David Gilman - Ice Claw

Still balanced precariously on top of the trolley, he pulled his socks onto his freezing feet and laced up the remaining boot. Knowing the bolt was just below the door handle, he steadied himself with one hand, gripped the cord tightly with the other and repeatedly kicked the door, while at the same time yanking the cord. Frustration mixed with fear-he didn’t know if those men were still in the building-and he hammered the door loudly enough to wake the dead. Thankfully, no one in the room complained.

Come on! Come on!

Another kick, a sudden lurch and the bolt came free. The door swung open as the force of his kicking dislodged the trolley. Max fell back; the trolley lurched forward and rocketed into Sayid.

Max rolled onto the floor as Sayid blearily opened his eyes and yawned.

“Max? Where’s that bloke?”

“Gone,” Max said as he retrieved his boot. “Which is what we’ll be in a couple of seconds.”

“Good stuff. Why’ve you only got one boot on?”

Bobby flashed the van’s lights when he saw them emerge from the same dark area as the two men.

“I was getting worried,” Bobby said as Max pushed Sayid to the sliding door.

One of Bobby’s friends helped Sayid into the back of the van and made sure he was wedged on the mattress by sleeping bags.

“Not half as worried as me,” Max said, folding the wheelchair.

“Did you see those two bone crunchers?”

“Yeah. They were after us. I wish I knew who they were. I reckon they think I’m part of Sophie’s anti-animal-smuggling group.”

They were in the cab by now, and Sayid had covered himself with a sleeping bag.

“What? Who’s Sophie?”

“It’s a long story,” Max said to him, unfolding the grubby map from the dashboard. “Anyway, I need to get to …” His finger traced the mountain route through to the coast. “About here. La Vallee de la Montagne Noire.”

“What about Biarritz? You need some rest, man,” Bobby said, easing the van into the empty streets.

“You drop me off, tell me where you’ll be and I’ll get to you by tomorrow night.” Max rubbed the weariness out of his face. “Right now I have to think things through, and I need to stay awake. Got any music?”

“Sure. What about him?” Bobby said, looking at Sayid, who was asleep again, mouth open, moments away from snoring.

“He’s had enough sleep for a lifetime. Go for it.”

Bobby hit the play button. A raucous tune spilled out of the van as they turned towards the mountain road. Bobby and the others would be at the wild Atlantic in a few hours.

But Max had a rendezvous with a dead man.

Sentinel mountains blocked the night sky with even blacker silhouettes.

The snow sat above the eight hundred-meter line on this side of the Montagne Noire. But the close-cropped pasture and stony ground made the going hard, so Max used goat and cattle tracks that were scuffed into the slopes to wind his way higher until he found shelter from the increasingly cold wind.

Shepherds used these stone-built mountain huts when bringing in the goats and sheep for market: gathering in the scattered animals was a task that could take days. Max had walked for over three hours since Bobby had driven over the mountain’s lower pass and left him to head for higher ground. Max had barely slept in the past twenty-four hours. Fatigue had set in. He had already pushed himself this far, so it made no sense to risk a fatal mistake. Lose your footing on these steep slopes, tumble down through those rocks and serious injury was a given.

Max ate dry food from his backpack, and although there was kindling and wood in the small stone hearth, he wasn’t going to advertise his presence by lighting a fire. Neither did he climb into his lightweight sleeping bag. He wanted to be able to move quickly if trouble came out of the night.

He pulled back his sleeve to check the time, forgetting momentarily his watch had been ripped away by the dying monk. Dad, I’m sorry. I couldn’t do anything. I tried. I just couldn’t save him . A brief shiver of loneliness ran through him as thoughts of his dad flooded his mind. His father in the nursing home, his mind a netherworld-consciousness flitting between understanding and forgetfulness. He would recover, the doctors were certain, but Max feared that one day he might sit with his dad, look into his eyes and see no recognition there.

Max hid those fears, but they were a constant companion, partly responsible for his determination to carry on when others would have turned back. Zabala might have passed on a secret legacy, but Max’s dad had given him a much greater gift-his love. That, and the ability to meet a challenge and see it through.

Max fingered the pendant. It yielded no clue, but its secret had caused murder.

Nestling into the deep, warm hay, he set his mental alarm clock and listened as big white cows snuffled the grass on the mountainside. Broad leather collars supported dull-thudding bells around their necks, and the steady clonking lulled him into a deep sleep.

Max could see mountain peaks, one after the other, stretching to the distant horizon. The night wind had blown away clouds and pollution, leaving a diamond-bright sky. His polarized sunglasses helped keep the glare at bay, but he still had to shield his eyes as he peered across the white-blanketed mountains. He had walked for four hours after waking, climbing higher into the mountain, remembering where he had been previously when training.

Stepping carefully through the snow-dusted scree, he saw the stone hut he was searching for. The last time he had been here, a storm had swept in and deposited thirty centimeters of snow across his path. That was less than three weeks ago, and he’d been forced to stay sheltered for a whole day while the sun melted it enough for him to make his way down again. He had huddled in the building’s animal shelter, wishing he could have found his way inside the big hut. But a solid door had barred his way.

Now as he got closer he could see that the heavy-planked door yawned open, the push and pull of the wind creaking the old hinges. Scattered paper had been sucked out of the room by the airstream; a couple of sodden sheets lay in the entrance and others were scattered across the face of the animal shelter. A sheepskin was stretched out, curing on the sunny side of the hut, and a couple of burlap sacks were hooked on nails. What looked like a homemade crutch, a sturdy pole with a flat, well-worn piece of wood fastened to the top of it, stood propped against the wall.

Max stepped closer. His eyes scanned the surrounding valleys and mountains. On the weather side of the slope, snow clung tenuously, deep in places, drifted into half-pipe channels elsewhere. A snowboarder’s dream-a desperate man’s nightmare. Anyone less skilled than a brilliant skier or board rider would hit those sculpted walls at speed and come to grief.

But on the slope where Max now climbed there were barely a few centimeters of snow, while over the crest of this ridge the cold air current turned the Atlantic moisture into deeper falls on that flank of the mountain. It had taken hours to get here by road and foot, but he realized that a fast skier could probably reach the mountains above Mont la Croix in half an hour-forty minutes if he wasn’t racing. But the monk was an expert, and he’d been trying to escape a killer. A helter-skelter ride for his life.

He’d have plummeted down the far side of the mountain and in less than an hour appeared where Max had stopped to pick up Sayid’s misbaha . A shot, an avalanche and a desperate cry in an ancient language had brought Max to where he now stood.

Max’s skin crawled.

He turned slowly-360 degrees-letting his eyes look at the near and far distance. Someone was watching him. He could feel it. Nothing moved. A speck of black in the sky high above circled. An eagle. Was it that? Was that what made the hairs on his neck bristle? The lone raptor shrieked, its cry carried easily by the wind. The eagle’s eyes had two hundred times’ magnification when it looked down. It would see Max’s eyes staring right back. With a final twisting turn, the eagle spun away on another thermal.