The curtains came closer, undulating obscenely, bathing him in the colors of their glow. Threatening to settle like a shroud around him.

"No!" he shouted, as if to break the spell and make them go away. His voice echoing off the rock masses and out across the glacier. But the spell did not break and instead they came closer, pulsating steadily, as if they were some living organism that owned the heavens. Abruptly they became translucent, like the hideous tentacles of jellyfish, and suddenly descended further as if to smother him. In silent terror, he turned and ran back the way he had come.

Once again he was in the cul-de-sac and face-to-face with headwalls of stone. Turning back, he watched in dread as the tentacles came toward him. Translucent, glowing, undulating. Lowering. Were they here to warn of his imminent death? Or this time, was it death itself? He shrunk back. What did they want? He merely was a soldier following orders. A soldier doing his duty.

Then that same sense rose in him and the fear left. He was a Spetsnaz soldier! He was Letter der Sicherheit! Letter der Sicherheit! He would not allow death to take him with his purpose hot yet done! He would not allow death to take him with his purpose hot yet done! "Neinr "Neinr he shouted out loud. he shouted out loud.

"Ich bin der Leiter der Sicherheit!" I am chief of security! Tearing the pack from his shoulders, he undid the straps and took the box from inside. Cradling it in his arms, he took a step forward. I am chief of security! Tearing the pack from his shoulders, he undid the straps and took the box from inside. Cradling it in his arms, he took a step forward.

"Das ist meine Pflicht!" This is my duty! he said, offering the box up in both hands. This is my duty! he said, offering the box up in both hands.

"Das ist meine Seele!' This is my soul! This is my soul!

Abruptly the Aurora vanished and Von Holden stood trembling in the moonlight, the box still in his arms. A moment passed before he could hear his own breathing. A moment more, and he felt his pulse return to normal. Finally, he started forward out of the cul-de-sac. Then he was out and on the edge of the mountain overlooking the glacier. Below him he saw the clear trail to the air shaft. Immediately he started down it, the box still clutched in his arms.

By now the storm had passed and the moon and stars were stark in the sky. The clarity of the moonlight and the angle from which it came gave the snowy landscape a raw. timelessness that made it at once past and future, and Von Holden had the sense that he had demanded and been given passage through a world that existed only on some Jar-removed plane.

"Das ist meine Pflicht!" he said again, looking up at the stars. Duty above all! Above Earth. Above God. Beyond time. he said again, looking up at the stars. Duty above all! Above Earth. Above God. Beyond time.

Within minutes he'd reached the split of rock that concealed the opening to the air shaft. The rock itself jutted put over the edge of the cliff and he had to step out and around it to enter. As he did, he saw Osborn sprawled on a snow covered shelf thirty yards downhill from where he stood, his left leg turned under him at an odd angle. Von Holden knew it was broken. But he wasn't dead. His eyes were open and he was watching him.

"Don't take another chance with him," he thought. "Shoot him now."

There was a puff of snow from Von Holden's boot as he stepped closer to the edge and looked down. His movement had put him in deep shadow, with the full light of the moon on the Jungfrau above him. But even in the darkness Osborn could see him shift the weight of the box and cradle it in his left arm. Then he saw a secondary movement and the pistol come up in his right hand. Osborn no longer had McVey's gun-it had been lost in the rush of the avalanche that had saved his life. He'd been given one chance, he wouldn't get another unless he did something himself.

Grimacing in agony as his fractured leg twisted beneath him, Osborn dug in with his elbows and kicked out with his other leg. Unbearable pain shot the length of his body as he inched backward, squirming like a broken animal over the ice and rock, trying wildly to drag himself across the shelf and out of the line of fire. Suddenly he felt his head dip backward and he realized he had come to the edge. Cold air rushed up from below and he looked over his shoulder and saw nothing but a vast dark hole in the glacier beneath him. Slowly he looked back. He could feel Von Holden smile as his finger closed around the pistol's trigger.

Then Von Holden's eyes flashed in the moonlight. His gun bucked in his hand and he jerked sideways, his shots spraying off into space. Von Holden kept shooting and his entire body jumped with the rattle of the gun until it was empty. Then his hand went limp and dropped to his side and the gun fell away. For a moment he just stood there, his eyes wide, the box still cradled in his left arm. Then, ever so slowly, he lost his balance and pitched forward, his body plunging downward, sailing over Osborn, free-falling in the clear night air toward the gaping darkness below.

154.

OSBORN R REMEMBERED hearing dogs and then saw faces. hearing dogs and then saw faces.

A local doctor and Swiss paramedics. Mountain rescuers who carried him in a litter up through the snow in the darkness. Vera. Inside the station. Her face white and taut with fear. Uniformed policemen on the train as he went down. They were talking but he didn't remember hearing them. Connie. Sitting beside him, smiling reassuringly. And Vera again, holding his hand.

