White Death: An Alex Hawke Novella (10 page)

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WENTY-
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OUR

H
e awoke in a state of grace.

He’d opened his eyes to a panoramic view of black eastern skies fading up to faint pink. So beautiful. Even before he rolled over and looked at his watch, he knew he’d changed somehow. While he’d slept, his mind had been hard at work, teaching him, leading him back to truths long lost to him. Yesterday had been far too exciting, simply because he’d been ignoring himself. Not hearing calls from some deeper region of his cortex. Ignoring some old muscle memories anxious to be recalled.

It had almost killed him. If that one last anchor point had failed to hold in the ice, he’d have been sleeping underground. If they’d ever found him. If not, at least he’d have been spending eternity in the company of his grandfather. It was, he thought, actually some consolation.

He knew, before he’d strapped his crampons to his boots, that this day would be different. He felt utterly rejuvenated. In an odd way, he was back. Once properly learned, the sophisticated techniques of climbing, like those of a competitive swimmer, are never really forgotten. All he needed was to rediscover what new limitations aging and inactivity had placed on his skill and nerve. And overcome them.

Contrary to common knowledge, a good climber, with sufficient experience, can move straight up a vertical rock face that he cannot cling to. It’s counterintuitive. Human nature dictates a natural desire to cling to anything solid. But a regular, predicted set of moves, from one point of imbalance to its counterpoise, will keep a climber close to the face, but only for so long as he continues moving with speed and grace.

From a distance below, it looks like you’re dancing up there. Gracefully careening on and off the wall as you sprint up. It’s a skill rather like that of a bicycle rider who has little trouble with balance unless he goes too slowly.

All that’s necessary is to first read the pitch accurately, plot out and rehearse the moves cinematically, then make every single move with smooth conviction from hold to hold. Do that, and you will arrive at the next predicted and reliable purchase. And the next.

These skills and abilities had once been Hawke’s forte. But during that exciting first day of climbing, he’d made several misjudgments, one that had caused a serious fall, others that had sent him slithering down twenty feet of scree, banging a little skin off his elbows and doing greater damage to his self-esteem than anything else. It wasn’t pretty

The intervening years since his last tragic climb had eroded the fine edge of his physical dexterity. This erosion, he now realized, was beyond repair, even with Luc’s valiant efforts down at the camp. Today it would be necessary for him to systematically train himself and relearn old tricks while he was up on the Murder Wall. If he wanted to survive, he now had to teach himself to think within the limits of his new, inferior body. He had to learn how to listen to himself.

He set his first pick and hauled himself up.

He was only halfway up the 24,320-foot peak. When he reached the ledge overhanging the Murder Wall, he knew he might find conditions up there worse than at the North Pole. Temperatures could sink to forty below, and winds howled at eighty to a hundred miles an hour. He knew: he’d been given a booklet by the rangers when he’d signed in for his solo climb. Insurance requirement. He’d read that “the combined effect of cold, wind, and altitude may well present one of the most hostile climates on earth.” His reaction to those preclimb caveats was to propose angrily that the rangers mind their own bloody business!

Tomorrow was going to be either a very long day, or a very short one.

But he was no longer afraid of the Murder Wall.

And that was the best guarantor of success that he was going to get when the sun came up.

S
even hours later, he found himself still alive and happy. The Murder Wall had failed to kill him.

The first thing he saw, heaving his body up and over the lip of the ledge, was a small wooden door set in the rock, dusted with fresh snow. Just where it was supposed to be. Until the second he saw it, he was not entirely confident that he’d reached his goal. Visibility was down to almost naught. His altimeter showed he’d reached the designated altitude, but there were other significant ledges of similar sizes above and below him.

This one was called “Das Boot” because it looked like the prow of the massive World War II German battleship
Bismarck,
sticking out the side of the mountain.

The GS on his wrist said that the Bat Cave, if it existed at all, was very near. Reason said this had to be the place. Unless, of course, the Chinese curio shop owner had lied to Ambrose and Sigrid.

The outcropping was wide and deep, and very substantial. Just eyeing it by sight, he’d guess seventy feet across and roughly fifty feet deep. It occurred to him that you could easily get a chopper on and off this thing. He took a few deep breaths to get himself oriented. Out across the far horizon, a sea of ice-topped peaks. The hard part was over. The Bitch had thrown everything she had at him. She’d killed his grandfather and she’d just tried to kill him too.

