Ice Claw (40 page)

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.

The wind gusted; the cold metal van creaked. The clock was ticking. There was no time to scale these mountains to try and get past the barriers. Max climbed up the van’s rear ladder and yanked the restraining straps on Bobby’s covered surfboards.

The one that lay flat in the back of the van, where Sayid had worked out the message from the magic square, stayed as Sayid had intended—unnoticed by anyone, including Max.

It took twenty minutes of backbreaking effort to climb the eighty-odd meters to a narrow plateau. Once there he cast aside the windsurfer’s cover, readied the board, pulled on his goggles, shoved his feet into the supports and heaved up the sail. It crackled with energy. The wind funneled through crevasses and curves, snatched at the board’s wing and hurtled him forward. He nudged the sail, pulled the wishbone control bar to him and shredded the face of the snow wave. He needed speed, direction and a jump-off point to clear those inhospitable fences. This was Bobby’s own windsurfer. The champion had the fastest and the best, and Max didn’t know if he could handle it. Built for speed, the short board skimmed across the snowfield. Max tugged on the wishbone and the twelve-square-meter racing sail responded, the rigid aerofoil holding him on course. The wind gusted and he trimmed the
sail again; it pulled at his shoulder sockets, while the cold air stung his cheeks. This was flying! He was really moving now. But it was no joy ride. He was speeding towards the lip of the rock’s curved snow face. When he hit that he would be plucked into the air, thrown like a sycamore seed into the wind, spiraling away—how helplessly he didn’t know. The angle of his takeoff dictated he would gain a lot of height quickly and then somersault. He was suddenly back in Mont la Croix and his snowboarding failure. He had to get a mighty lift here; control the topsy-turvy spin or he was finished. The razor wire could savage him and leave him bleeding to death, or, if he hit the electric fence, he was toast.

The board hissed across the snow. The wind chased him, white flurries tumbling ahead of the board’s snout. Max saw the void, the wind’s swirling confusion, the point of no return.
Wham!
The wind socked him, nearly wrenching the wishbone from his hands.

Silence. The board left the ground. A whoosh of air. The blurred, transparent sail creaked with pressure as it cartwheeled through space. Giddying images of the wire and electric fence swirled below him. Could he clear them? Did he have the distance? He seemed to be in the air forever. The board righted itself; he shifted his weight instinctively, helping the board find its balance. He thumped into the ground, nearly lost control, exactly as he had at the snowboarding competition, but this time he let the seat of his pants drag down in the snow and used the sail’s wishbone to keep the board steady. He had cleared everything by barely a few meters.

Max yelled a triumphant cry. That was better than any competition prize.

With a quick glance behind him, he saw Tishenko’s defenses. He’d beaten them. It gave him an added boost of strength. Nothing could stop him now. He was getting closer to the mountain and the man who held his friend. And closer to impending disaster.

Tishenko descended inside his mountain. Machinery and piping lay snug against the rock face: this was where the engineers and construction workers left all their equipment. The hoist lift was far removed from the supersmooth lifts that usually whisked him to his high lair. The open platform was used for bringing equipment down into this cavernous chamber.

Running water ran between the back of the cages and the wall, a sluice carrying melting ice that had tumbled into underground caverns and, as water will, sought out the line of least resistance. This was where Tishenko had kept captured animals over the years—before he honored them with the hunt.

Tishenko walked along the cages, the strong animal smell drawing him closer to one in particular. The additional chill of the cold water soothed the heat that seemed to always lie beneath the layer of his burnt skin. This was the last beast held captive. There had been no need to build the big square cages at this end of the cavern. Only the front wall, from where Tishenko’s men could toss dead fish and blubber-rich seal to the great creature, was rigid with bars. The remaining walls were translucent sheets of ice.

The near-freezing water from the sluice spilled into a pool before continuing on its journey. Ideal for one of the most fearsome creatures from the far north. The polar bear’s head
broke the surface of the water, and it gazed at him. With a flurry of water the giant dragged itself clear and raised itself up to its full height.

Tishenko measured him with his eyes. He was magnificent. Over three meters high, weighing six hundred kilograms. Massive strength and unrivaled hunting skills. Frightening. Take the DNA of a wild hunting beast and merge it with human intelligence. What creature might be born from such a genetic union?