Then drugs or pain or exhaustion must have taken over because he went out.

Later he thought there was something about a hospital in Grindelwald. And an argument of some kind as to who he was. He could have sworn Remmer came into the room and after him, McVey in his rumpled suit. With McVey pulling up a chair next to the bed and sitting down, watching him.

Then he saw Von Holden back on the mountain. Saw him teeter on the edge. Saw him fall. For the briefest instant he had the impression that someone was standing on the ledge directly behind him. He remembered trying to think who it could be and realized it was Vera. She held an enormous icicle arid it was covered with blood. But then that vision faded to one infinitely clearer. Von Holden was alive and falling toward him, the box still clutched in his arms. He was falling not at normal speed but in some sort of distorted slow motion and in an arc that would send him over the edge and down into the fathomless darkness thousands of feet below. Then he was gone, and all that was left was what had been said before, just as the avalanche struck.

"Why was my father murdered?" Osborn had asked.

"Fur ubermorgen," Von Holden had answered. "For the day after tomorrow!" Von Holden had answered. "For the day after tomorrow!"

155.

Berlin, Monday, October 17.

VERA S SAT alone in the back of a taxi as it turned off Clay Allee onto Messelstrasse and into the heart of Dahlem, one of Berlin's handsomest districts. A cold rain was falling for the second day and people were already complaining about it. That morning the concierge at the Hotel Kempinski had personally delivered a single red rose. With it had come a sealed envelope with a hastily scrawled note asking her to take it to Osborn when she visited him at the small, exclusive hospital in Dahlem. The note had been signed "McVey." alone in the back of a taxi as it turned off Clay Allee onto Messelstrasse and into the heart of Dahlem, one of Berlin's handsomest districts. A cold rain was falling for the second day and people were already complaining about it. That morning the concierge at the Hotel Kempinski had personally delivered a single red rose. With it had come a sealed envelope with a hastily scrawled note asking her to take it to Osborn when she visited him at the small, exclusive hospital in Dahlem. The note had been signed "McVey."

Because of road construction, the route to Dahlem backtracked and she found herself being driven past the destruction that had been Charlottenburg. Workmen were out in the heavy rain, gutting the structure. Bulldozers steamrolled over the formal gardens clearing the ruins, pushing them into great piles of charred rubble that were then machine-loaded into dump trucks and driven away. The tragedy had made headlines worldwide and flags flew at half mast across the city. A state funeral had been planned for the victims. Two former presidents of the United States were to attend as was the president of France and the prime minister of England.

"It burned before. In 1746," the cabdriver told her, his voice strong and filled with pride. "It was rebuilt then. It will be rebuilt again."

Vera closed her eyes as the taxi turned on Kaiser Friedrichstrasse for Dahlem. She'd come down with him from the mountain and had stayed with him as long as they'd let her. Then she'd been given an escort to Zurich and told Osborn would be taken to a hospital in Berlin. And that's where she'd gone. It had all happened in too little time. Images and feelings collided, beautiful, painful, horrifying. Love and death rode hand in hand. And too closely. It seemed, almost, as if she'd lived through a war.

Through most of it had been the overriding presence of McVey. In one way, he was a kind and earnest grandfather who cared for the human rights and dignity of everyone. But in another, he was his own sort of Patton. Selfish and ruthless, relentless, even cruel. Driven by pursuit of truth. At any cost whatsoever.

The taxi let her off under an overhang and she entered the hospital. The lobby was small and warm and she was startled to see a uniformed policeman. He watched her carefully until she announced herself at the desk. Then he immediately rang for the elevator and smiled at her as she entered.

Another policeman stood outside the second-floor elevator and a plainclothes inspector was outside the door to Osborn's room. Both men seemed to know who she was, the last even greeting her by name.

"Is he in danger?" she asked, concerned at the presence of the police.

"It is simply a precaution."

"I understand." Vera turned to the door. Beyond it was a man. she barely knew, yet loved as if centuries had passed between them. The brief time they'd spent together had beer! like no other. He'd touched her on a level no one else ever had. Perhaps it was because when they'd looked at each other the first time, they'd also looked down the road. And what they'd seen, they'd seen together, as if there would never be a time when they would part. And then out on the mountain, under the most cruel of situations, he'd confirmed it. For both of them.

At least that was what she thought. Suddenly she was afraid that everything she felt was hers alone. That she'd misread it all and that whatever they'd had between them had been fleeting and one-sided, and that on the other side of the door she'd find not the Paul Osborn she knew but a stranger.

"Why don't you go in?" The inspector smiled and opened the door.

