7 Steps to Midnight (29 page)

He opened the door on the passenger side of the police car and Chris got in, holding the bag on his lap. He felt more and more strange doing this. There was something wrong in submitting, he thought. Alexsandra had probably saved his life in London. He had no reason not to help her; he shouldn’t be giving in like this. If she was really in danger…

How could he possibly be sure that she wasn’t?

And you’re in
love
with her?
he thought condemningly. The guilt was getting more severe with each passing moment.
You’re a coward
, said a voice in his mind. He wanted to lash back at it but couldn’t.

The policeman was in the car now, starting the engine. He signaled with his left arm, then slowly pulled out into the flow of traffic.

“So; you dropped your passport into the toilet,” he said.

“I didn’t
drop
it in, it fell in accidentally,” Chris responded, a little tensely. He didn’t like the implication that he’d done it on purpose.

“Of course,” the policeman said.

Chris drew in a long, deep breath.
My God
, he thought;
if the man can’t even believe
that
, what the hell will his reaction—and those of his fellow policemen—be when I tell him what’s been happening to me in
the past six days?
They might all decide that he was insane and have him committed for observation. Suddenly, the idea of giving up and seeking their help didn’t seem quite so promising. He could, in fact, end up worse off than ever.

But what could he do about it now?

The answer came with startling suddenness.

The policeman had turned the car into a narrow side street and was a quarter of the way down the block when they saw the car ahead.

It was turned across the two lanes of the street, its driver’s door open, a man’s body sprawled motionless on the pavement. “
Gott’n’immel
,” the policeman muttered, braking fast. Throwing open his door, he jumped out and started running toward the body.
No
, Chris thought. He didn’t know why he thought it, but he knew that there was something wrong.

His feeling was immediately validated as a second man jumped out from behind the other car and sprayed something into the policeman’s face. Chris caught his breath as the policeman stumbled to one side and collapsed to the pavement as though shot. The sprawled man quickly got up and he and the other man turned toward the police car.

They started toward it on a run.

For an instant Chris sat frozen, staring at the two men running toward him—one short, bulky and blond (the one who had been lying on the pavement), the other tall and slender with black hair.

Then, jerking with reactive movement, he yanked up the door handle and shouldered the door open, lurching to his feet, the bag in his left hand; somehow he knew he couldn’t leave it. Twisting around, he started fleeing up the street.

“Don’t run!” one of the men shouted. Wincing, Chris picked up speed, racing along the pavement. He leaped onto the sidewalk and ran as fast as he could. An approaching man, seeing his charging approach, ducked to the right, a startled look on his face as Chris rushed by. At least they couldn’t shoot at him, Chris thought. There were pedestrians; two women now came walking toward him. Like the man, they reacted with alarm to his charge and separated, one banging against a storefront window, the other jumping into the street. They shouted at him angrily in German as he sprinted by.

Just ahead, he saw an opening and, impulsively, raked around a building edge and started running up an alley, thinking
God, don’t let it be blocked!

It wasn’t. Far down the narrow passageway, he caught sight of traffic and pedestrians on the next street. He glanced across his shoulder and saw the two men racing into the alley.
I have to dump the bag!
he thought in desperation; it was holding him back.
You need it though!
his mind cried back. He sucked in air with a wheezing sound and tried to ignore the weight of the bag pulling down his left arm. Running hard, he shifted the bag to his right
hand, losing impetus for a few moments as he swerved and almost grazed the building to his right.

At the next street, he made a wide turn onto the sidewalk, almost bumping into a street lamppost; he pushed off it with his left hand. There were more pedestrians here. Would he be better off stopping and remaining in their midst? He dropped the notion instantly; the men would grab him anyway, he was sure of that. He was breathing through his teeth now as he dodged past walking men and women; most of them were forced to dodge aside to avoid collision, their expressions stunned or angry, their voiced reactions either astounded or infuriated.

