Klinikum Grosshadern, Nussbaumstrasse 20, Munich, Germany
September 25, 2009
10:12 a.m.
When Quinn opened his eyes and saw someone who looked remarkably like Henrietta Richards standing at the foot of his bed, his first instinct was to close them again. In the next seconds, he questioned whether he was actually dead, but the pain was too real, he couldn’t be. It left him instead to ask himself what Henrietta Richards was doing there—if it really is her?
His brief glimpse had showed her engaged in conversation with a younger, dark-haired man. He was standing between her and the end of his bed, talking in an agitated manner, gesturing at her with his hands. Henrietta was slowly nodding her head in return, as if saying to a small boy who’d fallen off his bicycle that things would be all right, that there was absolutely nothing to worry about. It was doing little to mollify the irate man.
Looking again to check that he wasn’t hallucinating, Henrietta’s eyes caught his over the man’s right shoulder. Instantly she turned toward the door of what Quinn now realized was a hospital room. Drawing the young man after her, he heard her say, “Of course, Martin, of course. As soon as he regains consciousness,” and they both stepped out into the corridor.
Left alone in the room, Quinn took in the banks of monitors and wires and tubes that fanned around him. An image of Dawa’s tortured coma flooded his mind before morphing into a flickering recall of his last moments in the Weisshaus Club. The memory made him wince.
Henrietta returned.
It’s definitely her.
“Florence Nightingale, at your service,” she whispered, standing at the end of Quinn’s bed, looking down on him and putting a finger up to her mouth. “Don’t say a word. If you see anyone else coming in, close your eyes immediately.”
Quinn resisted the temptation to wish he really was dead and raised his right hand up from the bed in acknowledgment. The difficulty of moving it surprised him. A shot of panic made him curl his toes to check he had movement in the rest of his body. He did. Thank God.
“Good,” Henrietta said, moving to the side of his bed to sit on a chair she must have been using before. Picking up a book from it, she sat and, pretending to read aloud, said instead, “Neil, you don’t need to talk. In fact, you shouldn’t. I would prefer everyone here to think you were still out for as long as possible. Close your eyes.”
He closed them.
“However, you do still need to listen to me. It is no accident that the hospital staff here think I am a mad Englishwoman. If they see me mumbling at you from a book while you are still unconscious, they are unlikely to think anything of it. Do you follow me?”
Quinn slowly nodded once, every bone and muscle in his body hurting with the slight movement.
“Okay. So, other than telling you that you have been more or less comatose for the past four and a half days in this very clean and modern Munich hospital, I will let the doctors advise you of the injuries you have suffered. Suffice it to say you will live, although you won’t be running up a flight of stairs, let alone a mountain, for a few months.
“Once again you’ve been lucky, Neil. You should be dead. Possibly you deserve to be, but I will let that go for the moment. We have more important things to discuss first.”
Turning a page, she continued.
“The rather agitated young man you saw me talking to is not a doctor but actually Inspector Martin Emmerich of the Bavarian State Police, Group Crimes Division. He undoubtedly saved your life when he pulled you from the bottom of a pile of bodies that had been riddled with machine-gun fire by your accomplice …” As Henrietta said the word “accomplice,” she stressed its three syllables and raised her penciled eyebrows in question at Neil, awaiting a reply.
“Henrietta, there was … no accomplice … I was taken there … alone … by force …” Quinn struggled to reply, intent on denying that anyone was with him.
“Neil, I’m using Inspector Emmerich’s words, not mine. However, it does appear that you did have some sort of ‘guardian angel,’ even if I suspect its intentions were no more angelic than those of the neo-Nazis who beat you senseless. Actually, I must say that I find Inspector Emmerich to be an intelligent and honest young man. He seems very good at his job, passionate about it even. Reminds me, in some ways, of a younger version of myself, which is a little frustrating, but, so be it, I have my work to do also.”
Quinn reopened his eyes to see Henrietta staring at him intently.
“I imagine you are probably asking yourself why I am here, Neil.”
“Thought … at first … you’d got St. Peter’s job …”
“Well, Neil, it’s good to see that the skinheads didn’t kick all the humor out of you. Whilst I may well be increasingly aged and sanctimonious, I can assure you that I am not yet a rival for St. Peter. However, you are correct in that I do still have a job. Now and again, I undertake work for Her Majesty’s Government, namely the Foreign Office, who rather euphemistically refer to me as a ‘private contractor.’ More specifically, I specialize in matters pertaining to the Himalayas, which has always been a sensitive frontier. I also have a bit of a track record of getting people who have made a considerable mess of things back home to dear old Blighty, and, I must say, you most definitely qualify for that category.” Hearing the click of heels in the corridor, Henrietta instantly stopped talking, returning her gaze to her book as Quinn reclosed his swollen eyes.
