The Eiger Sanction Read online

  Kruger was spun around and slammed into the corner between two windows on which "Cuban Imports" was written backward. He stared at Jonathan with total astonishment.

  Jonathan watched him narrowly, expecting a movement toward him.

  Kruger lifted his hands, palms up, with a touching gesture of "Why?"

  Jonathan considered firing again.

  For two terribly long seconds, Kruger remained there, as though nailed to the wall.

  Jonathan began to smart with discomfort. "Oh, come on!"

  And Kruger slid slowly down the wall as death dimmed his eyes and set them in an infinity focus, the repulsive white dots of mucus still visible. Never having met Kruger before today, and not having any apparent motive, Jonathan had no fear of identification. He folded up the ruptured bag and placed it and the gun inside the fresh bag he had brought along.

  People never carry guns in brown paper bags.

  Outside in the glare of the street, the children still played around the stoops. Little Jacques saw Jonathan emerge from Kruger's building, and he waved from across the street. Jonathan made a gun with his finger and shot at the boy, who threw up his hands and fell to the pavement in a histrionic facsimile of anguish. They both laughed.

  MONTREAL/NEW YORK/LONG ISLAND: June 10

  While he waited for the plane to taxi off, Jonathan laid out his briefcase and papers on the seat beside him and began taking notes for the long-overdue article on "Toulouse-Lautrec: A Social Conscience." He had promised it to the editors of an art journal with a liberal bent. He could spread out in comfort because it was his practice, when on CII expense account, to purchase two adjacent seats to insulate himself against unwanted conversation. On this occasion, the extravagance may have been unnecessary, as the first-class compartment was nearly empty.

  His line of thought was severed by the paternal and plebeian voice of the pilot assuring him that he knew where they were going and at what altitude they would fly. His interest in the Lautrec article was too fragile to survive the interruption, so he began glancing through a book he had promised to review. It was a study of Tilman-Riemanschneider: The Man and His Times. Jonathan was acquainted with the author and he knew the book would be a compromise between academic and general readerships—an alternation between the turgid and the cute. Nevertheless, he intended to give it a handsome review in obedience to his theory that the surest way to maintain position at the top of the field was to advance and support men of clearly inferior capacities.

  He sensed the brush of her perfume, a spicy but light fragrance that he recalls to this day, suddenly and when he least wants to.

  "Both of these seats are yours?" she asked.

  He nodded without looking up from his work. To his great disappointment, he had caught a glimpse of a uniform out of the tail of his eye, and he rejected her, realizing that stewardesses, like nurses, were something a man made do with in strange towns when there was not time to seek women.

  "Veblen had a phrase for that." Her voice was like a flow of warm honey.

  Surprised by erudition in a stewardess, he closed the book on his lap and looked up into the calm, amused eyes. Soft brown with harlequin flecks of gold. "The phrase would apply equally to Mimi in the last act."

  She laughed lightly: strong white teeth and slightly petulant lips. Then she checked his name off a list on a clipboard, and walked aft to deal with other passengers. With unabashed curiosity, he examined her taut bottom with its characteristic African shape that lifts black women to so convenient an angle. Then he sighed and shook his head. He returned to the Riemanschneider study, but his eyes moved over the pages without the words getting to his brain. Later he took notes; then he dozed.

  "Shit?" she asked, her lips close to his ear.

  He woke and turned his head to look up at her. "Pardon me?" The movement brought her bust to within three inches of his nose, but he kept his eyes on hers.

  She laughed—again the harlequin flecks of gold in the brown eyes—and sat back on the armrest.

  "You did begin this conversation by saying 'shit,' didn't you? he asked.

  "No. I didn't say it. I asked it."

  "Does that go along with coffee, tea, and milk?"

  "Only on our competitors' lines. I was reading over your shoulder, and I saw the word 'shit' with two exclamation points on your notepad. So I asked."

  "Ah. It was a comment on the content of this book I'm reviewing."

  "A study of scatology?"

  "No. A shoddy piece of research obfuscated by crepuscular logic and involute style."

