Melting the Ice (17 page)

She lifted herself up off the floor with one arm as Vasilev grabbed the heavy iron fire poker from beside the woodstove. He raised it above his head. Hannah raised her arm in a weak effort to fend off the blow as he started to bring it down on her head.

A sharp crack splintered the air.

Hannah watched in astonishment.

In slow motion, Gregor Vasilev’s knees buckled under him. The poker crashed to the floorboards and he started to slump forward. His body caught the edge of the table as he came down. He groped for the gun that lay there. He aimed, squeezed the trigger as he sagged down onto the floor.

Hannah screwed her eyes shut, waiting for the thud of impact in her body.

Nothing came. Just the sharp crack of gunfire.

Then silence.

She slowly opened her eyes. Vasilev had fallen faceup over her legs. His eyes stared out at nothing. She stared in horror at the small black hole in the middle of his forehead. It was oozing thick blood. Spittle seeped and bubbled from the corner of his open mouth.

Her heart stampeded against her rib cage. She turned slowly to face the cabin door.

He stood there, leaning against the jamb, a hand clutched to his chest just under his left shoulder. There was blood seeping out between his fingers.

“Mark?”

He cleared his throat, stepping forward into the cabin, hand still pressed into his chest. “You can call me Ken, Ken Mitchell. I think you know by now who I am.”

He tucked his gun back into his pants and moved over to Vasilev, slumped over her legs. He felt for his pulse.

“Good and dead.”

Revulsion leaped suddenly into her throat. She struggled to pull her legs out from under the bleeding body. Ken lifted Vasilev, helping Hannah free her legs.

Ken coughed. He pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and pushed it under his jacket and shirt, up against his chest wound.

“You all right, Hannah?”

“I…I’m okay.” Her words came out in a dry croak. “You’ve been shot.”

“I’ll be fine.” He coughed again. “Surface wound. Can you make it down to the spa? They have your son there.”

“Danny? He’s all right?”

“I followed Vasilev after he kidnapped your boy. I was watching him as he staked out your house. He’s been watching your house for days. I saw him attack the older woman and take the boy. I followed them back to the spa. I couldn’t get in through the gates so I waited. Vasilev,” he nodded toward the corpse, “came back out a few minutes later without the boy and headed for the village. I followed him up in the gondola. I knew he would’ve sent for you, and for Rex Logan. He wanted to get you both away from the village where he could deal with you.”

“You’re sure Danny’s at the spa? He’s okay?” A spring of hope erupted in her chest.

Ken reached for Vasilev’s backpack resting on the bench. He pulled out a head lamp, grunting in approval. “I don’t know if he’s okay. We must hurry.”

“How’re you involved in all this, what’s going on?”

“U.S. Central Intelligence. We’re after a doctor who escaped capture in Marumba. We believe he’s here, in White River.”

Ken positioned the flashlight on his head. He took Vasilev’s gloves and hat and gave them to Hannah. “Here, you’ll need these. We’re going to hike down.”

The dead man’s gloves. His hat. She recoiled.

“Go on.”

She took her own sodden cap off her head. The ends of her hair were still encrusted with clumps of melting snow. It dripped down her shoulders into pools on the cabin floor. She racked her brain, trying to pull into focus what Rex had told her about Ken Mitchell, that he might be a double agent. She pulled the dead man’s hat low over her ears. She would follow Ken since he could lead her to Danny. She’d play the cards as they were dealt her. But she’d trust no one.

“Logan is after the same doctor.” Ken Mitchell opened the door into a night that was saved from blackness only by the whiteness of the blowing snow. “All the players are onstage now. All the same ones from Marumba, even you.” He clutched tightly at his chest, coughing, as he ushered her out into the cold.

“Even me? What do you mean, ‘even me’?”

“I followed Logan in Marumba, after the lab fire. It was part of my assignment to keep an eye on him. He’d managed to get real close to the doctor and we thought that if the doctor was still alive, if he’d survived the fire, he’d probably go after Logan, thinking he’d been responsible for things. I watched him in that bar in the capital, in Penaka, when he first saw you.”

Hannah stumbled out into the night. “I never met Rex in a bar in the capital.”

“No. But Logan saw
you.
Next thing he was taking an unscheduled vacation in Ralundi.” Ken coughed. “It was most out of character, very contrary to his CIA personality profile. You sure have some hold over the famous Bellona Channel agent.”

