David Morrell - Fraternity of the Stone

by Fraternity of the Stone(lit)

  When he reached the intersection, Drew glanced up and down the avenue. No Arlene. He restrained his impatience long enough to let several cars go by before he roared out into traffic to follow the surveillance car, which presumably had her in sight.

  His assumption was that when she'd reached the avenue, she'd hailed a taxi. If so, her choice surprised him because she almost always walked where she was going, even if her destination was at some distance.

  At least he had the surveillance car ahead of him, and that was as good as seeing Arlene. The several cars between the spotters and himself made it improbable that they would notice him if they happened to look back. The drizzle, which had now become a full-fledged rain, provided a shield as well, though the drops streaking cold down his face made it difficult for him to stop blinking.

  To control the blinks, he mustered the discipline he'd learned in fencing classes at the Rocky Mountain Industrial School. The object had been to make him so accustomed to the lethal tip of a rapier being jabbed at his unprotected eyes that he learned to subdue the reflexive action of his eyelids. Some students never did develop that skill; they weren't at school much longer.

  Through the stronger rain that now had soaked his wool gloves and collected beneath his coat collar, he followed the dark blue car. He entered midtown Manhattan and turned onto Fiftieth Street.

  He slowed as the surveillance car did. In a moment, he understood why. Ahead, near enough to distinguish the sheen in her auburn hair, the glow on her healthy skin, he saw Arlene getting out of a taxi stopped at the curb.

  He felt his heart race. She'd never needed makeup; the sun and wind had always given her sufficient color. Her forehead, cheekbones, and chin were perfectly proportioned, her features exquisite. But she was hardly a porcelain doll. Though she had an angular figure, her hips, waist, and breasts equal to those of any actress, she was sinewy, not at all soft.

  The surveillance car stopped. The man in the grimy clothes of a wino crawled from the back seat into the front, sliding behind the steering wheel. The well-dressed driver got out to follow Arlene. As horns blared, the replacement driver responded, moving the surveillance car ahead. Drew sympathized with his problem. Where could this new driver find a parking space in midtown Manhattan? Unless he double-parked and risked a challenge from a policeman, he'd have to drive around the block, again and again, until his partner reappeared. At once, though, Drew noticed that the executive who followed Arlene had put a set of small earphones over his head. A wire dangled from them to an inside pocket of his suit.

  Back in Boston, while walking through the mall, Drew had been puzzled when he saw teenagers and even adults wearing similar earphones. On occasion, he'd heard dim music drifting from them. He'd gone to a stereo store and learned that the earphones belonged to compact radios and tape players, known as Walkmans. The well-dressed man wasn't using a Walkman, though the earphones looked like they belonged to one and didn't attract attention. No, he was maintaining contact with the driver of the surveillance car by means of a small hidden two-way radio. The wino could drive the car around the block for the rest of the afternoon and still know exactly when and where to pick up his partner.

  Though the time was now four-thirty, the gloom made the afternoon seem like dusk. Drew straddled his motorcycle at the curb, deciding to risk a ticket. Passing vehicles ignored him. He in turn ignored the chill of the rain and looked fifty yards ahead, past the well-dressed man with the earphones, watching Arlene go into a store.

  Drew had already guessed where she was going when he saw her leave the taxi. The store she entered had its windows filled with sporting equipment, most of it for mountain climbers. Coiled, lightweight, twisted-nylon ropes, one hundred and fifty feet long, capable, he knew, of sustaining four thousand pounds of stress, carabiners, pitons and piton hammers, nylon slings, mountain packs, ice axes, climbing boots.

  The store sold ordinary sporting goods as well, but because of its specialty, climbers from all over the northeast knew about it. Drew himself had several times been here with Arlene and Jake.

  The swinging glass door closed behind her. The well-dressed man with the earphones moved casually along the sidewalk close to the buildings, then found a break in traffic and crossed the street to a spot beneath an awning where he could watch her through the windows in the store without being noticed.

  But if he glances this way, Drew thought, he might notice me.

  The dark blue car would soon be coming around the block. Drew raised his motorcycle to the sidewalk, turned, and walked it back to the intersection. He crossed the avenue and moved the bike far enough back on the sidewalk to ensure that the wino driving the dark blue car wouldn't see him when the car came around the other block. Despite the rain and the distance, he could still see the man who watched the store and be able to notice Arlene when she came out.

  Twenty minutes later, she did, carrying three packages.

  Her luck was amazing. She hailed a cab right away. But the surveillance team's luck was equal to her own -the dark blue car came around the corner just as her taxi was pulling away. While the executive scrambled into the back, the wino kept moving, continuing their pursuit.

  Then Drew's luck failed him.

  He pushed the motorcycle across the sidewalk onto the street, kicked down on the starter lever, gripped the throttle, and found himself blocked by traffic, the light against him. By the time red had turned to green, they were out of sight.

  5

  The man behind the counter looked Swiss - tall, robust, blue-eyed, blond. In his early thirties, Drew guessed, and in excellent shape, broad back, muscular arms and chest. With an energetic smile, he turned from placing coiled ropes on a shelf as the swinging glass door hissed shut behind Drew.

