The Gemini Contenders

by Robert Ludlum

  The trail was nowhere to be found. It had disappeared; years of disuse and overgrowth had concealed it. Yet the ridge could be seen clearly above the trees. That he could see it was an indication of the angle of ascent.

  He had walked into the dense Alpine underbrush and made his way, yard by yard, up the steep incline, through nettled bush and the skin-piercing needles of the pines.

  He sat on the ridge, breathing heavily, his shoulders aching from the constant tension. He estimated the distance from the first plateau to be at least three miles. It had taken nearly three hours. A mile an hour, over rocks and down miniature valleys, and across cold streams, and up endless hills. Just three miles. If that were so, he had two miles to go, perhaps less. He looked up. The overcast had lasted the entire morning. It would continue on throughout the day. The sky above was like the North Shore sky before a heavy squall.

  They used to sail in squalls together. Laughing as they bested the weather, sure of their abilities in the water, pitting themselves against the rain and the wind of the Sound.

  No, he would not think of that. He got to his feet and looked at his tracing of the Leinkraus diagram, copied from the inside binding of a family Torah.

  The diagram was clear but the rising terrain beyond him wasn’t. He saw the objective—due northeast, the third plateau, isolated above a sea of Alpine spruce. But the ridge he was on swept to the right, due east, leading into the base of yet another mountain of boulders, away from any direct line to the pleateau in the distance. He walked around the ledge past the border of the dark, sloping woods he had climbed through. The drop below was sheer and the rocks beneath rose like a bubbling river of stone. The trail as marked in the diagram went from forest to ledge to forest; there was no mention of intersecting rock.

  Geological changes had taken place in the intervening years since any member of the Leinkraus family had journeyed to the burial ground. A sudden shift of nature—a quake or an avalanche—had eliminated the trail.

  Still, he could see the plateau. What separated him from it seemed impenetrable, but once through it—and over it—he could make out a winding trail on the higher ground that led to the plateau. It was doubtful that that had been altered. He slid down the embankment onto the river of stone, and awkwardly, trying to keep his feet from slipping into a hundred miniature crevices, climbed toward the forest of spruce.

  The third clearing was it! Sciocchezza di Cacciatori! Hunter’s Folly! Long abandoned but once perfect for removing the vault. The trail from the mountains to the Zermatt railway was passable, and the area around the tracks was flat and accessible. At first Andrew had not been sure; in spite of the level ground on either side of the tracks, the stretch was short, blocked by a curve. Then he remembered: his father had said that the train from Salonika had been a short freight. Four cars and an engine.

  Five railway units could easily pull beyond the curve and come to a stop in a straight line. Whatever car the vault had been in could have been unloaded without difficulty.

  But what now convinced him he was near his goal was an unexpected discovery. West of the tracks were the unmistakable signs of an abandoned road. The cut through the woods was defined, the trees in the cut shorter than those surrounding them, the brush closer to the ground. It was no longer a road—not even a path—but its former existence was undeniable.

  “Lefrac!” he yelled at the eighteen-year-old. “What’s down there?” He pointed northwest, where the cut in the forest sloped.

  “A village. About five, six miles away.”

  “It’s not on the railroad line?”

  “No, signore. It’s in farm country, below the mountains.”

  “What roads lead into it?”

  “The main road from Zürich and—”

  “All right.” He stopped the boy for two reasons. He had heard what he wanted to hear, and twenty feet away the girl had gotten to her feet and was edging toward the woods on the eastern side of the tracks.

  Fontine took out his pistol and fired two shots. The explosions thundered throughout the woods; the bullets detonated the ground on either side of the child. She screamed, terrified. Her brother lunged at him in a frenzy of tears; he sidestepped and smashed the barrel of his pistol on the side of the boy’s head.

  Lefrac’s son fell to the ground, sobs of frustration and anger filling the silence of the abandoned railroad clearing.

