment of the climb was approaching inexorably.
Anderl, with his face creased in a bland smile, was in an almost yoga calm. His eyes were defocused and his attention turned inward. Jonathan could tell that he was tuning himself emotionally for the climb, now only eighteen hours away.
So it was by social default that Jonathan and Anna carried the burden of small talk. Anna suddenly stopped midphrase, her eye caught by something at the entrance to the dining room. "Good God," she said softly, laying her hand on Jonathan's arm.
He turned to see the internationally known husband and wife team of film actors who had arrived the day before to join the Eiger Birds. They stood at the entrance, slowly scanning about for a free table in the half-empty room until they were satisfied that no one of importance had missed their presence. A waiter, a-quiver with servility, hastened to their side and conducted them to a table near the climbers. The actor was dressed in a white Nehru jacket and beads that conflicted with his puffy, pock-marked, middle-aged face. His hair was tousled to a precise degree of tonsorial insouciance. The wife was aggressively visible in floppy pants of oriental print with a gathered blouse of bravely clashing color, the looseness of which did much to mute her bread-and-butter dumpiness, the plunging neckline designed to direct the eye to more acceptable amplitudes. Banging about between the breasts was a diamond of vulgar size. Her eyes, however, were still good.
After the woman had been seated with a flurry of small adjustments and sounds, the man stepped to Jonathan's table and leaned over it, one hand on Anderl's shoulder, the other on Ben's.
"I want to wish you fellows the best kind of luck in the whole wide world," he said with ultimate sincerity and careful attention to the music of his vowels. "In many ways, I envy you." His clear blue eyes clouded with unspoken personal grief. "It's the kind of thing I might have done... once." Then a brave smile pressed back the sadness. "Ah, well." He squeezed the shoulders in his hands. "Once again, good luck." He returned to his wife, who had been waving an unlit cigarette in a holder impatiently, and who accepted her husband's tardy light without thanks.
"What happened?" Ben asked the company in a hushed voice.
"Benediction, I believe," Jonathan said.
"At all events," Karl said, "they will keep the reporters' attention away from us for a while."
"Where the devil is that waiter!" Jean-Paul demanded grumpily. "This coffee was cold when it arrived!"
Karl winked broadly to the company. "Anderl. Threaten the waiter with your knife. That will make him come hopping."
Anderl blushed and looked away, and Jonathan recognized that Freytag, in his attempt at humor, had blundered into an awkward subject. Embarrassed at the instant chill his faux pas had brought to the table, Karl pressed on with a German instinct for making things right by making them bigger. "Didn't you know, Herr Doctor? Meyer always carries a knife. I'll bet it's there under his jacket right now. Let us see it, Anderl."
Anderl shook his head and looked away. Jean-Paul attempted to soften Freytag's brutishness by explaining quickly to Jonathan and Ben. "The fact is, Anderl climbs in many parts of the world. Usually alone. And the village folk he uses as porters are not the most reliable men you could want, especially in South America, as your own experience has doubtless taught you. Well, in a word, last year poor Anderl was climbing alone, in the Andes, and something happened with a porter who was stealing food and—anyway—the porter died."
"Self-defense isn't really killing," Ben said, for something to say.
"He wasn't attacking me," Anderl admitted. "He was stealing supplies."
Freytag entered the conversation again. "And you consider the death penalty appropriate for theft?"
Anderl looked at him with innocent confusion. "You don't understand. We were six days into the hills. Without the supplies, I would not have been able to make the climb. It was not pleasant. It made me ill, in fact. But I would have lost my chance at the mountain otherwise." Clearly, he considered this to be a satisfactory justification.
Jonathan found himself wondering about how Anderl, poor as he was, had collected the money for his share in the Eiger climb.
"Well, Jonathan," Jean-Paul said, evidently to change the subject, "did you have a good night?"
"I slept very well, thank you. And you?"
"Not at all well."
"I'm sorry. Perhaps you should get some rest this afternoon. I have sleeping pills, if you want them."
"I never use them," Bidet said curtly.
Karl spoke. "Do you use pills to sleep in bivouac, Herr Doctor?"
"Usually."
"Why? Discomfort? Fear?"
"Both."
Karl laughed. "An interesting tactic! By quietly admitting to fear, you give the impression of being a very wise and brave man. I shall have to remember that one."
"Oh. Are you going to need it?"
"Probably not. I also never sleep well in bivouac. But with me it is not a matter of fear. I am too charged with the excitement of the climb. Now Anderl here! He is amazing. He tacks himself to a sheer face and falls asleep as though he were bundled up in a feather bed at home."
"Why not?" Anderl asked. "Supposing the worst, what is the value in being awake during a fall? A last glimpse at the scenery?"
"Ah!" Jean-Paul ejaculated. "At last our waiter finds a moment for us in his busy schedule!"
But the waiter was coming with a note for Jonathan on a small silver tray.
"It is from the gentleman over there," the waiter said.