He lay in bed, his left leg beneath a sprawling web of pulleys and ropes and counterweights; He was wearing his L.A. Kings T-shirt, bright red jockey shorts and nothing else, and when she saw him all her fears vanished and she started to laugh.

"What's so damn funny?" he demanded.

"Don't know . . ." She giggled. "I don't know at all . . . . It just is . . ."

And then the inspector closed the door and she crossed the room and came into his arms. And everything that had been-on the Jungfrau, in Paris, in London and in Geneva came rushing back. Outside, it was raining and Berlin was complaining. But to them, it made no difference at all.

156.

Los Angeles.

PAUL O OSBORN sat on the grass and stone patio of his Pacific Palisades home and stared out at the horseshoe of lights that was Santa Monica Bay. It was seventy-five degrees and ten o'clock at night a week before Christmas. sat on the grass and stone patio of his Pacific Palisades home and stared out at the horseshoe of lights that was Santa Monica Bay. It was seventy-five degrees and ten o'clock at night a week before Christmas.

What had happened on the Jungfrau was too tangled and complex to try to make sense of. The last moments were especially disturbing because he couldn't say for certain exactly what had happened, or how much of what he thought had happened had really taken place at all.

As a physician, he understood that he had suffered significant physical and emotional trauma. Not just in the last weeks but across the arc of his entire life from childhood to adult, though certainly he could point to the closing days in Germany and Switzerland as the most tumultuous of all. But it had been there on the Jungfrau that the line between reality and hallucination finally ceased to exist. Night and snow had melded with fear and exhaustion. The honor of the avalanche, the certainty of imminent death at the hands of Von Holden, and the excruciating pain of his broken leg rubbed whatever cognizance there still was out of existence. What was real, what was a dream, was all but impossible to tell. And now that he was home, broken but alive and mending, did it make any difference anyway?

Taking a sip of iced tea, Osborn looked back out at the bay. In Paris it was seven in the morning. In an hour Vera would be on the train to Calais to meet her grandmother. Together they would take the Hoverspeed to Dover and from there the train to London. And at eleven the next morning they would fly out of Heathrow Airport on British Airways for Los Angeles. Vera had been to the United States once, with Francois Christian. Her grandmother had never been. What the old Frenchwoman would think of Christmas in Los Angeles he had no idea but there was no doubt she'd make her sentiments known. About tinsel and sunshine and about him, as well.

That Vera was coming was excitement enough. That she was bringing her grandmother gave it legitimacy. If she was going to stay and become a physician in the U.S., it meant, in essence, she would have to satisfy the strict requirements of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates. For some things she might have to return to school, for others there would be a strict and tedious internship. It would be a grueling and difficult commitment in time and energy, one that she did not have to make because for all intents she was already a doctor in France. The trouble was he'd asked her to marry him. To come to California to live happily ever after.

Her answer to his proposal, given in his hospital room with a smile, was that-she'd "see." Those were her words.

"I'll see. . . ."

See what? he'd asked. If she wanted to marry him? Live in the U.S.? In California?-But all he could get out of her was the same "I'll see. . . ." Then she'd kissed him and left Berlin for Paris.

The package Vera had brought him from McVey had been his passport, retrieved from the First Paris Prefecture of Police. With it had been a note, written in French and signed by Parisian detectives Barras and Maitrot, wishing him good luck and sincerely hoping that in the future he would do everything in his power to stay out of France. Then, a week to the day after he'd been brought down off the Jungfrau and flown to Berlin, two days after Vera had left for Paris, he'd been released from the hospital.

Remmer, in from Bad Godesberg, had driven him to the airport and brought him up to date. Noble, he learned, had been airlifted back to London and was in a burn rehabilitation center. It would be months and a number of skin graft operations before he could return to a normal life, if that would be possible at all. Remmer himself, broken wrist and all, was back at work full-time, assigned to the investigation of the events leading up to the Charlottenburg fire and the shootout at the Hotel Borggreve. Joanna Marsh, Lybarger's American therapist, had been found at a Berlin hotel. Questioned extensively and released, she'd ? been escorted back to the U.S. by McVey. What had happened to her after that Remmer didn't know. He assumed she'd gone home.

"Remmer-" Osborn remembered asking carefully as memories of the last night on the Jungfrau came back. "Do you know where she called the Swiss police from? Which station. Kleine Scheidegg or Jungfraujoch?"

Remmer turned from the wheel to look at him. "You're talking about Vera Monneray."

"Yes."

"It wasn't she who called the Swiss police."

"What do you mean?" Osborn was startled.

"The call was made by another American. A woman. She was a tourist. . . . Connie something, I think. . . ."

Connie?"

"That's right."

"You're saying Vera knew where I was out there? That she told them where to find me?"