  His accent was closer to the Bronx than Switzerland. "Hell of a day, huh? Glad I'm not on a slope in this." He gestured toward the downpour outside. "You want a cup of coffee? Your coat's so wet, you look like you'll catch hypothermia."

  Drew returned his smile. "Coffee? I'm tempted. But it makes me feel like I'm on speed."

  "Decaffeinated?''

  Drew wondered what on earth he was talking about. Decaffeinated coffee? What was that?"No. But thanks just the same. I was in a store across the street, and I happened to notice a woman come in here. Good-looking athletic type, auburn hair, carried an equipment pack instead of a purse? She looked like a friend of mine. Arlene Hardesty."

  "That was her, all right. She and her brother buy a lot of stuff from us."

  "Good old Jake. I figured I'd step in and say hello. But one thing led to another. I see I missed her."

  "Ten minutes ago."

  Drew feigned disappointment. "That's the way the pitch angles, I guess. I haven't seen her in so long I ought to make sure I call her."

  "Pitch angles?" The clerk's eyes twinkled. "You're a climber?"

  "Lately I don't have much time, but I used to climb a lot. With Jake and Arlene, in fact. Maybe I should ask them if they'd like to go out again soon."

  "Sooner than you think. You'd better get in touch with Arlene right away. That's why she was in here. Replacing worn-out equipment. She's going up tomorrow. The truth is, you'd be doing her a favor if you asked to go along."

  "Why a favor?"

  "Because she told me she was going up by herself. I don't know how strict you are about the rules, but even with expert climbers, we discourage them from climbing alone. It just isn't right. Oh, sure, she knows what she's doing, but what if there's an accident? And the rock she's climbing isn't any practice slope."

  "Where?"

  "Satan's Horn. Over in Pennsylvania."

  "The Poconos."

  "You know it?"

  "I've been there with Jake and Arlene a couple of times. Arlene used to say Satan's Horn worked better than aspirin to cure a headache. Whenever she was troubled, she used to climb it as therapy."

  "Well, I've climbed it too, and believe me, what it did was give me a headache. You've been there, so you
know it isn't something you try alone. That damned shale. Every time I got a grip on an overhang, I started believing in God again for fear the rock would come loose in my hand."

  Drew grinned. "In God? I know the feeling."

  "Then talk her out of it, okay? Or failing that, invite yourself along."

  "I'd hate to have her get hurt." Drew pretended to think about it. "But what the heck, lately I've been working too hard. Okay, you've convinced me. But if I'm going climbing tomorrow, I'd better get some equipment. The stuff I use is at my summer place."

  The clerk's eyes twinkled even brighter. This near to closing time, he apparently hadn't expected another sale. "Let's start with boots."

  6

  Surrounded by early-morning mist, Drew walked down a damp wooded slope. The saturated leaves and earth were spongy beneath him. Rounding two boulders he reached a stream. The sun eased above the slope behind him, burning off some of the mist, allowing him a better view of the fallen trunks and boughs around him. He selected one - ten feet long and ten inches thick, less rotten than the others - and carried it to the stream, dropping it across the bank. With his coiled rope and nylon sling around one shoulder, he walked over it, his arms slightly outstretched for balance, hearing the log beneath him groan.

  On the other side, he climbed a slope, his nostrils spreading from the musky odor of pungent loam, and paused at the top. He'd taken a half hour to walk the quarter mile of dense forest to get here. His motorcycle was hidden in bushes off the two-lane road that led to the gravel parking area where hikers and climbers usually began their expeditions. In New York, he'd slept at a shelter, telling the priest in charge that he'd wash dishes in exchange for a meal and a cot. And now, after two hours of driving, he enjoyed the exercise, the relief to his stiff cramped muscles, the stillness in contrast with the vibrating roar of the chopper.

  Ahead, through scraggly undergrowth, the mist disappearing as the sun rose higher, he saw his destination, peering up and toward the gray cone called Devil's Horn. On the far side, it was thirty feet from a neighboring cliff, once linked to it by a natural bridge of rock that had crumbled back in the fifties. The fact that the Horn had separated from the cliff was dramatic evidence of how brittle the rocks here were. And judging from the pile of fallen fragments at its circular base, Drew knew that the Horn would one day crumble as the bridge had.

  For now, though, it loomed, imposing - inviting? -protected from the erosion of wind at least by the bluffs of this semicircular basin.

  He pushed through the undergrowth, crossed a stretch of dead brown ferns and knee-high grass, their tassles having given up their seeds, feeling moisture from them chill his skin through his pantlegs. He carefully placed his boots on the rock shards that angled up toward the Horn, concerned that the shards might shift beneath him and cause him to sprain an ankle.

  The stillness of the basin was eerie, the bluffs around him amplifying, emphasizing, the intrusive crunch of his footsteps. Indeed, as he took another cautious step, he heard branches scrape behind him.

  He spun alarmed, his Mauser drawn in a blur, aiming... Where? The scraping continued, coming closer.

  The nearest cover was thirty yards away, back in the forest, and what guarantee did he have that the bushes he chose would not already be occupied?

