David Morrell - League of Night and Fog

by League of Night

  Saul would be in full view. I should have kept running, Saul thought But to where? The farmhouse is too far away. In the storm, I'll lose my way. And what about Erika and the woman? I can't abandon them. But I wouldn't be abandoning them.

  They've got shelter, a rifle. All I've got is a handgun my stiffened fingers can't shoot And a branch. The weapon seemed ludicrous now. He shivered, fearful he'd freeze to death before his hunter ever searched in this direction. He felt weak, dizzy, nauseous. I can't believe I've done this. At once it occurred to him mat the man must be shivering too.

  His judgment has to be weakened, the same as mine. It could be we're even. Tense seconds passed, accumulating into minutes. Snow gathered around him. On him. His joints felt immobilized. He wasn't sure he'd be able to move now, even if his hunter did creep into the trap. The forest darkened. Soon he'd be completely disoriented, unable to fight his adversary or find his way back to the cave. Not that he'd ever have to contend with either problem. If he stayed immobile like this, the cold seeping deeper into his core, he'd be dead long before nightfall.

  Snow half-filled his enemy's tracks. If the man couldn't see them, there'd be little chance of his passing these boulders. Already so much time had elapsed that Saul suspected the man must have chosen another direction. Or perhaps he couldn't bear the cold anymore and retreated, trying to get back to the farmhouse. I have to move, make my muscles work, get my circulation flowing! His patience snapped. He stepped from the cleft between two boulders, turned to the right... And found himself face-to-face with his hunter. The man had just come abreast of the boulders, looking carefully up the slope. Shock paralyzed them; cold retarded their reflexes. Saul swung the branch as the man pivoted, aiming his pistol. The branch had a finger-long projecting barb. It impaled the hunter's right eye. Gel spurted, followed at once by blood.

  The man screamed, a soul-rending wail of outrage and violation. The force of Saul's blow had thrust the barb all the way through the eye socket, cracking the crust of bone behind the orb, lancing the brain.

  The man's arms flapped as if he tried to fly. His scream, now only a motor reflex, persisted, then stopped. His mouth remained open. He dropped his pistol and gripped the branch. In quick succession, he stood on tiptoes, dropped his hands to his sides, peered at Saul with his remaining eye, and fell.

  The branch projected sideways, obscenely, from his face. Horror, fear, exhaustion, cold, and the altitude all had their effect. Saul vomited.

  It seemed impossible that the contents of his frigid stomach would steam so. He staggered back against the boulders he'd hidden among. He clutched his midsection, doubled over, and heaved yet again, collapsing to his knees. The snowy forest floor tilted one way, then the other.

  I'm going to die, he thought. I've won, but I'm going to die. His disgust at what he'd just been forced to do shifted suddenly into anger at himself, the circumstance, the weather, his weakness! He raised his face and roared in rebellion. No! If I'm going to die, it won't be because I gave up! He staggered to his feet, pushed himself away from the boulders, and lurched through snowdrifts up the slope. A mental vision of Erika's face swirled before him. It changed to that of his son. He wanted desperately to live. But not for himself. For his family. His shoulders felt like blocks of wood, his legs like posts, but he persisted, reached the top of this slope, and staggered up another.

  Snow struck his eyes. He lost his balance and fell, squirmed upright, fell again... And crawled. Higher. Farther. Though his consciousness was clouded, he sensed that the stronger bite of the wind meant he'd left the shelter of the treeline, had reached the rocky slope up to the open plateau. But the plateau seemed to go on forever. The harder he worked, the less ground he seemed to cover. On his hands and knees, he struck his head against a rock, struggled to crawl over it, couldn't, and realized that the rock was a wall. The wall on the far side of the plateau. The door. If his memory wasn't tricking him, the door had to be against the wall. But which way? Right or left? His survivaldepended upon an instantaneous decision. Completely disoriented, he chose left. And almost passed the door before he understood what it was. Exhaustion negated excitement. Stupefied, he pawed at the door, scraping his fingernails against it

  "Erika, it's

  Saul. For God's sake, Erika." The snow became a warm blanket. It covered him. He sank, toppling forward as the door swung open. He landed hard on a rocky floor. And heard Erika scream.

  His first impression was that Erika's horrified face swirling above him was but another vision of her face that had acted as a beacon, drawing him onward through the storm. A dim part of his remaining consciousness jabbed him, however, rousing him into the realization that he'd reached the door and been granted admission into the cave.

  His second impression was of a far-off hissing light A naphtha-fueled lantern. Its almost mystical glow revealed shelves of canned food and bottled water, a white plastic box with a red cross stenciled on it, coats, shirts, socks, and pants, a two-way radio. His third impression, and the most important, was of warmth. It pained him. He squirmed, groaning as Erika dragged him toward the lantern. He realized that a kerosene- fueled heater stood next to the lamp, mat a tube in the ceiling was venting the heater's gases. The tingle of warmth upon his skin made him cringe. Erika's urgent embrace was excruciating. He tried to protest but was powerless. The Swiss woman slammed the cave door shut, blocking out the wind and snow. She ran to touch Saul's forehead.