  “You’re better than I thought you were,” said the soldier coldly, raising his eyes, turning to the girl. “Help him. He’s not hurt. We’re heading back.”

  Give the captured hope, reflected the soldier. The younger and more inexperienced they were, the more hope they should be given. It reduced the fear which was, in itself, detrimental to rapid travel. Fear was an instrument, too. Like death. It was to be used methodically.

  He retraced the trail from the Zermatt tracks for a second time. He was certain now. There was nothing that would prevent an animal or a vehicle from negotiating it. The ground was clear and mostly hard. And more important, the terrain rose directly toward the eastern slopes, into the specific trails recorded in the faded pages of the ledger. Light snow and layers of frost covered the earth. With every yard the soldier in him told him he was nearing the enemy zone. For that was what it was.

  They reached the first intersecting trail described by the Goldoni guide on the morning of July 14, 1920. To the right, the trail angled downward into some kind of forest, a thick wall of dark green, laced with a roof of white. It seemed impenetrable.

  It was a possible hiding place. That mountain forest would not be tempting to the casual climber, and without interest for the experienced. On the other hand, it was forest—wood and earth, not rock—and because it was not rock he could not accept it. The vault would be protected by rock.

  To the left, the trail continued up, veering obliquely into the side of a small mountain above them. The trail itself was wide, on solid rock, and bordered by foliage. Boulders rose sharply to the right, forming an abrupt sheer of heavy stone. An animal or a vehicle still had space to walk or roll; the direct line from the Zermatt tracks was unbroken.

  “Move it!” he shouted, gesturing to the left. The Lefrac children looked at each other. To the right was the way to Champoluc—the way back. The girl grabbed her brother; Fontine stepped forward, broke the grip, and propelled the girl forward.

  “Signore!” The boy shouted and stepped between them, his arms raised in front of him, his young palms flat—a very penetrable shield. “Don’t do that,” he stammered, his voice low, cracking with young fear, his own anger challenging himself.

  “Let’s go,” said the soldier. He had no time to waste on children.

  “You hear me, signore!”

  “I heard you. Now, move.”

  At the western flank of the small mountain the width of the rising trail abruptly narrowed. It entered an enormous, natural archway cut out of the boulders and led to the face of a hill of sheer rock. The geologically formed archway was not only the logical extension of the trail, but the mountain of rock beyond must have been irresistible to novice climbers. It could be scaled without great effort, but was sufficiently awesome by its breadth and height to be a good start for the higher regions. Perfect for an enthusiastic seventeen year old, under the watchful eye of a guide and a father.

  But the width under the arch was narrow, the rock floor too smooth, especially when heavier snows fell. An animal—a mule or a horse—might cross under but there was considerable danger that hooves would slip.

  No vehicle could possibly get through.

  Andrew turned and studied the approach they had just made. There were no other trails, but about thirty yards back on the left the ground was flat and filled with Alpine brush. It extended to a short wall of rock that rose up to the ridge of the mountain. That wall, that short cliff, was no more than twenty feet high, almost hidden by shrubs and small, gnarled trees growing out of the rock. But the ground beneath that cliff, beneath that ridge, was flat. Natur
al obstructions were everywhere else, but not there, not in that particular spot.

  “Walk over there,” he ordered the young Lefracs, both to keep them in sight and to provide perspective. “Go into that flat area between the rocks! Spread the bushes and walk in! As far as you can!”

  He stepped back off the trail and studied the ridge above. It, too, was flat, or at least appeared so. And it was something else, something that might not be noticed except, perhaps, from where he stood. It was … defined. The edge, though jagged, formed a nearly perfect semicircle. If that circle continued, the ridge itself was like a small, out-of-the-way platform on a small, unimportant mountain, but still high above the lower Alpine hills.

  He judged the height of Lefrac’s son as five-ten or -eleven. “Raise your hands!” he shouted.

  Arms extended, the boy’s hands were just below the midpoint of the short cliff.

