The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [278]
Forty yards beyond her the ski school door at the end of the Ice Palace tunnel opened, light spilled out, and a lone figure emerged from it. A thick stand of heavy icicles by the door glistened in the darkness, then the door closed and the figure stood silhouetted against the snow. A moment later it moved forward.
Vera watched Osborn come; he was walking in a snowmobile track that was used for the dogsled rides and looking straight ahead. She knew he was vulnerable in the darkness because his eyes would take time to adjust to the dim light. Glancing back she saw Von Holden shoulder the pack and slide backward over a small crest and out of sight. He had brought her out of the Ice Palace through an air shaft, then handcuffed her without a word and walked off. Whatever he was planning had been carefully thought out, and whatever it was, Osborn was walking right into the middle of it.
“Paul!” Vera’s cry resonated across the darkness. “He’s out here waiting. Go back! Telephone the police!”
Osborn stopped and looked in her direction.
“Go back, Paul! He’ll kill you!”
Vera saw Osborn hesitate, then abruptly move sideways and disappear from sight. Immediately she looked to where Von Holden had gone but saw nothing. It was then she realized it had begun to snow. For a moment there was nothing but silence and she saw her own breath in the cold; Suddenly she felt the press of steel against her temple.
“Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.” Osborn was right there, McVey’s .38 at her head, his eyes searching the darkness beyond her. Suddenly he looked at her. “Where is he?” he hissed. His stare was fierce, unforgiving.
“Paul—?” she cried out. What was he doing?
“I said where is he?”
OH-GOD-NO! Suddenly she realized. He believed she was one of them. Part of the Organization. “Paul,” she pleaded, “Von Holden took me from jail in his custody. He said he was a German federal policeman, that he was bringing me to you.”
Osborn eased the weapon back. Again he looked away, probing in the darkness. Suddenly his right foot shot out and there was a crack life a rifle shot. The wooden handrail split in two and Vera was freed from her tether, her hands still cuffed together in front of her.
“Walk,” he said, shoving her forward toward the dog run, keeping her tightly between him and Von Holden’s line of fire.
“Don’t, Paul, please—”
Osborn ignored her. Ahead was the closed ski school and beyond it the wood and wire runs where they kept the sled dogs during the day. Then, just past them, a faint blue light shown through the falling snow like an hallucination. Osborn pulled her back, glancing over his shoulder behind them. There was nothing. He turned back.
“That light. What is it?”
“It’s—” Vera hesitated. “... an air shaft. A tunnel. How we came out from the Ice Palace.”
“Is that where he is?”
Osborn twisted her around to face him. “Is that where he is? Yes or no.”
He didn’t see her; he saw only someone he was certain had betrayed him. He was afraid and desperate but he was going on nonetheless.
“I don’t know.” Vera was terrified. If Von Holden was there and they went inside after him, there were any number of twists and turns where he could wait in ambush.
Osborn glanced quickly around, then moved her forward again toward the circle of light spilling from the shaft. The only sound was the mutter of the wind and the crunch of their feet on the snow. Seconds passed and they were at the dog runs and almost to the light.
“He’s not in the tunnel at all, is he, Vera?” Osborn swept the darkness, trying to see through the snow. “But out in the dark, waiting until you lead me into the light, like a duck in a shooting gallery. You wouldn’t even be at risk. He’s a marksman, a trained Spetsnaz soldier.