"The dogs found you," Remmer wrinkled his brow. "Why would you think it was Ms. Monneray?"

"She was at Jungfraujoch station when they brought me in . . . ," Osborn said, uncertainly.

"So were a number of other people."

Osborn looked off. Dogs. All right, let it go at that. Let his image of Vera standing on the trail just after Von Holden fell, an enormous bloody icicle in her hands, remain only that, an illusion. Part of his hallucinatory dreams. Nothing else.

"You're really asking if she's innocent. You want to believe she is, but you're still not sure."

Osborn looked back. "I am sure."

"Well, you're right. We found the printing equipment used to make Von Holden's false BKA I.D. It was in the apartment of the mole the Organization had working as a supervisor in the jail, the one who released her in Von Holden's custody. She did believe he was taking her to you. He knew too much for her to expect otherwise until just before the end."

Osborn didn't need the confirmation. If he hadn't believed it on the mountain, he certainly had by the time Vera left Berlin for Paris.

"What about Joanna Marsh?" he asked. "Did she give any indication why Salettl sent us after her?"

Remmer was silent for a long moment, then shook his head. "Maybe one day we will find out, yes?" There was something about Remmer's manner that suggested he knew more than he was telling. And he had to remember that no matter how much they'd been through together, Remmer was still police. Look what they had done to Vera even when they knew, probably within a few hours, maybe even right away, that she'd had nothing to do with the Organization and that she was not Avril Rocard. It was a frightening power to have because it was so easy to misuse.

"What about McVey?" Osborn said.

"I told you. He escorted Ms. Marsh back home."

"He sent me my passport."

"You couldn't leave Germany without it." Remmer smiled.

"He never talked to me. Even when he came to the hospital in Grindelwald, he never said a word."

'Bern."

"What?"

'You were brought to the hospital in Bern."

Osborn' expression went blank. "You're sure?"

"Yes. We were with the Bern police when the call came in they'd found you up on the mountain."

"You were in Bern? Bern? How-?" How-?"

"McVey had your track." Remmer smiled. "You bought a Eurail pass in Bern. You paid for it with a credit card. McVey had an eye on all your accounts, just in case. When you used it it told him where you were and what time you'd been there."

Osborn was astonished. "That can't be legal."

"You took his gun, his personal papers, his badge." Remmer hardened. "You were not authorized to impersonate a police officer."

"Where would Von Holden be now if I didn't?" Osborn pushed back. Remmer said nothing. "What happens now?"

"It's not for me to say. It's not my case. It's McVey's."

157.

"IT'S N NOT my case. It's McVey's." A day hadn't passed that Remmer's words didn't ring in Osborn's ears. What was the penalty for doing what he had done? Not only had he taken a police officer's gun and identification, he'd used them to cross an international border. He could be ried in L.A. and then extradited to Germany or Switzerland to face charges there. Maybe even France if Interpol wanted to get involved. Or maybe, God forbid, those would be secondary charges, incidentals. The real one would be the attempted murder of Albert Merriman. Hiding in Paris or not, Merriman had still been an American citizen. Those were things McVey would not forget. my case. It's McVey's." A day hadn't passed that Remmer's words didn't ring in Osborn's ears. What was the penalty for doing what he had done? Not only had he taken a police officer's gun and identification, he'd used them to cross an international border. He could be ried in L.A. and then extradited to Germany or Switzerland to face charges there. Maybe even France if Interpol wanted to get involved. Or maybe, God forbid, those would be secondary charges, incidentals. The real one would be the attempted murder of Albert Merriman. Hiding in Paris or not, Merriman had still been an American citizen. Those were things McVey would not forget.

By now it was almost Christmas and Osborn hadn't heard so much as a word from him. Yet every time he saw a police car he jumped. He was driving himself crazy with guilt and fear, and he didn't know what to do about it. He could call a lawyer and prepare a defense but that could make it worse if McVey felt he'd been through enough and decided to let it go at that. Purposely he stopped thinking about it and concentrated on his patients. Three nights a week he spent in physical therapy working his broken leg back to normal. It would be a month before he could get rid of the crutches and two more before he could walk without a limp. But he could live with it, thank you, considering what the alternative might have been.

And daily, time itself was beginning to heal the deeper things. A great deal of the mystery of his father's death had been answered, though the real why and purpose still drifted. Von Holden's answer-"Fur ubermorgen, for the day after tomorrow"-if, in truth, that part of Osborn's experience on the Jungfrau had been real and not an hallucination-seemed a meaningless abstract that told him nothing. for the day after tomorrow"-if, in truth, that part of Osborn's experience on the Jungfrau had been real and not an hallucination-seemed a meaningless abstract that told him nothing.