White Death: An Alex Hawke Novella

by Ted Bell

  “He decided it would be too crowded up here for the three of us, so I put him in the back. Fasten your seat belt.”

  Sigrid craned her head around. “The back? What back?”

  “Ah, yes. I put him in the trunk. He’s fine.”

  “What do you mean he’s fine?”

  “I gave him a warm blanket and a thermos full of steaming coffee. It’s only a couple of hours to Geneva. He’ll be fine, don’t worry about him. He can bang on the lid of the trunk if he needs anything. Don’t worry about him, he’s used to it.”

  Sigrid punched him in the shoulder, hard. “Do not speak to me as if I had a blond brain, Mr. Hawke!”

  Hawke smiled at her and engaged first gear. They slipped into light traffic circling around the Opera House. He’d invited Sigrid to join him at a daylong conference in Geneva.

  Fritz Schultz was the keynote speaker. Blinky’s lecture, “Cybersecurity 2015,” was obviously of interest to her, and Hawke had offered to drive her there. They would be driving along Lake Zurich for a while, which was always a scenic delight. Their destination, the Hotel de la Paix, was just outside Geneva, less than two hours away.

  “Alex, stop. Where is Ambrose? You told me he was coming with us.”

  “Actually? He’s conferring with the Stadtspolizei this morning. Apparently no identification was found on the body, which is interesting in and of itself. Ambrose is looking into the clothing bought in London now. The Savile Row suit he wore, the Lobb shoes. Seeing what purchase records exist.”

  “Got it, that’s all very good. So. What kind of car is this anyway, Alex?”

  “Aston Martin,” Hawke said, reaching across her to tighten her seat belt. He’d already noticed the pleasing effects of a tight cashmere sweater on her figure; now, her short skirt had ridden high on her tanned thighs. Hawke made a supreme effort to tear his eyes away before he made a fool of himself.

  She said, “I don’t even like cars. But this one is stunning. Is it new?”

  “It’s not. 1964, actually. A DB5. A perfect example.”

  “Ah, a DB5, of course. I knew that.”

  Sigrid looked at Hawke after a few minutes and said, “Is this really your car, Alex? It looks and smells frightfully expensive. You didn’t steal it, did you?”

  “I thought about it. But my moral instincts won out and I bought it this morning. From a private owner in Zurich, a fanatic James Bond fan. He has been e-mailing photos of the car for over a year. He let me drive it around the lake this morning, and I finally succumbed.”

  “He’s a James Bond fan? What on earth does that have to do with anything?”

  “This is the DB5 used in Goldfinger. Still the best one of them all, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “You’re joking. I love that film, one of my favorites. And this is the actual car from that film? Sean Connery’s car? This ‘Lord’ business you’re in must pay very well.”

  “Oh, I get by. But, right, this is the exact one in the movie.”

  “Seriously? So, I guess that means you can squirt oil on the road to lose the bad guys? Or eject me up into the clouds if I say or do something you find annoying?”

  “Depends on what you say, darling, but absolutely. That’s why I’m taking this route round the lake. If you do force me to eject you, at least you’ll come down into the water after I launch you into space.”

  She smiled at him. Her mood seemed to be improving with every mile they covered.

  “How long a drive, James?” she said, wrinkling her nose at the scent of air redolent with waxed leather and Castrol motor oil.

  “As long as it takes, Pussy.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Hawke was playing country music on the car’s 8-track audio system: Willie Nelson Live at the Opry! After a bit of small talk, Sigrid had settled deep into her bucket seat and turned her face to the scenery. She was, for many miles, content to watch the seamless parade of Swiss postcard pictures floating past her window.

  He watched her out of the corner of his eye. He felt just the way he’d felt that first night—he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  He would remember later on that he began to fall in love with her that day. An hour later, they were cruising along the shores of Lac de Genève. Hawke found the scenery breathtaking; the white-capped Alps marching along the shoreline beneath a crystal-blue sky. It was another idyllic Swiss scene you couldn’t duplicate anywhere else in the world.

