The Eiger Sanction (23 page)

“I know you don't.”

Her pickup was artificially gay. “Right then! Until tomorrow?”

“Until then.” He held the line for a moment, hoping she would hang up first. When she did not, he placed the receiver gently onto its cradle, as though to soften the end of the conversation.

The sun glinted through a rift in the clouds, and hail and rain fell in silver diagonals through shafts of sunlight.

Two hours later the five men sat around a table in the middle of Ben's room. They leaned over a large photographic blowup of the Eigerwand, the corners of which were held down by rings of pitons. Karl traced with his finger a white line he had inked on the glossy surface.

Jonathan saw at a glance that the proposed route was a blend of the Sedlmayer/Mehringer approach and the classic path. It constituted a direct climb of the face, a linear attack that met the obstacles as they came with a minimum of traversing. It was almost the line a rock would take if it fell from the summit.

“We take the face here,” Karl said, pointing to a spot three hundred meters left of the First Pillar, “and we go straight up to the Eigerwand Station. The climb is difficult—grade five, occasionally grade six—but it is possible.”

“That first eight hundred feet will be wide open,” Ben said in objection. And it was true that the first pitch offered no protection from the rock and ice that rattles down the face each morning when the touch of the sun melts the frost that has glued the loose rubble to the mountain through the night.

“I am aware of that,” Karl responded. “I have weighed all the dangers. It will be vital that we cover that pitch in the early morning.”

“Continue,” Jean-Paul urged, already seduced by the prospect of being one of the first to take the face on a direct line.

“If all goes well, our first bivouac should be here.” Karl's finger brushed a dark spot on the snow-crusted face just above the Eigerwand Station. There was a long gallery cut through the mountain during the building of the Jungfrau railroad tunnel. The gallery had been drilled through for ventilation and for jettisoning rubble from the main tunnel, and it was a favorite stopping-off place for tourists who walked to its well-protected edge and gaped down over the breath-catching void.

“In fact, we might get as high as Death Bivouac on the first day.” Karl's finger traced a rippled shadow of mixed ice and rock. “And from then on, it's a matter of following the classic route.” Freytag was aware that he had elided past the hitherto un-climbed part of the face, so he looked around the circle of men, ready to face objections.

Anderl leaned over the enlarged photograph and squinted for several minutes at a narrow diagonal band below the Eigerwand Station window. He nodded very slowly. “That might go. But we would have to stay out of the ice—hold to the rock as much as possible. It's a chute, Karl. I'll bet water rushes through it all day long. And it's a natural alley for avalanche. I would not care to be standing in it directing traffic like a policeman when the avalanche comes roaring through.”

The laughter that greeted the image petered out hollowly. Jonathan turned from the table and looked down at the hazy meadow below the window.

Ben spoke slowly. “No one's ever been on that part of the face. We have no idea what it's like. What if the rock doesn't go? What if you're forced down into the gut of the chute?”

“I have no interest in suicide, Herr Bowman. If the edges are not a go, we shall retreat and follow the Sedlmayer/Mehringer route.”

“The route that brought them to the Death Bivouac,” Ben clarified.

“The weather killed them, Herr Bowman! Not the route!”

“You got some deal with God on weather?”

“Please, please,” Jean-Paul interposed. “When Benjamin questions your route, Karl, he is not attacking you personally. For myself, I find the route intriguing.” He turned to Jonathan at the window. “You have said nothing, Jonathan. What do you think?”

The mist had lifted from the face, and Jonathan was able to address his statements to the mountain. “Let me make sure of a couple of things, Karl. Assuming we make the Third Ice Field as you plan, the rest of the ascent will be classic, am I right? Up the Ramp, across the Traverse of the Gods, into the Spider, and up the Exit Cracks to the Summit Ice Field?”

“Exactly.”

Jonathan nodded and ticked off each of the salient features on the face with his eyes. Then his glance returned to Karl's diagonal chute. “Certainly you realize that your route would not do for a retreat, if we were blocked higher up.”

“I consider it self-defeating to plan in terms of retreat.”

“I consider it stupid not to.”

“Stupid!” Karl struggled with his control. Then he shrugged in peevish accord. “Very well. I shall leave the planning of a retreat route to Doctor Hemlock. After all, he has had more experience in retreating than I.”

Ben glanced at Jonathan, surprised that he allowed this to pass with only a smile.

“I may take it then that my plan is accepted?” Karl asked.

Jonathan nodded. “Under the condition that the weather clears and freezes the new snow on. Without that, no route would go for a few days.”

Jean-Paul was pleased with the agreement and went back over the route step by step with Karl, while Jonathan drew Anderl aside and asked him how he felt about the climb.

“It will be fun to try that diagonal pitch,” was Anderl's only comment.

Ben was clearly unhappy with the route, with the team, with the whole idea of the climb. Jonathan crossed to him.

“Buy you a beer?”

“No thanks.”

“What?”

“I don't feel like a beer. I feel like getting out of this whole business.”

“We need you.”

“I don't like it.”

“What's the weather report like?”

Ben admitted reluctantly that the three-day prediction looked very good indeed: a strong high and a drop in temperature. Jonathan shared this good news with the party, and in a general mood of confidence they broke up, promising to take supper together.

By supper the weather in the valley had healed up with a palpable drop in temperature and a sudden clearing of the air. There was moonlight on the snow, and the stars could be counted. This fortuitous change and certain orthographic errors in the menu constituted the common small talk at the beginning of dinner, but before long the six of them had divided into four islands of concentration.

Jean-Paul and Karl chatted in French, limiting themselves to the climb and its problems. Karl enjoyed displaying the thoroughness with which he had considered every facet of the problem, and Jean-Paul enjoyed understanding.