But this time she’d lost.

The Wicked Bitch was dead. He turned his attention to the escape door. Weathered by the fiercest storms on the planet for a century or more. Wide, and just high enough for him to enter without ducking. At this point, he was simply looking for a way inside the rock. He was searching for the Bat Cave. And he was getting close.

He dusted off the snow that had accumulated on his goggles and scrambled to his feet. He scanned the rocks and boulders to either side of the door, and also above it. He knew what to look for. “Granite2,” Blinky had called the material used to hide fighter squadrons and battalions from prying enemy eyes. “You won’t know it even when you’re staring at it,” he’d said. If there was any fake rock on this ledge, Alex sure as hell didn’t see it. And even if it was right in front of his face, it was so artfully created that it was virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. He pulled the old iron ring mounted on the door. Wouldn’t budge. Too much snow and ice accumulation down at the base. He got his trenching shovel and went to work.

It still wouldn’t open, so he got out his chopping ax and knocked out a section wide enough for him to peer inside. When he did, he gagged. Not the smell of death, the smell of old fetid engine oil. What the hell?

He leaned further inside and flipped on his flashlight. No one had been here in fifty years. More likely, never. Maybe never.

It took him a long time to identify the faux part of the mountain. He chopped away with his ice ax everywhere he could reach or see. Nothing doing. His arms burning with the fresh exertion, he dropped his ax to the ground to take a breather and leaned against a heavy boulder. The strangest thing happened.

It moved.

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H
e found himself inside a mammoth cave carved out of rock. There was that same smell of engine oil and machinery he’d experienced inside the empty escape tunnel. He whistled aloud.

It was nearly the size of a United Airlines hangar at JFK. With his first step forward, four beefy characters in black uniforms materialized out of the gloom, all carrying serious assault weapons trained on him. “Morning gents,” he said, “Thought I’d drop by and say hello to the Sorcerer. He around? If not, no problem. I could just stop by later.”

He heard a deep rumble far back in the cave and looked up. Something was moving forward on the rail tracks in the stone floor.

Seeing a huge black muzzle emerge first, he held his breath. It simply wasn’t possible, but there it was. A massive German 88mm cannon. He’d only seen one like it before, and that was in the movie
The Guns of Navarone.
The one the Germans had set inside the tunnel on top of a mountain. Seriously?

A woman made her way down some steel stairs toward him. She had come from a glassed-in office that loomed up over his head. “No need to roll out the heavy artillery,” he said. “Hell, I’m not even armed.”

“Hello,” she said sweetly. “You must be Lord Alexander Hawke, correct?”

“Sorry?” he replied.

“We were expecting you, actually. You’re a bit late.”

“Hold on. How on earth did you know I was coming, if I may be so bold?”

“Doesn’t matter. We heard a rumor. We hear them all the time. I’m the administrative secretary here, Gisela Bundt.”

“Rumors about me? From whom?”

“An old friend of ours in Zurich. Look at you, you’re shivering. Let’s get you some clean dry clothes, a nice cup of tea, and a bite to eat. We’re all having goulaschesuppe today. Sound good? Then I’ll escort you to the office.”

“Whose office?”

“Don’t be coy, Lord Hawke. You know very well whose office.”

Twenty minutes later
,
well-fed and wearing dry clothes the woman had provided, he was sitting alone in a large paneled office with Persian rugs and walls studded with Old Masters. Bookcases everywhere, filled with leather-bound collections of authors from Voltaire to Dickens to Hemingway.

Hawke had been told by a green-jacketed servant who’d ushered him inside that someone would be with him shortly. Won’t be ten minutes, he’d said. Antsy, Hawke got up from his chair and walked around a bit. Intensely curious, he went over to the source of the light that filled the whole room. Soaring floor-to-ceiling windows reached to a twenty-foot ceiling, lead-paned and crystal clear.

He was wondering if that massive window was such a good idea, especially for someone trying to remain invisible to the world. That was until he saw the massive steel doors to either side, their exterior surfaces sheathed in hyperrealistic fake rock. Doors that would instantly seal tight at the press of a button. Trying unsuccessfully not to be nosy, he surveyed the rest of the surreally beautiful office.