  “Getting close,” Hawke said for something to say.

  “I do love this old car, Alex. It’s very cozy. I don’t know anything at all about old sports cars, but this one is a dream. Will you be driving it back to England when all this is over, Lord Hawke?”

  “Want to come?”

  “Down, boy.”

  “I’m quite serious, you know.”

  “Precisely what I’m afraid of.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “Tell me something, Alex, what’s your real interest in this murder mystery of ours? I can understand the motives of your two friends, but not yours. You don’t seem to fit the profile the way Ambrose and Blinky do. So tell me, why are you really here, your lordship?”

  “Good question. I might actually answer it some day.”

  “Wait. You’re really not going to tell me why you’re in Switzerland? After we all took that vow of secrecy together?”

  “No.”

  “Because?”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “That’s odd. Wolfie does.”

  “Whatever Wolfie does or does not do is no concern of mine. Tell me something, Sigrid. Do you trust me?”

  “About as much as you trust me. Which is to say, not a lot.”

  “Are you sleeping with Wolfgang von Stuka?”

  She gestured classically and said, “What? How dare you! I’d no idea you were so ill mannered!”

  “Doesn’t matter. Just curious. Calm down or I’ll eject you.”

  “Why would you even say such a thing to me?”

  “Wolfie had quite a hard time concealing his heat at dinner that night.”

  “Don’t be absurd. And even if he did, so what?”

  “Did he give you that red sapphire ring?”

  “No. We just met, Alex, for God’s sake. Besides, although he’s a very attractive man, he’s married. Are you?”

  “No.”

  “Liar. I don’t trust you.”

  “Cheap shot, Sigrid. I said I’m not married and I’m not. I fell in love with a Russian woman in Moscow many, many years ago. We never married. We had a son. He’s six years old now. His name is Alexei. He’s my whole life now. His mother was arrested for something I’d done in Moscow. She’s held captive in a KGB prison in Siberia. I can’t get her out. Her name is Anastasia. We both miss her every day.”

  Sigrid let a long time pass before responding. “For the record, Alex Hawke, you’re a very attractive man, too.”

  Hawke glanced over at her and smiled. “I’d trust you more if you started telling the truth about the damn ring.”

  “Oh, all right, Alex, just to get you to shut up about it. I kissed him. Once. Nothing more. He invited me to dinner the same day we met in Dr. Scheel’s office at the bank. I accepted his invitation. We had a very nice time. He dropped me off at my apartment. He wanted to kiss me at the door, and I let him. The next day this ring appeared on my doorstep. I tried to return it to him next morning, of course, but he adamantly refused it. He’s a very attractive man, as I said. Every woman in Zurich is in love with him. What of it?”

  “Just curious,” he said with a grin.

  “Well, now you know. I hope you’re happy.”

  “Very.”

  Sigrid turned her face to the window, the image of his fleeting smile imprinted on her brain. She thought back to the evening before. She’
d just been getting ready for bed. It was after ten when Blinky had called her apartment. He’d had a question about the late Leo Hermann’s responsibilities at the bank. Just before she’d hung up, she’d asked him about Hawke, what kind of man he was, what he was really like. When he’d asked her why, she’d replied, “Just curious.”

  “He’s a warrior,” he had said, after thinking a moment about her question. “Royal Navy fighter pilot, now just Commander Hawke. He delights in the gamesmanship of war and is said to be utterly ruthless, albeit in an engaging way. You have to understand, Sigrid, he’s part Machiavelli, part schoolboy. The Machiavellian side can be cruel, but the schoolboy is always waiting round the corner. And then there’s his love of this dangerous game he’s playing, that we’re all just playing; it just bubbles to the surface; the fun and audacious hazard of it all fills him with infectious delight. Sorry to go on, but he is a bit complicated, you see.”

  “And those eyes, my God.”

  “Yes. I don’t think I’ll ever meet another man like him, Sigrid. And you’re right. Such eyes that man has! My Lord, he can look right through you and see the inner workings of your immortal soul while he’s talking to you.”

