The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [266]
“How much farther is it, this place we’re going?” Vera said over the clicking of the wheels as the train glided slowly into the small city of Thun. She’d been half dozing, half staring off into space, and now she was sitting up and questioning him directly. Outside, the huge tower of Thun Castle passed like a hovering stone giant still caught in the twelfth century.
Von Holden was watching for signs of police as they approached the station. If Osborn had alerted the authorities, Thun would be the first logical place to stop the train and search it. He had to be prepared if they did. Vera, he was certain, had not seen Osborn or she would not be acting the way she was. But this was the reason he’d brought her. A card to play that his pursuers wouldn’t have.
Within seconds they were abreast of the station. If the train was going to stop, it would have to be now. As quickly, they were out of the station and the train picked up speed. Von Holden breathed a sigh of relief and a moment later they were back in the countryside and moving along the shores of Lake Thun.
“I asked how much longer it would be until—”
Von Holden’s eyes found hers. “I am not permitted to tell you our destination. It is against orders.”
Abruptly he got up and walked down the aisle “to the lavatory. The train was nearly empty. The early trains would have been busy. Saturday excursions into the mountains began in the morning so that people would have the entire day to explore the stirring Alpine landscape. At Interlaken they would change trains, walking from one end of the station to the other. There would be enough time between trains to provide Von Holden with a distinct opportunity.
Boarding the waiting train with Vera, he would make an excuse—he had to make a phone call or something—then, leaving her on the train, he would get off and go back into the station and wait to kill Osborn when he arrived.
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* * *
THE ROUTE out of Bern took Osborn across a bridge over the steel green of the river Aare with the magnificent Gothic cathedral, Münster, sitting high above the city behind, it. Then the train leaned into a curve and increased its speed and the vision of Münster faded into a rattle of more tracks and warehouses, then passing trees and abruptly into farmland.
Sitting back, Osborn let his hand slide inside his jacket and he felt the solid butt of McVey’s .38, where it rested fucked in his waistband. He knew McVey would have found it missing by now, along with his badge and identification papers. It wouldn’t take him long to figure out what happened, or who had them. McVey’s anger wasn’t important now. It lived somewhere else, in a different world.
From his study of the map of Switzerland, Osborn had seen that Interlaken was south and east of Bern. Von Holden was going deeper into the country, not out of it. What was in Interlaken or beyond it?
Through a rush of trees Osborn could see sunlight gleam off a river or lake, then his thoughts went to the black rucksack Von Holden had slung over his shoulder as he boarded the train. There had been something inside it, bulky, and boxlike, and he remembered his conversation with Remmer as they’d left Berlin. The old woman who had seen Von Holden leave the taxi cab said he carried a white case, slung from a strap over his shoulder. The witnesses at the station in Frankfurt had described it too. That meant he’d taken it from the taxi cab in Berlin and carried it onto the Berlin-Frankfurt train and then carried it off the train in Frankfurt.
“If I had just killed three policemen and was trying to get the hell out of there, would I worry about a box?” Osborn thought. “I would if