Ice Claw (21 page)

Fedir Tishenko was superstitious. Portents and signs had guided many great men in history, and Fedir modestly counted himself among them. Had he not been marked by the lightning god’s hand? He doubted if any other human could have survived such a ferocious baptism.

The unseen powers of the universe guided his destiny un-equivocally towards that chosen moment when he would shock the world by harnessing and unleashing the greatest force nature possessed.

But he was also practical. Superstition was the foundation of his belief, but cold logic had given him immense financial power. Desire for anonymity from the world’s media was driven not only by his disfigurement but also by stealth and cunning. Behind the scenes he could influence governments, buy politicians and inflict whatever judgment he deemed appropriate on those who failed to live up to his expectations.

One billion dollars buys a lot of influence and privacy. But he knew that no matter how exact he had been over the years, a tiny speck of the unforeseen could create havoc. Like a Formula One racing driver getting a wasp under his helmet at three hundred kilometers per hour, or a precision piece of high technology getting a microscopic mote of dust in a vacuum-sealed area.

Deep underground he was driven past massive pieces of equipment resembling something a hundred times bigger than a jetliner’s engine, and an enormous disk, higher than a six-story building, gripped and secured by steel frames attached to the rock face. Except this disk did not house fan turbines but energy conductors, overlapping, highly polished titanium tiles, solenoids that would snare and capture, then transmit the raw energy he would soon harness.

Energy crisis? A gash appeared in his crinkled face—a smile.

The world did not understand the meaning of the word
energy
, or crisis. What he planned would make any such concerns seem as insignificant as blowing out a candle.

Now, as he sat on the electric golf cart being driven through the cathedral-like halls beneath the mountains, a chill prickled his skin. It was not the cold, because massive heat conductors maintained a regular temperature down here at a hundred meters below the surface. No, it was this unexpected complication.

The monk, Zabala, had spent over twenty years searching for proof of some future profound, earth-shattering event. More importantly, it seemed, this evidence was the precise time, the exact hour when the cataclysm would occur. This
was the information for which Tishenko had paid Zabala’s closest friend a small fortune. The man had failed to obtain the secret from Zabala, and Tishenko had taken his revenge—the body would never be found. But the man had learned enough to give Tishenko the exact day on which to inflict the terror of his awesome, earth-shattering revelation. He liked that word.
Revelation
. Yes, it would be
that
wondrous a moment.

Tishenko’s scientists, tracking powerful weather fronts across the Atlantic, confirmed that the day the storm was expected to strike matched Zabala’s prediction. But for Tishenko there was still a niggling concern. He wanted to unleash his cataclysm at the optimum moment in time for it to succeed. Absolute power demanded absolute knowledge.

Superstition teased at his logic like a child picking a scab. Perhaps the monk had had something Tishenko did not possess, something almost akin to a sixth sense. Zabala had turned to prayer and meditation as well as science and mathematics. He had become like one of those ancient masters who felt an affinity with the universe, who understood things at a superconscious level. Zabala knew things.

And had proved his mystical prediction with facts. Perhaps the scientific community would have still scoffed at Zabala had he lived—but what if they had not? Today’s climate change had scientists so worried that they swapped information like kids exchanging baseball cards. They might just identify where and what Tishenko planned.

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 château 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 château 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 château! 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 château,” 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 château 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 château 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.”

“He wouldn’t abandon or betray us, Comtesse, I’m certain of it.”

She stopped dicing and indicated with the knife the chair next to her. Max sat down obediently. She swallowed a mouthful of wine and pointed the remote control at the television set, muting the sound.

“Let me tell you about my grandson. He is frightened of failure. His father expects great things from him. He is frightened of his father. He hides in his sport. Perhaps he thought you were involved in something that was too big for him.” She covered his hand with her own. “It is not the first time he has run away. And now he has this Peaches with him. He’s a boy with his girl. Life is easier that way.”

Max nodded. He couldn’t blame Bobby for leaving them in the lurch.

“Sophie asked me where you were. I did not tell her. She was emotional. Though she did not show it. But I saw it. You young people. My God, it’s wonderful to have youth, but the emotions! You can keep them!” She smiled at his blank expression. “You don’t know what I mean?”

“No,” he said.

“You will. But Max, let me tell you, this matter is not finished. Be careful of everyone around you. Especially the girl.”

Was the comtesse confirming Max’s own doubts about Sophie?

“Remember my warning,” the Comtesse said. “I saw it in the cards.”

Yeah. It was a great pity the cards hadn’t told her where Bobby was, or who it was attacking them, and where they might be now. Second-guessing pretty pictures wasn’t exactly an exact science.

Max took the piece of paper with the triangles enclosed by a circle from his pocket. This jigsaw puzzle of a mystery that he had stumbled upon needed all the pieces to make sense, fit neatly and give him the complete picture. The comtesse seemed the only one around who had any inkling about all this weird stuff. Weird but important. But then she would be involved—and at risk. Enormous risk, given what had happened to Max so far.

She seemed to read his thoughts. “I’m an old lady. I get very forgetful. I don’t even know what day of the week it is sometimes. In a way it’s quite nice. Time stops. What is it Bobby says about me? ‘One sandwich short of a picnic’?” She smiled. “I have forgotten more than I ever knew.” She looked at the piece of paper he held. She raised her eyebrows. “More secrets?”

Max unfolded it to reveal the triangles, circle and signs. “Do you know what this is?” He turned it towards her and waited as she gave it barely a glance.

“It’s a birth chart,” she said almost dismissively.