Icebound (19 page)

He wished that he had a gun.

Considering the assault on Brian, it seemed criminally stupid of Harry to have come to the icecap without a large-caliber personal weapon holstered under his parka at all times. Of course, in his experience, geological research had never before required him to shoot anyone.

In a minute, Pete arrived and joined him at the back wall of the U-shaped, roofless shelter.

They faced each other, snow masks pulled down and goggles up on their foreheads, flashlights aimed at their boots. The light bounced back up at them, and Pete’s face glowed as if irradiated. Harry knew that his own countenance looked much the same: brightest around the chin and mouth, darker toward the forehead, eyes glittering from the depths of what appeared to be dark holes in his skull—as spooky as any Halloween mask.

Pete said, “Are we here to gossip about someone? Or have you suddenly taken a romantic interest in me?”

“This is serious, Pete.”

“Damn right it is. If Rita finds out, she’ll beat the crap out of me.”

“Let’s get right to the point. I want to know…why did you try to kill Brian Dougherty?”

“I don’t like the way he parts his hair.”

“Pete, I’m not joking.”

“Well, okay, it was because he called me a darky.”

Harry stared at him but said nothing.

Above their heads, at the crest of the sheltering ridge, the storm wind whistled and huffed through the natural crenelations in the tumbled-together slabs of ice.

Pete’s grin faded. “Man, you
are
serious.”

“Cut the bullshit, Pete.”

“Harry, for God’s sake, what’s going on here?”

Harry watched him for long seconds, using silence to disconcert him, waiting either to be attacked—or not. Finally, he said, “Maybe I believe you.”

“Believe me about what?” The bafflement on the big man’s broad, black face seemed as genuine as any lamb’s sweet look of innocence; the only hint of evil was entirely the theatrical effect from the upwash of the flashlight beams. “Are you saying somebody actually
did
try to kill him? When? Back at the third blasting site, when he got left behind? But he fell, you said.
He
said. He told us that he fell and hit his head. Didn’t he?”

Harry sighed, and some of the tension went out of his neck and shoulders. “Damn. If you
are
the one, you’re good. I believe you really don’t know.”

“Hey, I
know
I really don’t know.”

“Brian didn’t fall and knock himself unconscious, and he wasn’t left behind by accident. Someone struck him on the back of the head. Twice.”

Pete was speechless. His line of work didn’t usually require him to carry a sidearm, either.

As quickly as he could, Harry recounted the conversation that he’d had with Brian in the snowmobile cabin a few hours ago.

“Jesus!” Pete said. “And you thought I might be the one.”

“Yeah. Although I didn’t suspect you as much as I do some of the others.”

“You thought I might go for your throat a minute ago.”

“I’m sorry. I like you a hell of a lot, Pete. But I’ve known you only eight or nine months, after all. There could be things you’ve hidden from me, certain attitudes, prejudices—”

Pete shook his head. “Hey, you don’t have to explain yourself. You had no reason to trust me further than you did the others. I’m not asking for an apology. I’m just saying you’ve got guts. You aren’t exactly a little guy, but physically I’m more than a match for you.”

Harry had to look up to see Pete’s face, and suddenly his friend seemed more of a giant than ever before. Shoulders almost too broad for a conventional doorway. Massive arms. If he had accepted those offers to play pro football, he would have been a formidable presence on the field, and if a polar bear showed up now, he might be able to give it a good fight.

“If I’d been this psycho,” Pete said, “and if I’d decided to kill you here and now, you wouldn’t have had much chance.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t have any choice. I needed one more ally, and you were the best prospect. By the way, thanks for not tearing my head off.”

Pete coughed and spat in the snow. “I’ve changed my mind about you, Harry. You don’t have a hero complex after all. This is just perfectly natural for you, this kind of courage. You’re built this way. This is how you came into the world.”

