Ice Claw

4

Max was relieved to see the battered blue van at the far end of the hospital parking lot. Snowboards and windsurfers in their covers were strapped on the roof rack. The sliding door was open and Bobby Morrell was sitting in a folding chair, as were a couple of other teenagers Max recognized from the competition. The French police were strict about drinking in public and no one wanted trouble, so Bobby and his friends sipped hot coffee and ate hot dogs.

“Hey,” Bobby said with a big grin when he saw Max. “Got your message. Thought you’d be in the hospital a while-but look at you. Got your backpack in the van.”

Max nodded at them and gratefully accepted a mug of coffee. “I’m OK. Hospital food’s grim and-can you believe it? — they hacked off my jacket.” A hot dog was already filling his mouth-squelching, soggy sausage doused in ketchup. Sweet mush slithering down, satisfying his hunger.

“Yeah? Not a problem,” Bobby said, and gestured to one of the others, who ducked inside the van and came out a moment later with a really cool snowboarder’s jacket. “Try that. One of the guys left his gear in my van. He’s about your size. Take whatever you need; he won’t be back for a couple of weeks.”

The jacket was a good fit. Max nodded his thanks. “Where’s Peaches?”

Bobby shrugged, made a grunting, squashy sound and shoved more food into his mouth. “Cut out. Just a sore loser. We’ll connect in Biarritz at my gran’s place. Girls, eh?”

“Yeah,” Max said, wishing he had Bobby’s experience. “Girls.

“I never had a chance to thank you, Bobby. If you hadn’t alerted the mountain ski patrol, I’d still be out there like an ice cube.”

Bobby spluttered flecks of food. “Nah, that was nothing. Anyway, didn’t think you’d make it with an avalanche like that. But you did. That’s cool. Sometimes you get lucky. I didn’t come down and see you ’cause we had an ace party and did some riding on the new snow. I figured it was no good being here holding your hand. Y’know.”

“Can’t miss a good ride,” Max agreed. He washed down what was left in his mouth with a swig of coffee. “You said you could put us up for a couple of days.”

“Sure. My crazy grandmother has a place in Biarritz. I figured we’d get a couple of weeks’ surfing, then we’ll split and head for the Alps. They’re expecting good snow and we can get work in the chalets. Bed and food and free ski passes.”

Max was silent. He cleaned his teeth with his tongue. The coast was less than two hours away if they went down the motorway, probably double that if they took the country road. He had everything he needed in his backpack for a couple of days in the mountains, but he wanted to make sure Sayid was looked after until he got back.

By tomorrow the doctors would probably want him and Max on a plane back to England. Trouble was, Max didn’t want to go back. Not yet. The kayak attack was clearly meant to cause him serious injury for saving Sophie in the village that night. If the organized crime gangs dealing in endangered species were using these mountain passes to ship animals through Spanish ports and into France and the rest of Europe, Max was at the sharp end right now.

In his heart he knew that even though animal smugglers might have associated him with Sophie, the real mystery was something entirely different. Pursued across the snow and then shot, Zabala had made an enormous effort to pull the rosary and the pendant from his neck before he died. Max still heard the man’s desperate and insistent shouts just before he fell to his death, telling him to find an abbey and whatever connection it held to a crocodile and a snake. Why? It was something so important the man had taken his dying breath trying to pass it on to him with a final warning about Lucifer. The Fallen Angel-was that part of the mysterious monk’s message? Max knew what his dad would do. He’d honor the dying man’s pleas and try to discover his secret. If the police became involved, any impetus would be lost as they set up a lumbering investigation, so they shouldn’t be told-not yet anyway. Max had to make a decision: stay and find out more about the monk, or go home and forget the whole thing? There is no choice, is there, Dad?

Fragmented pieces of clues, shards of information like a broken mirror. How do you put all that back together? he wondered.

“Keep Sayid with you. I need to go and look for something. It’s important, Bobby. But you have to trust me, I can’t talk about it yet.”

“What I don’t know, I can’t tell.” Bobby smiled. “What do you need?”

Max quickly explained his plan. He had no sooner finished than he saw the distant blue-tinged headlights of a car as it turned off the road towards the hospital. He had run out of time.

It was a black Audi.

Bobby’s van lurched up to the hospital entrance, then stalled. Raucous music blasted the night air as the snowboarders piled out and tried to push-start it.