Anna focused her attention on Anderl, converting his native wry humor into wit, as women of experience can, by minute gestures of appreciation and attention, until he was performing at his social maximum. Jonathan recognized that she was using Anderl as an extramarital red herring, but he was pleased that the normally reticent Austrian was enjoying himself, whatever the reason.

Ben was in an undisguised funk. He pushed food around on his plate with neither hunger nor interest. Emotionally, he was through with the climb; he was no longer a part of the team, although he would perform his duties responsibly.

For a time, Jonathan was tangent to the rims of the two conversations, making comments only when a pause or a glance seemed to call for it. But soon he was able to withdraw into himself, unheeded and unlamented. He had been troubled by the tone of Dragon's communication. Search had not yet settled on the name of his target. What if they failed to nominate him until immediately before the climb? Could he do it on the face?

And which one? It would be hardest to kill Anderl, easiest to kill Karl. But not really easy. Always before, the sanction had been a name, a catalogue of habits and routines described in the arid Search tout. He had never seen the man's face until minutes before the sanction.

“...disinterest you so much?” Anna was speaking to him, amusement in her eyes.

“I beg your pardon.” Jonathan focused out of his reverie.

“You have not said twenty words all night. Do we disinterest you so much?”

“Not at all. I simply haven't had anything pertinent or amusing to say.”

“And that prevented you from speaking?” Karl laughed heartily. “How un-American!”

Jonathan smiled at him, thinking how terribly in need of a spanking he was. A trait of the Germans—a nation in need of a spanking.

Ben rose and mumbled his excuses. If the weather held—and they wouldn't know for sure until tomorrow—the climb would begin in twenty-nine hours, so he suggested that everyone get as much sleep as possible and run a final check of personal equipment. He left the table brusquely, and in his handling of the newsmen who spoke to him in the lobby he was especially curt and scatological.

Karl rose. “What Herr Bowman says is true. If the weather holds, we shall have to be away from here by three in the morning, day after tomorrow.”

“So tonight is our last night?” Anna looked calmly at him, then bestowed her eyes on each of the company in turn for exactly equal time.

“Not necessarily our last night,” Jonathan said. “We may get down again, you know.”

“Bad joke,” Karl pronounced.

Jonathan bade the departing party good-night, then sat down again to his coffee and brandy alone. He slipped again into umber thoughts. Dragon had only twenty-four hours in which to designate the target.

The mountain, and the target, and Jemima. And behind it all, his house and paintings—they were what mattered.

He found himself tightening up, so he sent little calming messages along his nerve system to sap and control the tension. But still his shoulders were stiff and it required muscular contraction to flatten the frown from his forehead.

“May I join you?” The phrasing was interrogative, but not the tone. Karl sat before Jonathan responded.

There was a short silence during which Jonathan sipped off the last of his brandy. Freytag was ill at ease, his normally rigid posture tightened to brittle. “I came to have a word with you.”

“I assumed that, yes.”

“I want to thank you for this afternoon.”

“Thank me?”

“I had expected that you would oppose my route—my leadership. If you had, the others would have joined you. Herr Bowman is really your man, after all. And Bidet blows with the wind.” Karl glanced down without altering his angular posture. “It is important to me, you know. Leading this party is important to me.”

“So it would seem.”

Freytag picked up a spoon and carefully replaced it where it belonged. “Herr Doctor?” he said without looking up. “You don't like me very much, do you?”

“No. Not much.”

Karl nodded. “I thought not. You find me—unpleasant?” He looked at Jonathan, a faint smile bravely in place.

“Unpleasant, yes. Also socially inept and terribly unsure of yourself.”

Karl laughed hoarsely. “Me? Unsure of myself?”

“Uh-huh. With the usual overcompensation for altogether justified feelings of inferiority that marks the typical German.”

“Do you always find people to be typically this or that?”

“Only the typical ones.”

“How simple life must be for you.”

“No, life isn't simple. Most of the people I meet are.”

Freytag adjusted the position of the spoon slightly with his forefinger. “You have been good enough to be frank with me, Herr Doctor. Now I shall be frank with you. I want you to understand why it is so important to me to lead this climb.”

“That isn't necessary.”

“My father—”

“Really, Karl. I don't care.”

“My father is not sympathetic with my interest in climbing. I am the last of the family line, and it is his wish that I follow him in the business. Do you know what our corporation makes?”

Jonathan did not answer; he was surprised and uncomfortable at the fragile tone of Karl's voice, and he did not want to be a receptacle for this boy's troubles.

“We make insecticides, our family.” Karl looked out the window toward patches of snow fluorescent with moonlight. “And that is rather amusing when you realize that during the war we made... we made...” Karl pressed his upper lip against his teeth and blinked the shine from his eyes.

“You were only five years old when the war ended, Karl.”

“Meaning it wasn't my fault?”

“Meaning you have no right to the artificial tragedy you enjoy playing.”

Karl looked at him bitterly, then turned aside. “My father thinks I am incapable—not serious-minded enough to assume my responsibilities. But he will have to admire me soon. You said that you find me unpleasant—socially inept. Well, let me tell you something. I do not have to depend on social niceties to achieve—what I want to achieve. I am a great climber. Both by natural gift and intensive training, I am a great climber. Better than you. Better than Anderl. When you are behind me on the rope, you will see.” His eyes were intense. “Someday everyone will say that I am a great climber. Yes.” He nodded curtly. “Yes. And my father will boast to his business friends about me.”

Jonathan was angry with the boy at that moment. Now the sanction would be difficult, no matter which one it was. “Is that all you wanted to say to me, Karl?”