He checked the fellow’s desk first, a large partner’s desk in the style of the famous British architect Robert Adam. There were papers casually lying about, but Hawke chose not to look. But brilliant sunlight streaming through the clouds lit up a shiny object that caught his eye. He bent and looked closer. It was a mounted piece of sculpture, about a foot high. He picked it up.

It was a Nazi swastika, carved out of a block of highly polished steel.

He heard a voice behind him and whirled around as if he been caught snooping. “So sorry,” he said, putting the artifact back where it belonged, feeling guilty for no reason.

“Not at all,” the elderly gentleman said. “Sorry I’m tardy, been a busy day, you know. Please, have a seat.”

He strode across the carpet and sat in the leather armchair with its back to the spectacular views. Hawke sized him up very quickly. This was no banker. He was a scholar, perhaps a university professor. He had a natural way and a cheery manner that suggested a facile mind and a quick wit. There was a spark of humor in his blue eyes, fringed with bushy white eyebrows. His head was bald, and he wore a pair of gold eyeglasses that were clearly antique.

He was dressed like a banker, however. A three-piece navy suit from a very good tailor, a crisp white shirt, and a blue-and-white polka-dot bow tie in the manner of Churchill, whom he resembled in an odd way.

He sat back, placed his folded hands on the expanse of green leather, and said, “I must say it’s a great pleasure to see you again, Alex. It’s been an awfully long time.”

Hawke hid his surprise and said, “See me again?”

“Yes. You wouldn’t recall, I was just trying to be clever. I led the Swiss Army team that brought you down after that awful fall. And, later, the one that went up for your grandfather. What a lovely man. We’ve likely never seen his like again.”

“Forgive me, this is a bit startling. You two knew each other?”

“We climbed together for years before you were born. Being in a tent with a man on top of a mountain normally brings out the worst in a man. But your dear grandfather and I always had a hell of a time!”

Hawke laughed at that. “I would like to express my gratitude, but I don’t know your name, sir.”

“Gerhardt, Dr. Gerhardt Steinhauser,” he smiled, “sometimes known, rather foolishly, as ‘the Sorcerer.’ ”

“You’re not quite what I expected, Dr. Steinhauser.”

“Everyone says that, Alex. Few make it to that chair you’re using, but everyone who does says exactly that. What do you think of my office? I’ve grown fond of it.”

“It’s stunning, sir. I can’t help but ask who built all this. A German, I imagine, based on the eighty-eight millimeter that welcomed me.”

“Not to mention this paperweight I saw you admiring. The man who built this left behind many mementos when he died.

“And a German indeed. A former Nazi Kriegsmarine admiral who defected to Switzerland before the war. Someone who dabbled in engineering and architecture. I’m sure you’ve seen Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. Same fellow built both. He constructed all this after defecting to Switzerland in 1936. That monstrous eighty-eight you just saw was smuggled onto a train out of Berchtesgaden before people were paying too much attention to the border, you see. His idea was to use it in the event of a German invasion that never happened. Now it’s mine, to use as I see fit. Good for nosy neighbors, no?”

“Thank you for all your courtesy, sir, both my rescue and now. I don’t want to interrupt what is certainly a very full agenda, but I would appreciate your patience while I ask a few questions?”

“Fire away, my boy, fire away!”

C
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“W
ould you mind if I had one of those cigarettes, Dr. Steinhauser?”

“Not at all, help yourself, should have offered. That silver eagle is a lighter, by the way. And please don’t call me by that pretentious name. Plain old ‘Gert’ will do. Your grandfather always called me that.”

Hawke smiled and said, “So. Here we are. Thank you for your most gracious hospitality. I’m not sure where to start and . . .”

“Start anywhere you please, Alex. I already know most of it, I’m sure.”

“Then you obviously already know who I work for.”

“I do. Sir David Trulove, chief of British intelligence. MI6, to be precise. You see, I’ve long had a keen interest in your exploits ever since we lost Sir Richard Hawke. Have an old leather scrapbook with your name on it, to be honest. Le Rosey, Dartmouth Naval College. Royal Navy combat pilot over Baghdad, Chairman of Hawke Industries, Ltd., London’s Most Eligible Bachelor, sort of thing. And you have a son. Alexei. Congratulations!”