  "His temperature's too low. His body can't warm itself."

  Saul understood. The core of heat in his body was like a furnace. If the furnace stopped working, outside heat wouldn't help him. The heat had to come from within. The furnace had to be made to start generating again. "He'll die if..."

  "Blankets," Erika said. "They won't be enough."

  "We'll heat up some cocoa." The woman shook her head. "Hot cocoa won't be enough either. Besides, he doesn't have the strength to swallow it"

  "What then? How can I save my husband?"

  "Your body heat."

  "What? I don't understand!"

  "Use your body heat!" Erika understood.

  She tugged off Saul's wet clothes. He shivered, clutching his arms across his chest. She grabbed a sleeping bag from a shelf, unrolled it beside him, and opened its zipper. She laid him into it and tugged it shut. The sleeping bag was thick and soft. But cold. "So cold," he murmured. In the glow from the lamp, he saw Erika take off her own clothes. She threw everything--jacket, blouse, slacks, shoes, socks, bra, panties--into a corner and scurried into the sleeping bag with him.

  She squeezed down beside him, put her arms around him, and pressed her breasts, stomach and thighs against him. The sleeping bag was almost too small for both their bodies. Though her embrace was painful, he felt the down of the sleeping bag trap her warmth. Heat radiated from her onto him. She wedged a knee between his legs, her thigh between his own. She kissed his cheeks, his neck, his shoulders. She breathed deeply, repeatedly against his chest, anything to smother him with warmth. The embrace was the most intimate he'd ever experienced. Her urgent attempt to enfold his skin with her own, to thrust her heat into him, to meld her body with his, was a more complete union than he'd ever imagined was possible. Their bodies became the most sensitive organs each possessed, a totality of their separate senses. Saul didn't know how long she pressed herself fully against him, skin to skin, soul to soul, but he gradually felt heat seeping into him, sinking towards his core. His stomach warmed first, then his lungs, his heart When the nerves in his spine tingled with heat, he realized that his power to generate his own warmth had been revitalized.

  Breathing became easier. His chest expanded. He stopped shivering, smiled at Erika, touched her beautiful face, saw it blur before him, and drifted into unconsciousness.

  When he woke, he was still in the sleeping bag, but he was fully dressed now in dry garments. He felt weak and yet amazingly rested. He stretched his legs against the soft interior of the bag, drew his hands out, rubbed his eyes, and in
the glow from the lamp saw Erika and the woman leaning against the cave wall, studying him. Erika too was dressed now. "How long have I--"

  "It's ten a. m.," she said. "Rise and shine." She opened the cave door. He jerked a hand to his eyes and turned away. Outside, the sun was searing. "Rise and shine?" He groaned. "That isn't the sun. It's a laser beam."

  "You can't sleep your life away." He groaned again. Water dripped in front of the cave door. Sunlight reflected blindingly off the snow. He pulled a corner of the sleeping bag over his face. "If you insist," she said. When he peered up from beneath the corner of the sleeping bag, he saw the gleam of humor in her eyes. She eased the door almost shut. A few inches of daylight intruded, adding to the glow of the lantern. "You sure know how to put a guy to sleep," he said. "My pleasure." Saul shuddered, this time not from cold but emotion. "I love you." The Swiss woman looked embarrassed by their intimacy and coughed. "Are you hungry? We made some freeze-dried soup."

  "I'm starved." He was strong enough to spoon the liquid to his mouth.

  "What happened out there?" Erika finally asked. "I killed them." The

  Swiss woman paled. Erika merely nodded. He left out the details.

  "There's a lot to be done." He crawled from the sleeping bag, felt an ache in his back, and waited until his equilibrium became balanced and steady. Erika collected Saul's wet clothes and gave him the packet that contained Avidan's diary and the photographs. She picked up the rifle.

  After making sure that the heater, lantern, and stove were shut off, they stepped outside. The woman closed the door. "I'll have to replace what we used."

  "We'll pay." Saul said. "No. You've paid me well enough. Not just with money. You saved my life."

  "But you wouldn't have needed to be saved if we hadn't come to your house. We're still in your debt"

  They stepped through melting drifts down the slope, sunlight stinging their eyes. Distressed, Saul sensed they were near the first man he'd been forced to kill. I don't want to do this, he thought But it has to be done. "You'd better wait here." He continued downward toward a fir tree while Erika stayed behind to distract the woman. He reached the drooping pine boughs and stooped reluctantly beneath them to study the man whose spine he'd broken. Breath held, with difficulty he removed the ring on the middle finger of the corpse's stiff left hand. The ring had a brilliant gold band, capped by a large gleaming ruby. An insignia upon the stone showed an intersecting sword and cross. He searched the corpse thoroughly, finding only a passport and a wallet The passport was

  French, made out for Jean Lapierre, a neutral name that was probably a pseudonym. He checked the passport's inside pages, finding immigration stamps for Austria and Switzerland. The same route we've been following, Saul thought Are these the men who attacked me in the park in

  Vienna? He examined the wallet, finding the equivalent of a thousand

  American dollars in various European currencies. Two credit cards and a

  French driver's license had the same signature mat was on the passport.

