David Gilman - Ice Claw

Fedir, remember who you are, remember why you are so named-a gift from God . His mother’s words caressed his moment of doubt.

Why was this Max Gordon boy involved? Tishenko’s people had scoured the airwaves for months, ensuring that anyone who might even remotely offer any threat could be monitored. This illegal spying on known environmental groups, investigators, scientists and government departments had revealed no cause for alarm. Nothing would threaten Tishenko’s plans, because no one knew of them-except Zabala.

But a meddlesome environmental troubleshooter, Tom Gordon, had been contacted. He was confined to a nursing home in England, but his son was in precisely the same area as Zabala.

Tishenko hated coincidence. There was no such thing. It was destiny throwing forces together like a particle accelerator slamming together beams of protons at the speed of light-well, 99.999999 percent of the speed of light, to be precise, his mind chastised him-and not even the scientists knew what the resulting explosion would create.

Superstition gripped him.

They had checked back. Every Friday afternoon over the preceding weeks someone from the Pyrenees had used a landline phone and contacted Tom Gordon’s nursing home. The location told them it had to be his son, Max.

The boy had phoned again when he was in hospital in Pau, after the assassination of Zabala, and then he had gone to the monk’s mountain home.

Coincidence?

Fate?

Since discovering this information, Tishenko had tried to stop him. Just in case he knew something. But the boy had defied the threat of violence and death from Tishenko’s people at every step. Now he represented that speck of the unforeseen that could destroy everything.

The American boy who helped Max Gordon had been dealt with. The Germans who were in charge of capturing the troublesome English boy at the chateau near Biarritz had failed and had already paid the price-their bodies would never be found. Now the biker gang of hunters would scour the area around Biarritz until Max Gordon surfaced. He had been to the chateau in Hendaye, so the possibility of his finding Zabala’s secret was all the greater.

Max Gordon had succeeded, without even knowing it, in rattling him. Tishenko had to snare this boy and find out once and for all if he had discovered that vital piece of information of Zabala’s that he so craved. Now there was an urgent need to double-check that the father had not instructed the son. How? There was one person who might be able to reach him. A man who was once Tom Gordon’s friend but who had betrayed him.

Would sending this man be a bridge too far?

Superstition demanded Tishenko send him to Max Gordon’s father.

He gave the order-contact Angelo Farentino.

Max didn’t know how to read Sophie Fauvre. She had smiled with relief when he and Sayid had walked through the door, but she kept her distance, almost as if she might be intruding on their friendship. Max nodded a kind of gruff hi, then, thinking he’d been a bit rude, smiled back, told her that Bobby and Peaches were still surfing down the coast.

The small sequence of events was just like being in a home of his own. She offered them coffee that was already made. Max thanked her and took the biscuit plate she put in front of him. Then, in a spurt of words, she told him about the man in the black Audi. Max looked worried, nodded, but didn’t say anything. She reached out a hand and touched his face and smiled in a funny, kind of sad way.

It was a toe-curling, stomach-churning moment as far as Sayid was concerned. He watched them both, ignored and probably not even noticed by either of them, for a few minutes.

“I’m going to change my clothes,” Sophie said, leaving the two boys.

Max’s ginger biscuit, dunked in coffee, wobbled and splashed back into the mug. “Oh, right. Sure. OK,” he managed to say.

As Sophie turned out of sight, Sayid pulled a face. “What was all that about?”

“What?”

“All that. She was all over you. I thought she was going to wipe the biscuit crumbs from your mouth for a minute.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“If I’d had anything to eat in the last few hours I’d have puked. That’s how bad it was. She’s trouble, I’m telling you.”

Max pushed the chair away from the table.

“Sayid, one of those blokes from the hospital was waiting for her, didn’t you hear what she said?”

“And those others were at the chateau! Whoever ‘they’ are, they know everything. Max, you’re being set up. And guess who’s the only person who’s been around long enough to know where we are.”

“She didn’t know about the chateau,” Max whispered furiously.

“You can’t be sure! Just like you can’t be sure that bloke was watching her! She said he was but that doesn’t mean anything. He and his mate could be knocking on the comtesse’s door any minute now.”

Max felt the turmoil of uncertainty. This wasn’t one of those moments when you had to decide on a course of action, like when the German and those bikers attacked them. His body and mind had responded immediately then. This was worse, because it made heart and mind fight each other. They were surrounded by people who liked and cared about them. Who knew where they’d been? Who had betrayed them? It couldn’t have been Bobby. He would not have brought violence to his grandmother’s house. But where was he? Max couldn’t get hold of him on the phone he had given them. Was that because mobile reception was poor down there, or was Bobby deliberately not answering? And Sophie? Max shook his head. He didn’t want to be thinking such distrustful thoughts about anyone here.

“I’m sorry, mate. But this is really serious stuff now, and I don’t mind telling you, I’m scared,” Sayid said by way of apology.

Max had to acknowledge that. “Have another piece of cake. It’ll take your mind off things.”

“I’m not kidding, Max!”

“I know,” he said gently.

Max understood that Sayid had been incredibly brave so far. His friend had put aside his own fear to help. He guessed there was an element of adventure that excited Sayid, but the reality of the danger was getting to him. Max had faced violence before-but it didn’t stop him from being scared. The difference between them was that Max had to see this thing through. It’s what his dad would have done.

Max walked through to the kitchen and the sound of the small portable television set that the comtesse seemed to have on permanently, a slush of words and laughter. The old lady sat at a large wooden farmhouse-style table. A cigarette smoldered between her lips, one of her eyes half closed against the smoke, and a large glass of cheap red wine nestled in partnership with the half-empty bottle.

Piles of diced vegetables sat before her like a gambler’s winnings. Max told her briefly about the unknown enemy waiting at the chateau for him. She wielded the long-bladed knife with a rhythmic certainty as she listened. Max wondered how she didn’t lose the ends of her fingers. She looked up.

“I’m making soup and, before you ask, I didn’t tell Sophie where you were,” she said without looking up.

“How did you know that’s what I was going to ask?”

“It’s obvious, mon cher . Who knew? There was me, and Robert, and Sayid, of course. Who among us would betray you?”

“Where do you think Bobby is, Comtesse?”

She nodded. “Your question makes sense. He’s your first suspect.”

“No, I’m worried about him. He didn’t answer his phone and the mobile he gave us is flat. So if he is trying to contact us, why hasn’t he phoned here? He was supposed to come back to d’Abbadie’s chateau for us.”

Ash dropped from the cigarette. She blew it away from the vegetables, then ground out the smelly stub in a curve of potato skin. “Robert is a child of the sea and the mountain. He goes with the wind.”