Tibetan Cross Read online

  In the man's pockets were several cartridge cases, a wallet, passport, and a clasp knife. He opened the knife and crawled toward the fire. The crouching man was gone; the hunched figure had not moved. Was the crouching man the one now lying dead in the snow? Or was the dead man a sentry, and the crouching one circling now in the darkness, coming up behind?

  He circled quickly to the ridge above the fire. The stars were slipping from sight, the wind failing. New tracks led away from the fire to the lower end of the saddle. The hunched figure stood, extended his hands and stretched, staring downhill toward the new footprints. Cohen ducked behind a boulder. The man brushed at his shoulders, rubbed the back of his neck, picked up a rifle. Cohen's ankle wedged between two boulders; he squatted to free it and the knife vanished through the snow. Snow stinging his wrist, he felt under the snow between the rocks, the man six feet away and starting to turn.

  He found the knife and stood; it was not the knife but a sliver of rock in his wooden fingers and he ducked down, the man still turning, profiled against the firelit snow. The man raised the rifle, opened and closed the bolt. The knife was stuck under the rocks; when Cohen grabbed it, his clenched hand was too large to pull free. It fell again, his fingers too numb to find it. The man cleared his throat. Cohen found the knife and dove on his back, spun him backward and jabbed the knife against his throat as he dropped the rifle and grabbed Cohen's arm, squirming forward. Cohen kneed him in the back and lifted him off the ground, drove the blade deeper. “Want to die?”

  The man's feet skidded under the snow. Cohen twisted the knife. The man screamed into Cohen's hand, biting his fingers. Cohen tightened his hold and lessened pressure on the knife. He felt warmth, realized his hand was wet with blood. “Where are the others?”

  “Was?”

  “Les autres – ou sont-ils?”

  “Nicht spreche.”

  Cohen lifted the knife to an eye and pushed. The man moaned. “Tell me,” Cohen said, “or I'll kill you.”

  “You kill, no matter what.”

  “You're not the one I want.”

  “Who you want?”

  “Your boss.”

  “I not know.”

  “Who else's here?”

  “No one.”

  Cohen twitched the knife; the man gasped. “Don't lie,” Cohen said. “Who else's here?”

  “Just Dieter. He by cliff.”

  Cohen touched the blade to the other eye. “Don't learn, do you?”

  “I not know where.”

  “Where was he?”

  “Here, at fire.”

  “How many?”

  “Just us. No time for others.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Who?”

  “The others.”

  “Aix-en-Provence.”

  “Where?”

  “I not…No!”

  “Where?”

  “Hotel Metropole.”

  “How many there?”

  “One.”

  “Who?”

  “Mort.”

  “Who?”

  “The fat man. You kill me now?”

  “I won't kill you if you talk.”

  “Yes. You kill.”

  “You talk, I'll let you go. I swear to Virgin Mary.” Cohen lowered the knife to the throat.

  The man relaxed slightly. “You swear by Virgin? You Catholic?”

  “Yes. Why'd you shoot at us?”

  “Oh, dat was Dieter.”

  “Where's Dieter?”

  “He gone, I not know. He supposed to be here, at fire.”

  “How many, yesterday?”

  “Just Dieter, who shoot, and me.”

  “Why'd he shoot?”

  “Mort say follow you. You leave in car from Marseille. We follow. Call Mort from dam. He say he coming Aix. He say shoot if you go away.”

  “Who told him about me?”

  “He hear from Oran. Then he talk to man in Marseille.”

  “Who?”

  “The Corsican.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why kill us?”

  “Mort say, ten thousand marks. Just to kill, that is a lot.” The man tried to shrug but Cohen held him tight.

  “Did you ask why?” Cohen repeated.

  “Mort never say why.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “Like I say, Mort.”

  “Always?”

  “I work the drug, here to Köln. No harm. No harm to anyone.”

  “What drug?”

  “From Stamboul.”

  “What kind?”

  “Hash, only.”

  “Heroin?”

  “Oh, that, never.”

  “Who's Mort?”

  “Like I say, fat man. American. I not know other name.”

  “Where's he now?”

  “Like I say, Hotel Metropole.” The man was shivering now in his own blood.