  She grinned. "I can stand crepuscular logic, but involute style really makes my ass tired."

  Jonathan enjoyed the raised oriental corners of her eyes in which a hint of derision lurked. "I refuse to believe you're a stewardess."

  "As in: What's a girl like you doing in...? Actually, I'm not a stewardess at all. I'm a high-jacker in drag."

  "That's reassuring. What's your name?"

  "Jemima."

  "Stop it."

  "I'm not putting you on. That's really my name. Jemima Brown. My mother was hooked on ethnic lore."

  "Have it your way. So long as we both admit that it's clearly too much for a black girl to have a name like that."

  "I don't know. People don't forget you if your name is Jemima." She adjusted her perch on the armrest, and the skirt slipped up.

  Jonathan concentrated on not noticing. "I doubt that men would forget you easily if your name was Fred."

  "Goodness me, Dr. Hemlock! Are you the kind of man who tries to pick up stewardesses?"

  "Not normally, but I'm coming around to it. How did you know my name?"

  She became serious and confidential. "It's this mystic thing I have with names. A gift of sorts. I look at a person carefully. Then I concentrate. Then I check the passenger list. And voila! The name just comes to me."

  "All right. What do people call you when they're not hooked on ethnic lore?"

  "Jem. Only they spell it like the jewel kind of gem." A soft gong caused her to look up. "We're coming in. You'll have to fasten your safety belt." Then she moved aft to deal with the less interesting passengers.

  He would have liked to ask her out to dinner or something. But the moment had been lost, and there is no social sin like poor timing. So he sighed and turned his attention to the tilted and toylike picture of New York beyond the window.

  He saw Jemima briefly in JFK terminal. While he was hailing a taxi, she passed with two other stewardesses, the three walking quickly and in step, and he remembered his general dislike of the ilk. It would not be accurate to say that he put her out of his mind during the long drive home to the North Shore, but he was able to tuck her away into a defocused corner of his consciousness. It was oddly comforting to know she existed out there—like having a little something keeping warm on the back of the stove.

  Jonathan soaked in the steaming water of his Roman bath, the tension of the past few days slowly dissolving, the cords of his neck unknotting, the tightness behind his eyes and in his jaw muscles melting reluctantly. But the knot of fear remained in his stomach.

  A martini at his bar; a pipe in the basement gallery; and he found himself rummaging around in the kitchen for something to eat. His search was rewarded with some Danish biscuits, a jar of peanut butter, a small tin of kimchee, and a split of champagne. This gastronomic holocaust he carried to the wing of the transept he had converted into a greenhouse garden, and there he sat beside the plashing pool, lulled by the sound of the water and the brush of warm sunlight.

  Little drops of perspiration tingled on his back as he began to doze, the vast peace of his house flowing over him.

  Then suddenly he snapped up—an image of surprised eyes with white dots of mucus had chased him out of a dream. He was nauseated.

  Getting too old for this, he complained. How did I ever get into it?

  Three weeks after the discovery of the abandoned church had added to his need for money, he had found himself in B
russels attending a convention and squandering Ford Foundation money. Late one wet and blustery night, a CII agent dropped into his hotel room and, after beating about the bush, asked him to do a service for his country. Recovering from a good laugh, Jonathan asked for a fuller explanation. The task was fairly simple for a man with Sphinx training: they wanted him to slip an envelope into the briefcase of an Italian delegate to the convention. It is difficult to say why he agreed to the thing. He was bored, to be sure, and the hint of fiscal return came at a time when he had just located his first Monet. But there was also the fact that the Italian had recently had the effrontery to suggest that he knew almost as much about the impressionists as Jonathan.

  At all events, he did the thing. He never knew what was in the envelope, but he later heard that the Italian had been picked up by agents of his own government and imprisoned for conspiracy.

  When he returned to New York, he found an envelope waiting for him with two thousand dollars in it. For expenses, the note had said.

