The Eiger Sanction (22 page)

“Well?” asked Karl.

“It looked fine, for Eiger. The snow was old and crusted. And the whole face was dryer than I've ever seen it.” Jonathan was referring to the inexplicable “drying up” of the North Wall that had been in progress over the past thirty years. Pitches that had been expansive snowfields in the late thirties were wet and icy rock by the end of the fifties. “One good thing. The Hinterstoisser Traverse was almost clear of ice.”

“That does not affect us,” Karl announced. “My route does not include the Hinterstoisser Traverse.”

Even the phlegmatic Anderl shared the general silence this statement generated. Jonathan's cup of chocolate hovered for an instant in its rise to his lips, but he recovered quickly and sipped without comment, denying Karl the pleasure of shocking him. That Traverse, to which a young German had given his name in death, had been the key to all successful ascents of the mountain. No team had ever bypassed that critical bridge and made the summit, and only one team that had dared returned alive.

“I shall detail my route after luncheon,” Karl said, shunting away the negative silence.

With a gentle smile concealing his thoughts, Jonathan watched Karl over his cup for a moment, then he shifted his attention to the meadow and the mountain beyond.

The climbing team had reserved a table overlooking the meadow, and they generally sat with their backs to the restaurant, trying to ignore the presence of the Eiger Birds who, by now, had arrived en masse.

Several times during each meal, waiters had arrived with notes from the more affluent or aggressive Eiger Birds inviting the climbers to supper or to some evening entertainment which, if accepted, would have elevated the host in the eyes of his peers. These notes were always passed to Ben who took pleasure in slowly tearing them up unread in full view of the smiling, waving sender.

The discerning ornithologist would have distinguished three species of Eiger Bird among the flittering gathering that babbled in half a dozen languages.

Thegratin of the Eiger Bird society were internationally famous idlers who had flown in from midsummerStapes on their annual pleasure migrations to have their sensation-drained nerves tickled by the sexual stimulant of death. They had gathered from all parts of the world, but not one had come from those once-popular refuges that have been contaminated by middle-class imitators: the Riviera, Acapulco, the Bahamas, the Azores, and, most recently lost to upward social mobility, the Morocco coast. Their pecking order was rigid, and each new arrival stepped obediently into his place, more defined by who belonged beneath him than by who belonged above. The Greek merchant and his wife assumed as their fiscal right the apex of the social pyramid; fragile-blooded and thin-faced Italian nobility with limited means were at the bottom.

A lower subspecies of leisure necrophiles were much more numerous. They were easily distinguishable by the garishness of their plumage and the tense and temporary nature of their mating habits. There were paunchy men with purplish tans, cigars, thinning hair, and loud, awkward gestures designed to communicate youthful energy. They were to be seen during feeding time fumbling after their teatty, sponsored companions who giggled and went vacant in the face when touched.

The female of this subspecies were women of uncertain age, crisp of feature, monotonically dyed hair, skin tight at the temples from cosmetic surgery. Their alert and mistrusting eyes darted to follow the dark Greek and Sicilian boys they carried with them and used.

And on the fringes, virile lesbians protected and dominated their fluttering lace-and-mauve possessions. And male homosexuals bickered and made up.

The lowest order of Eiger Bird was the newspaper and television men who fed on the orts and droppings of the others. They were conspicuous by their clannishness and their inexpensive clothes, often rumpled as a badge of their romantic migratory lives. For the most part they were a glib and overdrinking lot who took cynical advantage of the reduced rates offered them by the hotel in return for the advertisement value of the Kleine Scheidegg dateline.

Film actors formed an interconnecting subculture of their own. Lacking the fiscal credentials to associate with the elite, they carried with them a communicable visibility that made them valuable to all who would be seen and read about. Actors were not treated as people, but as social possessions. In this way, they resembled Grand Prix drivers.

One exception to this general status of film personalities was a husband and wife team who, because of their accumulated wealth and personal brass, were a kind ofgratin in their own right. Since their arrival at the hotel that morning, an arrival attended by great flutter and flap, loud greetings of casual acquaintances, and histrionic overtipping, they had made two overtures to the climbers, both of which had been parried. The actor had responded to the rejection with heroic resignation; the actress had been loudly miffed, but had recovered her aplomb when she heard that the Greek merchant's wife had done no better.

Different from the Eiger Birds, and alien to them, were a small group of young men who had been attracted to Kleine Scheidegg by the rumor of the ascent. These were the only people with whom the team had intercourse or sympathy. In shy twos and threes, young climbers had arrived by train and motorcycle from Austria, Germany, and Chamonix to set up their red or yellow tents on the meadow, or to rent rooms in the cheaper cafes of Alpiglen and Grindelwald. Feeling out of place among the rich hotel guests, they quietly sought out Ben to mumble good wishes and shake hands. Many of them slipped bits of paper into Ben's palm containing their addresses or the locations of their tents, then they departed quickly, always refusing offered refreshment. The scribbled notes were for Ben's use if it became necessary to form a rescue party. All these climbers knew the reputation of the Bernese guides, and they knew that a man on the face could freeze to death before necessary financial arrangements could be worked out. The more forward of these young men ventured to shake hands with Jonathan or Anderl, the two members of the party of whom they had read in mountain journals. This did not please Karl.

Throughout the meal, Anderl amused himself by eye-fencing with two little twits who had arrived with a merchant type with a loud voice and a penchant for prehensile attention. The merchant made clear his annoyance at the flirtation, and this amused Anderl the more.

Ben's eyes twinkled with paternal teasing as he said to Anderl, “Now you watch it, boy. You're going to need all your energy on the hill.”