  “Who killed Maria?”

  “Was? Maria?”

  “The girl, yesterday.”

  “Oh, dat was Dieter. He aim for you but she jump in front.”

  “You killed the dog, then.”

  “Dat was Dieter, too.”

  “It was different guns.”

  The man thought. “I must kill dog. He was bitting me. I sorry.”

  Cohen thought back to Nepal, the beginning. “Who's Stihl?”

  “I not know that name.”

  “Claire? Claire Savitch?”

  “Sorry. I not know.” The man waited. “You kill me now?”

  “I kill you now,” Cohen mimicked as he drove the knife home, twisting into the jugular while the man writhed and squealed. He stood and spat into the snow. I become like you. Executioner and victim. Catholic and Jew.

  From the body he took a passport, wallet, box of cartridges, and car keys. In the snow nearby he found Dieter's rifle and threw the bolt over the cliff. He checked the magazine of the scoped custom Mannlicher carbine the second man had dropped, loaded an extra clip, and climbed quickly back up the mountain to the bowl.

  Snow had covered everything; it took time in the still-dim light to find Maria's frozen, abbreviated corpse beneath its white blanket. Her legs were bent and immovable; her shattered head was locked in a neck-broken, sideways lilt. He dropped the Mannlicher and brushed away the snow but there was no face left to see. He clutched her to him, her hard limbs askew, his tears making small dark spots in the frost on her breast. Tripping over Lobo's stony body, he moved her from the edge of the bowl, dug his own clothes, shoes, and glasses from under the snow and put them on, keeping Dieter's jacket but throwing Dieter's other clothes over the cliff. With a final glance at the ridges and peaks now dusted with day's pink light, he ran down the trail.

  Léon's Fiat would not start. He yanked open the hood. The plug wires were cut, the distributor cap smashed. He mounted a boulder and scanned the road from the dam. Two hundred yards below, under oak boughs, gleamed a red door tinged with snow.

  It was an Alfa with Rome plates. The dead German's keys opened the door and fit the ignition, but there was no key socket for the trunk. He hesitated, not wanting the Mannlicher to be visible. Finally he dropped it on the jump seat with Dieter's jacket over it, backed the low-slung Alfa into the road and drove to the Fiat. Shivering as much with fear as cold, he switched license plates and accelerated toward Aix. A black Citroen bobbed over the next rise. Its nose dipped as it braked; its headlights blinked. He fumbled for the headlight switch. The Citroen neared, pulling over.

  A man was getting out of the Citroen. He was huge and raised a thick arm in salute. Cohen downshifted and accelerated at him.

  The fat man bounded onto the Citroen's roof yanking a gun from his coat. It banged in Cohen's ear and the passenger window shattered outward. It banged twice more, and then he was beyond the rise and out of range, the Alfa slewing, its steering wheel chattering to the whup whup of the punctured left front tire.

  He slid the Alfa across a curve, grabbed th
e Mannlicher and leaped a rock wall into the oak trees. The Citroen roared over the rise and skidded to a stop. Cohen had it blurred in the cross hairs and flipped off the safety.

  The man was big as a bear as he danced for the far roadside. Cohen fired. The barrel leaped and as it came down the fat man was gone into the trees. Cohen fired again, the bullet sang through the oaks. He sprinted across the road and ducked under wide boughs. There was little snow; leaves crunched underfoot.

  He was panting. Birdsong filtered flutelike through the clear air. A scratch of bark as a pygmy thrush skipped down a trunk. Far whistle like a train. Touch of a falling leaf, dipping down like a flat stone under water. He dropped the scope to three power. Wind chafed the leaves. He had to sneeze, held it. It came again and he turned his head, choking it in. The fat man was running up the road, dove behind a tree. A crow laughed; another answered. Cohen tightened the sling over his elbow and held the cross hairs on the near side of the tree. He's the one I saw in Sitea, sending out the dogs, the one from the Mercedes. The German called him Mort. A leaf snapped; sun glared on the road. Cohen squinted. He's got me facing the sun.

  He fired, twisted and ran head down into the oaks, back aching with expectancy. He stopped, holding his breath to listen, tried to picture himself in Mort's eyes. I missed the first easy shot. Mort'll think I'm scared, expect me to run. Have to wound him, capture him, make him talk. How soon will others come?