The two night-duty staff were quickly out of the hospital’s doors, demanding they turn off the music. There were patients sleeping! After some furious gestures from the staff, Bobby finally realized they did not like his taste or the volume of his music. He did as he was told and turned it off, mumbling apologies about being lost, saying that he was an American, that this was a really pretty town but how did anyone find their way around this one-way system? He managed all of this in really bad French, despite the fact he could speak the language fluently.

Finally everything and everyone quietened. Bobby conveniently got the van started just about the same time he saw Max move through the entrance, past the now-unmanned security desk, and into an elevator.

The corridors and wards were quiet and mostly in semi-darkness. Two or three voices murmured somewhere in the distance. There was a clink of metal from a trolley, a sigh from a closing door and the hum of an elevator as it sank down to the basement. Max walked quickly; he did not want to be seen or heard up here on the wards, so he stayed close to the wall, where the downlighters created the most shadow. His father had taught him to stalk animals in the jungle so they could get close enough to capture them in the camera lens. Walking on the edge of the foot lessened any sound of impact and that was what Max did now, but he moved quickly.

The corridor’s windows looked onto the car park, and six floors down he could see the dull sheen reflected from the men’s leather jackets as they got out of their car. Max recognized them instantly as the men from the mountainside road at the kayak rapids. They glanced around the near-empty parking area. One nodded to the other and they split up. The bigger of the two men walked towards the reception area; the other skirted around the back of the building.

Who were these guys?

A chair scraped. Someone moved. Max pressed against the wall and peered round the corner into a nurse’s duty room. A night nurse had pushed her chair back from her desk. If she came out into the corridor she’d walk right into him. Max looked at the room’s reflection in the corridor windows opposite. The nurse tapped a handful of patients’ files into a neat block, tucked them under her arm and moved towards the door. No matter what explanation Max could come up with, she would be suspicious and phone security. Skulking in a corridor was going to be a difficult one to explain.

Max reached into his pocket and found a coin. He lobbed it gently across the doorway, saw it land edge-on and roll against a filing cabinet. The nurse heard the tinkering coin, turned to follow its path, searched for it and finally bent down to retrieve it. By which time Max was gone.

He passed a few private rooms and felt uncertainty tug in his stomach. Was this the correct floor? He couldn’t remember the room; it all looked different at night. Then he heard the sound he needed.

Within moments he opened the door to Sayid’s room. His best friend lay in bed, mouth wide open, snoring as contentedly as a pig in straw. Max shook him gently. Sayid gasped, turned over and began to snore even more loudly. Max shook him again, harder this time, but he didn’t budge. He put his hand over Sayid’s mouth to try and make him gasp for air. His friend suddenly became quiet, then started to spasm. Max released his hand and Sayid sucked in a lungful of air; as he did, Max tipped the glass of bedside water over his face.

Sayid choked. Max held his spluttering face in his hands and whispered urgently, “Sayid! Quiet! It’s me!”

Sayid’s eyes blinked open. He stopped coughing and gazed blearily at Max. “Max … hey … what are you … They … gave me … drugs …”

“What?”

“Yeah … tol’ them … I … er … I was in a … lot … of pain …” Sayid laughed stupidly. “It worked … see? Ha-ha … worked a treat …”

Sayid started to fall asleep again. Max shook him. Sayid opened his eyes again. “Max. Hi. Just had a dream about you…. You poured water … Hey, whaddya doing here?”

He was clearly out of it. Max couldn’t spend any more time trying to explain or, come to that, get his friend out of bed and dressed. Max shook him again. “Sayid, listen. We have to get out. Stay with me a bit longer, mate!” he said, gently slapping his face.

Sayid rallied. “Yeah, yeah. Right there, Max. Go where?”

“I’ll explain later.” Max hauled him out of bed, with Sayid trying to help. He got him into the wheelchair, raised the leg support and stuffed a blanket around him. Sayid’s head nodded onto his chest. Max tugged Sayid’s hair. His head snapped up again.

“It’s OK! I’m awake!” Sayid slurred.

Max opened the cupboard and dumped Sayid’s clothes and boots onto the bed. He bundled them into the cotton blanket and shoved it onto Sayid’s lap. He realized that if Sayid fell asleep again he’d slide out of the wheelchair. Tearing a length of sheet, he wrapped it beneath Sayid’s armpits, tying him securely.

