Sons (28 page)

Forty-Four

“
F
INALLY
!” Louis gasped as he pulled Colin up and out of the crevasse, which had narrowed into an upward slope.

The climb from the valley to the first plateau was an indictment against excess. Strewn with boulders and large blocks of jagged ice, the area of no more than a few hundred square feet was little more than a flat shelf. A narrow pass opposite the crevasse Louis had just left was the only way inland. Eyeing the plain made up of sheets of thin shale, ice, and frozen snow, he vowed if he got back alive, he would join a gym, swear off red meat, and perhaps even beer. He looked around the empty ledge. Ben’s promised allies, and more importantly his money, were conspicuously absent.

Shit! So where the hell are they?

Colin collapsed on his side and pulled the jacket Louis had given him tighter around his chest. He looked anxiously back for Zan. Louis grabbed him by the hair and pulled the boy to his feet.

“Get up, get up! We’ve no time for that,” he growled, just as Ben prodded Alexandra over the rocky rim.

With barely enough strength to make it across the ice and rock and onto the warmer surface of the plateau, Alexandra rolled onto her side and gulped frigid air into her oxygen-starved lungs. Stunned and exhausted, she could only mouth a silent plea for help. Colin broke away from Louis’s grip and bent down, smoothing the tangled hair from her face.

“Where the hell’s that damn Arab!” Louis grumbled.

As if in answer to his incautious remark, Ben heaved himself up onto the flat surface of the plateau. He darted a scornful sidelong glance at Louis, then called out in Arabic. Nothing. He called again. Only the wind answered. He stood still, ears cocked, hoping to catch a voice.

“We have to go on. Something seems to have delayed my colleagues.”

In a rare display of machismo, Louis stepped in front of Ben. “What about my money. You said I’d get paid when I delivered the boy. Well, you’ve got yours, now where’s mine?”

Ben ignored the challenge and looked past Louis. He regarded Alexandra, exhausted and lying in a weeping heap.

Weak Americans. They are all alike.

He said to Louis, “We will leave her. She is done for.”

Colin screamed. “No! She’ll die!”

“That’s the idea, stupid!” Louis sneered.

“I’m not leaving her!” Colin screamed. He struggled to his feet and swung a feeble fist at Louis.

Alexandra watched in horror as the older man, taller and stronger, cuffed Colin with a backhand, sending him sprawling across the sharp gray shale. The skin on Colin’s palms tore open as he scrabbled across the loose, ice-covered stone. Blood quickly formed cold clots as the sharp rock bit deep into his bare flesh. His right cheek began to swell from the blow.

Alexandra crawled to her lover and reached out a trembling hand just as Louis wheeled around and swung his ice axe at Colin. Missing his intended mark, he caught Alexandra on her left shoulder, ripping through her parka and slicing her flesh.

“
Ahh
!” she cried, as she rolled around on the ground. “Mama! Mama!”

Colin forced himself up on aching legs. “Leave her alone, you filthy bastard!” he said, his words barely audible against the mounting wind.

Wild with bloodlust and frustrated fury, Louis again turned on Colin. Swinging the axe in a haphazard arc he bellowed, “You little brat, I’ll kill you myself!”

Forty-Five

J
AN
and Joachim inched their way along a ledge formed from the blue ice that made up the glacier’s main crevasse. A coil of nylon rope wound around their waists connected the two men. Caught in the icy cleft’s twin embrace, they stopped to catch their breath. The walls of the crevasse looked like watery crystal shimmering in pale northern sunlight. The strong wind gusting through the frozen fissure had blown away most of the snow that had fallen the previous day. Footsteps in the now shallow snow were the only signs that they were on the right track. Jan recognized the imprint of the Deerstalker boots that he had made especially for Colin.

“Listen,” Joachim said.

Jan strained his ears, but no sound seeped below the rim of the mighty glacier.

“I don’t hear anything,” he said.

“Shhh, I thought I heard voices.”

Jan listened again, harder this time. Yes, he could hear them too. Two, perhaps three people, somewhere ahead.

He nodded.
Just ahead
.

Joachim fingered the Glock 9mm pistol in the breast pocket of his Arctic parka. Passing over it, he drew out the seven-inch assassin’s knife he had bought at a weapons show in Chicago the previous year. Perfectly balanced for throwing, the knife fitted the situation he and Jan found themselves in, and it was mercifully silent.

Jan stopped and tapped Joachim on the shoulder, pointing to messy depressions made by Colin and whoever was ahead. The footprints shifted onto the ledge on the other side of the narrow slit that fell away into darkness.

Jan whispered, “Let out some rope. I’ll cross over. You stay a little behind.”

Joachim nodded. He wished Hansford Ward or Sonya Jelski was here. Two against an unknown number was not a good thing. Both agents were trained and, when necessary, very ruthless, but Han retired from killing people and was living the good life in Paris, while Sonya was nursing her latest newborn.

Jan washed the worried look from his face and smiled at the big Israeli. He nodded, took a deep breath of cold, searing air into his lungs, and stepped across the chasm.

