The Day After Tomorrow

by Allan Folsom

  Leading the way outside, Von Holden let Vera go down the steps ahead of him. As she did, the last rays of the sun touched her hair, bathing her in soft vermilion. For the briefest moment Von Holden wondered what it would be like to be an ordinary man. And in that he thought of Joanna, and the truth of what he had said to her in Berlin, that he didn’t know if he was capable of love and she had replied, “You are—” It was a thought out of time and it led to another: that however simple and plain she was, at heart she was truly beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman he’d ever known and he was astonished to think that maybe she was right, that he was capable of love and the love he held was for her.

  Then his eyes were drawn to a large clock on the wall at the bottom of the steps. Its minute hand stood straight up. It was exactly five o’clock. At the same moment came the announcement of an arriving train. As quickly his dream vanished and something else stood in its place.

  Osborn.

  145

  * * *

  OSBORN STOOD back from the door, letting the other passengers go out first. Absently, he wiped perspiration from his upper lip. If he was trembling, he didn’t notice.

  “Good luck, darlin’.” Connie touched his arm on the way out and then she was gone, following the last of the railroaders toward an open elevator at the far end of the tracks. Osborn looked around. The car was empty and he was alone. Lifting out the .38, he flipped open the chamber. Six shots. McVey had left it fully loaded.

  Closing the chamber, he stuck the gun in his waistband and he let his jacket slide across it. Then, taking a deep breath, he stepped sharply from the train. Immediately he felt the cold. It was the kind of mountain cold you felt on ski trips when you stepped from a heated gondola and out into the half-open barn where the gondolas stopped.

  He was surprised to see a second train in the station and he had to think that since the last train left at six, the second train must be for the help who would go down later, after they’d closed up.

  Crossing the platform, Osborn joined several British tourists and took the same elevator Connie and the railroaders had taken. The car went one stop and the door opened, revealing a large room with a cafeteria and souvenir shop.

  The Brits stepped out and Osborn went with them. Dropping back, he stopped at the souvenir shop and absently looked over an assortment of Jungfraujoch T-shirts, postcards and candy while at the same time trying to study the faces of the people crowding the cafeteria farther down the room. Almost immediately a short, chubby boy of maybe ten walked up with his parents. The family was American and both the father and boy wore identical Chicago Bulls jackets. In that one single instant Osborn felt more alone than at any time in his life. He wasn’t quite sure why was it that he had so distanced himself from the rest of the world that death, if it came at Von Holden’s hands or even Vera’s, would go wholly unnoticed, that no one would care that he had ever been? Or had the vision of the boy and his father only magnified the bitterness of what had been taken from him? Or was it that other thing, the thing that had eluded him his entire life, a family of his own?

  Pulling himself from the depths of his own emotion, Osborn studied the room once more. If Von Holden or Vera were there, he didn’t see them. Leaving the souvenir area, he crossed to the elevator. Almost immediately the door opened and an elderly couple walked out. Scanning the room a last time, Osborn went into the elevator and pressed the button for the next floor. The door closed and he started upward. Several seconds later the elevator stopped, the door slid open, and he looked out at a world of blue ice. This was the Ice Palace, a long semicircular tunnel cut into glacial ice and filled with caverns holding ice sculptures. Ahead of him, he could see the last of the railroaders, Connie among them, as they walked along enchanted by the sculptures—of people, of animals, of a full-size car, a replica of a bar, complemented with chairs and tables and an old-fashioned whiskey barrel.

  Osborn hesitated, then stepped out and started down the corridor, trying to blend in, to look like anybody else. As he walked, he searched the faces of tourists coming toward him. Maybe he’d made a mistake not staying with the, railroaders. Reaching out, he ran his fingers delicately along the side of the corridor, as if he doubted it was ice and might instead be some manufactured product. But it was ice. The same as on the ceiling and floor. The surrounding of ice intensified the thought that this place could have been the site of the experimental surgeries done at extreme cold.

