A heavy snow had begun falling outside Salzburg, and now the landscape was a pristine white, the trees bushy with powder. In the distance Istvan could see the twinkling lights of Paal.
Better to leave it be, my friend … It’s worked well for us all these years … In a few years perhaps, but let’s wait and see…
Should he have listened? Istvan wondered. There had been times over the years when it could have easily been lost, but still it remained safe and hidden from the world. Through wars and upheaval, Tirol had been good to them.
He looked up at the luggage rack and the case strapped there. It vibrated with the train’s motion, the catches ticking like an old-fashioned telegraph machine. Istvan smiled ruefully: Sending me a message, are you, old friend?
What have I done? he thought. I’ve been stupid, that’s what. And suddenly he found himself decided. That’s it, then. It wasn’t too late.
He would get off at Graz, catch the next train back to Innsbruck, and by morning the case would be back where it belonged. Yes, good. He felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He took a deep breath, then rolled over and drifted off to sleep.
He was jolted awake by the grinding of steel on steel. The train’s whistle shrieked once, then twice more. The car lurched. Istvan tumbled from his bunk, rolled across the floor, and slammed into the wall. Pain flashed behind his eyes. He shook his head clear, crawled to the window, pulled himself up to the pane.
“Oh my God …,” he gasped.
Outside the window, the ballast slope gave way to a partially frozen lake, the ice shimmering dully in the moonlight. As he watched, the water seemed to rise toward the window.
We’re rocking! he thought. The walls shuddered as the car slammed back onto the tracks, then tipped in the opposite direction. The entire train was rocking from side to side as though it were being swattted by giant, unseen hands. The case! He glanced up. He saw the glimmer of the case’s steel side, still strapped in place.
From the passageway he heard an explosive crash, followed by more grinding, followed by a whoosh of air. His door began rattling wildly. Voices screamed in the distance, “Mein gott … mein gott!” Istvan dropped to his belly, scrambled toward the door, grabbed the latch, and jerked it open.
The wall across the passageway was gone, a jagged floor-to-ceiling hole in its place. Through it he could see rocks and trees flashing past. Snow streamed through the opening, creating a small blizzard in the passage. The emergency lights on the walls flickered yellow.
“Mutter … Mutter, wo sind Sie!” a child screamed. Mother, where are you!
“Gott, helfen us …!”
God can’t help us, Istvan thought, staring transfixed at the cliff face.
The car lurched again. He felt himself stumbling backward. He crashed into the window. The glass shattered. Cold air rushed in. He felt himself falling. He grabbed the pane first with one hand, then the other, then heaved himself back into the compartment. He dropped to his knees and glanced over his shoulder.
Oh, no, oh please no …
The lake’s surface loomed before the window. Instinctively, he knew the angle was too great. The train wouldn’t right itself this time. He threw himself toward the bunk, grabbed the frame. Jaw set against the pull of gravity, he dragged himself to his feet. He stretched his fingers toward the case.
As his fingertips touched the handle, he heard a roar. He turned around. A wall of icy water rushed toward him.
1
Briggs Tanner awoke to scent of rain blowing through the open window. His first thought was coffee, which was quickly followed by first swim, then coffee. The exercise habit wasn’t entirely welcome this early in the morning — especially on this, his first day of a week’s vacation — but it was ingrained and he knew better than to fight it. There were worse habits, he knew.
He sat up, placed his feet on the floor, and peeked out the window. On the horizon lay a dark line of squall clouds, their bottom edges feathered with falling rain. Below his window, a wooded embankment swept down to the cliff-enclosed cove over which his home — a vintage lighthouse he’d adopted from the Virginia Historical Commission — stood, and beyond the cove, through a notch in the cliff, lay the river proper — though this offshoot of the Rappahannock was more lake than river, measuring five miles from shore to shore.
Tanner opened his closet, took his wet suit off the peg, slipped it on, then trotted down the loft stairs to the living room and into the kitchen. He prepped the coffeemaker, set the timer for forty minutes, then grabbed his cell phone and stepped out onto the deck.
The cell phone trilled; he flipped it open. “Hello.”
“Briggs, it’s Walt.”
“Morning, Oaks.”
“You busy?”
“Not especially.”
“Mind if I come by on my way to the office? I need … some advice.”
There’s a switch, Tanner thought. Aside from subjects of an outdoor nature, Walter Oaken’s knowledge was encyclopedic. That which he didn’t know, he learned. Whether trivial, vital, or somewhere in between, Oaken absorbed it and filed it away for future use. He was, Tanner had decided long ago, an information pack rat.
“Sure,” Tanner said. “Come down the pier when you get here.”
“You’re swimming? You’re going to catch pneumonia.”
“It’s always possible.”
“Want me to bring coffee?”
“It’ll be brewing when you get here.”
“See you in a while.”
Tanner sat down on the edge of the pier, cupped the drag floats to his ankles, then lowered himself into the water. He gasped at the chill. Though it was already mid-June, his cove saw little current, so the winter chill tended to linger until early August.
The urge to climb back out was strong, but he quashed it and kept treading water, waiting for the chill to subside. At forty, Briggs had noticed his what the hell are you doing voice wasn’t as faint as it used to be. Whether the voice was that of wisdom and maturity or just the complaints of early middle age he wasn’t sure. First swim, then coffee, he told himself.
He pushed off and began stroking toward the gap.
As with every swim, within a few minutes his mind cleared, the blood began to surge through his limbs, and he slipped into a rhythm. He felt the drag of the float behind him and stroked a little harder, enjoying the exertion. Getting stronger, he thought. Better than even a week ago.
Three weeks earlier his doctor and physical therapist had proclaimed him healed — though on occasion he still felt a twinge from the wounds. The worst of them had come from a pair of AK-47 bullets fired by a squad of very angry Chinese soldiers. The first bullet had torn through his buttock and blasted out the front of his thigh; the second had punched through his back, rupturing his diaphragm and spleen.
If not for a combination of dumb luck, a touch of hypothermia, and a battle-hardened Russian field surgeon, it would have ended much differently. But it didn’t, Tanner reminded himself. Good to be alive.
After twenty minutes of swimming he stopped and glanced over his shoulder. A mile away, through the gap in the cove, he could see a lone figure standing on the pier: tall, gangly, blue blazer hanging from his frame like a lab coat … Walter Oaken’s silhouette was unmistakable.