Once on the slippery shelf, Jan held onto the frozen wall like a babe at its mother’s breast. Half out of his mind with rage and fear for his son, he prayed from the psalm of David,
Oh Lord, Thou hast seen my wrong. Judge now my cause.

“You okay?” Joachim whispered.

Jan merely nodded, afraid to speak for fear of losing his concentration, all of which centered on not falling backward into the void. Slowly, he turned, moving along in tandem with Joachim as they followed the ridge toward the voices.

Forty-Six

P
HYSICALLY
and emotionally exhausted, Colin could only wait for Louis’s axe to fall on him.

“Stop!” Ben stepped in between Colin and Louis. “The son of the infidel belongs to me!”

“Wrong! He belongs to me!”

Everyone turned to see who had spoken.

Jan stood at the rim of the crevasse with no visible weapon, arms at his side.

Joachim stood off to one side. Jan had been firm in his instructions.
You handle the Arab, Louis Carew is mine. Understand?

Out of the corner of his eye, Jan saw Colin kneeling with Alexandra in his arms.

Alive
!

“Thank you God,” he whispered.

“Colin, look! It’s your dad. He’s come for us!” Alexandra wept as she fell back into Colin’s arms.

Colin stared as if his father was a mirage.
He came… he came!

Louis raised the ice axe, advancing on Jan. Laughing, he said, “Phillips, you son of a bitch! Who the hell do you think you are, some cartoon superhero? You’re not going to ruin my life again!”

Jan leapt forward, hitting the ground and rolling underneath the swinging axe. The swift move caught Louis at the knees with a cracking sound, causing him to fall back onto the hard ice pack. Stunned, he lay immobile, his lungs aching for air.

Jan was not much better off. His shoulder, now badly bruised, ached from the impact. Getting up, Jan staggered to where Louis lay, heaved him to his feet, only to knock him down again with a savage blow.

Ben watched, fascinated, as the two men fought
. I wonder which one of these fools I will end up killing.

Jan dragged Louis once again to his feet and swung him around in a circle before letting him go. Exhausted, both men sagged to the ground. Jan fell back onto the rock-strewn ground. Rubbing his shoulder, he looked over at his son.

During the fight, the flare gun Louis brought from the Beechcraft slipped out of the side pocket of his jacket. The snub-nosed pistol had skittered along the ground, stopping just inches from where Colin cradled Alexandra in his arms.

Colin looked at the gun, so tantalizingly close.

Alexandra looked at the gun too, and then at Colin. “Yes,” she whispered.

This is all my fault,
Colin thought.
I have to do something!

Colin licked his chapped lips and glanced at the gun. He looked at Ben, expecting the Arab to grab for it. Instead, Ben stood, looking past him with a puzzled look on his face.

Colin craned his neck around and saw a big man walking out of the heavily swirling mist toward them. The air was getting colder, and the man’s breath puffed out like a steam locomotive.
Is
this the mysterious associate Ben talked about?

Jan also saw the man stepping out of the fog that had begun to move across the plateau. He scrambled to his feet and pulled Louis, bruised and defeated, up on unsteady legs.

“Damn it, Victor! I told you to stay behind!” Jan yelled.

Victor yelled back, “Never mind that now. I’ve come for my son.”

Ben now realized the struggle was no longer two against two. The arrival of Louis’s father threatened not only his life, but also his sworn mission to Allah. He brought out his stun gun. A tiny blue light blinked, “Battery Depleted.” He swore in Arabic, reached around to his back, and drew a Bowie knife from a leather sheath fastened to his belt, the very knife he used to snuff out the lives of Allah’s foes.

Colin, with Alexandra in his arms, drew back as Ben moved toward them.

The weather, which had produced the heavy gray fog, now added sleet mixed with snow. From out of this icy haze, Joachim Nussbaum bore down on the murderer of so many innocents.

“Drop the knife!”

Ben whirled around at the sound of the heavily accented voice.
A Jew! Better still! Allah is indeed great and merciful. He rewards me in all things!

Ben eyed the big man, now only a few feet away, and weighed his options. Kill the infidel’s son, or begin a fight to the death with the Israeli. The Arab turned on Colin just as Joachim closed on him. The Israeli grabbed Ben’s collar, pulling him back.

“Allah will not be fed on the blood of innocents today, murderer!”

Wheeling around, Ben shouted, “We shall see, cousin, who is stronger!”

The two men struggled across the loose rock. Arm to arm, knife to knife, the two enemies lashed at one another. The cold air made each lunge an ordeal in itself. In a desperate move, Ben pushed Joachim back and swung a deadly arc, cutting the ex-spy across the back of his wrist, slicing down into vein and sinew. Joachim howled as pain swept up his arm. Another, much stronger pain followed as Ben plunged his blade into Joachim’s side.

The big man sagged to his knees. The sleet and snow mix changed over to all snow and began to fall in gentle sheets.

Yanking his Bowie knife from Joachim’s weeping ribs, he turned his fury toward Colin.

Through it all, Victor Carew stood confused.
Who are these people?

Joachim’s fall was a disaster. Until this moment, he had seemed invincible. Now Jan and Victor stood alone and unarmed against a ferocious maniac.