“I only did what I had to do,” Harry said impatiently. “So long as we were stranded on this iceberg, so long as it appeared that we were all going to die at midnight, I thought Rita and I could watch over Brian. I figured our would-be killer might take advantage of any opening we gave him at the boy, but I didn’t think he’d bother to engineer any opportunities. But with this submarine on the way…Well, if he thinks Brian will be rescued, he might do something bold. He might make another attempt on the boy’s life, even if he has to reveal himself to do it. And I need someone besides Rita and me to help stop him when the time comes.”

“And I’ve been nominated.”

“Congratulations.”

A whirl of wind crested the ridge and swooped down on them. They lowered their heads while a column of spinning snow passed over them, so dense that it seemed almost like an avalanche. For a few seconds they were blinded and deafened. Then the squall-within-a-storm passed out of the open end of the crescent ridge.

Pete said, “So far as you’re concerned, is there any one of them we should watch more closely than the others?”

“I ought to have asked you that question. I already know what Rita, Brian, and I think. I need a fresh perspective.”

Pete didn’t have to ponder the question to come up with an answer. “George Lin,” he said at once.

“That was my own first choice.”

“Not first and last? So you think he’s too obvious?”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t rule him out.”

“What’s wrong with him, anyway? I mean, the way he acts with Brian, the anger—what’s that all about?”

“I’m not sure,” Harry said. “Something happened to him in China when he was a child, very young. It must’ve been in the last days of Chiang’s rule, something traumatic. He seems to connect Brian to that, because of his family’s politics.”

“And the pressure we’ve been under these past nine hours might have snapped him.”

“I suppose it’s possible.”

“But it doesn’t feel right.”

“Not quite.”

They thought about it.

Pete Johnson started walking in place to keep his feet from getting chilled. Harry followed suit, stepping smartly up and down, going nowhere.

After a minute or so, still exercising, Pete said, “What about Franz Fischer?”

“What about him?”

“He’s cool toward you. And toward Rita. Not cool toward
her
exactly…but there’s sure something odd in the way he looks at her.”

“You’re observant.”

“Maybe it’s professional jealousy because of all these science awards the two of you have piled up the last few years.”

“He’s not that petty.”

“What then?” When Harry hesitated, Pete said, “None of my business?”

“He knew her when.”

“Before she married you?”

“Yes. They were lovers.”

“So he
is
jealous, but not because of the awards.”

“Apparently, yeah.”

“She’s a terrific lady,” Pete said. “Anybody who lost her to you would not be likely to think you’re such a great guy. You ever think maybe that should have been a reason not to bring Franz onto this team?”

“If Rita and I could put that part of the past behind us, why couldn’t he?”

“Because he’s not you and Rita, man. He’s a self-involved science nerd, for one thing. He may be good-looking and smart and sophisticated in some ways, but he’s basically insecure. Probably accepted the invitation to join the expedition just so Rita would have a chance to compare him and you under extreme conditions. He probably thought you’d stumble around like a dweeb here on the ice, while he’d be Nanook of the North, larger than life, a macho man by comparison. From day one, of course, he must have realized it wasn’t going to work out that way, which explains why he’s been so bitchy.”

“Doesn’t make sense.”

“Does to me.”

Harry stopped exercising, afraid of working up a chilling sweat. “Franz might hate me and perhaps even Rita, but how do his feelings toward
us
translate into an attack on Brian?”

After a dozen more steps, Pete also quit walking in place. “Who knows how a psychopath’s mind works?”

Harry shook his head. “It might be Franz. But not because he’s jealous of me.”

“Breskin?”

“He’s a cipher.”

“He strikes me as
too
self-contained.”

“We always tend to suspect the loner,” Harry said, “the quiet man who keeps to himself. But that’s no more logical than suspecting Franz merely because he had a relationship with Rita years ago.”

“Why did Breskin emigrate to Canada from the U.S.?”

“I don’t recall. Maybe he never said.”

“Could have been for political reasons,” Pete suggested.

“Yeah, maybe. But Canada and the U.S. have basically similar politics. I mean, if a man leaves his homeland and takes citizenship in a new country, you’d expect him to go somewhere that was radically different, a whole other system of government, economics.” Harry sniffed as he felt his nose beginning to run. “Besides, Roger had a chance to kill the kid early this afternoon. When Brian was dangling over the cliff, trying to reach George, Roger could have cut the rope. Who would have been the wiser?”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to kill anyone but Brian. Maybe that’s his only obsession. If he had cut the rope, he wouldn’t have been able to save Lin all by himself.”