  She had sighed and hung up the telephone. And, later, she’d turned out the lights, taken to her bed, and slipped into her dreams. And she had taken him with her.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Hawke downshifted, caught second gear, and accelerated into a tight curve, the Aston’s powerful 6-cylinder motor howling, the Dunlop tires chirping as he came tearing out of the turn. They actually were running a bit late, but then, that was just an excuse. He could now see the hotel in the distance, perched beside the lake.

  They met Blinky in the Hotel de la Paix restaurant soon after his speech in the ornate gilded ballroom. Hawke found them a table in the sun-filled dining room paneled in old walnut, with tall windows overlooking the frozen shores of Lake Geneva. Full of lively chatter, clinking glasses, and busy waiters.

  Hawke picked up his menu and said, “Well done, Blinky. Most, if not all, of it was way over my head. But I’m sure Sigrid learned quite a lot. She spent the entire time taking notes, for God’s sake. And I didn’t realize you were quite so funny in public. You should be doing stand-up comedy instead of pushing chocolate on the unwary British.”

  Blinky blinked his eyes rapidly and laughed. “I have only one rule in public speaking. Don’t bore the audience. Even if it’s about something as excruciatingly boring as cybersecurity. God. I got tired of listening to myself.”

  Sigrid laughed. “I wasn’t going to say it, but I usually find PowerPoint presentations uniformly stultifying. Yours was very funny, Blinky.”

  The waiter arrived with their three Bloody Marys, and Hawke said, “You said you had a bit of news for us when you rang last night, Blinky. Don’t be shy about sharing it.”

  “Hmm. There are developments. Firstly, Wolfie finds himself snowed under at St. Moritz. His Tenth Mountain is immobilized, and he himself has moved down to Badrutt’s Palace in town. He’d like us to drive over, and he’s booked three rooms for us at the Palace.”

  “When?” Hawke said.

  “Tomorrow being Saturday, he thought you could make it, Sigrid. We’ll meet him at noon if that works for you both?”

  “Absolutely,” Sigrid said.

  “Good, that’s done. Let me tell you more about our frozen corpse, if I may, and where he might actually have come from.”

  “Please do.”

  “I had a little chat with Wolfie’s young grenadier yesterday,” Blinky said, “the one who discovered the body. The soldier’s name is Lieutenant Christian Hartz, from Bern. He was excused from duty in St. Moritz yesterday in order to show me the exact spot where he’d found the body. Veddy interesting, veddy, veddy interesting.”

  “Just tell us, Blinky. Don’t be a dramatic Nazi about it. You’re not on stage anymore.”

  Blinky laughed at himself. “It’s dramatic enough, I assure you,” he said. “Do you remember that when you and Ambrose first arrived in Switzerland, I mentioned something about the Bat Cave and the Sorcerer?”

  “Of course. Batman. We’ve been curious about that ever since,” Sigrid said. “What is the connection, Blinky?”

  “As you, darling Sigrid, are well aware, the Sorcerer disappeared from sight about ten years ago. The most powerful man in Switzerland simply vanished into thin air. In the papers for months. There was the inevitable nationwide search, Interpol was involved, but in the end they came up empty. Even in his seventies, the Sorcerer was a strong mountaineer. Climbing was his passion. It was finally decided that he had been solo up on a mountain and fallen to his death. The body was never recovered, adding to the shroud of mystery.”

  “The BBC did a documentary on his disappearance many years ago. Remember, Blinky?” Sigrid said. “Perhaps we could get a copy for Alex?”

  “Great minds think alike, and so do ours,” he said, pulling a DVD out of his jacket pocket and handing it to Alex.

  “Fascinating. I’ll watch it tonight.”

  “Tell us about the Batman connection,” Sigrid said. “We’re all mystified.”

