The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [271]
“That’s where Paul is.”
“Yes, as well as a guarded repository for the documents.”
“What happens when we get there?”
“That’s not for me to say. My orders were to safely deliver you and the documents. After that”—he smiled again—”I will go home, hopefully.”
Suddenly the train plunged into a tunnel and the only light was from the electric lamps inside the train.
“Twenty minutes more,” Von Holden said. Vera relaxed and leaned back against the seat. For the moment she’s satisfied, he thought. Once they reached Jungfraujoch station they would leave the train with the other passengers, then go immediately to the weather station. After that, what Vera thought or did would make no difference, because once inside they would vanish into its depths and no one, on earth could find them.
Abruptly the train slowed and they came into Eigerwand, a small railway station carved into the rocky tunnel inside the north face of the Eiger. The train pulled effortlessly onto a siding and stopped, leaving the main rail free so that another train could pass on the way down. The driver opened the doors and invited everyone out to enjoy the view and take photographs.
“Come.” Von Holden smiled and stood up. “For the time being we’re tourists like everyone else. We should relax and enjoy it.”
Leaving the train, they crossed the platform with the other passengers and walked into one of several short tunnels where enormous windows had been cut into the face of the mountain. From there they could see for miles back across the sunlit valley floor toward Kleine Scheidegg and Grindelwald and Interlaken, the way they had come. Von Holden had seen it two dozen times and each time it was more impressive than the last, as if seeing the world from the mountain’s point of view. Behind them the driver sounded his whistle and the other passengers started back for the train.
It was then Von Holden saw the train behind them approaching Kleine Scheidegg. Suddenly his breath caught and he felt his heart begin to palpitate. There was a pulsing behind his eyes and curtains of red and green started to come.
“Are you all right?” Vera asked.
For a brief moment Von Holden wavered, then he exhaled sharply, pulling himself out of it.
“Yes, thank you. . . .” He took her arm and they started back. “The altitude, perhaps.” It was a lie. His attack had not been because of the altitude, or weariness, or anything else. It had been real. The “Vorahnung.” And it meant only one thing.
Osborn was on that train.
142
* * *
OSBORN FELT the press of gravity as the train began to move out of Kleine Scheidegg and start up the long grade toward the face of the Eiger. The bleached-blonde divorcee—her name was Connie and she was a divorcee, twice in fact—kept trying to talk to him. Finally he excused himself and went into the front car. He needed to think. In little more than forty minutes they would reach Jungfraujoch. He had to know what he was going to do, right from the moment the train came into the station and he stepped off. Once again he felt the heft of McVey’s .38 in his waistband. For some reason it made him think about avalanches. More than once a gunshot had set off a thundering avalanche. Mountain teams and ski areas used recoilless rifles to start them on purpose, to clear them away before opening the snow areas to the public. But it was barely mid-October and the weather was clear. An avalanche should be the last thing on his mind.
But it wasn’t.
His subconscious was working toward something. What was it? This was early October, but Von Holden was purposely going into snow country. Jungfraujoch was at an altitude of more than eleven thousand feet and built on top of or within a glacier. Inside were tourist sideshows, rooms carved out of the glacial ice.
Ice.
Cold. Deep cold. A glacier was as cold as you got in nature. Especially if you could get deep inside it. Men and animals had been found in it, perfectly preserved for centuries.