7 Steps to Midnight (30 page)

On the second bill below the surface, there were small words linked across its top.

If trouble at station, Tyrol Inn, 8
P.M.

He looked at his watch. It was several minutes past six. What was he supposed to do until eight? Get a hotel room? That seemed inadvisable. For all he knew, he’d be in Tokyo by tomorrow morning.

He ordered a piece of apple pie and more coffee, then sat staring across the dim interior of the café, out through the cottage-type windows at the street. The café was quiet, nearly empty; it was probably a dead period between afternoon and evening patronage.

The waiter brought the pie and coffee and Chris forked a bite of pie into his mouth, washing it down with a sip of coffee.
What do I
do
?
he thought. He wasn’t used to minutes of mental inactivity, much less hours; it simply wasn’t part of his makeup to relax and do nothing.

All right, he thought. At least it would kill some time. Unbuttoning the top pocket of his jacket, he eased out the folded menu, opened it and ran his gaze across the notations. Yes, it
was
a new approach, he saw; minor but definitely innovative. He wondered where it might lead.

He signaled to the waiter and asked to borrow a pencil. For the want of a nail, he thought as the waiter went to get him the pencil. What if he was unable to get pencils when he needed them? Would all his unreleased ideas dry up? He wished that he had a laptop computer; that would really be helpful right now.

“Oh, well,” he murmured. He thanked the waiter for the pencil, then examined the menu. It was in a pseudo-leather binder. He looked around, then put it down on the seat of the booth and, slowly, tore out one of the pages.
Two years, menu desecration
, he imagined a judge’s sepulchral voice.

It would be nice if the man on the Hovercraft had been right in telling him that he might be able to go home if he finished his work. It didn’t exactly make sense under the circumstances but it was inviting.

That was his last conscious thought as his concentration dipped into the formula and all conceivable variations. He began scribbling numbers and symbols on the back of the page, the machinery of his brain turned solely to the problem at hand. As always, everything vanished—the environment, his identity. He became, in essence, a computer devoid of personality, a thinking device. Figures seemed to appear from the pencil point as though the pencil was a conduit between his brain and the paper—or a tube of numerical and symbol-laden toothpaste that he was quickly squeezing onto the paper. He felt no conscious connection to the rapidly appearing lines of mathematics. It was as though they came from a source other than his brain.

When he reached the bottom of the sheet, he blinked with the
sensation of emerging from a trance; he always came out of successful productivity like that. Looking up, he saw to his surprise that it was dark outside. Oh, God, he thought. What time was it?

He checked his watch in alarm, then made a sound of appreciative amusement. It was a quarter to eight. His mind seemed to have that capacity as well, to retain a subconscious alarm system which protected him from missing valuable appointments. It was not the first time this had happened.

He hastily ran his gaze over the sheet, nodding. Even better, he thought; possibly closer to the answer. He looked at the two sheets of equations. Did he dare keep them as they were? There wasn’t time at the moment but, when there was, it would be better if he committed all of this to memory. God forbid anyone got their hands on these sheets. Not that they were exactly the open sesame to the turbulence problem. But an imaginative mathematician would be able to see where he was headed and travel further along the theoretical track. He nodded to himself. He
would
memorize it later. It would be decidedly safer.

Folding the menu pages, he slid them into his jacket pocket and buttoned it shut. There, he thought. He felt a trifle guilty for having completely forgotten about Alexsandra while in the throes of concentration. Still, he felt a kind of pleasure too. He’d been bumbling over this area of the formula for too damn long. It made him feel good to see a glimmer of light in the fog.

He paid the bill and asked the waiter where the Tyrol Inn was. It was located only a few blocks away, he was told. He left the café and turned left, heading toward the lake. The lighted street looked charming to him and, once more, he regretfully thought how much he could enjoy being in Switzerland if he didn’t have this menace hanging over him. To be a tourist here with Alexsandra on his arm; that would really be perfect.

Dream or no dream.