Climate change meant the bears were losing the ice earlier each year in the frozen wastelands of the Arctic. Their food resources were becoming scarcer and their aggression towards humans more pronounced. Tishenko had paid a small fortune to have him captured and brought here. He was the biggest, most aggressive male they could find. His DNA had been taken; now he would be the last animal Tishenko would hunt down before …

The thought of tomorrow stopped him. Tomorrow would be the most awesome of days.

His phone rang.

Sharkface had returned.

Max climbed around what appeared to be a massive entrance at the base of the mountain and, as he clambered hundreds of meters up the side of the mountain, he saw Sharkface’s 4×4 pass beneath him and disappear from view. He told himself he’d made the correct decision by stealing the boat. Sharkface must have been held up by traffic.

Max scanned the uninviting rocks. There were several
fissures in the almost sheer face of the north wall. This coldest and darkest side, encrusted with snow and ice, offered no easy climb, but Max spotted a cleft that would allow him to edge towards one of the chimneylike funnels. Of all the ridges and crevasses only one did not have snow or ice on its rim. Warm air was coming up from somewhere. It had to be an opening. That was Max’s way in.
Don’t go where your mind hasn’t been first
. Max studied the route, visualized where to climb, identifying footholds and fist-jams.

It took almost an hour to free-climb across the treacherous face of the mountain. As he edged higher he saw the distant sun devoured by jawlike peaks. To the north a rumble of thunder heralded the beginning of a storm. It was at least eighty or ninety kilometers away, but Max knew that if it advanced rapidly this was the last place he wanted to be. A crevasse on a mountainside was a favorite place for lightning strikes.

Max squeezed down into the chimney, his headlamp casting its light a few meters beneath his feet. The sharp rock split about ten meters below. Bracing his back and legs, he edged downwards. From the void to the left, too narrow to clamber through, was the unmistakable smell of animals—like a zoo—pungent and rich. There were no sounds, but it was this rising air that had warmed the chimney. The tunnel below his feet on the right was wider and he might be able to squeeze down, but he could see the dull reflection of ice. An ice crevasse is impossible to descend without the right equipment. What was the choice? Climb back out? No. He’d get down the ice chute somehow.

Max wedged his legs against a sliver of rock, unslung his backpack and searched for a small plastic container, no bigger
than a matchbox, that was tucked in a Velcro pocket. Sharp edges of rock caught his knees, sweat ran into his eyes, and if he slipped from this tenuous foothold he would plunge into the narrow pipe of rock and shatter his legs. Shock, pain and loss of blood would mean he’d be dead in less than an hour. The claustrophobic chimney started to get to him. He hated small spaces at the best of times, but imagination can make matters worse. No! The rock walls were not moving closer! He steadied himself, taking comfort from the headlamp’s glow.

His fear back under control, Max scrunched down again and lifted one foot clear of the slippery rock. His off-road trainers had good grip but not enough for that ice chute—however, they did have four small sockets in each sole to screw spikes into for additional grip. He blew on his fingertips. He dared not drop any of those slender spikes. After a couple of minutes he completed the task. Now he had some grip for the ice wall. Max pulled off his headlamp, eased it over his left foot, tightened the strap, so the lamp angled downwards but was clear of the spikes, and took his first tentative step into the unknown.

Having convinced himself that the mountain had caves or excavated chambers inside, Max thought it logical to believe that the wild animals were on one side and there was a separate chamber on the other. Logic doesn’t always work like that, but he had no choice. Besides, it made him feel better to believe it.

Legs straining, back pressing as hard as possible against the wall, his backpack allowing at least some traction, he lowered himself into the dangerous ice. As his left foot found purchase on the wall the light shone downwards. Max could
see what lay beneath him. A curve in the chimney was coming up. He prayed that it didn’t turn into a sheer drop, because if it did he had no chance.

The angle steepened. There was a faint blue tinge of light creeping up the shaft that was not from the lamp strapped to his foot. Tendons and muscles stretched as he tried to slow his downward slide. The spikes were ripped from the soles of his trainers; he was going to hit
something
soon. But what? He pulled his knees together, bent his legs slightly, got his arms up around his head, elbows tucked in, and took a deep breath. He plummeted down.

An eerie blue glow flashed across his vision as the chute spat him out. Where the mouth of the chimney ended, a frozen undulating wave of ice curved down from the rock face into a huge hall. He was ten meters up from the floor, but the rolling curve caught him like a theme park ride, breaking his fall.