Bellona Channel agent?
Hannah felt the bitter taste of bile rise in the back of her throat. Nothing was as she knew it. Nothing was as it had seemed. She felt violated. In her line of investigative work she’d heard mention of the Bellona Channel. It was a top-secret civilian agency, and few knew more about it except that it was a funnel for information on biological terrorism and warfare. It contracted to governments and helped head up and coordinate research projects. She didn’t know it had field agents. So Rex was a Bellona agent. Now she knew. He’d followed her to Ralundi. Now she knew.

The beam from the flashlight on Mitchell’s head probed a narrow tunnel into the void. Around it swirled a madness of snow.

“Stick close. Hold on to the end of my jacket if you want. Watch your footing. It’ll get slippery down by the gorge, but hopefully the snow will turn to rain down there.”

She looked at the marks in the snow made by Mitchell. He was not only leaving footprints but drops of blood, black against the snow.

“Why don’t we take the gondola?”

“We need to get into the spa the back way.” He had to yell against the wind whipping at his words, tossing them out to the peaks. “Don’t want to risk the gondola. Cops will be everywhere. It could screw this up.”

Hannah considered making a bolt for the gondola station. But Ken had the flashlight. He had a gun. She didn’t know what game he was playing. “Screw what up?” She slipped in the slush and regained her balance grabbing on to his jacket.

“I think I know where he’s holding your son. If police decide to descend on the spa, they’ll need a warrant. There’ll be too much warning. Everything will be gone. We’ll lose him again, the doctor. And we could lose your son.”

He wasn’t making much sense to her. She had to grasp on to the notion he might be telling the truth, that he might know where Danny was.

“Who has Danny? Who is this ‘him’?” She screamed the words into the wind as she followed in his trail. He was still dripping blood. He was badly injured.

“The Plague Doctor.”

Hannah felt her head swim. Things were getting more and more bizarre. “Keep focused, Hannah. Do it for Danny.” She whispered the mantra to herself, over and over, as they descended the trail to the cable crossing. Beyond it lay the spa. And Danny.

Rex cursed aloud. He was trapped in the glass bubble as it rocked in the dark against the blinding rain. Water ran in shimmering black rivulets over the glass.

He checked his watch. He’d been stuck like this for twenty minutes now. He hadn’t even reached midstation.

He swore again.

He knew this happened on ski hills. He’d skied often enough to know that lifts occasionally stopped for some reason—a mechanical hitch, someone having trouble getting on or off. There was nothing for it but to wait. If the gondola was broken, ultimately rescue would come.

But he felt impotent, suspended in time and air. The drama was unfolding up there on the mountain, and he was halfway between here and there, bobbing in the storm. It could cost lives. He tried his cell but he wasn’t getting reception.

Then he felt it jerk. It stopped. Then it jerked forward again, the cabin lurching forward as the cables swayed and sagged. Then the humming was regular. The lifts were running again. Thank God.

He fixed the head lamp onto his head before his gondola cab docked at the peak. He pulled on gloves, secured his backpack at his waist, made sure his gun was still accessible. Rex made quick work up the trail to Grizzly Hut. He could see two sets of tracks in the snow but they were obscured by the thick white blanket that kept falling.

With his tunnel of light, he could make out the warning rope above Grizzly Glacier where Amy had gone down. He could no longer see the path, but he kept parallel and well above the rope, hugging the far edge of the trail.

The window of Grizzly Hut was illuminated by weak flickering light. He could see it as he approached. He could feel the bite of the wind here, around the edge of the ridge.

Rex kept low, working his way around to the window. He killed the light from his lamp and carefully raised himself to look inside.

He could see nothing apart from the faint flicker of a candle flame starting to sputter and drown in its own wax.

He moved around to the front of the hut, the snow muffling the sound of his tread. He crept up the small stairs, felt for his gun. He waited. Listened. Then he crashed through the door, firearm leading.

Dr. Gregor Vasilev lay on the floor. A pool of thick gelatinous blood congealed around his head, his glazed eyes wide, oblivious. The stare of death. The sick sweet smell of death. A gun lay at his side.

Rex moved cautiously forward. He slipped his own weapon back into its holster, removed his glove and felt for a pulse where he knew there’d be none.

Vasilev was dead all right. Bullet wound to the head.

Rex clicked over to autopilot as he searched for signs. He saw the empty vial on the table, the same kind of vial he’d found in this very cabin and sent off for testing. He checked Vasilev’s gun. It had been recently fired.

He saw the shattered glass. He lifted the broken base of the glass to his nose and sniffed. Brandy. The fire poker lay near the table. There had been a scuffle.

He moved over to the door. More blood there. Life sputtered suddenly from the candle. Rex clicked on his lamp, the only light in the cabin now coming from the flashlight on his forehead.