Anderl answered without looking away from the girls. “I climb only with my hands and feet.”

Jonathan finished his coffee and rose, promising to meet the others in Ben's room in half an hour to go over Karl's proposed route. Anna got up too; she had no intention of boring herself with the forthcoming planning session. Together they walked to the lobby where Jonathan picked up his mail. One envelope had neither stamp nor postmark, so he tore it open first and glanced at the note. It was an invitation to an intimate supper with the Greek merchant and his American wife. Mentioned also (in the wife's round, plump hand) was the fact that they had recently purchased a lot of paintings through Sotheby's. She would be delighted to have Jonathan glance them over and make an evaluation. She reminded him that he had once performed a similar service for her first husband.

Jonathan stepped to the desk and hastily wrote a note. He mentioned that evaluation was a professional, not social, activity for him. He added that he had to decline the offer of supper as he would be involved in preparations for the climb and, anyway, he was suffering from a debilitating hangnail.

Anna looked at him quizzically from the other side of the elevator car, her habitual expression of defensive amusement crinkling her eyes.

“That must have given you pleasure.”

“You read over my shoulder?”

“Of course. You're very like my husband, you know.”

“Would he have declined an invitation from those people?”

“Never! His self-image would have driven him to accept.”

“Then how am I similar?”

“You also acted without choice. Your self-image forced you to decline.” She paused at the door to her suite. “Would you care to come in for a moment?”

“I think not, thank you.”

She shrugged. “As you wish. Opportunities to decline seem to abound for you today.”

“If I read the signs correctly, I am not the one you've selected anyway.”

She arched her eyebrows, but did not respond. “I assume it's Karl,” he continued.

“And you also assume it is any concern of yours?”

“I have to climb with both of them. Be discreet.”

“I thought you were usually paid for your evaluations.” She entered her room and closed the door behind her.

Jonathan sat in a deep chair beside the window. He had just finished a smoke and was in full relax. On his lap was a small bundle of mail that had, from the evidence of superimposed postal hieroglyphics, been chasing him for some time. The rain, mixed now with dancing pebbles of hail, drilled against the window in treble timpani, and the light filling the room was greenish-gray and chill.

He went through his mail listlessly.

From the chairman of his department: “...and I'm pleased to be able to announce a considerable salary increase for the next academic year. Of course, it is impossible to reflect in dollars the value...”

Yeah, Yeah. Flip. Into the wastepaper basket.

A bill on the house. Flip.

“The administration has granted a mandate to form a special committee on student unrest, with particular emphasis on the task of channeling this social energy into productive and...”

Flip. He missed the basket. It was his practice never to serve on committees.

A bill on the house. Flip.

The journal was in dire need of his article on Lautrec. Flip.

The last was a postage-free official envelope from the American Embassy in Bern. It contained a photocopy of a cryptogram from Dragon.

“Message starts... Hemlock... break... Search has had no success in designating your objective... break... Alternate plan now in operation... break... Have placed details in the hands of Clement Pope... break... Plan will crystalize for you tomorrow... break... Can anything be done to decrease the attention the news media have given to your proposed climb... question mark... break... Miss Brown remains outside our cognizance... break... best regards... break, break... Message ends.”

Flip.

Jonathan relaxed into the depths of his chair and watched the hail pebbles ricochet up from the windowsill. Two basso rolls of thunder caused his attention to strain through the clatter of rain and hail. He wanted very much to hear the heavy rumble of an avalanche on the face, because if avalanches did not scrub the face clean of amassed snow and poised rubble...

He would have to do something definite about Jemima.

It was all piling up on him.

He rolled another smoke.

What was Dragon's purpose in putting Pope in charge of designating the target? Despite his mannerisms of the B-movie detective, Pope had had no very distinguished record with Search before Dragon had elevated him to number two position in SS Division.

This sudden infliction of Pope upon the scene was disturbing, but there was no unraveling the serpentine patterns of check and double check, of distrust and redundancy that substituted for security in CII, so Jonathan put it out of his mind for the moment.

He slumped down in his chair and closed his eyes while the smoke loosened him up. It was the first time he had had to himself since meeting the other climbers, and he took the opportunity to recall how each had reacted. Nothing had indicated the least suspicion or fear. Good. He was fairly sure that Miles Mellough had not had a chance to contact the target before the affair in the desert, but he was relieved to have the added evidence of their behavior.

The jangle of his telephone intersected his thoughts.

“Guess where I'm calling from?”

“I don't know, Gem.” He was surprised at the fatigued sound of his own voice.

“From Bern. How about that?”

“What are you doing in Bern?” He was both relieved and oddly distressed.

“I'm not in Bern. That's just it. I'm in my cafe, just a pleasant fifteen-minute walk from your hotel. Which you may take as an invitation, if you have a mind to.”

Jonathan waited, assuming she would explain.

“They routed my call through Bern. Isn't that weird?”

“Not really.” Jonathan had experience with Swiss telephone systems, which rival only the French for efficiency. “The whole thing is based on the assumption that the shortest distance between two points is a cube.”

“Well,I thought it was weird.”

He suspected she had no real reason for calling him, and he could sense a tone of helpless embarrassment in her voice.

“I'll try to see you tomorrow, Gem.”

“OK. But if you feel an irresistible urge to drop in on me tonight, I'll try to arrange my schedule to make...” She gave up on it. Then, after a pause, “I love you, Jonathan.” The ensuing silence begged for a response. When none came, she laughed without foundation. “I don't mean to drip all over you.”