“That’s quite miraculous, but thanks, that will save us a lot of time. So, flash forward. My superior at Six, Sir David, asked me to come here to Zurich to investigate some improprieties involving a recent spate of cyberattacks on Her Royal Majesty’s Swiss accounts. My colleague Ambrose Congreve, former chief inspector at Scotland Yard, came as well. Sir David mentioned your name as someone who could be helpful and—”

“And he thinks I’m a scoundrel, doesn’t he? A criminal mastermind.”

“He never said that. He said you were the éminence grise of Swiss banking, living in seclusion. Power behind the throne. He really didn’t offer much more than that. Clearly, his first priority is to protect the Queen and the Royal Family, no matter who or what is involved. Including you, sir.”

“Of course, Alex. My role is complex, but it has never been nefarious, I assure you. This infernal moniker that follows me around, Sorcerer, implies some kind of evil wizard. I assure you, I am neither wizard nor evil. Nor saint, for that matter.”

“Then may I ask what you are?”

“I’m the peacekeeper. Always have been. The sheriff of Switzerland. There is nothing quite so challenging as keeping a lid on the boiling pot that is Switzerland’s role in the world economy. We deal with everyone. Most are honest, but not a few would like to bring this whole elaborate system of doing business, built up over centuries, down. Lately, most of those come from the Arab states. Not all, but a few, would like to see our way of doing business, our way of living, cease to exist. Israel has enormous amounts of its treasury here. And so do the sheiks. Mutually assured financial destruction, so to speak.”

“You’re the guardian, then? The keeper of the flame.”

“You could say that. The Chinese and the Russians are even more difficult these last few years. Amazing cyberweapons, all aimed at a precious few free countries. Western Europe, Britain, the United States, and their allies.”

“Would you say that Russia and China are the source of the recent attacks on Her Majesty, not to mention Britain herself?”

“I certainly would. Containing those two vipers takes up the majority of my allotted time. These events you’re seeing involving assets of the Royal Family and Her Majesty’s government are the most troubling at this moment.”

“Any hope of putting a stop to them?”

“Indeed, a great deal of hope. I am in the process of hiring the very best and the brightest computer scientists from around the world and bringing them here to work for us. Students from China, Russia, and North Korea as well. All very hush-hush, as your grandfather used to say. But yes, these efforts are yielding successes. Because of my affection for the Queen, I have taken personal responsibility for leading a forensic cyberthreat team dedicated solely to Her Majesty’s financial protection.”

Hawke leaned forward, excited. “Is this something I can bring back to MI6? Your personal involvement with settling the Queen’s affairs? For Sir David’s ears only?”

Steinhauser thought about it for a long moment.

“Please have Sir David call me about that when you get back to London, Alex. Tell him that I’ll discuss that subject with him. Perhaps I’ll invite him here for a few days.”

“Thank you. He will be vastly relieved to hear it.”

“The Queen, however, is not to hear of this, no matter what. Tell him that. Too many people in Buckingham Palace I’d like not to hear about this.”

“Of course. There’s another matter I’d like to discuss—the bizarre murder of a Credit Suisse banker just returned from London. We found his corpse just below this location.”

“Leo Hermann. I’m glad he was found before he was buried beneath the ice. Leo’s death was no murder, Alex. It was suicide. Leo, although thirty years younger than I, was a close friend of mine. But he caused me worry. I had him followed in London. He met with some very unsavory characters at the Connaught Grill—suspects involved with criminal events we’ve been speaking of. Leo had been selling highly classified information regarding my work for Her Majesty. I’d suspected him for quite some time. The meeting in London was Leo’s undoing.”

“I’m so sorry about all this. Can you tell me about the circumstances surrounding his death? My friend Chief Inspector Congreve finds himself in a highly unusual situation.”

“Which is?”

“Perplexed. For perhaps the first time ever.”

“I know your friend Congreve by reputation only. I’ll be happy to tell you if it will help you put his mind at ease, Alex. Here’s what happened. I called Leo at the Connaught in London that night and told him I needed to see him here in my office immediately. The next day. I’m sure he suspected the worst, but what choice did he have? He arrived late the next morning looking haggard and depressed. Desperate, I would say. He was in tears.”

“His life was over,” Hawke said.