  But where? Jungfraujoch was small. Surgeries, especially surgeries as delicate as these would be, required space. Equipment rooms, prep room and surgery rooms, intensive-care post-op rooms. Rooms to house the staff. How could it be done here?

  The only place out of bounds, Connie had told him, was the weather station. Fifteen feet away a Swiss guide stood by as teenagers posed for a photograph in the ice tunnel. Crossing to her, Osborn asked directions to the weather station. It was upstairs, she said. Near the restaurant and the outside terrace. But it was closed because of a fire.

  “Fire?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “Last night, sir.”

  Last night. The same as Charlottenburg.

  “Thank you.” Osborn continued on. Unless it was some great coincidence, what happened there, happened here. Meaning whatever had been destroyed there had been destroyed here, too. But Von Holden wouldn’t have known that or he wouldn’t have come, unless it was to meet someone. Suddenly something made Osborn look up. Vera and Von Holden stood at the end of the corridor bathed in the eerie blue light created by the ice. They looked at him a half second more, then abruptly turned down the corridor and vanished.

  Osborn’s heart felt as if it was trying to pound through his ears. Gathering himself, he turned to the guide.

  “Down there,” he pointed to where the two had stood. “Where does that lead?”

  “Outside to the ski school and the dogsled area. But of course they are closed now for the day.”

  “Thank you.” Osborn’s voice was barely a whisper. His feet were like stone, as if they had frozen to the ice beneath them. His hand slid into his jacket and took hold of the .38. The ice walls glistened cobalt blue and he could see his breath. Grasping the hand rail he moved cautiously ahead until he reached the turn in the tunnel where Von Holden and Vera had vanished.

  The corridor ahead was empty, and at the end was a door. A sign for the ski school pointed toward it. There was another for dogsled rides.

  You want me to follow you, don’t you? Osborn’s mind raced. That’s the idea. Through that door. Outside. Away from other people. Go out there! You do that, he’s got you. You won’t come in again. Von Holden will take what’s left of you and throw you over the side someplace. Into some deep crevasse. They won’t find you till spring. They may never find you.

  “What are you doing? Where are you taking me?” Vera and Von Holden entered a small, claustrophobic room of ice in a passageway off the main corridor. He had held her arm going down the passage and stopped her the moment they’d seen Osborn. Purposely he waited until he felt her about to call out, then he’d pulled her around and they’d gone quickly back, turning into a side tunnel and then into the room.

  “The fire was set. They are here, waiting for us. For you, for the documents I have.”

  “Paul—”

  “Perhaps he is one of them as well.”

  “No. Never! He escaped somehow—”

  “Did he?”

  “He had to have—” Suddenly Vera flashed on the men posing as Frankfurt police moments before Von Holden shot them. “Where is the female officer? The policewoman?” they had asked.

  “There is none,” Von Holden answered. “There was no time.”

  It hadn’t been another fugitive that concerned them, it had been procedure! A male detective would not transport a-female prisoner alone in a closed compartment without the accompaniment of a policewoman!

  “We have to find out about Osborn, or neither of us
will leave here alive.” Von Holden’s breath hung in the air and he smiled gently as he came toward her. The nylon rucksack was over his left shoulder, his right hand at his waist. His manner was easy, relaxed, the same as it had been when he faced the men on the train. The same as Avril Rocard’s had been when she gunned down the French Secret Service agents at the Nancy farmhouse.

  In that instant Vera understood—the thing that had troubled her since they’d left Interlaken, the thing she’d been too emotionally overwhelmed and exhausted to grasp beforehand, the thing that had been there all along. Yes, Von Holden had had all the right answers, but it was for a different reason. The men on the train had been police, it was not they who were Nazi killers, it was Von Holden.

  146

  * * *

  OSBORN WALKED quickly back the way he had come. Now he saw the railroaders loading into the elevator at the far end of the Ice Palace. Walking even faster, he caught up with them just as the door was closing. Stopping it with his hand, he squeezed in among them.