  He blinked rapidly and said, “Ah, yes, the mythical Bat Cave. Well, our notion is entirely theoretical. But one of the more interesting theories is this. It was advanced early in the police investigation of the death. That is, that the Sorcerer may be hiding in one of the thousands of abandoned air force bases that still exist all over Switzerland. Like that of the Seventh Fighter Squadron of the Schweizer Luftwaffe. With its advanced F/A-18s and—”

  “Hold on a tick, Blinky,” Hawke said. “Abandoned air force bases? How the hell does anyone hide at an abandoned air base?”

  “I assumed you’d ask that question, Alex. I’m now about to reveal a state secret, so treat it as such. We never talk about these things. Ever since our Luftwaffe was founded in 1914. Since our country is so small, its size creates a military problem. Our military has much to hide. That’s why you see tiny hidden airstrips, like Band-Aids, all over the countryside.

  “What you do not see are the hangars themselves or the explosives rigged beneath all the bridges on our borders. Or the massive heavy artillery hidden in place to prevent an invading enemy from clearing or repairing the damage from a blown bridge. The Porcupine Principle applies not only to all of our bridges but also to all highways and railroads.

  “Concealed explosives, heavy guns, and artillery all around you number in the tens of thousands. And even that number is deliberately understated. You might double or triple it for our purposes. Mountains everywhere have been made so porous that entire Swiss Army divisions are based inside them. Even as we speak there is one not five miles away.”

  “You’re joking,” Sigrid said.

  “Oh, but I’m not. There are weapons and soldiers under barns. There are countless long-range cannons inside pretty houses. Where Swiss highways run on narrow ground between the edges of two lakes, like the highway you just took, or run at the bottoms of cliffs, man-made rock slides high above the roads are ready to slide. We still throw rocks at the enemy, you see. Voila—the Porcupine Principle.”

  “Which is what, exactly?” Sigrid asked.

  Blinky smiled and said, “You even think about pricking us, we prick you back. And we prick you exponentially harder than you can even conceive. It’s why we’ve never endured wars or occupations in over seven hundred years.”

  Hawke smiled. “They all know you’re bad, Blinky, they just have no bloody clue just how bad you are.”

  “Precisely,” he said. “And believe me, we are far, far badder than I’ve led you both to believe. Our forces spend twelve months of every year learning how not to go to war. Sorry, what were you saying, Alex?”

  “Tell us more about these Luftwaffe bases hidden inside the Alps. The ones where our mysterious Sorcerer may have been hiding in plain sight for lo thes
e many years.”

  “Of course. Our F/A-18 fighter bases, too, are all hidden in plain sight. That is to say, Schweizer Luftwaffe squadrons and attack helicopters reside within hangar complexes constructed deep inside hollowed-out mountains, from one end of the country to the other. Obviously, in order to shield them from enemy air attacks.”

  “Obviously,” Hawke smiled. He was a bit incredulous about Blinky’s revelation, having never been made aware of Switzerland’s secret fortifications and hidden air force before. That information was clearly one of the country’s most closely guarded secrets.

  Sigrid said, “This is astounding. How in the world do they get the jets out of the hangar and up into the sky?”

  “Simple. Airplanes and choppers are brought up from the vast underground hangar facilities by a system of high-speed elevators. And then launched by catapults, exactly like those found on modern aircraft carriers.”

  “Launched how, exactly?” Hawke asked.

  “The peaks of countless numbers of our Alps contain runways hidden behind extraordinarily realistic granite-plastic blocks. They are, in effect, movable sections of fake rock. Hydraulically controlled. Virtually undetectable. Climbers make their way up to the summits every day without any idea of what lies inside the face of the mountain they’re on. In case of attack, all of these false sections withdraw hydraulically inside the mountain, creating airfield runways in the sky. Our commanding officers are so good, we can now get an entire squadron airborne in twelve minutes.”

  “Good God,” Hawke said. “Astounding.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “So what you’re saying is that it’s entirely possible that Sorcerer is living somewhere inside a mountain?”

  “More than possible. If he’s still alive, that’s where Wolfie and I believe we’ll find him.”

  Hawke was scratching his day-old casual Friday stubble.“And thus the focus on Leo Hermann, the man in the three-piece Savile Row suit who fell off the top of a mountain and lost his head.”