  The address was in Paris. A photograph of an attractive woman and a bright-eyed young daughter provided the proper personal touch to what

  Saul assumed was an expertly forged set of documents. It took him forty minutes, but he finally found the other bodies, removed the ring from each, and examined their wallets and passports. Neutral names. A

  Marseilles address. A Lyon address. Family photographs. The documents looked perfectly in order and, like the first set, were no doubt perfectly forged. He returned to Erika and the woman where they sat on a sun-dried rock. "The question is, do we hide the bodies or leave them where they are?" The woman reacted with alarm. "Hide them? but why would--?"

  "For your sake," Saul answered. 'To keep you from being implicated. In good weather, how far are we from your farm? An hour? The cave we stayed in suggests hikers like to come up this way. They'll find the bodies. The authorities will question you. Can you convince them you don't know anything about what happened here?"

  "If I have to... I can do anything."

  "You've proven that. But think about what I've said. Make sure before we leave these bodies." The woman trembled. "There's a ravine above us.

  Hikers avoid it Most of the year, it's filled with snow. Hide them."

  "You don't have to help." The woman didn't make even a token effort to object She merely stared toward the valley. Saul glanced towards Erika, who stood. After ninety minutes and three unnerving trips to the ravine, they returned to the woman. Saul's voice was taut

  "It's done."

  The woman hadn't changed her position. She continued to stare toward the valley. As if coming out of a trance, she blinked at them. "My husband and I used to come up here. It once was my favorite spot." They went down toward the valley.

  At the sun-bathed farmhouse, cows bellowed in pain, needing to be milked. The woman ran to them. Saul sensed that her eagerness to get away was based only partly on her concern for her animals. We're pariahs, he thought. He peered toward the mountains from which they'd descended. The snow-covered peaks were massive gravestones. He walked with Erika toward the Volkswagen they'd driven here. He showed her an ignition key he'd taken from one of the corpses. "Follow me. I'll drive their Renault. We'll go to Zurich. That's far enough that no one will link the bodies-- if they're discovered--to the car. Give me a couple of minutes, though. I assume it's a rented car, but I still haven't found the receipt from the agency. It's probably in the glove compartment. I want to check the trunk, then copy the license number and the serial number that's on the motor block. No matter how many buffers they used, someone had to pay for using that car, and I want to find out who."

  "But we don't have access to a network for that kind of information.

  Remember your bargain."

  "To do this on our own? Sure. But I think I've found a way to make the

  Agency cooperate, to make them agree I've done them a favor. At the same time, I'll get their help."

  "I don't see how."

  "This is how." Saul pulled one of the ruby rings from his pocket. "I wanted to be away from the woman before I showed you. It would only have confused her." Erika examined the ring. "I've never seen anything like it. A gold band. A perfect ruby with an inset sword and cross. The design's medieval, right?"

  "But the surfaces are smooth. The manufacture's recent,"

  "Sword and cross."

  "Religion and violence. All three of the men had rings like this. It's obviously a symbol for a group. A recognition device for those who understand. It's probably the ring the hiker took off before he came to this farm."

  Saul tugged at the gleaming ruby on the ring. With a snick, the ruby swung up on a hidden swivel, revealing a compartment

  In the compartment, Erika saw a capsule. It was yellow. She raised it to her nostrils. "Cyanide."

  "Or something even quicker." Saul pressed the ruby cap down on the poison. "My guess is, if those men had lived they'd have swallowed the poison before I could question them. I think we're dealing with a death cult Very old, and very skilled. Between us, you and I have almost thirty years of experience in the profession.

  But neither of us has seen this ring or this insignia. Another network exists, one we don't know about and I'm betting no one else does either."

  "But how could mat be possible?"

  "I don't know how they stayed secret so long or why they'd risk exposing themselves. But clearly they exist. And clearly they're expert. So wouldn't you think, if I offered this information to the Agency, they'd cancel my obligation to do them a favor?"

  "As long as I find out what happened to my father and see my son again."

  "Our son." Saul's voice rose; he thought of bloody snow. "And if they accept my offer, maybe I won't ever have to kill again." unnatural conjunction

  Zurich. In his former profession. Drew had often sought refuge here; it was one of his favorite cities. But on this warm clear morning, as he walked with Arlene along the river that divided the c
ity, he barely noticed the quays and pleasure boats or the gardens and guild houses on the opposite shore. Instead, in his memory, he saw the dead security men at the villa outside Rome and Gatto's tortured corpse sprawled on a lounge beside his swimming pool. After discovering the massacre site the night before. Drew and Arlene had at once made arrangements to leave Rome, flying to Zurich as soon as possible. Now they left the sidewalk beside the river and, without a word, proceeded along a street of imposing buildings, approaching the Swiss Zurichsee Bank. It was here that Father Sebastian had said he'd open a safe-deposit box for them. In a trouser pocket. Drew had the key--in his memory, the code words