  “Sorry . . . ,” he lied, smiling.

  The door closed and the elevator rose. What to do now? Osborn could feel the pump of blood through his carotid arteries. The thud! thud! thud! of it felt like a jackhammer. Abruptly the elevator stopped and the door opened out into a large self-service restaurant. Osborn had to step out first. Then he held back and tried to stay with the crowd. Outside it was almost dark. Through a bank of windows he could just make out the peaks at the far end of the sloping Aletsch glacier. Beyond them, in the eerie twilight, he could see weather clouds moving in.

  “What’re you doin’ now?” Connie was walking beside him. Osborn looked at her and then started as a sudden gust of wind rattled across the windows.

  “Doing?” Osborn’s eyes nervously swept the room as they followed the others toward the food service line. “I thought maybe I’d have a—cup of coffee.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. Why would anything be the matter?”

  “You in trouble or something? The police after you?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.”

  “Then why’re you so nervous? You’re skitty as a newborn colt.”

  Now they were at the food counter. Osborn looked back at the room. Some of the railroaders were already sitting down, pulling up chairs between two tables nearby. The family he’d seen at the souvenir shop was at another table, with the father pointing off toward the restrooms and the young boy in the Chicago Bulls jacket heading toward it. Two young men sat at a table near the door, smoking cigarettes and chatting earnestly.

  “Sit over here with me and drink this.” They were already through the cashier and Connie was leading him to a table away from the railroaders.

  “What is it?” Osborn looked at the glass Connie had set In front of him.

  “Coffee with cognac. Now be a good guy and drink it.”

  Osborn looked at her, then picked up the cup and drank. What to do? He thought. They’re here, in the building or outside it. I didn’t go after them. Which means they’ll come after me.

  “Are you Doctor Osborn?”

  Osborn looked up. The boy in the Chicago Bulls jacket was right there.

  “Yes.”

  “A man said to tell you he’s waiting outside.”

  “Who is?” Connie’s bleached eyebrows furrowed together.

  “By the dogsled run.”

  “Clifford, what are you doin’? I thought you were goin’ to the lavatory.” The boy’s father was taking him by the hand. “Sorry,” he said to Osborn. “What’re you doin’ bothering those folks, huh?” he said to his son as they walked off.

  Osborn saw his father on the sidewalk. Primal fear in his eyes. Terrified. His hand reaching up for his son to ease him into death. Suddenly he got up. Without looking at Connie, he stepped around the table and started for the door.

  147

  * * *

  VON HOLDEN waited in the snow, back from the empty runs where they kept the sled dogs during the day. The box in the black backpack rested nearby. In his hands he cradled a nine-millimeter Skorpion automatic pistol mounted with a flame and sound suppressor. It was light and maneuverable and had a thirty-two-round magazine. Osborn, he was certain, would be armed, as he had been the night in the Tiergarten. There was no way to know how well trained he was, but it made little difference because this time Von Holden would give him no opportunity.

  Fifty feet away, between himself and the ski school door, Vera stood in the darkness. She was handcuffed to a safety railing that followed the icy path toward the dog runs. She could cry, scream, anything. Out here in the dark, with the restaurant closing up for the night, the only one who would hear her was Osborn when he came out. Fifty feet was close enough for her to be heard and seen by Osborn but far enough away form the building for anyone who might be inside looking out. Von Holden’s purpose was to get them both away and into the darkness past the dog runs where the killing would be best. That was why he’d left Vera where he had. She was serving the purpose he had planned for her from the beginning. Except that now, instead of a hostage, she had become bait.

  Forty yards beyond her the ski school door at the end of the Ice Palace tunnel opened, light spilled out, and a lone figure emerged from it. A thick stand of heavy icicles by the door glistened in the darkness, then the door closed and the figure stood silhouetted against the snow. A moment later it moved forward.

