David Gilman - Ice Claw

“It will make no difference. No one can touch us now. It has almost begun.”

Abdullah’s man pumped diesel into an old pickup. Fauvre had got Abdullah to use his contacts and arrange a flight out of Morocco and into Switzerland for Max; French airports might have him posted on their wanted list.

Abdullah’s Land Cruiser had been found abandoned near the coast. Sophie had caught the hydrofoil ferry to mainland Spain, and from there a fast train through Europe. She had a twelve-hour start, but Max could get there before her. And do what? Fauvre had pushed an envelope stuffed with cash into his hands.

“You tell her if it’s money she wants, then she can have it. Tell her the pendant is worthless. Tell her everything. Yes?”

Max nodded. He didn’t think Sophie’s problem was only about money, but maybe it would buy her off and convince her to stay away from Peaches and the company she kept.

“I’m not responsible for what she does,” Max said. “She’s the one who’s caught up in this whole thing. I’ve got to try and find a way of stopping this Tishenko bloke.”

“There are people at CERN I can talk to. I will try and convince them that they should stop all experiments and research for at least forty-eight hours. In this day and age, if I warn them of a possible terrorist attack, they will close down the whole of Switzerland. Max, I do not want my daughter to spend the rest of her life in prison. If she is caught by the authorities I will not be able to save her.”

“And what about me?” Max said.

“You can’t stop any of this. You cannot. Accept it. Give the money to Sophie and then turn yourself in to the authorities. I will speak on your behalf. Then, perhaps, they will believe you and conduct a thorough search of the area. Leave it to the professionals, Max. There is no time left.”

Max was packed and changed. He was going from the desert to the snow. Once he got off that plane he’d be back into winter. He was ready.

Now all he had to do was say good-bye.

Max stood in front of Aladfar. The caged tiger lay asleep next to the bars. His tufted ear twitched; his tail thumped on the ground.

Aladfar woke up and lazily turned his gaze on Max. Why did the boy’s eyes look into his own? The tiger edged away cautiously. Human beings were unpredictable, but he recognized this one, knew of the strange sensory vibration that passed between them. The boy showed no fear. The tiger remembered the previous night. It had been good to be free again. But he had let this boy command him. Those instincts confused him.

Aladfar lunged, teeth bared, his mighty head ringed with a striped ruff that flared during attack. A snarling roar to challenge the boy who gripped the bars with both hands, who stood his ground. Aladfar’s head dropped, his amber eyes watching.

The boy reached through the bars, first one arm and then the other. He whispered low sounds, soothing, his eyes slowly blinking. The tiger heard a word he understood: “Aladfar, Aladfar.”

The huge cat padded closer, sniffed the hands that opened before him and allowed the boy’s fingers to close on the thickness of his neck.

“Aladfar, you are magnificent. The most beautiful creature I have ever seen,” Max said gently-the awesome moment nearly overwhelmed him. He could smell the tiger’s heat, feel the deep layer of fur covering the thick muscle below it. “I’ll come back and see you again one day. I will never forget you. Ever.”

It was hot. Aladfar panted. The tiger sniffed and licked the boy’s hand as it stroked his face.

Max walked away. Fauvre and Abdullah waited for him at the pickup. He shook Fauvre’s hand-no more need be said between them-and climbed into the stiflingly hot cab.

As the pickup turned, Max looked back towards the tiger.

Aladfar was standing, full square, his body casting a giant shadow. His eyes followed Max, watching the boy take his freedom. And then Aladfar gave a roar that echoed around the walls of the Angels’ Tears.

A tremor of fear fluttered through Sayid. The old van was struggling. The last thing he wanted now was for it to be abandoned. The numbers on the surfboard had been scribbled and crossed out a dozen times as he tried to find the phrase or key word needed to decipher the magic square’s numbers.

The one thing the journey had given him so far was time-time enough to remember Max’s spy game. Once you had the key word it was easy. Lay the letters out in the same box as the numbers, don’t repeat any letter, use the numbers Max found on the crystal to translate and it was done.

Easy.

If only he had the key word letters to lay out! He had tried every word associated with his dilemma: Sharkface, chateau, Biarritz, Atlantic, surfing, Ethiopia, Zabala, endangered species, Morocco -that last word made him think of Max, and he wished his friend were right there in the van with him. No, not that. He wanted Max and himself to be free, to be back home. But the more he thought about that, the more his courage seeped away.

The van stopped. The driver lowered the window. Peaches and Sharkface appeared. They both looked past the men in front to Sayid. He turned his face away, pretending to sleep.

“Carry on,” Sharkface said in his spittle-lipped way. “Peaches stays, the vans follow. We wait here with the bikes. The girl’s coming. Take the kid up there.”

A gust of cold air blew snowflakes into the van. The window went back up, Sharkface thumped a signal to go on and the van started again.

The girl? That meant Sophie. Was she bringing Max with her? How could Sayid warn him he was walking into a trap? He couldn’t. Not yet. But perhaps when he got “up there”- which was where? A building? A mountain? Wherever it was, Sayid realized, that might be the only place he could reach a phone. This was way beyond Max’s being wanted for murder; Sayid needed the police to find Max before murder was committed.

This was like playing tag with the devil. He hooks you and you’re it.

Dead.

And that was the answer he’d been searching for. Take your mind off the problem, give it something else to think about and, like smoke under a door, the devil whispers in your ear.

Lucifer .

Another two hours. Low gear, winding uphill. The squeak of rubber against windshield as the blades struggled against the snowstorm. The men smoked and cursed, and Sayid felt sick from the cigarette fumes and lack of air. Thankfully, the windshield began to mist up and the men were forced to open the windows slightly. The fresh air cleared Sayid’s head. He had the magic square rewritten. Max’s story of the code breakers was clear in his mind now. He had to lay out each letter of the key word alongside each number of the square, but he must not use any of the key word’s letters more than once.

Once those letters had been used, you then had to carry on with the alphabet. So once the word Lucifer had been written next to the numbers, he had to continue with S, T, U, V and so on. Trouble was there were twenty-six letters in the alphabet and he had a square of twenty-five numbers. That meant two of the letters had to share and, if Max’s story was correct, the Second World War code makers used I and J . Sayid carefully wrote out the key word, L-U-C–I-F-E-R , beneath the numbers.

No, the U was wrong. Couldn’t repeat a letter if it’d been used. He crossed it out and started the line again.

The driver changed down a gear. The engine lurched. One of the men swore and hit the dashboard. “Come on! We’re almost there! Heap of junk!”