***

Halfway to the Tyrol Inn, an idea occurred to him and he stopped in a dark alley for a few minutes. Play it safe, he told himself. He reached the Tyrol Inn at three minutes to eight; good timing, he thought. He went inside, wincing at the blast of noise that hit him from the crowded interior. Why was the meeting set for here? he wondered. Was it because the more crowded a place, the safer it was? That had a kind of perverse logic to it.

The hostess led him to a small table for two far in the back of the inn and handed him a menu.
Jesus, do I have to
eat
again?
Chris thought.
That shouldn’t be so difficult for you
, his mind rejoined;
you get hungry every time the clock ticks.

The waiter came and he ordered a stein of beer and a sausage sandwich; he probably wouldn’t eat it, but he felt that he should order something.

While he waited for the beer and the sandwich to arrive—and whoever was going to show up (would they know him by sight?)—he watched the woman entertainer on the platform far across the room. She was dressed in a gaudy peasant outfit, her molten blond hair hanging down in two fat pigtails, singing a song that Chris assumed was meant to be an imitation of a bird. Either that or the woman’s voice was hideously high-pitched and peeplike.

The audience enjoyed it greatly though, applauding thunderously when she was finished, whistling and cheering, stamping their shoes and pounding steins on the shellac-thick tables; obviously stein-pounding was a long tradition here, Chris thought. The woman smiled, revealing two gold teeth, then curtsied cutely and ran from the platform to be replaced by a burly man with a large handlebar mustache, wearing lederhosen, carrying a horn so huge it had to be propped on one leg like a giant telescope.

The noises that burst from the mouth of the horn were so piercing that they made Chris catch his breath.
Jesus Christ
, he thought; what was the horn designed for, calling sheep ten miles away? Signaling aircraft?

The waiter brought the stein of beer and sandwich and dumped
them down on the table, turning away hurriedly. Chris grimaced at the continuing horn blasts as he took a sip of beer. It tasted good, rich and flavorful. Too bad he had to drink it to the ear-splitting accompaniment of that horn from hell.

He was just sighing with relief as the man completed his deafening solo—even the cheering, whistling, shoe- and stein-stomping sounded easier on the ears—when a young, brown-haired man came over to the table and sat across from him.

Chris looked intently at the man, wondering if he’d been directed to this table because the inn was so crowded or if this was the man he was supposed to meet at the railroad station. The man was in his thirties from the look of him, stern, imposing and thoroughly Germanic in appearance, and smiling at him.

Then the man reached beneath his jacket, making Chris stiffen guardedly. The man’s smile widened as though he knew what Chris was fearing. Instead of a weapon though, he removed a key attached to a dark plastic tag and dropped it on the table in front of Chris. “There,” he said.

Chris looked at the key.

“You will find your lady in that room,” the man told him, his German accent extreme.

“Is she all right?” Chris asked.

“Perfectly,” the man replied. “And now, if you would be so kind.”

“How do I know she’s really there?” Chris demanded.

“You must take my word for it,” the man said. “The ring, please.”

Chris reached into his side jacket pocket and removed the ring. He set it on the table in front of the man, who snatched it up. “Thank you,” the man said, nodding once. He immediately stood and walked across the crowded interior, exiting into the night.
Thank God he thinks I’m an idiot
, Chris thought.

The moment the man was gone, Chris put a bill on the table to pay the check and quickly got up, carrying his bag. Crossing to the entrance, he went outside and looked in both directions. The man was already out of sight. He’d be back soon enough. As soon as he opened the ring.

He stopped a passing woman to inquire where the Bernerhof Hotel was; the name was on the tag. She told him and he turned back toward the Chapel Bridge.

His running footsteps echoed hollowly inside the covered bridge as he rushed across the river, turned left onto the Bahnhofstrasse, then right at the first street he came to. His heart was pounding from the exertion, his breath laboring. He kept running though, down the block and into the hotel entrance.

When the elevator failed to appear soon enough, he turned to the stairs and pelted up them two steps at a time. He was panting by the time he reached the room on the third floor. Hastily, he slipped the key into the lock and opened the door. The room was dark. He felt around for the light switch, found it and flicked it up quickly.