  Vera watched Osborn come; he was walking in a snowmobile track that was used for the dogsled rides and looking straight ahead. She knew he was vulnerable in the darkness because his eyes would take time to adjust to the dim light. Glancing back she saw Von Holden shoulder the pack and slide backward over a small crest and out of sight. He had brought her out of the Ice Palace through an air shaft, then handcuffed her without a word and walked off. Whatever he was planning had been carefully thought out, and whatever it was, Osborn was walking right into the middle of it.

  “Paul!” Vera’s cry resonated across the darkness. “He’s out here waiting. Go back! Telephone the police!”

  Osborn stopped and looked in her direction.

  “Go back, Paul! He’ll kill you!”

  Vera saw Osborn hesitate, then abruptly move sideways and disappear from sight. Immediately she looked to where Von Holden had gone but saw nothing. It was then she realized it had begun to snow. For a moment there was nothing but silence and she saw her own breath in the cold; Suddenly she felt the press of steel against her temple.

  “Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.” Osborn was right there, McVey’s .38 at her head, his eyes searching the darkness beyond her. Suddenly he looked at her. “Where is he?” he hissed. His stare was fierce, unforgiving.

  “Paul—?” she cried out. What was he doing?

  “I said where is he?”

  OH-GOD-NO! Suddenly she realized. He believed she was one of them. Part of the Organization. “Paul,” she pleaded, “Von Holden took me from jail in his custody. He said he was a German federal policeman, that he was bringing me to you.”

  Osborn eased the weapon back. Again he looked away, probing in the darkness. Suddenly his right foot shot out and there was a crack life a rifle shot. The wooden handrail split in two and Vera was freed from her tether, her hands still cuffed together in front of her.

  “Walk,” he said, shoving her forward toward the dog run, keeping her tightly between him and Von Holden’s line of fire.

  “Don’t, Paul, please—”

  Osborn ignored her. Ahead was the closed ski school and beyond it the wood and wire runs where they kept the sled dogs during the day. Then, just past them, a faint blue light shown through the falling snow like an hallucination. Osborn pulled her back, glancing over his shoulder behind them. There was nothing. He turned back.

  “That light. What is it?”

  “It’s—” Vera hesitated. “... an air shaft. A tunnel. How we came out from the Ice Palace.”
>
  “Is that where he is?”

  Osborn twisted her around to face him. “Is that where he is? Yes or no.”

  He didn’t see her; he saw only someone he was certain had betrayed him. He was afraid and desperate but he was going on nonetheless.

  “I don’t know.” Vera was terrified. If Von Holden was there and they went inside after him, there were any number of twists and turns where he could wait in ambush.

  Osborn glanced quickly around, then moved her forward again toward the circle of light spilling from the shaft. The only sound was the mutter of the wind and the crunch of their feet on the snow. Seconds passed and they were at the dog runs and almost to the light.

  “He’s not in the tunnel at all, is he, Vera?” Osborn swept the darkness, trying to see through the snow. “But out in the dark, waiting until you lead me into the light, like a duck in a shooting gallery. You wouldn’t even be at risk. He’s a marksman, a trained Spetsnaz soldier.”

  How could he not understand what had happened to her, not believe she was telling the truth?

  “Dahimit, Paul! Listen to me—” Vera was starting to turn around, to look at him. Suddenly she stopped. There were tracks in the snow in front of them. In the bluish glow of the light, Osborn saw them too. Footprints dusted over, by fresh snow, leading from where they were directly toward the tunnel. Von Holden had stood where they were only moments before.

  Abruptly Osborn jerked her aside, roughing her into the shadows against the wood and wire of the dog runs. Then he looked back, studying the tracks.

  She could see him trying to decide what to do next. He was exhausted. Very nearly at the end of his rope. Von Holden was on his mind and nothing else. He was making mistakes and didn’t realize it. And if he went on as he was, in a short while Von Holden would kill them both.