Impulsively, he dashed into the street. A car jolted to a halt bare inches from him, brakes shrieking. He heard a muffled shout inside the car, a curse in French. He ignored it, jumping up onto the curb again, glancing back once more. The men were close behind, their expressions grimly intent. He wasn’t going to outrun them, that was obvious. He’d have to do something else to elude them.

He wheeled around another building edge and started running down an alley toward the next street, wracking his brain for an idea, something he might have read in a novel or
something
. He couldn’t keep this up much longer. Already he was losing breath, the bag beginning to feel like an anvil dragging down his body.

He gasped in shock as a figure emerged from a doorway, a man carrying a large cardboard carton. Chris couldn’t stop. “Look out!” he cried, slamming into the man head-on and knocking him back. The man went floundering to his right, lost balance and began to topple over. Chris veered as quickly as he could and just missed tripping over the man, who cursed at him violently in German as he crashed against a building wall, then went sprawling into the alley.

It was a momentary break for Chris. As he reached the next street and looked back, he saw the man leaping to his feet as though to pursue him. The two men were also unable to avoid the man and collided with him sharply, all three tumbling down onto the cobblestone paving; it would have been funny if the situation had been different. There was no time for amusement
though. Briefly relieved, Chris turned onto the next street and raced along the sidewalk, causing pedestrians to scatter. He had to stop soon. A stitch was starting to jab at his left side. Why hadn’t he jogged in the mornings the way he had always intended to?
Damn
it!

First, the bag, he thought. He reached another alley and glancing back, saw that the two men hadn’t reached the street yet. A burst of harsh elation struck him as he darted into the alley. There was a fence to his right, a sign on it reading LI-TAI-PE/Fine Dining. Swinging the bag, he tossed it over the fence, still running. The release of the weight gave him a momentary illusion of lightness and he sprang forward rapidly.
Now
he’d outdistance them! They weren’t going to get him now, goddamn them!

Another street. He recoiled and leaped back as a small car almost ran him down. The driver honked his horn, his face behind the windshield a twisted mask of rage. Chris kept running, heading back in the direction he’d been running from on the last street.

All right
, he decided; he’d have to try it. There was no way he could keep on running; the illusory lightness was already gone, his legs were becoming leaden. Looking back, he saw the men emerging from the alley, looking around to see where he was.

The instant they spotted him, Chris lunged into a building doorway. His footsteps echoed in the narrow, low-ceilinged hall as he ran.
Dear God, let there be a back door!
he thought in panic.

There was and reaching it, Chris pulled it open. An alley stretched ahead of him, extending to the next street.

Leaving the door ajar, he quickly turned back to the staircase and lunged up two steps at a time, flinging himself around the corner at the first landing, wincing in pain as he crashed against the wall.

He stood there, panting, one hand pressed across his mouth. Below, he heard the two men come rushing into the building and pound along the hallway. Then the sound of their running footsteps outside the building, fading down the alley. Jesus Christ, it
worked
, he thought, incredulous.

Dragging in a lungful of air, he thudded down the stairs and
looked around the edge of the back doorway. The two men were just turning onto the next street.
Now
, Chris thought. He ran back to the front entrance and onto the sidewalk. They’d know soon enough that they’d been tricked and would double-back. He had to hide from them.

He ran back to the alley and turned into it. Reaching the fence where he’d ditched his bag, he stopped. Abruptly, he jumped up and grabbed the top of it. His shoes scraped on the wood as he tried to use his feet to climb; mostly he had to pull himself up with his arms. He managed to flop one leg over the fence and, using it for leverage, hauled his body to the top and rolled over.

He fell into a yard filled with debris. Crashing down onto a wooden crate and shattering it, he grunted in pain at the impact. Then he half lay, half sat, his back against the fence, trying to recapture breath. His bag lay nearby. He nodded, smiling faintly. In spite of the pain, he felt a kind of strange dark pleasure with himself. He’d gotten away from the bastards!

Then he recalled, again, that the man he was supposed to meet had been at the railroad station. There was no way of contacting the man now.

