The Day After Tomorrow

147

VON HOLDEN waited in the snow, back from the empty runs where they kept the sled dogs during the day. The box in the black backpack rested nearby. In his hands he cradled a nine-millimeter Skorpion automatic pistol mounted with a flame and sound suppressor. It was light and maneuverable and had a thirty-two-round magazine. Osborn, he was certain, would be armed, as he had been the night in the Tiergarten. There was no way to know how well trained he was, but it made little difference because this time Von Holden would give him no opportunity.

Fifty feet away, between himself and the ski school door, Vera stood in the darkness. She was handcuffed to a safety railing that followed the icy path toward the dog runs. She could cry, scream, anything. Out here in the dark, with the restaurant closing up for the night, the only one who would hear her was Osborn when he came out. Fifty feet was close enough for her to be heard and seen by Osborn but far enough away form the building for anyone who might be inside looking out. Von Holden’s purpose was to get them both away and into the darkness past the dog runs where the killing would be best. That was why he’d left Vera where he had. She was serving the purpose he had planned for her from the beginning. Except that now, instead of a hostage, she had become bait.

Forty yards beyond her the ski school door at the end of the Ice Palace tunnel opened, light spilled out, and a lone figure emerged from it. A thick stand of heavy icicles by the door glistened in the darkness, then the door closed and the figure stood silhouetted against the snow. A moment later it moved forward.

Vera watched Osborn come; he was walking in a snowmobile track that was used for the dogsled rides and looking straight ahead. She knew he was vulnerable in the darkness because his eyes would take time to adjust to the dim light. Glancing back she saw Von Holden shoulder the pack and slide backward over a small crest and out of sight. He had brought her out of the Ice Palace through an air shaft, then handcuffed her without a word and walked off. Whatever he was planning had been carefully thought out, and whatever it was, Osborn was walking right into the middle of it.

“Paul!” Vera’s cry resonated across the darkness. “He’s out here waiting. Go back! Telephone the police!”

Osborn stopped and looked in her direction.

“Go back, Paul! He’ll kill you!”

Vera saw Osborn hesitate, then abruptly move sideways and disappear from sight. Immediately she looked to where Von Holden had gone but saw nothing. It was then she realized it had begun to snow. For a moment there was nothing but silence and she saw her own breath in the cold; Suddenly she felt the press of steel against her temple.

“Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.” Osborn was right there, McVey’s .38 at her head, his eyes searching the darkness beyond her. Suddenly he looked at her. “Where is he?” he hissed. His stare was fierce, unforgiving.

“Paul—?” she cried out. What was he doing?

“I said where is he?”

OH-GOD-NO! Suddenly she realized. He believed she was one of them. Part of the Organization. “Paul,” she pleaded, “Von Holden took me from jail in his custody. He said he was a German federal policeman, that he was bringing me to you.”

Osborn eased the weapon back. Again he looked away, probing in the darkness. Suddenly his right foot shot out and there was a crack life a rifle shot. The wooden handrail split in two and Vera was freed from her tether, her hands still cuffed together in front of her.

“Walk,” he said, shoving her forward toward the dog run, keeping her tightly between him and Von Holden’s line of fire.

“Don’t, Paul, please—”

Osborn ignored her. Ahead was the closed ski school and beyond it the wood and wire runs where they kept the sled dogs during the day. Then, just past them, a faint blue light shown through the falling snow like an hallucination. Osborn pulled her back, glancing over his shoulder behind them. There was nothing. He turned back.

“That light. What is it?”

“It’s—” Vera hesitated. “... an air shaft. A tunnel. How we came out from the Ice Palace.”

“Is that where he is?”

Osborn twisted her around to face him. “Is that where he is? Yes or no.”

He didn’t see her; he saw only someone he was certain had betrayed him. He was afraid and desperate but he was going on nonetheless.

“I don’t know.” Vera was terrified. If Von Holden was there and they went inside after him, there were any number of twists and turns where he could wait in ambush.

Osborn glanced quickly around, then moved her forward again toward the circle of light spilling from the shaft. The only sound was the mutter of the wind and the crunch of their feet on the snow. Seconds passed and they were at the dog runs and almost to the light.

“He’s not in the tunnel at all, is he, Vera?” Osborn swept the darkness, trying to see through the snow. “But out in the dark, waiting until you lead me into the light, like a duck in a shooting gallery. You wouldn’t even be at risk. He’s a marksman, a trained Spetsnaz soldier.”

How could he not understand what had happened to her, not believe she was telling the truth?

“Dahimit, Paul! Listen to me—” Vera was starting to turn around, to look at him. Suddenly she stopped. There were tracks in the snow in front of them. In the bluish glow of the light, Osborn saw them too. Footprints dusted over, by fresh snow, leading from where they were directly toward the tunnel. Von Holden had stood where they were only moments before.

Abruptly Osborn jerked her aside, roughing her into the shadows against the wood and wire of the dog runs. Then he looked back, studying the tracks.

She could see him trying to decide what to do next. He was exhausted. Very nearly at the end of his rope. Von Holden was on his mind and nothing else. He was making mistakes and didn’t realize it. And if he went on as he was, in a short while Von Holden would kill them both.

“Paul, look at me!” suddenly she screamed at him, her voice rocked with emotion. “Look at me.”

For a long moment he stayed motionless, the snow falling silently around him. Then slowly, reluctantly, he turned to her. Despite the cold he was soaked with sweat.

“Listen to me, please,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how you’ve come to the conclusions you have. The truth is I’ve nothing to do with Von Holden or the Organization and never have. This is the moment when you must believe me, you have to believe me and trust me. Believe and. trust that what we have together is real and transcends anything else—anything . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Osborn stared at her. She’d hit a chord deep within him, a nerve he no longer thought was. there. If he chose no, that was one thing. Simple and done with. To choose yes was to trust beyond anything he knew or had ever known. To cast himself, his father, everything, aside. Make it all irrelevant. To say, after everything—I do trust you and my love for you—and if in doing that I die, then I die.

It would have to be total trust. Total.

Vera was looking at him. Waiting. Behind her, through the falling snow, were the lights of the restaurant. It was all on him. What he chose.

Ever so slowly he raised his hand and touched her cheek.

“It’s all right,” he said, finally. “It’s all right.”