“Do you think they’ll tell you where the canisters are because you’re another American? How will you be able to talk to them without being caught?”
“All in good time,” Grofield said. “Don’t talk, it wastes breath.”
“But I want to know,” she said.
“Besides,” he said, “we’re getting too close. They might have outside guards.”
“In weather like this?”
“Hush.”
She hushed, and they moved in silence toward the buildings. Directly ahead was the lodge, with the remaining dormitory on an angle back to its left. That was the building Grofield had been briefly imprisoned in. Symmetrically to the right of the lodge was the smoldering remnant of the other dormitory, and beyond that the storage building from which Grofield had stolen the skimobile. The three remaining buildings all contained lit windows, so all would be occupied by the invaders, whoever they were.
There were no outside floodlights, an unexpected blessing in a place like this. Or maybe not so unexpected, given the climate. There would rarely be anything outside to look at except snow.
Still, light-spill from the windows did give some illumination to the snow outside, so the closer they got to the buildings the slower Grofield moved. He was beginning to wish he was dressed like Finnish ski troops, in white uniform and white skis. Of course, Vivian dressed like that could be a little startling, nothing showing except the black face, the Cheshire Cat as done by Eartha Kitt.
She said, “What are you chuckling about?”
“A mental image,” he said.
“You’re weird,” she said.
“You must be right,” Grofield said, “or I wouldn’t be here at all. Now hush.”
“Mm.” One syllable, but full of muted mutiny.
Grofield was moving now at an oblique angle, toward the dormitory building on the left. Of the fifteen or so windows along the side, no more than five were lit. But if a guard were on duty to watch the outside, he wouldn’t be in a lit room, he’d sit in darkness, so he would be able to see out without the window mirroring the room behind him. It was the dark windows he had to be wary of, not the lit ones.
He stopped a dozen yards from the building and crouched in the snow, pulling Vivian down beside him. He whispered, “We’re going into that building there. It’s a long hall inside, with rooms on both sides. Like a hotel. There’s an exit door at each end, and we’re going to the nearest one. We’re going to go around in a curve and try to keep away from any light shining out. You’ll follow me, and if I stop, you stop. If I drop to the ground, you drop. And be silent.”
“All right.”
“And if I turn around and start running, you do the same.”
“Don’t worry. What if you start shooting?”
“Guess,” he whispered. “Come on.”
They moved forward again, Grofield in the lead, and came around slowly to the end of the dormitory building. There were no windows on either end, just the doors, with small panes of glass showing the lit hallway inside. They reached the door without being seen and Grofield looked through the glass. The hall was empty. He tried the door and it was unlocked, and he and Vivian slipped quickly inside.
“Flashlight,” he whispered.
She removed a glove, took the flashlight from her pocket, put the glove in the pocket.
He nodded at the first door on the right. “Stand to the side of that door,” he whispered. “When I open it, stick your arm over and shine the light in. But don’t get in the doorway.”
“All right.”
She got in position, and nodded that she was ready. He held the machine gun in his right hand and reached forward to the doorknob with his left. He shoved the door open and the light shone in and the room was empty.
“Okay,” he whispered. “Now the other side.”
The same thing on the other side, the flashlight shone on an empty room.
They worked their way down the hall that way. About half the room doors were open, and they could be more quickly checked. Three were locked from the outside and Grofield kicked the doors in. And when they were done they had found no one, the building was except for themselves completely empty.
Grofield stood frowning in the corridor when they were done checking the place out. “They must have a smaller force than I thought,” he said. “All concentrated in the main building.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We go over there. But we be careful about it.”
“Good.”
He went down to the door at the end of the corridor, and looked through the glass at the main building. Most of the windows were lit, giving the place a festive air. Yuletide cheer, all that. He stood at the window, watching, and after about a minute he saw a dark shape moving along outside the wall, silhouetted when passing in front of a window, invisible until the next window. He was moving from right to left along the rear of the building, and when he got to the corner, invisible for just a second, he turned around and went back the other way. Meaning there was probably another man walking a post along the side of the building. Grofield squinted in that direction and after a minute saw him. Another dark shape, hunch-shouldered, bulky, moving gloomily along outside the warm windows.
Behind him Vivian said, “Do you see anything?”
“Guards,” Grofield said, and turned to look at her. “They have four outside guards, one on each side of the building. Moving, not stationary.”
“What are we going to do?”
Grofield turned and looked out the window again. He couldn’t see either of the guards at first, but then he picked them both up. “They aren’t happy,” he said. “Unhappy guards are not alert guards. Come here and watch. Can you see them?”
She came, the two of them pressed together at the small window, the fur of her hat brushing the side of his face. “No,” she said.
“Look along the back wall,” he said. “Third lit window from the left. He’s going to pass that in just a second, from left to right. Now!”
“Yes! I see him. If you hadn’t told me, I’d never have found him at all.”
“All right,” Grofield said. “I’m going over there. You keep watching that third window. When the coast is clear I’ll stand so that window’s behind me and I’ll wave my arm over my head. I’ll only do it once, so keep your eyes open.”
“I will.”
“And bring my gun when you come.”
“You aren’t taking it with you?”
“I won’t want noise over there,” he said.
“But just in case—”
“It’ll slow me down,” he said. “You keep watching there. This shouldn’t take longer than ten minutes.”
“All right,” she said.
Grofield walked back down the corridor, stopping off in one of the lit rooms where he’d noticed a lamp on a bedside table. He unplugged the lamp, put it on the floor, stood on it, wrapped the wire around his gloved hand, and yanked the wire loose from the lamp. He wrapped the rest of the wire around his hand, tucked in the end, and left the room.
He continued down the corridor and went out the rear door, the same way he and Vivian had come in. He turned right and walked away from the building far enough so none of the lit windows would betray him, then walked down the length of it to the other end and then back toward the building again until he stood against the corner of it. The lodge was dead ahead, and the door behind which Vivian was waiting was just to his right.
He squinted until he picked up both of the guards, and watched their movements for a while. They had different length beats to walk, the one on the side having much less territory to cover, so they rarely met at the corner, which was good. Grofield waited till one time when they did meet, and then both were going away, their backs to him, and at that point he ran forward, heading for the corner of the lodge, coming in at the angle at which he was least likely to be seen from any window. He moved as fast as he could through the snow, was breathing hard when he reached the lodge wall, and leaned there for a second till he’d caught his breath. Then he moved to the right.