The Eiger Sanction (14 page)

“Distressing.”

“Then, early this month, I received an assignment to transport a bit of information from Montreal to... somewhere else. Gaining the information necessitated the killing of an agent. I didn't participate in the assassination because, unlike you, I am not a predator.” He glanced to see the reaction. There was none. “But I know who did the killing. You got one of them shortly later. And now you're after the other. Dragon has told you that he will have the identity of this other person by the time of the sanction. Maybe. Maybe not. I know who it is, Jonathan. And until you have that information, you're in great danger.”

“How so?”

“If I tell this person who and what you are, the hunted will become the hunter.”

“But you're willing to sell this man out to me?”

“In return for your promise to stop stalking me. Don't let this bargain pass you by.”

Jonathan looked out the window at a circle of girls near the pool laughing and screeching as they playfully teased the neurotic Pomeranian, which danced frantically in one spot, its claws clicking on the tile, urine dribbling from beneath it. Jonathan turned and looked at the wrestler still sitting at the bar, keeping him under observation. “I'll think about it, Miles.”

Miles smiled with patient fatigue. “Please don't play me like an amateur. I can't remain inactive and unprotected while you 'think about it.' I believe it was you who first advised me never to con a con.”

“You'll know my decision within five minutes. How's that?”

Then Jonathan's voice mellowed. “Whichever way it goes, Miles. We were once friends... so...” He held out his hand. Miles was surprised, but pleased. They shook hands firmly before Jonathan left for the bar where only Ben and the blond bodyguard sat. The latter leaned back on two legs of his stool, his back to the bar and his elbows hooked over it, eyeing Jonathan with a snide superior expression. Jonathan approached him, his whole bearing diffident and apologetic. “Well, as you saw, Miles and I have made up,” Jonathan said with a weak, uncertain smile. “May I buy you a drink?”

The wrestler scratched his ear in disdainful silence and leaned further back on his stool to create more distance between himself and this fawning nobody who had dared to slap Mr. Mellough.

Jonathan ignored this rejection. “Boy, I'm glad it worked out all right. No man of my size looks forward to tangling with a guy built like you.”

The wrestler nodded understandingly and pressed his shoulders down to set the pectorals.

“Well, just so you know,” Jonathan said. He converted his motion of departure into a skimming kick that swept the tilted barstool from beneath the wrestler. First the edge of the bar, then the brass rail cracked the blond head as it thudded down. Dazed and hurt, his long hair tumbled into his face, the wrestler had no time to move before Jonathan had stepped on his face with his heel and pivoted. The nose crunched and flattened underfoot. The sound brought gall to the back of Jonathan's throat, and his cheeks drew back with nausea. But he knew what was necessary in situations like these: they must remember the hurt.

Jonathan knelt over the wrestler and snatched the face up by the hair until it was only inches from his own.

“Hear me. I don't want you out on my flank like that. It scares me. I don't like being scared. So hear this. Come near me ever, and you're dead. Hey! Listen to me! Don't pass out while I'm talking to you!”

The wrestler's eyes were dulled by pain and confusion, and he did not respond.

Jonathan shook him by the hair until several strands came out between his fingers. “Did you understand what I said?”

“Yes.” The reply was faint.

“Good boy.” Jonathan set the head back gently on the floor. He stood up and faced Ben, who had watched the whole thing without moving. “Will you take care of him, Ben?”

“All right, ol' buddy. But goddam my ass if I understand what's going on.”

“Talk about it later.”

Two Indian busboys grunted under the task of conducting the toppling giant to his room, as Jonathan walked back to the entrance of the lounge. He stood there, looking across at Miles who, alone of the patrons, had been aware that a conflict had occurred. Their eyes, so similar in color and frost, intersected for a moment. Then Miles nodded slowly and turned his attention away, gracefully flicking a particle of dust from the sleeve of his velvet jacket. He had his answer.

He was working out, in rough, how he would put Miles away. There was no chance of getting to him before he could alert the sanction target to his identity. Everything in Switzerland would hinge on Search identifying the man early.