It didn’t surprise him to see that the room was empty.

“You son of a bitch,” he muttered.

He glared at the room. Looked toward the dark bathroom. Shivered as a dreadful notion struck him. Walked hesitantly to the bathroom doorway and, reaching in, switched on the light.

The sound he made was one of deep relief. He’d suddenly imagined Alexsandra crumpled in the bathtub, dead; strangled, slashed, shot, whatever.

“For Christ’s sake,” he said, angry at himself.
You read too goddamn many thrillers. Grow up.

Drawing in a long, restoring breath, he walked over to the bed and sank down on it with a groan. They’d be here soon enough; maybe just one of them. Which would it be? The man who’d taken the ring? The tall, black-haired one? The short, bulky man with blond hair? He didn’t relish the idea of seeing either of them again, but he had to know where Alexsandra was.

He started, gasping, at the sudden crashing noise. The door flew open, its latch kicked apart. The bulky, blond man lurched into the room, his expression one of fury. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

Chris swallowed quickly, trying to keep his voice controlled as he answered, “The deal was the ring for the woman. You have the ring, I don’t have—”

“I don’t have what was
inside
the ring!” the man interrupted.

Chris stood up; felt his legs shaking. “I don’t have the woman either,” he said.

Skin pulled taut across the man’s face as he started forward. Chris drew back, bracing himself. The man reached for
him and Chris slapped aside his hand. “You want the microfilm, you—”

He broke off as the man reached out again and grabbed him by the shoulder. His head snapped aside as the man slapped him hard across the left cheek. “Damn it!” he cried.

The man drew back his hand to slap again and Chris wrenched free of his grip, falling back toward the bed. The bulky man lunged forward and fell across him, clutching at his throat. “Where is the film?” he demanded savagely.

Chris jerked up both legs, his right knee catching the man full in the groin. With a startled cry of pain, the man let go of Chris and stood up, features distended as he clutched at his testicles. Chris shoved himself up and shouldered the man as hard as he could, knocking him back against an armoire standing by the wall; he heard the paneling crack as the man backed hard into its door.

For an instant, Chris was going to run for the hall and try to escape. Then he realized that if he did, he’d still be in the dark about Alexsandra and, impulsively—had he seen the move in a film, read about it in a novel?—he flung himself at the man; crossed his wrists and grabbed the collar of the man’s jacket, yanking it together chokingly. “
Where is the woman?
”

His advantage ended in a second. The man was frighteningly strong, reaching up to jerk Chris’s hands free, then shoving him away. Chris floundered backward, crashed against the bed and started to fall, grabbing on to the mattress to stay on his feet.

To his surprise, the man didn’t charge but remained leaning against the armoire, face white, teeth bared in a grimace of pain.

“We
told
you,” he muttered. “She’s all right. You can speak to her on the telephone.”

A rush of fury inflamed Chris. “Goddamn it, I don’t want to talk to her on the telephone! I want to see her! Where
is
she?!”

The man drew in a rasping breath. “Paris,” he said.

“Paris?!” Chris stared at him, appalled. “I was told to come
here
if I wanted to save her!”

The man winced, still gingerly rubbing at his testicles. “We must have that film,” he said. “It is essential that you give us the film.”

“You don’t get it until—”

Chris broke off with a shudder, staring at the pistol the man had pulled from his pocket. “Wait a second,” he murmured.

“I have no time for this shit,” the man’s voice crowded out his. “Give me the film or die.”

Chris drew in a long, shaking breath. “If I die,” he was aghast to hear himself say, “you never get the film. It’s not here,” he added quickly, seeing the man’s face tighten. “I’ve hidden it and, until I see her personally, it
stays
hidden. So go ahead and shoot.”

What the fuck are you saying?!
screamed a frantic voice in his mind.
This isn’t a goddamn story, Barton! The bullets in that gun are real!

The blond man straightened up now, fingering a line of sweat from his upper lip. He moved across the rug to Chris and grabbed him by the right arm. Suddenly, the muzzle of the pistol was shoved beneath his chin, forcing back his head.