White Death: An Alex Hawke Novella

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“So what you’re saying is that it’s entirely possible that Sorcerer is living somewhere inside a mountain?”

“More than possible. If he’s still alive, that’s where Wolfie and I believe we’ll find him.”

Hawke was scratching his day-old casual Friday stubble.“And thus the focus on Leo Hermann, the man in the three-piece Savile Row suit who fell off the top of a mountain and lost his head.”

“Yes, Alex, that is correct. As you know, Hermann was discovered near the range of mountains where records indicate the honeycombs were sealed with cement in the 1930s.”

“Yes. He was found on a ledge halfway up Der Nadel, was he not?” Hawke said.

“All the more reason to zero in on that particular mountain.”

“Any hard evidence that your suppositions are correct?”

“Yes. Ambrose called me early this morning from Stadtspolizei HQ. The official police forensic autopsy indicates injuries consistent with a fall of roughly six feet into a snowbank. Almost directly below the Murder Wall.”

Hawke asked, “Why not inspect the Wall using helicopters? Find the hidden entrances somewhere on the face?”

“Good thinking. In fact, it was Wolfie’s first thought. We discussed that idea at length but came to the inescapable conclusion that the idea was not feasible. The sound of hovering choppers outside would alert anyone inside. Steel doors would instantly seal the mountain for good. Instantly impenetrable. Impervious to any attack by air, leaving us no choice but to use heavy artillery to blow a hole in the side of our nation’s most infamous tourist attraction.”

“I see your point,” Hawke said, mulling it over.

“You don’t seem very happy about the prospect of scaling the Murder Wall, Alex. Frankly, no one in his right mind could fault you if you decide not to attempt it again. I, for one, would never blame you. You came extremely close to dying up there.”

“No, no,” Hawke said impatiently, “that’s not what I’m thinking about at all.”

“Then what are you thinking about, Alex?” Sigrid said, her eyes suddenly clouded with fear.

“Blinky, get Wolfie on your mobile right away. Tell him we won’t be coming to St. Moritz. Tell him something rather more pressing has come up.”

“You’re going up there, aren’t you?” Sigrid said, her voice trembling.

But Alex never replied.

He was quietly staring at a soaring white peak far in the distance. It stood there, towering over the others surrounding it and putting them all to shame.

The following two weeks flew by with near miraculous speed, he noticed. He spent long days in mental and physical preparation for his imminent ascent. Two frostbiting days in the mountains, three exhausting days in a stifling-hot Tenth Mountain classroom, studying his evolving route of attack. Wolfie’s ranking army alpine experts were merciless to the point of sadism.

They pounded him on everything from projected weather and storm conditions during his ascent to potential avalanche and rock fall danger, to his meds and supplements, his pain tolerance, and his mental stamina.

And, finally, coaching him through a deep-dive investigation into the most recent decade’s history of fatal attempts by climbers seeking to put the notorious White Death on the proper side of their ledgers.

In the late afternoons, while the great criminalist Congreve was working the murder case and the missing Sorcerer, Alex and Wolfie went shopping. Browsing the various alpine gear shops of Zurich, they were like two women trying on dresses at Harrods, though style and glamour were hardly their goal. Wolfie wanted to make sure Hawke was well-equipped before his ascent.

Their only objective was Hawke’s ultimate survival in the coming test of endurance, skill, and luck. Some of his most basic equipment came courtesy of the Swiss Army. But the more sophisticated gear, the highly sophisticated, state-of-the-art climbing equipment and the most advanced survival tools and climbing techniques, all came from a little-known, back-alley shop called Schussboom.

It was very convenient, located off a back street just two blocks from his rooms at the Bauer au Lac. There he met the owner, an elderly man named Luc Bresson, a famous French climber who was both the first and the last man to conquer White Death. M. Bresson was of medium height, bone thin except for his wiry musculature, and exceedingly charming. Blue eyes a’twinkle, a luxuriant white moustache. And laughably bushy white eyebrows sprouting sprigs of hair that looked like the weird antennae of a praying mantis waving about in the breeze.

Bresson’s own story was quite amazing. And when Luc heard Hawke’s tale of his grandfather’s bones and his own doomed attempt to retrieve them, the two men had become fast friends almost instantly. Hawke learned far more in a concentrated half hour with Luc than he had in all the many hours he’d spent in Wolfie’s classroom. In two short days, it seemed that Luc Bresson had become both his mentor and his guardian angel.

It would prove to be one of fate’s better ideas before all this Sturm und Drang was over.

Hawke spent the better part of that warm, sunny Sunday afternoon in mid-December on the deck of a famous restaurant, high in the Alps. A glorious spot, accessible only by cable car. He and Sigrid had invited Blinky to join them in an alpine brunch at Grossescheidegg, a popular five-star restaurant and Gasthaus pitched on the side of a towering mountain.

Hawke stood waiting in the sun on the busy deck, waiting to be shown to their table right next to the rail. He stood transfixed at the sight of the beckoning giant. And he finally came to a startling realization. In truth, he was afraid of that mountain. Even now, seated with his friends at a table on the rail, looking up at the mist-enshrouded pinnacle, his groin tingled with icy fear.

And, yet, still his hands itched for the touch of the bitch’s cold and ragged rock, the looming vertical face before him. He felt exhilarated at just the thought of trying to beat the savage into submission once more. Once again, he found himself eavesdropping on that perverse internal dialog, the duel between his flinching mind and his boisterous spirit; a conversation that every serious mountaineer knew so well.

Grossescheidegg was known for its outstanding Ungarische Goulasch. The broad terrace, filled with round white metal tables and giant red umbrellas, had spectacular views of the murderous mountain that, even now, beckoned to him. To reach the celebrated watering hole, you had to drive along the lake south of Zurich for roughly an hour. In the center of the tiny village of Verblen was a cable car station. The views from the swinging car alone were worth the trip up to Grossescheidegg, situated at 13,000 feet.

While waiting for their food to arrive, Hawke admired Sigrid standing at the rail among a small group of Italians. She was the long-legged blonde, the one with the deep bronze tan, the one who was using one of the six coin-operated telescopes. The scope she’d deliberately chosen was in a direct line between Hawke and the mountain peak.

The weather had changed drastically over the weekend. Days were now warm and sunny, and Sigrid’s wardrobe had been adjusted accordingly.

She had chosen to wear tight white shorts, and very clunky clogs. She bent over the instrument, directing her excellent bottom toward him. He could not help noticing that her splendid mountain tan must have been acquired in those very shorts. Since the advent of very short skirts, Swiss women had returned to those remarkable clogs. Some Bernese wag had once said that Swiss women’s shoes had been made by fastidious Bernese shoemakers who had had the shoes carefully described to them on the telephone but had never actually seen them firsthand.

“Quite a spectacular vision,” Blinky said, sipping his pale Pinot Grigio.

“I could not possibly agree more,” Hawke said, taking a deep draught of his St. Pauli Girl, chosen because the beer label had a bosomy milkmaid in a revealing dirndl. “Simply awe-inspiring,” Alex replied, his eyes fixed on this woman who had taken such a hold of his life.

“Alex, my old friend. I refer to the mountain.”

“Ah. That, too!”

Alex now followed the direct line created by following Sigrid’s telescope angled up to the mountaintop, and focused his eyes once more on what he now thought of as his personal demon.