Jonathan's attention suddenly narrowed to the present as he heard a faint metallic click outside his door. He slowly rose from bed, keeping a rolling downward pressure with his hands to reduce the sound of the springs. There was a soft knock, one calculated not to awaken him if he were sleeping. He had not expected Miles to make his move this quickly. He regretted the absence of a gun. The tapping was repeated, and again he heard the click of metal. He crept to the wall on the hinge side of the door. A key turned in the lock, and the door opened a crack, a shaft of light bisecting the room. He tensed and waited. The door swung open deliberately, and someone without whispered. Two shadows spilled across the rug, one of a man, the other a monstrous figure with a huge disk poised over its head. As the shadows advanced, Jonathan kicked the door shut and threw his weight against it. There was a crash and clatter of metal and shattering glass, and he realized instantly what it must have been.

Sheepishly he opened the door and looked out. Big Ben was leaning against the wall across the corridor, and an Indian waiter sat stunned on the floor in the midst of a wreckage of dishes and silver, his white uniform jacket a visual menu.

“Now you wouldn't believe this, ol' buddy, but there are folks who just say so when they ain't hungry.”

“I thought you were someone else.”

“Yeah. Well, I hope!”

“Come on in.”

“What you got up your sleeve this time? Going to clout me with a chest of drawers?” Ben gave orders for the mess to be cleaned up and another dinner to be served, then he went into Jonathan's room, making much of leaping through the doorway in a bound and turning on the lights before something else befell him.

Jonathan assumed a businesslike tone, partially because he wanted to work on a plan he had made while sitting in the dark, partially because he did not want to dwell on his recentfaux pas .

“Ben, what information do you have on the three men I'll be climbing the Eiger with?”

“Not much. We've exchanged a few letters, all about the climb.”

“Could I read them over?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Now, another thing. Do you have a detailed map of the area around here?”

“Sure.”

“Can I have it?”

“Sure.”

“What lies to the west of us?”

“Nothing.”

“That's what it looked like from the high country. What kind of nothing is it?”

“Real bad-ass country. Rock and sand and nothing else. Goes on forever. Makes Death Valley look like an oasis. You don't want to go out there, ol' buddy. A man can die out there in two days. This time of year it gets up to a hundred fifteen in the shade, and you'd play hell finding any shade.”

Ben picked up the phone and asked that a map and a packet of correspondence be brought from his office, along with a six-pack of beer. Then he called out to Jonathan who had gone into the bedroom to empty his ashtray, “Goddam my eyes if I know what's going on around here! 'Course, you don't have to tell me, if you don't want to.”

Jonathan took him at his word.

“No. You don't have to tell me about it. What the hell? Slap guys around in my lounge. Break heads at my bar. Bust up my dishes. None of my business.”

Jonathan came into the room. “You keep a few guns around, don't you, Ben?”

“Oh-oh.”

“Do you have a shotgun?”

“Now, wait a minute, ol' buddy...”

Jonathan sat in a chair across from Ben. “I'm in a tight spot. I need help.” His tone suggested that he expected it from a friend.

“You know you got all the help I can give, Jon. But if people are going to get killed around here, maybe I should know something about what's going on.”

There was a knock at the door. Ben opened it, and the waiter stood there with the beer, the file, and the map. He entered only after looking carefully around the door, and he left as quickly as he decently could.

“Want a beer?” Ben asked, tearing the top from a can.

“No, thanks.”

“Just as good. There's only six.”

“What do you know about this Miles Mellough, Ben?”

“The one you were talking to? Nothing much. He looks like he could give you change for a nine-dollar bill, all in threes. That's about all I know. He just checked in this morning. You want me to throw him out?”

“Oh, no. I want him right here.”

Ben chuckled. “Boy, he's sure tickling the imaginations of a lot of girls. They're flocking around him as though he held the patent on the penis. I even saw George eyeing him.”

“She'd be in for a letdown.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“How about the other one? The big blond?”

“He checked in at the same time. They got adjoining rooms. I got the doctor up from town, and he fixed some on his nose, but I don't believe he's ever going to be a real close friend of yours.” Ben crushed the empty beer can in his hands and opened another thoughtfully. “You know, Jon? That fight really bothered me some. You came at that man pretty slick for an aging college professor.”