  Pines sloped southward into a green oak valley. In its cleft a brook and black stones glimmered among tall flaming clematis and creamy poplars. Above the clematis towered a single pine, its bark crusted with age, its far-flung branches weighted down with cones.

  He leaped the brook and bolted for the clematis, pushing through them to the pine. Its bark was tangy with pitch and the dry smell of warming needles. He climbed out of easy pistol range, straddled a bough, and ran the scope over the opalescent leaves of the clematis, the poplar trunks, the wider, duskier spaces between the uphill oaks and hawthorns. To the north, the road flashed beyond a gap in the trees.

  Mort was running up the stream, steps muffled by flowing water. His bald head gleamed; his brown suit was rumpled. Cohen lowered the cross hairs on him; he was gone behind an outstretched oak. He reappeared uphill, above the clematis. Cohen waited for a leg shot at the crest. Sweat stung his eye, fogging the scope. How soon will others come?

  Mort darted into the clematis. Cohen yanked down the barrel. A screen of leaves filled the scope. Mort was edging into pistol range, beneath the cover of clematis and poplar leaves. Cohen checked the breech. Two shots left. He reached into his pocket for the second clip; it was gone. Swearing, he checked his other pockets, glanced at the ground below the tree.

  A twig leaped up, a sparrow flashed away. He scoped the spot, first three power, then four, then six, stretched out the bough, leaning the Mannlicher through its prickly needles. With intentness but without direction, he let his gaze find its own way through the kaleidoscope of leaves and stems. In the corner of his eye a blink of color, green to brown, under the crisscrossed branches. At six power, flies danced like points of light above the leaf carpet but the flicker of brown was gone.

  Closer he found it again. He followed the direction of its movement even nearer to a clearer spot in the interlocking clematis. A cuckoo called, downhill. Pink flashed across the scope. He came back to it, lost it, cranked down to three power, found it. It was pale with black atop it, moving away under the green and scarlet. It stopped.

  It was the finger of a hand, wrapped around a clematis stem. The black was a stone set in gold. The other fingers were invisible. The hand came round the stem and he saw there were no other fingers, only stumps. The hand vanished. He leaned over the pine bough and located a hole in the foliage ahead of the ringed finger. The cuckoo called. His pulse tolled. Car sound on the road, slowing. But now Mort's too close; I can't descend. The car picked up speed and continued along the road.

  Darkness edged beneath the clematis stems. He found its center and slowly, very slowly, squeezed the trigger. The Mannlicher's great boom shattered the silence, tearing him back on his bough, smashing to pieces in the hills. The clematis crashed and were silent. Two crows were cawing hurriedly as rumbling echoes died beyond Sainte-Victoire. He bolted the last round home. At their upper edge the clematis rustled. He aimed at a flux in one stalk and fired. A brown rabbit zigzagged uphill into the oaks. He shinnied down the pine and broke for the oaks, gained the crest and bolted over crackling leaves to the road.

  18

  HE DASHED past the Citroen and grabbed the box of cartridges from the Alfa, darted back into the oaks, and reloaded the Mannlicher. Skirting the brook he scoped the clematis, crawled downslope. Muddy tracks spattered with blood led downhill into a bramble thicket; cautiously he edged toward them. From the road came the quick whirr of the Citroen's starter; he jumped up and sprinted toward it, its engine roaring now, but the Citroen was gone when he reached the road, a spot of blood shiny in morning sunlight on the gravel shoulder.

  He tossed the Mannlicher into the rear of the Alfa. The tire was torn to shreds. Another car made him duck into the trees, but it was only a Renault 4 camionette, an old man driving. Again Cohen yanked at the Alfa's trunk but it would not budge. He jumped in and, clenching the steering wheel, drove as fast as he dared, the front wheel chattering. After a kilometer he turned up a farm road and killed the engine.

  The trunk latch was nonexistent. He strained at the lid, but it would not raise. He tried the back seat; it would not move. A toggle switch with a key slot was set into the back of the driver's door jamb; he inserted one of Dieter's keys and the trunk lid sprang up. Beneath two leatherette suitcases were the spare tire and jack.