  To his right.

  There. Branches parted. Bushes moved.

  He blinked.

  Three white-tailed deer, two does and a buck, stepped into the stretch of ferns and grass, the buck's antlers resembling the leafless branches behind him. Drew saw the terror in their eyes, a shock that rendered them immobile for an instant, frozen like a photograph.

  The instant cracked. At once the deer burst into motion, turning, their white tails up as they charged back into the forest, the sound of their hoofs like a rumbling rockfall. Lessening. Growing fainter.

  The silence of the basin descended again.

  Inhaling deeply, replacing the Mauser, Drew continued his cautious ascent across the shards.

  7

  At the base of the Horn, he peered up only once. The rule was, Don't look up, don't look down, just study the surface before you. But he couldn't resist appreciating the magnificence of this uncanny formation.

  Securing the coiled rope and the nylon sling around his shoulder, he studied the deceptively easy task. Though the cliff went almost straight up, tapering inward near the top, its surface was so uneven that handholds and footholds would be no problem.

  Until you started to climb, that is. And then you realized that the rock could snap as easily as a potato chip. No grip could be taken for granted. Each time you eased your weight down on a ledge or tensed your fingers around an outcrop, you had to test it - and test it again, slowly adding more pressure, never sure if it would hold. Only the most experienced, confident, and daring of climbers were qualified to attempt the Horn. Would want to climb the Horn. Two hundred feet to the top, that was all. But the ascent might last as long as two hours. One hundred and twenty nerves-stretched-to-the-snapping-point minutes. Thousands of stomach-contracting, sweat-dripping-off-your-forehead decisions. He understood why Arlene liked to climb the Horn when she needed to clear her head. You couldn't think of anything except the Horn when you climbed it.

  But why was she so troubled that she needed the therapy of this cliff?

  He shut the thought out. The Horn was a task for an existentialist. No preoccupations. Only instant-by-instant choices. Nothing before and nothing after.

  Contrary to the expectations of an amateur, you didn't squeeze close to the cliff. You didn't hug it for support, for reassurance. The proper way to climb, to survive, was to lean out from the rockface. That position gave you a better view of the next hand- and footholds. It also allowed you to extend your arms and legs and thus relax them. Starting up, choosing his supports with suspicious care, Drew recalled the secret to climbing that Arlene had taught him. The secret to a lot of things now that he thought about it. Hang loose.

  Nervousness wormed into his stomach. He felt both elated and frightened. Soon he would see her again.

  8

  The Horn was crowned with scraggly shrubs, barren now, but tangled and dense enough to give Drew cover. After squirming over the lip of the cliff, he forced himself to wait until he had crawled across a five-foot stretch of open rock before he allowed himself to rest in the deepest part of a thicket. The sun was above him, but though it gleamed from a pure blue sky, it gave little warmth. His sweat, formerly heated by exertion, began to turn cold. He shivered, reaching into his coat for sunflower seeds, dried fruit, and a Granola bar.

  Chewing slowly, he unhooked a canteen from the belt beneath his coat and swallowed tepid water. Soon his strength returned. The top of the brush-covered

  Horn was roughly forty feet across, ample room for him to maneuver if he had to. He flexed his rock-abraded hands, relieving their soreness, and concentrated on the only entrance to the basin, the section of trees through which he'd come. Far above tree level, his vantage point made him feel small. He said a prayer of thanks for God's magnificence.

  Sprawling flat on his stomach, trying to relax, he waited. In retrospect, the decisions he'd made seemed logical. If he'd stayed in New York, he might have had to wait several days before he saw a chance to get a message to Arlene without alerting the surveillance team. And the more he followed the spotters as they in turn followed Arlene, the more he risked being noticed by them.

  But this way, knowing her destination, arriving here before her, he felt safe. After all, though the team would no doubt follow her to the Horn, they vvouldn't dare show themselves by climbing up to find out what she was doing at the top. They might of course be tempted to climb to a neighboring bluff and watch from there, but the odds were that they didn't know the terrain and weren't experienced climbers. The main reason he didn't think the team would try to watch from a neighboring bluff was that it would take them too long to get up and down from there. Arlene, in the meantime, would have a chance to
elude them.

  Drew confirmed his decisions, confident that for a while, at least, he'd have the chance to talk to her alone, unseen, up here. As he pressed his stomach against the rocky earth, he saw Arlene step from the forest. A pulse throbbed in his forehead, and he fought to still the pounding in his heart. Tiny from Drew's perspective, she paused to survey the Horn, then straightened in satisfaction, shifting through the undergrowth, approaching.

  She carried a coiled rope as he himself had. In addition, he saw a bulging heavy pack. Her clothes fit her loosely, rugged wool pants and shirt, both blue, and an open khaki jacket well supplied with pockets. Despite the austere shapelessness of those garments, however, she was unmistakably a woman. With her auburn hair tucked beneath a gray knit cap, she showed the sensuous angle of her neck. And even in solid climbing boots, her stride remained athletically graceful. Images of her body filled his brain. Drew shut his eyes to chase them away.