“You've gotten me into top shape.”

“Uh-unh. No, that ain't it at all. You set him up like you were used to setting people up. He was so fazed out, he never had a chance. You remember I told you how I'd hate to be with you on a desert island with no food? Well, that's the kind of thing I mean. Like stepping on that big guy's nose. You'd already made your point. A body could get the feeling you got a real mean streak in you somewhere.”

It was obvious that Ben needed at least a limited explanation. “Ben, these people killed a friend of mine.”

“Oh?” Ben considered that. “Does the law know about it?”

“There's nothing the law can do.”

“How come?”

Jonathan shook his head. He did not intend to pursue the matter.

“Hey, wait a minute! I just got a real scary flash. I suddenly got the feeling that all this has something to do with the Eiger climb. Else why would they know you were here?”

“Stay out of it, Ben.”

“Now, listen to me. You don't need any more trouble than that mountain's going to give you. I haven't told you this, but I better. You're training real good, and you're still a crafty climber. But I've been watching you close, Jon. And to be honest, you don't have more than a fifty-fifty chance on the Eiger at best. And that doesn't count your fooling around trying to kill people and them trying to kill you. I don't mean to dent your confidence, ol' buddy, but it's something you ought to know.”

“Thanks, Ben.”

A waiter knocked at the door and brought in a tray with a training meal for two, which they consumed in silence while Jonathan pored over the terrain map and Ben finished the cans of beer.

By the time the meal was a clutter of duty dishes, Jonathan had folded up the map and put it into his pocket. He began questioning Ben about his forthcoming climbing partners. “How close has your correspondence with them been?”

“Nothing special. Just the usual stuff—hotel, rations, team rope and iron, how to handle the reporters—that sort of stuff. The German guy does most of the writing. He kind of thought the whole thing up in the first place, and he makes noise like a leader. That reminds me. Are you and I going to fly over together?”

“I don't think so. I'll meet you there. Listen, Ben, have any of them...? Are they all in good physical shape?”

“At least as good as you.”

“Have any of them been hurt lately? Or wounded?”

“Wounded?Not as I know of. One of them—the German—wrote that he had a fall early this month. But nothing serious.”

“What kind of fall?”

“I don't know. Roughed up his leg some.”

“Enough to make him limp?”

“Well, that's pretty hard to tell from a guy's handwriting. Hey, why you asking me all this shit?”

“Never mind. Will you leave this file of correspondence with me? I want to read it over—get to know these men a little better.”

“No skin off my ass.” Ben stretched and groaned like a sated bear. “You still planning to make that climb on the needle in the morning?”

“Of course. Why wouldn't I?”

“Well, it might be a little tough, climbing with a shotgun cradled over your arm.”

Jonathan laughed. “Don't worry about it.”

“Well, in that case, we better get some sleep. That needle ain't no tent pole, you know.”

“You mean it ain't no bedpost.”

“It ain't neither one.”

Shortly after Big Ben had gone, Jonathan was propped up in bed studying the letters from the other climbers. In each case, the first letter was rather stiff and polite. Evidently, Ben's answers had been robust and earthy, because all succeeding letters cleaved to hard technical matters of climbing: weather reports, observations about conditions on the face, descriptions of recent training climbs, suggestions for equipment. It was in one of these letters that the German mentioned a short fall he had taken resulting in a gashed leg which, he assured Ben, would be in fine shape by the Eiger ascent.

Jonathan was deep in this correspondence, trying to read personality between the arid lines, when he recognized the scratching knock of George Hotfort wanting to be let in.

His recent encounter with Mellough made him cautious. He turned off his reading light before crossing to unlatch the door. George entered into the darkness uncertainly, but Jonathan latched the door behind her and conducted her to the bed. He was eager to use her as sexual aspirin, to relieve the tensions of the afternoon, although he knew he would only experience discharge and release without local sensation.

Throughout the event, George's eyes locked on his, expressionless in their Oriental mold, totally severed from her aggressive and demanding body.

Sometime later, while he slept, she slipped away without a word.