Max heard the hum of the elevator. Someone was coming.

Grabbing the two crutches, he jammed one down the side of the torn sheet binding and locked the support grip of the other onto Sayid’s arm.

“Sayid, listen. You’ve got to stay awake long enough to shove open all the doors with that crutch, otherwise your foot’s gonna get clobbered when we go through them. Ready?”

Sayid nodded, licked his dry lips. “Water,” he croaked.

Max held the water carafe to Sayid’s lips and let him guzzle a few mouthfuls.

“That’s enough, mate. You’re not a camel and there’re no toilet stops,” Max said.

A quick glance out of the door told him the coast was clear. He pushed the wheelchair into the corridor, turned away from the main elevator and aimed straight for the left-hand side of two big swing doors. He heard the elevator stop and the floor signal ping.

“Here we go! Hold on!”

Sayid gripped the battering-ram crutch. They hit the door. The long corridor on the other side was a cluttered service area. There were a few wheelchairs, a couple of trolleys and a left-hand bend to negotiate. But Max could not get around the corner. Someone had jammed a cleaning wagon full of disinfectant and mops across the corridor, using it as a last place to park its awkward bulk. Max had seen the sign for the service elevator, but this way of escape was blocked.

He looked over his shoulder. Whoever had been on their way up must, by now, be close to Sayid’s room.

“Hang on a minute, Sayid.”

Max ran back to the double doors, peered through the laser-thin crack and saw the approaching figure of the stubble-faced man. His bulk and size looked out of place in the clinical sterility of the hospital. Max reasoned he had convinced the nursing staff to let him in. Maybe he’d told them he was a relative. Whatever ruse he’d used it didn’t matter-he was here. The night nurse accompanied him, and Max heard her say, “The boy has already discharged himself … but his friend is still here.” The man stayed in the corridor as the nurse stepped into Sayid’s room.

The man waited. Max held his breath. He could hear the soft creak of the man’s leather jacket as it strained to hold his muscles. The dark face turned and looked directly at the double doors. Where Max crouched was a darker area than the corridor, but he knew that if he yielded to his instinctive fear of being seen, then that is precisely what would happen. If you’re being hunted, don’t move. It’s movement that gives you away. His dad’s words echoed in his mind. Max dismissed his fear. Stand still, he told himself. Tough it out. Give in to the temptation and it would cause a change of shadow and light. Anyone with a hunter’s eye would spot it immediately. And Max knew that the man in the corridor was more than a hunter. He had the look of a seasoned killer.

Max did not move.

The man turned and stepped towards him. Max readied himself. The best he could hope for was that he could ram the man’s shoulder against the double doors and knock him off his feet. He knew body weight like that wouldn’t go down easily, even if he took the guy by surprise. But he had no choice. There was nothing else he could do. The man was less than half a dozen paces away. Max held his breath and readied himself, the torsion in his body bracing him for a bigger shove than any rugby scrum demanded.

“Monsieur!” the nurse whispered urgently.

The big man stopped and turned to face her.

“He is not here. Perhaps the bathroom? It’s this way. I had better check,” she said quietly.

The cones of light above the man’s head darkened his face, but his eyes penetrated the shadow. Max held his breath, heart banging away in his chest. It was a split-second moment-was the man going to take those extra few paces and push open the door? In less time than it took to think about, the heavyset man turned and followed the nurse.

Max sighed as quietly as he could.

There was nothing else but to jolt Sayid down the flight of steps to the floor below. It was a slow, muscle-straining process, and by the time they got there Max felt his T-shirt clinging to his back with sweat. He prayed he wouldn’t have to do this down every floor. He turned the corner, avoided another cleaning trolley, and, like a welcome sign on a lonely night, the service elevator doors were already open. Max said a silent thank-you to whatever night-cleaning staff had last got out on that floor.

Max wheeled Sayid inside the broad-sided elevator. His finger hovered over the floor buttons. Where had the second man gone? The back of the hospital was most likely. Safest bet for Max and Sayid was the basement. That might offer another hiding place for a while and then a way out. Max pressed the button.

The doors shuddered closed and the creaky elevator graunched its way down. When it finally groaned to a halt, a maze of service corridors faced Max and Sayid. Air-duct pipes ran along the ceiling, and licorice-twisted cables, color-coded red, green and blue, clung to the rough cement roof. A choice had to be made.