  At a café on the outskirts of Aix he washed the mud and Maria's dried blood from his face, ate, and asked the way to the Hotel Metropole. The waiter tipped aside his tray to peer at him. “There's not one, Monsieur.”

  “There must be…If not, a Metropolitain, perhaps?”

  “Nothing like that. It's not the Roy René?”

  “I'm mistaken,” Cohen said brusquely, standing to toss several of Dieter's francs on the table. I should have got him alive, should have waited. He parked the Alfa in a sedate street of budding plane trees backed by high residential walls, rolled down the shattered window, put the suitcases on the back seat, and locked the Mannlicher in the trunk. With the keys he gouged “A bas les riches,” in the deep cherry paint of the hood. On the trunk he scratched “Vive la P. C.,” and drove downtown.

  Near the railroad station he found a nondescript, under-patronized body shop. “Can you fix this?” he fumed angrily at the freckled, square-jawed foreman, pointing at the trunk and hood.

  “It's my job, is it not?” the man replied, wiping stained hands on a rag.

  “That was my hope.”

  “What is hope but nourishment for fools, poison to the wise? I don't like them either, les Communistes.”

  “The window's broken, too.”

  “That I'd have to sub out.” The foreman scratched on a pad. “Twelve fifty, including the window.”

  “The paint'll match?”

  The man licked a finger and rubbed it on the hood. “This here, has oxidized, and'll clash with the new.” He fondled his jaw. “Of course, we'll try to fade it in.”

  “To do the whole car, how much?”

  “The same color, Monsieur?”

  “My girl doesn't like this color. She wants silver.”

  “Women are like that – it's the most expensive. Why not white or gray? That'd be eighteen hundred, the silver twenty-one.”

  “And black?”

  “Same as white.”

  “Black, then. How soon?”

  “Three days, rush.”

  “I need it tomorrow.”

  “For nineteen hundred, five o'clock tomorrow.”

  HE GAVE the foreman the ignition key only, and found a room near the railroad station where he searched the two suitcases, finding nothing b
ut French and Italian clothes and toiletries. At the station he obtained a map showing all the hotels in Aix. By midafternoon he had learned that none had a present or recent client matching Mort's description.

  He entered the shadowy coolness of the cathedral and crossed to the cloister. On the cloister's far side, a door opened to a stairway that he mounted to a window giving on the crypt roof. He climbed through the window and up slippery orange tiles to the nave wall, then up a narrow ladder to the roof, up its steep slope and forward on the ridge to a square bell tower guarded by gargoyles. From a narrow stone walkway at the base of the tower he had a good view of the town, yet felt unseen. In the warmth of the sun on the yellow stone he soon fell asleep.

  Bells boomed around him at four and again at five. He sat up and rubbed his face. People flocked far below in la rue Gaston de Sapporta like toy soldiers going in and out the doors of the cathedral. What are you looking for? None of the toy soldiers raised its tiny head to answer. He remembered the Algerian colonel's words: “After what I've seen, how could I believe in God?” and Claire's: “A jealous and sexually frustrated one at that.” Yes, God of the Bible says do what I say, not what I do, says to forgive, yet He tallies everything and waits. But even more fearful than the vengeance of God is the vengeance of man.

  IN HIS POCKETS over five thousand marks and seven hundred francs from the suitcases, and nearly another two hundred francs from the wallets of Dieter and his accomplice. He dined mechanically in an obscure café and returned to his room, searching the suitcases again, without result. He woke at dawn, feverish and unrested. After another unproductive round of Aix's hotels, he sat disconsolate in the garden of the Hotel des Thermes. Birds warbled in the trees; beyond the garden's thick and ancient walls the city thrummed like a hive.

  With a snicker he remembered Claire's joke – “No good deed goes unpunished.” In the moonwashed Parthenon it had been a funny taste of truth twisted from a mouthful of rhetoric. Like the bomb, a brilliant discovery, Nobel Prizes for absent-minded professors, the prize-winning discovery soon to kill us all. Like my mailgram offering help to Hassim, that killed Maria. What a murderous fool I've been. I think I'm learning, but I'm always way behind.