He stepped outside into the swirling snow. The flakes were bigger, softer now, the wind dying. Then he saw it, the scuff marks and prints. They were being covered quickly but the indentations still remained.

He dropped down into a crouch, examining the trail. Blood. Someone else had been injured. God, he hoped it wasn’t Hannah. If Vasilev was dead, Ken Mitchell must have her. He was a wild card. Unstable. There was no point in trying to second-guess his moves. He would be behaving irrationally, and Hannah’s life, his son’s life, were at stake.

Rex could make out two sets of prints, leading away from the hut into the dark mountain night. The spa. Mitchell and Hannah must be making for the spa.

Rex crouched low, following the trail. He’d lost valuable time.

Chapter 15

H
annah slipped in slush as they negotiated the descent to the cable crossing over White River. She slid into Ken Mitchell’s legs, causing him to collapse on her.

She scrambled back up as Ken struggled to right himself. Hannah saw a puddle of blood where he’d fallen. She had some of his blood on her glove and on her sleeve. He was weakening.

“Why don’t you give me the light, Ken, let me lead the way?”

He brushed her aside. “I’m fine. Just a flesh wound.”

“That’s no flesh wound. You need a doctor.”

He pushed forward. “Yeah, well, we’re going where I hope to find one. A special one. One I’ve been hunting for years.”

They reached the point where precipitation hovered between slushy snow and thick rain. A little lower, as they neared the cable crossing, the ground was muddy, slick, and the slush turned fully to rain. It was not as relentless as it had been earlier. Hannah figured the storm must be moving through. Yet without the snow, it was blacker.

White River roared somewhere down in the dark as Hannah picked her way blindly along the edge of the gorge. Fear lay heavy and liquid in the pit of her stomach as she climbed with Ken into the metal box.

Ken was too weak to move the primitive car along the cable himself. He used only his left arm. Hannah helped him pull, hand over hand. She was thankful for the dead man’s gloves as she gripped the cold metal, hauling the car forward in slow, jerky movements over the unseen maw below. She could hear the whitewater raging, gurgling, hungry beneath them.

It was easier going down to the spa enclosure. They hugged the electrified fence line, as closely as possible, moving slowly along the rough road toward the gate. Hannah knew the cameras Rex had pointed out earlier would be capturing their movements. She was glad. Ken Mitchell frightened her. He didn’t seem rational. Someone would see them and come and find them. Soon.

She was surprised to see the back gates to the spa property hanging open. Lights mounted on poles burned harsh and white several yards inside the enclosure, throwing the concrete buildings she’d seen on her earlier hike with Rex into stark relief. It looked institutional.

“They’re open. Strange.” Ken muttered before he was besieged by another coughing fit. Hannah didn’t like the sound of it. There was a moist burble in his lungs. He hunched over, racked by the coughs.

She stared at the open gates.

Should she make a run for it? She could call the police from that building. They must have a phone.

As if in answer, Dr. Gunter Schmidt stepped out from under the shadows of a large, heavy fir. Hannah ran forward. “Gunter! Am I glad to see you. I—” She saw the gun held level with her belly. It was trained on her. She stopped dead.

“His name is not Gunter, Hannah.” Mitchell coughed. “He is Dr. Ivan Rostov, the Plague Doctor.”

“Mitchell. Drop your weapon or I kill the woman. Now!” Gunter’s familiar rasp had taken a menacing tone. It shot frost up Hannah’s spine. Her head spun. She realized she was shaking, her teeth chattering, from the wet cold, from sheer fear and exhaustion.

Ken Mitchell raised his head to look at Gunter, but he was still hunched over, drained. He threw his gun to the ground.

Gunter shot a look at Hannah. “So, Vasilev failed. Again. Come. This way.” Gunter stepped forward, prodded her sharply in the waist with the barrel of his weapon. He marched the two of them toward the bright building. “Vasilev is brilliant with the surgery but useless for this other business.”

Hannah stopped and tried to turn to face him. “My son—”

“Keep moving.”

The building seemed empty. Clinical. He marched them into a wide tiled corridor. It was like a hospital. It smelled of disinfectant. The sound of their wet feet played loud through the passage. Gunter walked behind them. He forced them into an elevator.

“Don’t try to be heroes. The boy will die.”

Hannah whirled around. The sight of Gunter’s face in the harsh light winded her.

It was Gunter—but it wasn’t. He’d taken off his cap. Gone was the thick thatch of salt-and-pepper hair. He was close to bald with a rim of brush-cut gray spikes running around the back of his skull. His eyes—they were not the warm hazel she knew, but a stone-cold green.