“He could have cut it after Lin was brought up.”

“But then George would have been a witness.”

“What psychopath has that degree of self-control? Besides, I’m not sure that George was in any condition to be a witness, little more than half conscious at that point.”

“But like you said, Roger’s a cipher.”

“We’re going in circles.”

As they breathed, the vapor they expelled crystallized between them. The cloud had become so thick that they could not see each other clearly, though they were no more than two feet apart.

Waving the fog out of their way and far enough from the sheltering ridge wall for a draft to catch it, Pete said, “We’re left with Claude.”

“He seems the least likely of the lot.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Fifteen years. Sixteen. Thereabouts.”

“You’ve been on the ice with him before?”

“Several times,” Harry said. “He’s a wonderful man.”

“He often talks about his late wife. Colette. He still gets teary about it, shaky. When did she die?”

“Three years ago this month. Claude was on the ice, his first expedition in two and a half years, when she was murdered.”

“Murdered?”

“She’d flown from Paris to London on a holiday. She was in England just three days. The IRA had planted a bomb in a restaurant where she went for lunch. She was one of the eight killed in the blast.”

“Good God!”

“They caught one of the men involved. He’s still in prison.”

Pete said, “And Claude took it very hard.”

“Oh, yes. Colette was great. You’d have liked her. She and Claude were as close as Rita and I.”

For a moment neither of them spoke.

At the top of the ridge, the wind moaned like a revenant trapped between this world and the next. Again, the ice reminded Harry of a graveyard. He shuddered.

Pete said, “If a man is deeply in love with a woman, and she’s taken from him, blown to pieces by a bomb—he might be twisted by the loss.”

“Not Claude. Broken, yes. Depressed, yes. But not twisted. He’s the kindest—”

“His wife was killed by Irishmen.”

“So?”

“Dougherty is Irish.”

“That’s a stretch, Pete. Irish-American, actually. And third generation.”

“You said one of these bombers was apprehended?”

“Yeah. They never nailed any of the others.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“No.”

“Was it Dougherty, anything like Dougherty?”

Harry grimaced and waved one hand dismissively. “Come on now, Pete. You’ve stretched it to the breaking point.”

The big man began to walk in place once more. “I guess I have. But you know…both Brian’s uncle and his father have been accused of playing favorites with their Irish-American constituencies at the expense of other groups. And some people say they sympathized with the IRA’s leftward tilt to the extent that for years they secretly funneled donations to them.”

“I’ve heard it all too. But it was never proved. Political slander, as far as we know. The actual fact is…we have four suspects, and none of them looks like a sure bet.”

“Correction.”

“What?”

“Six suspects.”

“Franz, George, Roger, Claude…”

“And me.”

“I’ve ruled you out.”

“Not at all.”

“Now pull the other leg.”

“I’m serious,” Pete said.

“After the conversation we’ve just had, I know you can’t—”

“Is there a law that says a psychopathic killer can’t be a good actor?”

Harry stared at him, trying to read his expression. Suddenly the malevolence in Johnson’s face didn’t seem to be entirely a trick played by the peculiar backwash of light. “You’re making me edgy, Pete.”

“Good.”

“I know you told me the truth, you’re not the guy. But what you’re saying is that I mustn’t trust anyone, not even for a moment, not even if I think I know him like a brother.”

“Precisely. And it goes for both of us. That’s why the sixth name on the list of suspects is yours.”

“What?
Me?
”

“You were at the third blasting shaft with the rest of us.”

“But I’m the one who found him when we went back.”

“And you were the one who assigned search areas. You could have given yourself the right one, so you’d make sure he was dead before you ‘found’ him. Then Breskin stumbled on you before you had a chance to deal Brian the coup de grâce.”

Harry gaped at him.

“And if you’re twisted enough,” Pete said, “you might not even realize there’s a killer inside you.”