Rules of Deception

73

At one p.m., Sepp Steiner, chief of Davos Emergency Rescue, left his office on the summit of the Jakobshorn, elevation 2,950 meters above sea level, and walked outside. The forecast had called for a high-pressure system to move in from the south, but so far the sky was as woolly and threatening as ever. He strode to the far side of his office and checked the barometer. The needle was locked steady at 880 millibars. Temperature: -4° Celsius. He flicked the glass with his finger and the needle jumped all the way up to 950.

Turning his face to the sky, he studied the clouds. For the last three days, the ceiling had resembled a becalmed sea. This morning, there was a change. Instead of the gray panorama, he could discern individual clouds. The air was noticeably dryer. The breeze had picked up, but it had changed direction. It was coming from the south.

Steiner rushed back to his office and grabbed a pair of binoculars-Nikon 8x50’s that his colleagues joked made him look like a tank commander. Putting them to his eyes, he sca

Just then, the breeze softened. A cleft opened in the clouds directly above his head and an azure sky gazed down. He jogged the few steps to the weather station. The temperature read minus two. The high-pressure front had arrived.

Hurrying indoors, Steiner fired up his radio and alerted his men.

It was time to go back to Roman’s.

Three hours later, Steiner’s team reached the knoll where Emma Ransom was last seen. They had come by a secondary route used only in fine weather that was favored by alpinists and ice climbers. It was a shorter trek but much steeper, presenting two separate vertical pitches of twenty meters each.

The last traces of the storm system that had sat over the entire country for the past five days had dissipated. Blue sky reigned and the afternoon sun shone fiercely. A vast field of snow glittered with the secrets of a thousand uncut diamonds.

Steiner gazed up the mountain. There was no sign of the life-and-death struggle that had taken place on this spot. Similarly, it was impossible to discern the location of the crevasse.

He ordered his men to spread out in a line. Each held a two-meter probing stick in front of him. Step by step they advanced, jabbing their poles into the snow to test for solid ground. It was Steiner who discovered the crevasse when he thrust his pole into the snow and it kept right on going until he was bent to the knee.

A quarter of an hour later, his men had cleared a ten-meter swath that permitted them a clear path to the fissure. Flags were set in the snow demarcating the crevasse’s boundaries, as Steiner supervised the fixing of the ropes. He would be the one to descend into the chasm and retrieve the body. After a final check of his harness and knots, he turned on his miner’s light and called, “On belay.” Allowing the rope to play through his fingers, he walked backward into the earth.

Inside the crevasse, the air was cooler. As he descended, the ice walls gave way to striated granite. All light from above dimmed. Soon he was stranded in an obscure paradise, his eyes trained on the halo of light emitted by the halogen bulb.

After he’d rappelled one length of rope-exactly forty meters-he saw the body. The woman was lying on her stomach, one arm stretched out above her head as if she were calling for help. The walls fell away and he allowed himself to slide down the rope more quickly, a steady, unbroken descent like a stone dropping into a pond. As he approached the crevasse’s floor, he was able to make out the patrolman’s cross on her jacket and the fleece of auburn hair covering her face.

His feet touched the earth.

“I’m down,” he radioed to his crew.

In the dim light, she looked fragile and at peace. Blood had congealed in pools around her legs and her head. Removing his pack, he took out a body harness, several carabiners, and a balaclava with which to cover her face to avoid any scratches or contusions on the ascent to the surface. He arranged the equipment in a row next to the body. Then, as was his custom, he knelt and offered a prayer for the departed.

Slipping both hands under the woman’s torso, he lifted the corpse and flipped it onto its back. This way it would be easier to attach the harness. But immediately, he felt something odd. The long, tangled hair fell away. A load of rocks and snow spilled onto the ground. He stood up holding the empty parka in his hands, staring at the pants still lying on the ground.

A gasp fled Steiner’s mouth.

There was no body at all.

74

They were heading in the wrong direction.

Ten minutes had passed since he’d been locked in the trunk. He’d felt the first hairpin leading out of the city, but was still waiting for the downhill chicane that prefaced rejoining the main highway. If he wasn’t mistaken, the car was climbing, not descending. He was certain that Simone had a reason for disobeying his instructions. But what was it? Had she caught sight of a roadblock? Had the police closed the highway altogether?

Concerned, Jonathan ran through the functions on his wristwatch. The altimeter read 1,950 meters, then a minute later, 1,960. He was right. They were going uphill. He clicked over to the compass. The car was pointed due east. They were proceeding along the highway that led to Tiefencastel, and then on to St. Moritz. Instead of going toward Zurich and the U.S. consulate, they were heading away from it.

“Simone,” he yelled, banging on the roof of the trunk. “Stop the car!”

A few moments later, the car pulled to the side of the road. Jonathan rose on an elbow, his head brushing against the chassis. He felt claustrophobic and increasingly frightened. Footsteps crunched in the snow outside the car. A male voice said a few words. The police? Had they come to a checkpoint? Jonathan held his breath, straining to pick up the conversation.

Just then, a door opened and the car swayed as a passenger climbed in. The door slammed and the car pulled back onto the highway.

“Simone! Who’s in there with you?”

He banged harder.

“Simone! Answer me! Who is it?”

The radio began to play, the speakers positioned above his head thumping loudly in time to the bass. The car accelerated and he rolled onto his side.

Eyes open, Jonathan lay back and reviewed the past days’ events: Simone’s too-rapid arrival in Arosa, her pleas that he leave the country, her reluctance to track down the individual who’d sent Emma the bags, her frustration at his trying to save Blitz’s life. All had been ruses to lure him off the scent. When he resisted her imprecations, she’d passed him down the line to the scalp hunters. He tore the Saint Christopher medal from his neck. It had to be some kind of homing beacon. There was no other way to explain how the assassin had been able to follow him to Davos. It did not, however, explain how he’d obtained a pass to enter the green zone. Like Emma, Simone had allies.

Sunlight seeped through the outline of the trunk. With the help of his wristwatch’s Lumiglo dial, he found the trunk’s lock, concealed behind a fiberboard veneer. Using Emma’s keys, he dug at the fiberboard, fashioning a slot and then a hole. When the hole grew large enough, he rammed a finger through it and began to tear away at the veneer.