  In the ensuing months, he performed three similar messenger jobs for CII and received the same liberal pay. He was able to buy one painting and several sketches, but the church was still beyond his means. He feared that someone else would buy his home—he already thought of it as his. The danger of this was really rather remote. Most of the Long Island religious groups were abandoning traditional churches in favor of A-frame redwood boxes more suited to their use of God.

  The climax of this work—a testing period, he discovered later—came in Paris where he was passing the Christmas vacation advising a Texas museum on purchases—attempting to convince them that small paintings could be as valuable as big ones. CII set up an assignment, a simple matter of introducing damaging material into the notebooks of a French government official. Unfortunately, the mark walked in while Jonathan was at work. The ensuing battle went badly at first. As the pair grappled and wrestled around the room, Jonathan was distracted by his attempt to protect a Limoges shepherdess of rare beauty which was in constant danger of being knocked from its fragile table. Twice he released his hold on the Frenchman to catch it as it toppled, and twice his adversary took the opportunity to belabor his back and shoulders with his walking stick. For many minutes the struggle continued. Then suddenly the Frenchman had the statuette in his hand and he hurled it at Jonathan. With shock and fury at the wanton destruction of a thing of beauty, Jonathan saw it shatter against a marble fireplace. He roared with rage and drove the heel of his hand into the rib cage just below the heart. Death was instantaneous.

  Later that night Jonathan sat near the window of a cafe on the Place St. Georges, watching snow swirl around scuttling passersby. He was surprised to recognize that the only thing he felt about the episode—other than the bruises—was a deep regret over the Limoges shepherdess. But one thing he decided irrevocably: he would never again work for CII.

  Late one afternoon shortly after the beginning of the second semester, he was interrupted in his office work by a visit from Clement Pope. His dislike for this officious flunkey was immediate and enduring.

  After Pope had cautiously closed the office door, checked into the cubicle reserved for Jonathan's assistants, and glanced out the windows to the snow-dappled campus, he said meaningfully, "I'm from CII. SS Division."

  Jonathan scarcely glanced up from his papers. "I'm sorry, Mr. Pope. Working for you people no longer amuses me."

  "SS stands for Search and Sanction. You've heard of us?"

  "No."

  Pope was pleased. "Our security is the tightest. That's why nobody has heard of us."

  "I'm sure your reputation is deserved. Now, I'm busy."

  "You don't have to worry about that Frog, buddy-boy. Our people in Paris covered it up." He sat on the edge of the desk and paged through the first papers he found there.

  Jonathan's stomach tightened. "Get out of here."

  Pope laughed. "You really expect me to walk out that door, pal?"

  Jonathan judged the distance between them. "Either the door or the window. And we're four stories up." His gentle, disarming smile came on automatically.

  "Listen, pal—"

  "And get your ass off my desk."

  "Look, buddy—"

  "And don't call me 'buddy' or 'pal.' "

  "Man, if I weren't under orders..." Pope flexed his shoulders and considered the situation for a second, then he rose from the desk. "Mr. Dragon wants to talk to you." Then, to save face, he added, "And right now!"

  Jonathan walked to the corner of his office and drew himself a cup of coffee from the urn. "Who is this Mr. Dragon?"

  "My superior."

  "That doesn't narrow the field much, does it."

  "He wants to talk to you."

  "So you said." Jonathan set the cup down. "All right. I'll make an appointment for him."

  "To come here? That's funny!"

  "Is it?"

  "Yeah." Pope frowned and made a decision. "Here, read this, pal." He drew an envelope from his coat pocket and handed it to Jonathan.

  Dear Dr. Hemlock:

  If you are reading this, my man has already failed to persuade you by sheer force of personality. And I am not surprised. Naturally, I should have come to see you in person, but I don't get about well, and I am most pressed for time.

  I have a proposition for you that will demand very little of your time and which can net you upwards of thirty thousand dollars per annum, tax free. I believe a stipend like this would allow you to purchase the church on Long Island you have been yearning for, and it might even permit you to add to your illegal collection of paintings.