  Suppose the method of transport was not an animal but a vehicle. A heavy-wheeled piece of machinery, the carriage a plow, or a tractor. It was consistent; there was no part of the route from the Zermatt tracks or up the Goldoni trail that such a piece of equipment could not traverse. And plows and tractors had winch machinery.…

  “Signore! Signore!” It was the girl; her shouts conveyed a strange exaltation, a cross between hope and desperation. “If this is what you look for, let us go!”

  Andrew raced back into the trail and toward the Lefracs. He sped into the tangled shrubbery to the face of the rock.

  “Down there!” The girl shouted again.

  On the ground in the light snow, barely seen through the underbrush, was an old ladder. The wood was rotted, the steps swollen out of their sockets in half a dozen places. But otherwise it was intact. It was not now usable, but neither had it been abused by man. It had lain in that shrubbery for years, perhaps decades, untouched except by nature and time.

  Fontine knelt down and touched it, pried it off the ground, watched it crumble as he lifted it. He had found a human tool where none should be; he knew that not fifteen feet above him …

  Above him! He whipped his head up and saw the blurred object crashing down. The impact came; his head exploded in a flashing of pain, followed by an instant of numbness, a hundred hammers pounding. He fell forward, struggling to shake the effects of the blow and find light again.

  He heard the shouts.

  “Fuggi! Presto! In la traccia!” The boy.

  “Non senza voi! Tu fuggi anche!” The girl.

  Lefrac’s son had found a large rock on the ground. And in his hatred he had lost his fear; holding the primitive weapon in his hand, he had crashed it down on the soldier’s head.

  The light was returning. Fontine started to get up and, again, he saw the unfocused hand descending, the rock slashing diagonally down.

  “You little fuck! You fuck!”

  Lefrac’s son released the rock, hurling it into the soldier’s body—anywhere, a final assault—and ran out of the snow-covered shrubbery onto the trail after his sister.

  Andrew recognized the pitch of his own fury. He had felt it perhaps a dozen times in his life, and it had always been in the molten heat of combat when an enemy held an advantage he could not control.

  He crawled out of the brush to the edge of the trail and looked below. Beneath him on the winding path were brother and sister, running as best they could over the slippery trail.

  He reached under his jacket to the holster strapped to his chest. The Beretta was in his pocket. But a Beretta would be inadequate; it was not that accurate. He pulled out the .357-caliber Magnum he had bought at the Leinkraus store in Champoluc. His hostages were about forty yards away. The boy took the girl’s hand; they were close together, the figures overlapping.

  Andrew squeezed the trigger eight times in succession. Both bodies fell, writhing on the rocks. He could hear the screams. In seconds the screaming subsided into moans, the writhing became twists and lurches at nothing. They would die, but not for a while. They would go no farther.

  The soldier crawled back through the shrubs into the flat cul de sac and removed the pack from his back, slipping the straps off slowly, moving his bleeding head as little as possible. He opened the pack and slipped out the canvas first-aid kit. He had to patch the broken skin and stop the bleeding as best he could. And move. For Christ’s sake, move!

  He had no hostages now. He could tell himself it made no difference, but he knew better. Hostages were a way out. If he came out of the mountains alone, they’d be watching. Jesus, they’d be watching for him—he was a dead man. They’d take the vault and kill him.

  There was another way. The Lefrac boy had said it!

  The abandoned road west of the abandoned clearing called Hunter’s Folly! Past the tracks, down to a village whose main road led to Zürich.

  But he was not going to that village, to that road that led to Zürich, until the contents of the vault were his. And every instinct he possessed told him he’d found it.

  Fifteen feet above.

  He unwound the ropes clamped to the outside of the pack and spread the grappling hook from its axis; the prongs locked into position. He stood up. His temple throbbed and the wounds stung where he’d applied the antiseptic, but the bleeding had stopped. He was focusing clearly again.