Jonathan glanced in the indicated direction, and he experienced a stomach shock. It was Clement Pope. He sat at a nearby table, wearing a checked sport coat and a yellow ascot. He waved sassily at Jonathan, fully realizing that he was blowing Jonathan's cover. The defensive, gentle smile came slowly to Jonathan's eyes as he controlled the flutter in his stomach. He glanced at the other members of the party, trying to read the smallest trace of recognition or apprehension in their faces. He could distinguish none. He opened the note, scanned it, then nodded and thanked the waiter. "You might also bring M. Bidet a fresh pot of coffee."
"No, never mind," Jean-Paul said. "I no longer have a taste for it. I think I shall return to my room and rest, if you will excuse me." With this he left, his stride strong and angry.
"What's wrong with Jean-Paul?" Jonathan asked Anna quietly.
She shrugged, not caring particularly at that moment. "Do you know that man who sent you the note?" she asked.
"I may have met him somewhere. I don't recognize him. Why?"
"If you ever see him again, you really should drop a hint about his clothing. Unless, of course, he wants to be taken for a music hall singer or an American."
"I'll do that. If I ever see him again."
Anderl's attention was snagged by the two young twits of the day before who passed the window and waved at him. With a shrug of fatalistic inevitability, he excused himself and stepped out to join them.
Immediately afterward, Karl invited Anna to join him in a stroll to the village.
And within three minutes of Pope's appearance, the company was reduced to Jonathan and Ben. For a time they sat sipping their cool coffee in silence. When he looked casually around, Jonathan saw that Pope had left.
"Hey, ol' buddy? What's got into John-Paul?" Ben had changed from the mispronunciation based on print to one based on ear.
"Just jumpy, I guess."
"Now, jumpy's a fine quality in a climber. But he's more than jumpy. He's pissed off about something. You been drilling his wife?"
Jonathan had to laugh at the directness of the question. "No, Ben. I haven't."
"You're sure?"
"It's a thing I'd know."
"Yeah, I guess. About the last thing
you guys need is bad blood. I can just see you on the face, thumping on each other with ice axes."
The image was not alien to Jonathan's imagination.
Ben was pensive for a while before he said, "You know, if I was going up that hill with anybody—excepting you, of course—I'd want to be roped to Anderl."
"Makes sense. But you better keep your hands out of the larder."
"Yeah! How about that? When he decides to climb a mountain, he don't fool around none."
"Evidently not." Jonathan rose. "I'm going to my room. See you at supper."
"What about lunch?"
"No. I'll be down in the village."
"Got a little something waiting for you down there?"
"Yes."
Jonathan sat by the window in his room, staring out toward the mountain and bringing his thoughts into order. The bold appearance of Pope had been a surprise; for an instant he had been off balance. There had been no time to consider Dragon's reasons for so blatantly rupturing his cover. Because Dragon was chained immobile to his dark, antiseptic cell in New York, it was the face and person of Clement Pope that were universally recognized as SS Division leadership. There could be only one reason for his making so flagrantly open a contact. Jonathan became tight with anger at the recognition of it.
The anticipated knock came, and Jonathan crossed to the door and opened it.
"How's it been going, Hemlock?" Pope extended his broad businessman's hand which Jonathan ignored, closing the door behind them. Pope lowered himself with a grunt into the chair Jonathan had been occupying. "Nice place you got here. Going to offer me a drink?"
"Get on with it, Pope."
Pope's laugh lacked joy. "OK, pal, if that's the game you want to play, we'll use your ball park. Dismiss formalities and get to the nitty and the gritty. Right?"
As Pope tugged a small packet of note cards from his inside coat pocket, Jonathan noticed he was starting to run to fat. An athlete in his college days, Pope was still strong in a slow, massive way, but Jonathan estimated that he could be put away fairly easily. And he had every intention of putting him away—but not until he had drained him of useful information.
"Let's get the little fish out of the pond first, Hemlock, so we can clear the field of fire."
Jonathan crossed his arms and leaned against the wall by the door. "Let's mix any metaphors you want."
Pope glanced at his first note card. "You wouldn't have any news about the whereabouts of active 365/55—a certain Jemima Brown, would you?"
"I would not."
"You better be telling it like it is, pal. Mr. Dragon would be mucho pissed off to discover that you'd harmed her. She was just following our orders. And now she's disappeared."
Jonathan reflected on the fact that Jemima was in the village and that he would be meeting her within the hour. "I doubt that you'll ever find her."
"Don't make book on it, baby. SS has a long arm."
"Next card?"
Pope slipped the top card to the bottom of the pack and glanced at the next. "Oh, yeah. You really left us with a mess, baby."
Jonathan smiled, a gentle calm in his eyes. "That's twice you've called me 'baby.' "
"That's kind of a burr under your blanket, isn't it?"
"Yes. Yes, it is," Jonathan admitted with quiet honesty.
"Well, that's just tough titty, pal. The days are long gone when we had to worry about your feelings."
Jonathan took a long breath to contain his feelings, and he asked, "You were saying something about a mess?"
"Yeah. We had teams all over that desert trying to find out what happened."
"And did you?"
"The second day we came across the car and that guy you blew out of it."
"What about the other one?"