“What do you reckon, Sayid? There should be an under-ground parking garage for the ambulances somewhere … left, right or center?”

Sayid’s head nodded onto his chest again.

“I’ll take that as a yes then to all of the above-and take potluck,” Max said.

He pushed the wheelchair straight ahead, towards the darkened end of a corridor-more of a tunnel than anything else-but Max had smelled a slight whiff of car exhaust from somewhere, and he thought it came from that direction.

No sooner had he made the decision than he heard someone push the bar on a fire door a couple of floors above. He waited a second. He listened. Nothing. But then there was an almost inaudible footfall of a rubber sole catching the lip of a step. Someone was moving slowly down the emergency staircase. There were only a dozen steps between Max and the first turn of the stairwell. If whoever was coming down decided to move more quickly, they would see Max and Sayid in no time at all.

Max put his hand over Sayid’s mouth. His friend’s eyes opened.

“We have to hide. Someone’s coming,” Max whispered.

That got Sayid’s attention. A rush of fear pumped adrenaline. He steadied the crutch as Max pushed him towards the nearest door. Gently, they eased through to an older-looking corridor. A fluorescent ceiling light crackled and flickered over a linoleum floor. A different smell here. Not disinfectant. Something else. Max couldn’t put his finger on it. He stopped the door swinging closed behind them from disturbing the air-a sound that would be heard to anyone half listening. And Max’s guess was that whoever was creeping down those stairs would be listening for any sound at all.

There was no time to go farther. A double-tiered trolley stood in the corridor. Neatly folded on top were a rubber under blanket and a cotton sheet. Opposite, a door with a slide bolt and with a transom window above was the only other exit to be seen. A small sign read: MORGUE.

“Hang on a sec,” Max whispered.

He eased the bolt. Inside the room was a wall of stainless-steel refrigerators, each with a door big enough to slide a body in, and there was another trolley, like the one outside. It was obviously used for bringing bodies from the wards or, as Max hoped, from down that other corridor, where he reckoned the underground parking garage was located and where ambulances might arrive to deliver their fatalities.

Max knelt next to Sayid and whispered in his ear, “We’ll go in there. It’s pretty gloomy and there’s a trolley we can hide in like this one. You go underneath; I’ll go on top with a sheet over me. Chances are whoever it is won’t want to go poking around a mortuary. I should be able to hold my breath long enough to fool them.”

Sayid shook his head. “Not a chance.”

“This is no time to be squeamish, mate. Someone’s coming down those stairs and I bet it’s not nursey to tuck you up for the night.”

“No. Can’t go in there, Max. Can’t,” Sayid whispered back.

“They won’t hurt you. They’re dead,” Max assured him. “They’re in the fridge, like last week’s leftovers.”

Sayid’s eyes scrunched tight and he shook his head adamantly. There was no time to argue. Someone had pushed a swing door on the floor above them. Whoever was up there, they were checking the corridors.

“All right! Blimey, Sayid, you make life difficult at times.”

“Me!” Sayid whispered indignantly.

A door clanged shut above their heads. They looked up, trying to imagine the intruder walking back towards the stairs. Max grabbed Sayid’s arm.

“Wheelchair stays here, you climb underneath this trolley. I’ll go in there,” Max said, with a nod towards the mortuary door.

Sayid eased himself onto the bottom tier of the trolley as Max threw the sheet across the top so that it draped over the whole thing.

He poked his head under the corner of the sheet. “Stay dead quiet until I come and get you.”

“This is no time for making jokes, Max!”

“I’m not. He’s going to come through those doors, so whatever you do-don’t move!” Max told him.

Sayid lay rigid, clutching the clothes bundle to his chest as Max dropped the sheet corner back.

Inside the mortuary Max eased the door closed so the lock didn’t catch, its edge resting against the frame; then he climbed under the trolley as he had shown Sayid. This sheet was shorter than the last. It wouldn’t cover the length of his body or the whole trolley. Max pulled off his boots and socks and rolled his cargo pants to his knees. Tucking a boot under each armpit, he lay down on the top of the trolley, pulled the sheet over his head and straightened himself out, as if at attention, determined not to move. The cold air on his bare feet made him want to rub them together. They would be drained of warmth and blood any minute now. Placing his heels together, he let each foot drop away naturally from the other. No sooner had he settled his breathing than he heard the swing doors whisper open.

Max prayed Sayid didn’t lose his nerve.