David Gilman - Ice Claw

Max looked at Corentin. They both knew he wouldn’t.

The stubble-faced man pushed a folded map through the window. “Take this. You’ll need it.”

Max nodded his thanks. “Corentin, if you know anyone in the French security services, cops, anyone, talk to them. Any contacts you might have.”

“And tell them what?”

“Check back with Laurent Fauvre. He’ll explain.” He snatched the folded drawings and notes from his backpack and shoved them at Corentin. “There’s a triangle. It pointed to CERN, the nuclear research center. Here! Geneva! I was wrong. I got it wrong. The line crossed those mountains, same direction, different location. You tell them there’s going to be something huge, in these mountains. It’s critical. Tell them!” Max pulled the pack onto his shoulders and was already running as Corentin eased the Audi away.

Sirens announced that the police were on the way. Max looked at Sophie’s cell phone. Why was she trying to reach it?

She wanted him to have it. Why? He pressed the buttons, found the text messages and his heart almost thudded to a halt.

Man who takes the animals has Adrien. Bring monk’s pendant and Max to Parc La Grange, Geneva 7. Sayid is with me. I can help.

Your friend, Peaches

Sophie had realized her friend was a liar and had betrayed them all. There was no Adrien. He did not exist. Peaches could not have known that.

But they had captured Sayid.

Today was the seventh. Zabala predicted catastrophe for the morning of the eighth. Max had been wrong about Sophie. She had tried to save Sayid. Abdullah’s words now made sense. She had fought for Max. Now it was up to him to fight for Sayid. He had to get to the mountains to save his friend.

And stop the madness.

Panic spiked him. Clawing anxiety was taking hold. He had to get on the lakeside road or back to the train station. Either way it would eat precious time. Slow down and think about it. Taking the road south of Geneva would cross the border into France before he could curve north towards the end of the lake and the mountain kingdom that held Sayid. That route posed the risk that he’d be spotted by the police. And he couldn’t chance being held in custody. Go on the north road around the lake, staying in Switzerland, and he’d sit in traffic. The couple of hours’ journey might take twice as long as that. The lake was seventy-odd kilometers long, and then there was the trek into the mountains-how much time did he have?

Max looked at the rows of fancy yachts and motor cruisers moored at their pontoons in the marina opposite the park. His eyes sought out a boat, any boat, he could take. Steal was the word, he reminded himself. He was going to have to break in and get it started. Then he heard the soft spluttering of powerful engines. A boat snuggled stern-in to the pontoon, where a woman was about to tie the boat’s lines. White leather seats contrasted with the midnight blue hull, which shone like glass. A man had walked to the bow of the speedboat to check that fenders protected the shiny hull. The woman was a few meters away on the quay, trying to slip the rope around a cleat, when Max stepped aboard unseen. The engine idled in neutral. Gripping the walnut steering wheel, he braced his legs and shoved the throttle’s four levers forward. Angry-sounding triple diesel engines, frustrated at having their power curtailed, churned water, the stern drives eager to thrust the scalpel-sharp hull through the calm surface. The man tumbled overboard; the woman screamed, but her voice was already muted by the roaring engines. Like Aladfar! The wind pushed across the raked windshield. The boat surged to thirty knots and the speedometer showed it could reach fifty.

The power scared him. He’d handled speedboats before with his dad, but this was like going from a bicycle to a Formula 1 racing car. He curved away from the shoreline. Visibility was good, but darkening clouds approached the mountains. Bad weather was going to be his companion in the hours ahead. The police would come after him, but this was what Max wanted. To lead them to the Citadel. This boat was worth a million, so stealing it should get someone’s attention. Max would hopefully have the law at his back when he got there. He pushed the throttle levers forward and the boat nearly leapt out of the water. Max laughed away his fears as the surge gave him flight and he raced the wind.

Relief and disappointment mingled as he realized, forty minutes later, that no one was in pursuit-perhaps bureaucracy was to blame, as the border between France and Switzerland cut the lake horizontally. Odds were no one could decide who should be chasing him, and by the time he calmed the throbbing engines and eased the sleek craft into the empty beach, he was still on his own. Against the soaring mountains he felt isolated and vulnerable. But energies other than fear drove him on. Like the engines’ shuddering power, Max felt a gathering storm of anger. Sayid. Was he injured? Was he still alive? They must have taken him at the airport in Biarritz. All this time and Max had had no idea his friend had been captured. The dull ache he felt at the base of his heart was guilt. He should have taken better care of Sayid. Well, he’d make up for that now.

Snow whipped across the peaks, drifting into ravines and crevasses, but no flakes fell from the darkening sky. Max had jogged for several kilometers, the demands on his legs increasing as the narrow track grew ever steeper. A sign stopped him. It was in English, French and German-to make certain there was no misunderstanding. He leveled his breathing. NO ENTRY. ROAD CLOSED 1 KILOMETER AHEAD. SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AREA: WILD ANIMAL RESETTLEMENT. BEWARE WOLVES.

Better than any warning about guard or attack dogs-wolves would stop everyone in their tracks. Max took the map out and balanced his compass, finding the direction of the Citadel’s peaks. He was on course. The contours were steep; the mountain ranges soared to thousands of meters in the near distance. How was he going to get up there? Snow would be a problem; the cold too. As he started jogging again he pushed a nagging thought to the back of his mind: how many wolves were running loose in these mountains? And there were no farms anywhere, no natural prey, so what did they hunt and eat?

As he turned a curve in the road he saw the first barrier. A wire mesh gate several hundred meters along the track. This was an ordinary gate, four meters high, supporting a fence that merged into the rock walls. Another sign repeated the previous warning. Max climbed over. In the distance he could see a snow-swept vehicle. Bobby’s van!

There was no need for caution. Max could see it was abandoned. No footprints were visible, and the van’s sides were corrugated with drifting snow. He yanked open the driver’s door. Stale smells escaped-old packets of food and cigarette butts. As the breeze entered the van something swayed, a trinket hooked over the skeg of a surfboard-Sayid’s misbaha! He’d been here! Max clambered into the back, held it tightly in his fist. If only he could bring his friend back simply by wishing for it. But he knew it was going to take a lot more than a wish-it was going to take a tough, unrelenting search.

There was nothing else he could see that might help him learn any more about his friend. A couple of surfboards, sleeping bags, a mattress. Max rummaged in the van. A couple of packets of crisps and a half-empty bottle of water. He shoved them into his pack and pushed the rear doors open.

A few meters farther along the track, the second obstacle was more challenging-galvanized gates and fencing that ran hundreds of meters up each side of the mountain until it embedded itself into rock face. Razor wire was rolled out several meters beyond that, and ten meters farther on was a secondary electrified fence. He could see that the road went on into the mountains, but even if he got over the gate he would have to cross this no-man’s-land. At each vehicle-crossing point rows of dull red lights illuminated side barriers-like a store’s security gate to stop shoplifters.