  He stepped back and lobbed the grappling hook up to the ledge. It caught. He yanked on the rope.

  The rock splintered; fragments plummeted down, followed by larger sections of limestone. He sprang to the side to avoid the falling hook; it embedded itself through the thin layers of snow into the ground.

  He swore and once more heaved the hook skyward, arcing it over the ledge, far into the flat surface above. He tugged in swift, short movements; the hook caught. He pulled harder; it held.

  The line was ready; he could climb. He reached down, grabbed the straps of his pack and slipped his arms through, not bothering to secure the front clamps. He yanked on the rope a last time; he was satisfied. He jumped as high as he could, thrusting his legs out against the stone, allowing himself to swing back into the rock as he manipulated his hands—one over the other—in rapid ascent. He swung his left leg over the jagged ledge, and pushed his right hand against the stone beneath, forcing his body into a lateral roll that propelled him onto the surface. He started to get up, his eyes traveling to the source of the grappling hook’s anchor.

  But he remained kneeling in shock as he stared at the strange sight ten feet away, in the center of the plateau. Embedded in the stone was an old, rusted metal star: a Star of David.

  The grappling hook enveloped it, the prongs moored around the iron.

  He was looking at a grave.

  He heard the echoes throughout the mountains like repeated, sharp cracks of thunder, one right after another. As if bolts of lightning had sliced through the roof of the forest, splitting the wood of a hundred trees around him. But they signified neither lightning nor thunder; they were gunshots.

  In spite of the cold, perspiration stream down Adrian’s face, and despite the darkness of the forest, his eyes were filled with unwanted images. His brother had killed again. The major from Eye Corps was efficiently going about his business of death. The screams that followed the shots were faint, muted by the forest barrier, but unmistakable.

  Why? For God’s sake, why?!

  He could not think. Not about things like that. Not now. He had to think only on one level—the level of motion. He had made a half-dozen attempts to climb out of the dark labyrinth, each time allowing himself ten minutes to see the light of the forest’s edge. Twice he had allowed himself extra time because his eyes played tricks, and in each case there was only further darkness, no end in sight.

  He was rapidly going out of his mind. He was caught in a maze; thick shafts of bark and unending, prickling branches and cracked limbs creased his face and his legs. How many times had he gone in circles? He could not tell. Everything began to look like everything else. He’d seen that tree! That particular cluster of branches had been hi
s wall five minutes ago! His flashlight was no help. Its illuminations imitated themselves; he could not tell one from another. He was lost in the middle of an impenetrable slope of Alpine woods. Nature had altered the trail in the decades since the Leinkraus mourners made their final pilgrimage. The seepage of melting summer snows had spread, inundating the once-negotiable forest, providing a bed of moist earth receptive to unlimited growth.

  But knowing this was as useless as his flashlight’s distortions. The initial reports of gunfire exploded from over there. In that direction. He had very little to lose except his breath and what remained of his sanity. He began to run, his head filled with the echoes of the gunfire he had heard seconds ago.

  The faster he ran the straighter seemed his course. He slashed a path with his arms, bending, breaking, cracking everything that got in his way.

  And he saw the light. He fell to his knees, out of breath, no more than thirty feet from the forest’s edge. Gray stone, covered with patches of snow, rose beyond the dense trees and surged out of sight above the highest limbs. He had reached the base of the third plateau.

  And so had his brother. The killer from Eye Corps had done what Goldoni believed he could not do: He had taken long-forgotten descriptions written down a half century ago and refined them, made them applicable to the present search. There was a time when brother would have taken pride in brother; that time had passed. There remained only the necessity of stopping him.

  Adrian had tried not to think about it, wondering if he’d be capable of accepting it when the moment came. The moment of anguish unlike anything in his imagination. He was accepting it now. Calmly, strangely unmoved, though filled with a cold sadness. For it was the only eminently logical, undeniable response to the horror and the chaos.