  Obviously, I am attempting to impress you with my knowledge of your life and secrets, and I do so hope I have succeeded.

  If you are interested, please accompany Mr. Pope to my office where you shall meet...

  Your Obedient Servant, Yurasis Dragon

  Jonathan finished the letter and replaced it thoughtfully in its envelope.

  "Well?" Pope asked. "What do you say, pal?"

  Jonathan smiled at him as he rose and crossed the room. Pope was smiling in return when the backhand slap knocked him off balance.

  "I told you not to call me 'pal.' Dr. Hemlock will do just fine."

  Tears of anger and smart stood in Pope's eyes, but he controlled himself. "Are you coming with me?"

  Jonathan tossed the letter onto his desk. "Yes, I think I shall."

  Before they left, Pope took the letter and put it in his pocket. "Mr. Dragon's name appears on paper nowhere in the United States," he explained. "Matter of fact, I don't remember him writing a letter to anyone before."

  "So?"

  "That ought to impress you."

  "Evidently I impress Mr. Dragon."

  Jonathan groaned and woke up. The sunlight had gone, and the greenhouse garden was filled with a gray, inhospitable light. He rose and stretched the stiffness out of his back. Evening was bringing leaden skies from the ocean. Outside, the chartreuse undersides of leaves glowed dimly in the still air. The fore-voice of thunder predicted a heavy rain.

  He padded into the kitchen. He always looked forward to rain, and he prepared to receive it. When, some minutes later, the storm rolled over the church, he was enthroned in a huge padded chair, a heavy book in his lap and a pot of chocolate on the table beside him. Beyond the pool of light in which he read, dim patterns of yellow, red, and green rippled over the walls as the rain coursed down the stained glass windows. Occasionally, the forms within the room brightened and danced to flashes of lightning. Hard-bodied rain rattled on the lead roof; and wind screamed around corners.

  For the first time, he went through the ritual of the ancient elevator in the Third Avenue office building, of the disguised guards outside Dragon's office, of the ugly and hygienic Miss Cerberus, of the dim red light and superheated interlock chamber.

  His eyes slowly irised open, discovering misty forms. And for the first time Dragon's blood-red eyes emerged to shock and sicken him.

  "You fin
d my appearance disturbing, Hemlock?" Dragon asked in his atonic, cupric voice. "Personally, I've come to terms with it. The affliction is most rare—something of a distinction. Genetic indispositions like these indicate some rather special circumstances of breeding. I fancy the Hapsburgs took a similar pride in their hemophilia." The dry skin around Dragon's eyes crinkled up in a smile, and he laughed his three arid ha's.

  The parched, metallic voice, the unreal surroundings, and the steady gaze of those scarlet eyes made Jonathan want this interview to end. "Do you have anything against coming to the point?"

  "I don't mean to draw this chat out unduly, but I have so little opportunity to chat with men of intelligence."

  "Yes, I met your Mr. Pope."

  "He is loyal and obedient."

  "What else can he be?"

  Dragon was silent for a moment. "Well, to work. We have made a bid on an abandoned Gothic church on Long Island. You know the one I mean. It is our intention to have it torn down and to convert the grounds into a training area for our personnel. How do you feel about that, Hemlock?"

  "Go on."

  "If you join us, we shall withdraw our bid, and you will receive a sufficient advance in salary to make a down payment. But before I go on, tell me something. What was your reaction to killing that French fellow who broke the statuette?"

  In truth, Jonathan had not even thought about the affair since the morning after it happened. He told Dragon this.

  "Grand. Just grand. That confirms the Sphinx psychological report on you. No feelings of guilt whatsoever! You are to be envied."

  "How did you know about the statuette?"

  "We took telephoto motion pictures from the top of a nearby building."

  "Your cameraman just happened to be up there."

  Dragon laughed his three dry ha's. "Surely you don't imagine the Frenchman walked in on you by coincidence?"

  "I could have been killed."

  "True. And that would have been regrettable. But we had to know how you reacted under pressure before we felt free to make this handsome offer."