"Miles Mellough? I had to leave before we found him. But I got word just before I left New York that one of our teams had located him."
"Dead, I presume."
"Plenty dead. Exposure, hunger, thirst. They don't know which he died of first. But he was beaucoup dead. They buried him out on the desert." Pope snickered. "Weird thing."
"Weird?"
"He must have been real hard up for chow there toward the last."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. He ate a dog."
Jonathan glanced down.
Pope went on. "You know how much it cost us? That search? And keeping the whole thing quiet?"
"No. But I assume you'll tell me."
"No, I won't. That information's classified. But we get a little tired of the way you irregulars burn money like it was going out of style."
"That's always been a burr under your blanket, hasn't it, Pope? The fact that men like me earn more for one job than you get in three years."
Pope sneered, an expression his face seemed particularly designed for.
"I admit that it would be more economical," Jonathan said, "if you SS regulars did your own sanctioning. But the work requires skill and some physical courage. And those qualities are not available on government requisition forms."
"I'm not pissed about the money you're making on this particular job. This time you're going to earn it, baby."
"I was hoping you'd get around to that."
"You've already guessed—a big university professor like you must have guessed by now."
"I'd enjoy hearing it from you."
"Whatever turns you on. It's different strokes for different folks, I guess." He flicked to the next card. "Search has drawn a blank on your target. We know he's here. And he's on this climb with you. But we don't know which one for sure."
"Miles Mellough knew."
"Did he tell you?'
"He offered to. The price was too high."
"What did he want?"
"To live."
Pope looked up from the note card. He did his best to appear coldly professional as he nodded in sober understanding. But the cards fell from his knee, and he had to paw around to collect them.
Jonathan watched him with distaste. "So you've set me up to make the target commit himself, right?"
"No other way, buddy-boy. We figured the target would recognize me on sight. And now he has you spotted as a Sanction man. He's got to take a crack at you before you get him. And when he does, I have him identified."
"And who would do the sanction, if he got me?" Jonathan looked Pope over leisurely. "You?"
"You don't think I could handle it?"
Jonathan smiled. "In a locked closet, maybe. With a grenade."
"Don't bet on that, buddy. As it happens, we're going to bring in another Sanction man to do the job."
"I assume this was your idea?"
"Dragon OK'd it, but it came from me."
Jonathan's face was set in his gentle combat smile. "And it really doesn't matter that you've blown my cover, now that I have decided to stop working for you."
"That is exactly the way it crumbles." Pope was enjoying his moment of victory after so many years of smarting under Jonathan's open disdain.
"What if I just walk away and forget the whole thing?"
"No way, pal. You wouldn't get your hundred thousand; you'd lose your house; we'd confiscate your paintings; and you'd probably do a little time for smuggling them into the country. How does it feel to be in a box, pal?"
Jonathan crossed to pour himself a Laphroaig. Then he laughed aloud. "You've done well, Pope. Really very well! Want a drink?"
Pope was not sure how to handle this sudden cordiality. "Well, that's mighty white of you, Hemlock." He laughed as he received his glass. "Hey, I just said that was mighty white of you. I'll bet this Jemima Brown never said that to you. Right?"
Jonathan smiled beautifically. "No. As a matter of fact, she never did."
"Hey, tell me. How is that black stuff? Good, eh?"
Jonathan drank off half his glass and sat in a chair opposite Pope's, leaning toward him confidentially. "You know, Pope, I really ought to tell you in advance that I intend to waste you a little." He winked p
layfully. "You would understand that, in a case like this, wouldn't you?"
"Waste me? What do you mean?"
"Oh, Just West Side slang. Look, if Dragon would rather I did the sanction myself—and I assume he would—I'm going to need a little information. Go over the Montreal thing with me. There were two men involved in the hit on whatshisname, right?"
"His name was Wormwood. He was a good man. A regular." Pope flipped through several cards and scanned one rapidly. "That's right. Two men."
"Now, you're sure of that? Not a man and a woman?"
"It says two men."
"All right. Are you sure Wormwood wounded one of the men?"
"That's what the report said. One of the two men was limping when he left the hotel."
"But are you sure he was wounded? Could he have been hurt earlier? Maybe in a mountain accident?"
"The report said he limped. Why are you asking? Was one of your people hurt in some kind of accident?"
"Karl Freytag says he hurt his leg in a short fall last month."
"Then Freytag could be your man."
"Possibly. What else have the Search people dragged up about our man?"
"Almost nothing. Couldn't have been a professional. We'd have gotten a line on him by now, if he were a professional."
"Could he have been the one who cut Wormwood open?"
"Maybe. We always assumed Kruger did the actual cutting. It's his kind of thing. But it could have been the other way, I suppose. Why?"
"One of the climbers had the capacity to kill a man with a knife. Very few people can do that."
"Maybe he's your man. Whoever it was, he has a weak stomach."
"The vomit on the floor?"
"Right."
"A woman might do that."
"There's a woman in this?"
"Bidet's wife. She could have worn male clothing. And that limp might have been anything—a twisted ankle coming down the stairs."
"You got yourself quite a can of worms there, baby."