“I suppose it was. He’d admitted everything to his wife. She was leaving him and taking the two children, moving back to Sweden to be near her family. There was really nothing more to say at that point. I picked up the phone to call my pilot, whose helicopter was in a holding pattern waiting to return for the pickup. Leo got up, said thanks for my kindness, and left. My secretary said he’d gone outside to wait for the helo on the ledge.”

“He didn’t wait.”

“When the pilot arrived, Leo wasn’t there.”

D
r. Steinhauser suggested taking Alex on a tour of the vast mountain complex. Honeycombed with brightly lit tunnels and passages leading who knew where, banks of gleaming stainless steel elevators providing service from the secret underwater entrance near the bottom of Lake Zurich. They toured the private residence, three floors with interiors that resembled the Duke of Devonshire’s historic country home at Chatsworth. A grand, sweeping staircase joined the floors, which boasted the same panoramic windows as Steinhauser’s magnificent office.

There were also separate guest quarters built inside the small peak of a lower mountain. Hawke and his host reached them by a lengthy underground tunnel with a small tram running in both directions on a single track.

“I call this house
‘Das Kleineberg,
’ ” he said.

“ ‘Little Peak,’ ” Hawke said, smiling.

“Good for you, Alex. Some of the German I taught you stuck.”

As they strolled down Little Peak’s wide corridors and peeked into various guest rooms, sunrooms, and a paneled reading room, Hawke, who was rarely impressed, found himself full of wonder.

“Small and self-contained, more rustic and, to me, more appealing,” Steinhauser said. “Here we are, I wanted you to see this room. Leo Hermann’s room. I haven’t touched it since his death. I was deeply saddened by the pictures of his wife and children in happier times.”

“May I have a look inside?” Alex said.

There were two worn leather armchairs facing the windows, and the two men sat down. Hawke looked around at mementos from a life now lost.

“I can see why it makes you sad,” he said.

“When a trusted friend betrays you, it is always deeply disheartening. Especially when their betrayal is a result of matters far beyond their control. Leo was a student of mine when I taught economics at New College, Oxford. Brilliant boy, always was. Hired by both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley in New York, shot to the top of both and moved back to Zurich, happy, for all anyone knew.

“I quickly hired him and put him to work. There were problems as time went by. Sketchy attendance, padded expense accounts, complaints from subordinates, you know how it is. There were rumors that his wife was driving him to make more and more money. The well-known never-enough type of spouse. Leo started drinking heavily, too. Then stealing to try to keep her happy. And, finally, selling information. That’s the ending of that sad story.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you,” Dr. Steinhauser said, rising from his chair. “Alex, it’s been marvelous connecting with you after all these years. I dearly hope you’ll allow me to continue our new friendship. It’s gone eight o’clock. Won’t you join my daughter and me for a light supper? I can arrange to have my pilot snatch you from the ledge at nine? Sound good to you?”

“Sounds wonderful, sir. I can’t thank you enough for what you did for me and my grandfather. And all you’re doing now, not only for me personally, but for my Queen and country as well. I’m sure Sir David will put the full resources of MI6 at your disposal going forward. And if there is ever anything that I personally might do to help your investigation, just let me know.”

They took a smooth and silent tram ride back to Dr. Steinhauser’s residence.

After a minute, Steinhauser broke the silence.

“There is one thing you might do for me,” Dr. Steinhauser said.

“Anything, sir.”

“I wasn’t going to mention this because I did not know how helpful it might be and . . .”

“Please tell me. I can use all the help I can get at the moment, sir.”

“Very well. Recently, since your arrival in Zurich, the hacking attacks on your personal accounts have increased dramatically. It’s the Russians on the receiving end, and they are the worst, as you well know. I cannot prove it yet, but someone living here in Zurich seems to be working with Moscow. Hacking into your less-protected assets.”

“That’s certainly a big step in the right direction. My friend Ambrose will be delighted to know that. Do you know who it is? Just give me a name and MI6 will personally remove this chap from our list of worries. Permanently. Who the hell is it, Dr. Steinhauser?”

“Does the name Baron Wolfgang von Stuka ring a bell, Alex?”

Hawke stiffened at the name, shocked. “You’ve got to be joking. He’s the one helping us solve the case! And by the way, what the hell does he have against me?” Hawke said angrily.

“Rumors are there’s a woman involved, Alex.”