She looked from those unfamiliar eyes to the glint of the weapon in his hand. “Who the hell are you? Where is Danny?” Her words were whispered, her voice low and threatening. She was in the middle of something she did not understand, but she knew one thing. She would do anything to get her boy.

“Move.” The steel elevator door opened. She didn’t know how far down into the earth they had gone.

She saw three doors leading off the underground corridor. Cut into each door was a small, thick glass window. Under the windows were Biosafety Level 4 signs along with the interlocking rings of the universal biohazard image. Black on red.

The implications of what she was seeing swept over her in a nauseating wave. She felt as if she was drowning under it. How long had this evil secret been buried under the White River earth? Was this what Amy had discovered? Is this what Rex was after?

Gunter used a card to open a door without the biohazard logo. It was dark as pitch inside. “Get in.”

He pushed Ken Mitchell, who stumbled coughing into the dark. Hannah turned to face him. “You won’t get away with this.”

Gunter laughed in her face, gun at her belly. She recoiled at the warm rankness of his breath. “I’ve gotten away with it for years. The only real thorn in my side has been agent Logan and his Bellona group. And that idiot Mitchell in there.” He gestured at the dark room with his head. “The agent will come for you. You are his big weakness. His
only
weakness. How does it feel, my dear, to know you will be responsible for the death of the man you love?”

“You’re a psychopath!” Hannah lunged at the monster. He’d deceived her, Al, the whole community for all these years. He had professed friendship to Al while orchestrating the murder of his niece.

Gunter intercepted her movement, bringing her up short, the muzzle of his gun up hard under her neck. She couldn’t swallow with the metal pressed into her throat. She started to choke.

“There is nothing you can do, Hannah McGuire. Go say your prayers. When I kill Logan, I will move my research, my treasures, out. Everything is packed and ready. The rest, what I haven’t already destroyed, will be ravaged by fire. You will be burned to a crisp. The place has been wired to go, just like Marumba. It will all look most unfortunate. But I will be long gone. My work here complete. What I have created will shift the balance of power in the world as we know it.”

He slammed the thick, reinforced door shut in her face. Darkness swallowed her. She heard Ken coughing. She groped her way toward the sound. “Where’s your flashlight, Ken, give it to me.”

She almost fell over Ken slumped on the floor. She reached down and felt the headlamp on his head. She worked it free and fumbled to find the switch. Light flooded the small room.

Her eyes adjusted, focused, fell on a small gray bundle.

“Oh my God!”

She flung herself into the corner where Danny lay curled in a dark-gray blanket. “Please, please be all right.” She shook his small body. “Danny! Danny, it’s Mommy. Wake up, Danny! Oh, God, wake up!”

His eyes fluttered open and then closed. Slowly he tried to open them again. The sharp blue of his eyes was darkened by enlarged pupils. He was woozy. His little voice thick.

“Mommy?”

“Oh, my sweetheart.” Hot tears spilled in relief. “Are you all right? Do you hurt?”

“No…just…tired.” He closed his eyes again.

Hannah realized Ken was at her side. He was devoid of color, pallid as death. He wiped his sleeve across his mouth and it came away stained red with blood. He leaned forward and felt Daniel’s pulse.

“He’s okay, Hannah. Good, strong and steady pulse. He’ll sleep it off, I’m sure, whatever they gave him.” He coughed and wiped the pink spittle from his mouth. “Just watch his breathing.” Ken slumped with his back to the wall, legs stretched out in front of him. “If his breathing goes irregular, try CPR.”

Hannah sat against the wall and pulled her son up to rest with his head in her lap. She stroked his sleek dark hair. It was just like his daddy’s.

She bent low and whispered as he slept. “I found your daddy, Danny.”

She felt Ken’s hand on her arm. He was losing strength as she watched by the light of the headlamp. “I’m sorry, Hannah…so sorry.”

“You tried to save us, Ken.”

“More than once.” He coughed. “I pulled you from the river. Rex shot me for it. Just nicked my leg, though.”

“I don’t understand.”

He coughed. “I don’t think I have much time…but I want you to know. Gunter Schmidt is the one who we call the Plague Doctor. I have been after him since his escape in Marumba. I think Logan holds me responsible for that. He’s right to do so. I moved in too early. After the fire I wanted more than anything to make it right. It consumed me.”

He spluttered. The blood from his mouth a darker red now. His chest was wet, black with it from where it oozed from his wound.