A nurse briskly entered the room and took a look at a motionless Quinn. She glanced at Henrietta, who looked up and gave a sad little shake of her head that quickly diverted the nurse to fuss with a suspended IV bag, tapping its tube and adjusting the flow into the back of Quinn’s left hand. After observing a bank of electronic monitors, she then jotted something onto a clipboard at the end of the bed before leaving, saying only, in an abrupt, accented English that sounded like an order, “Summon me as soon as he is the waking.”
“Of course,” Quinn heard Henrietta reply.
When the nurse was gone, she resumed her quiet explanation. “I was over on one of my rare visits to England when someone from Legoland tracked me down to ask why I thought a well-known British Everest climber called Neil Quinn might have tried to get himself killed in a neo-Nazi nightclub on the outskirts of Munich. I have been asked many questions about Everest but that was really one of the best in a long time. As soon as I heard it, I realized that the very question itself answered a number of questions that I have had for a very long time.”
“Legoland? What questions?” Quinn asked, increasingly confused.
“Yes, Neil, Legoland—our rather too obvious military intelligence headquarters on the south bank of the Thames that looks as if it was designed by a focus group of preschoolers. It is the home of MI6, who thought me best qualified to provide an answer to the question of what the hell you were up to. If the answer was one that might interest them further, given the fact they are becoming somewhat alarmed at the resurgence of the far right across Europe, then I was to help in getting you to a hospital in England where you might explain it to them in person. By the way, if the answer is unsatisfactory, I am instructed to leave you here to rot.”
She studied Quinn for a minute.
“It is actually a fine question. What were you up to in there?”
“Long story,” Quinn slurred in response.
“Well, it is one that you are going to have to tell me, with no omissions this time. However, I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt for now assuming you confirm one thing.”
“Which is?”
“Over the last few days the very dedicated Martin Emmerich has been doing a lot of research into you. He is developing some interesting theories that include you, the renowned Everest summiteer currently somewhat embittered and down on his luck after the tragic death of his last client, being employed by some of the lunatics in that club to climb the mountain and plant a swastika flag on the top as some sort of publicity stunt. He has concluded that there must have been a somewhat emotional breakdown in the negotiations, financial or otherwise, that in fairly rapid succession led to you being beaten up on the dance floor and the shooting of at least ten people inside and outside of the club by an unknown person armed with an Uzi submachine gun, and, possibly, also you, armed with a smaller caliber pistol. Inspector Emmerich rather eloquently describes the Weisshaus Club as a ‘human hornets’ nest.’ One that you most definitely stuck a stick into, or rather, as one witness seemed to suggest, an old ice axe …”
She paused to let everything she was saying sink in. “Funny how that old ice axe keeps turning up, isn’t it?”
Quinn could say nothing in reply.
“Actually, Neil, I think young Emmerich’s intuition is quite good about the swastika on the summit. He’s just about seventy years too late—am I not right?”
This time he did try to say something, but still no words came out. All Quinn could do was nod in reply to her.
“Thought as much. Good. That’s enough for now, Neil. You need to sleep because, be assured that when you next wake up, a lot more questions are going to start arriving, thick and fast.”
Still talking, she began to collect her things. “When they do, you must, and I repeat must, stick to the following line: You were visiting Germany on a motorcycle trip after a summer season mountain-guiding in Chamonix. You drank too much beer in a rough bar near to your cheap hotel by the station which resulted in you, in a fit of macho curiosity, taking a solo trip to what you had been told by a couple of Hell’s Angels was the wildest, most dangerous place in town. Inside, a fight broke out, and when people realized that you were English, they got somewhat annoyed and took some delight in including you in it. Sadly, you don’t remember anything after that, absolutely nothing at all. Have you got it?”
Quinn looked at her and responded with a whispered, “Okay.”
“Good.”
Quinn stopped her from leaving by saying, “Henrietta …”
“What, Neil?”
“The axe?”
“It’s lucky for you, Neil, that it’s missing, just like your ‘accomplice’ and both of the guns used. The eyewitness reports as to what happened are generally unsound, particularly as the one police informant in the place remembers little after he thought you shot him in the thigh. With little evidence beyond a heap of bodies, Emmerich is struggling to accurately piece together what happened. I intend to exploit this uncertainty for as long as I can and you must stick to that story while I do.”
Turning to leave, she added, “Just one more thing. Be aware that Emmerich is also trying to work out the connection between you and the horrific murder of an elderly antiques collector called Bernhard Graf. Given that it took place more or less whilst you were being set upon in the Weisshaus Club, even he accepts that you have an alibi, but the fact that Graf’s boyfriend, Dirk Schneider, was one of the people shot in the club has not gone unnoticed. Be careful, Neil. Emmerich is no fool. He’ll work it all out but hopefully not before I have made a deal to get you back to England. In the meantime, just stick precisely to what I have told you.”
The shock of Henrietta’s final news put Quinn under again.