He was adrift in Lucerne.

***

His footsteps sounded hollowly on the aged wood as he trudged inside the covered Chapel Bridge, crossing its diagonal length toward another part of the city. He looked out to his right at the huge octagonal stone tower beside the bridge, wondering what it was.

His gaze elevated now to the paintings on the timber ceiling of the bridge; obviously scenes from Lucerne’s historical past, he thought. As he gazed at them, he heard the rushing current of the river against the supports of the ancient bridge.

He looked down again, sighing. He had no idea what to do or where to go. Utterly on his own now, he felt helpless. He remembered once, as a boy, being lost in Phoenix when he’d accidentally wandered off while shopping with his mother. This feeling was akin to that—a kind of black dread, a sense of sick
vulnerability. One grew older, he thought, but never escaped the built-in fears of childhood.

It was just past five o’clock, the sun descending toward the distant mountain peaks. Lucerne was a truly lovely city, he thought. Too bad he wasn’t in the mood to appreciate its colorful charm—the deep blue sky above it, the green-clad hills surrounding it, the immense blue lake seen in all directions, the spectacular mountain peaks. If he were here as a simple tourist, he’d be enjoying it completely. As it was, he could only worry about Alexsandra and about himself.

Reaching the other side of the bridge, he started along the riverfront street, looking around. For
what
? he asked himself. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t just wander around indefinitely.

Suddenly, he realized how tired and achy he was; that run had sapped his energy and strained his muscles. He had to sit down and have a cup of coffee, maybe a sandwich.
God help me, I’m
hungry
again
, he thought guiltily.
Well,
fuck
it
, he reacted.
I’m not James Bond and never will be. I’m just a poor sap of a mathematician lost in a maze.
If he
was
a secret agent, he’d probably eat so much to relieve nervous tension that he could be portrayed not by Sean Connery but by Dom DeLuise.

He stopped at the first café he came to, started to sit at an outside table, then decided that was a bad idea. Obviously, those two men would still be looking for him, whoever they were (he hadn’t even addressed that question yet). He couldn’t take the risk of their spotting him by chance. He went inside and took a booth in the back where he could keep an eye on the street. When the waiter came to take his order, he asked for water, coffee and a ham sandwich, then, sighing, leaned his head back against the paneled wall and closed his eyes.

All right, who
were
those men? he thought. They weren’t Middle Easterners, that was clear. Did that mean they represented yet
another
group involved in this dilemma? God almighty, he thought, is there no
end
to these groups? He couldn’t keep them all accounted for in his mind. There had been the ones in Arizona—the man and woman in his house, Meehan and Nelson; not even
considering Veering. There had been Basy on the airliner. The man in The Blue Swan, and Alexsandra, presumably working for the same organization. The ones who’d chased him and Alexsandra by car when he’d left the theater. The ones who’d chased the limousine the next morning. The man on the Hovercraft. The Middle Easterners on Montmartre. The men who had chloroformed Alexsandra and him after they’d left the Bateau-Mouche. Now these two in Lucerne. How did they all fit together?

Or
did
they fit together? Was it all just part of an ongoing madness of the lost wager with Veering?

“Oh, stop,” he muttered, trying hard to blank his mind. His head felt numb. And all this because of the turbulence problem? He simply couldn’t believe it. There had to be more.

The waiter brought the sandwich, coffee and water and, while he started in on them—were
they
drugged too? he wondered, then shunted aside the idea with a scowling snarl—he placed the bag on the booth seat beside him and, opening it, went through its contents carefully, looking in every clothing pocket, every fold, every inch of the bag’s interior.

There was nothing. Chris sighed wearily, chewing on the sandwich. What could he hope to do anyway? he thought. Without a passport, his freedom was obviously limited. Sooner or later, he’d be picked up by the police. Once again, he wondered if that wouldn’t be the best thing to do after all. What options had he left?

The answer came as he removed the money from his pocket and started unpeeling bills to pay the check.