“The CIA got wind the Plague Doctor had survived the fire when a Bellona Agent, Scott Armstrong, received a threat against his family. It was believed to have come from the Plague Doctor. Rex Logan also received a threat…in Ralundi one night…against your life. He dumped you. At least, he wanted it to appear that way. It saved you. Scott wasn’t so lucky. Lost his family. No one could prove the connection.”

“They were killed?”

“Made to look like an accident. Like Grady, in a car. Vasilev was in Toronto when it happened.”

Ken’s breathing was irregular now. She could hear the air bubbling up through the liquid deep in his lungs. Hannah reached for his hand. It was cold, damp.

“Rex left you for your own good, Hannah. He’s a fine man. Must’ve been hard on both of you.”

Ken closed his eyes. She was losing him.

“I am so sorry…I tried to track him down…Plague Doctor…set it all right. For years I followed false leads. When the young reporter…Amy Barnes…she kept calling the CIA offices last year. They eventually put me on to her. They thought she was another one of my crazy schemes. But I believed her…she told me her friend worked at the White River Spa…overheard a conversation between two doctors. Her friend, Grady Fisher, believed they were cooking up biological weapons. He followed them. Found this lab. He didn’t go to the police. He has a bad record…afraid he’d be deported from Canada. He told the reporter…she went after it. She wanted the story.” He coughed up a glob of blood. He didn’t have the strength to wipe it away.

“But I couldn’t get to White River. To help. They had me hospitalized. Figured I was nuts. Then I heard she was missing. Came as soon as I was released, just when they found her body. I didn’t make it in time…almost a year late…”

Ken’s head lolled forward over his chest. “He will…get away…again.”

Hannah stroked her son’s hair and held on to Ken’s clammy hand. She sat with them in the airless, empty room. So Rex had always loved her.

“I’ve been no help… Sorry…I’m so sorry.”

He was slipping away. She smoothed the wet hair from his cold forehead.

“You’ve been more help than you’ll ever know, Ken,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes and lay still.

“Thank you.” Tears swam in her eyes as she cradled her son. They had to get through this.
Rex had always loved her.
She understood now. She wanted Danny to meet his father, no matter the cost.

Rex stood at the open gates at the back of the spa property. He lifted his face up to the cold rain. He closed his eyes, feeling its wetness against his cheeks, and he made a vow. “Get us through this and I will do whatever it takes to be with my family.” He spoke out softly into the darkness. Then he said the words again, “My family.” He hadn’t dreamed it possible.

He had to make it possible. He’d left unfinished business in Marumba. He would finish it here, in White River.

He slunk through the shadows of the trees, eyes trained on the door of the building.

He saw him come out.

He was moving quickly down the path. Rex saw it now, in the movement. He had recognized the stance of the Plague Doctor in Gunter Schmidt’s powerful movements, but his appearance had been so altered that Rex had been easily deceived. Damn, he should’ve seen it. Cosmetic surgery. Different hair. Different voice. Contacts for the eyes.

Rex followed, silent as a wolf closing in on his prey, eyes trained on his quarry.

Gunter headed for a truck parked in the trees. Rex watched. He had to get to him before he managed to get into the truck. He crouched low, running softly over the pine needles.

“Halt!”

Rex froze still as a statue. The Plague Doctor aimed his gun at the source of the sound—at Scott. Scott had his own weapon trained on the doctor, the man responsible for the death of his wife and child. Finally, Scott and Rex had both come face-to-face with their nemesis.

“Drop the gun, Doctor,” Scott ordered.

Gun still in his right hand, still trained on Scott, Gunter slowly raised his left hand. He had something in it. “See this? I press this button and it all goes up in smoke. It’s wired, just like Marumba. You lose Rex Logan’s woman, her son and the CIA agent, if he isn’t dead already.”

His voice. It was certainly not the voice Rex remembered from Marumba. The characteristic rasp must’ve been a surgical addition.

Rex, still undetected, raised his gun slowly, aimed for the doctor’s head. He let Scott speak.

“The cops are all over the place, Doctor. They should have their warrant by now. The highway is closed.”

From his vantage point, Rex could see that Scott had spotted him. He dipped his head slightly in silent acknowledgment.

“If I send this place up in flames, it’s not only my lab that goes. It’s the whole spa. Patients will die. Innocent people, Agent Armstrong, like your wife and child.”

Scott held his ground. “There’s nowhere for you to go, Doctor.”

The movement came suddenly. Gunter lifted his gun and fired. Scott dove as he saw the doctor start to move. Rex shot and the bullet hit Gunter in the torso. Rex wanted him alive but disabled. He shot again at his knees. The doctor buckled to the ground. As he went down he hit the button on the detonator in his hand.