ABOVE THE SNOW LINE, THE GERMAN ALPS TORE AT THE SKY
like the jaws of an ancient fl esh eater. Storm clouds grazed the windswept
peaks, and the jagged rock appeared to move, as if the beast
were awakening. Two men, neither young, both strong, watched
from the balcony of a ski hotel with quickening anticipation.
Hans Grandzau was a guide whose weathered face was as craggy
as the mountaintops. He carried in his head sixty years of traversing
the wintery slopes. Last night, he had promised that the wind would
shift east. Bitter Siberian cold would whirl wet air from the Mediterranean
into blinding snow.
The man to whom Hans had promised snow was a tall American
whose blond hair and mustache were edged with silver. He wore a
tweed Norfolk suit, a warm fedora on his head, and a Yale University
scarf adorned with the shield of Branford College. His dress was
typical of a well- to- do tourist who had come to the Alps for winter
sport. But his eyes were fastened with a glacial- blue intensity on an
isolated stone castle ten miles across the rugged valley.
The castle had dominated its remote glen for a thousand years.
It was nearly buried by the winter snows and mostly hidden by the
shadow of the peaks that soared above it. Miles below the castle, too
long and steep a climb to be undertaken lightly, was a village. The
American watched a pillar of smoke creep toward it. He was too far
away to see the locomotive venting it, but he knew that it marked
the route of the railroad that crossed the border to Innsbruck. Full
circle, he thought grimly. Twenty- seven years ago, the crime had
started by a railroad in the mountains. Tonight it would end, one way
or another, by a railroad in the mountains.
“Are you sure you are up to this?” asked the guide. “The ascents
are steep. The wind will cut like a saber.”
“I’m fi t as you are, old man.”
To assure Hans, he explained that he had prepared by bivouacking
for a month with Norwegian ski troops, having arranged informal
attachment to a United States Army unit dispatched to hone the
skills of mountain warfare.
“I was not aware that American troops exercise in Norway,” the
German said stiffl y.
The American’s blue eyes turned slightly violet with the hint of a
smile. “Just in case we have to come back over here to straighten out
another war.”
Hans returned an opaque grin. The American knew he was a
proud veteran of the Alpenkorps, Germany’s elite mountain division
formed by Kaiser Wilhelm in the 1914–1918 World War. But he was
no friend of the Nazis, who had recently seized control of the German
government and threatened to plunge Europe into another war.
The American looked around to be sure they were alone. An elderly
chambermaid in a black dress and white apron was rolling a
carpet sweeper down the hall behind the balcony doors. He waited
until she had moved away, then palmed a leather pouch of Swiss
twenty- franc gold coins in his big hand and slipped it to the guide.
“Full payment in advance. The deal is, if I can’t keep up, leave me
and take yourself home. You get the skis. I’ll meet you at the rope tow.”
He hurried to his luxurious wood- paneled room, where deep carpets
and a crackling fi re made the scene beyond the window look
even colder. Quickly, he changed into water- repellent gabardine
trousers, which he tucked into thick wool socks, laced boots, two
light wool sweaters, a windproof leather vest, and a hip- length gabardine
jacket, which he left unzipped.
Jeffrey Dennis knocked and entered. He was a smooth young
operative from the Berlin offi ce, wearing the Tyrolean hat that tourists
bought. Jeffrey was bright, eager, and organized. But he was no
outdoorsman.
“Still no snow?”
“Give everyone the go- ahead,” the older man told him. “In one
hour, you won’t see your hand in front of your face.”
Dennis handed him a small knapsack. “Papers for you and your,
uh, ‘luggage.’ The train will cross into Austria at midnight. You’ll be
met at Innsbruck. This passport should be good until tomorrow.”
The older man looked out the window at the distant castle. “My
wife?”
“Safe in Paris. At the George V.”
“What message?”
The young man offered an envelope.
“Read it.”
Dennis read in a monotone, “ ‘Thank you, my darling, for the best
twenty- fi fth anniversary imaginable.’ ”
The older man relaxed visibly. That was the code she had chosen
with a wink the day before yesterday. She had provided cover,
a romantic second honeymoon, in case anyone recognized him and
asked whether he was here on business. Now she was safely away.
The time for cover was over. The storm was building. He took the
envelope and held it to the fl ames in the fi replace. He inspected the
passport, visas, and border permits carefully.
“Sidearm?”
It was compact and light. Dennis said, “It’s the new automatic the
German cops carry undercover. But I can get you a service revolver
if you would be more comfortable with an older gun.”
The blue eyes, which had swept again to the castle across the bleak
valley, pivoted back at the younger man. Without looking down at
his hands, the tall American removed the magazine, checked that the
chamber was empty, and proceeded to fi eldstrip the Walther PPK by
opening the trigger guard and removing the slide and return spring
from the barrel. That took twelve seconds. Still looking the courier
in the face, he reassembled the pistol in ten.
“This should do the job.”
It began to sink into the younger man that he was in the presence
of greatness. Before he could stop himself, he asked a boy’s question.
“How long do you have to practice to do that?”
A surprisingly warm smile creased the stern face, and he said,
neither unkindly nor without humor, “Practice at night, Jeff, in the
rain, when someone’s shooting at you, and you’ll pick it up quick
enough.”