Twenty

Fowl had spotted the fleeing Stern and was angling to cut him off, moving with surprising speed for a man his age. Grant joined us, still shaken from the explosion, and Tony told him what had just happened.

I watched the footrace, transfixed. Suddenly a figure appeared in front of Stern, brandishing a handgun at him. It was Noblet, whom I’d known as Martin these last years. Stern slowed, and his body partially obscured my view of what was taking place. Suddenly, the pair went down into the snow.

“Come on!” Grant ordered and I took off with him.

The two men were struggling awkwardly in the snow, rolling one way and then the other, twisting, contorting and thrashing about. I had no sense that either was the stronger. We were rapidly closing in on them, though Fowl was closer. Then I heard an anguished cry. One of the two was pushed away onto his back, while the other—Stern—stood up, glanced our way then resumed his run away from us.

Fowl was on the trail just behind him when Stern turned and fired once, having apparently taken Noblet’s weapon. Fowl lurched to the side awkwardly, then crumbled into the snow.

We reached Noblet first. He was clutching his bleeding side and cursing. “It’s bad,” he grunted as Grant knelt down. Grant looked up and said, “Check Lester.”

I glanced at Noblet as I set off. His face was ashen. Fowl was another story. “Not again,” he said through gritted teeth. He’d been shot not that many months before on Aconcagua, also trying to capture a killer.

“You’ve got to get him,” he said. “Now listen. There’s no time to give this to you slow. His name isn’t Quentin Stern. He’s an Ivan, substituted for the real Stern sometime in the ’90s. He’s a deep cover agent. He’s the one who killed Michael Sodoc on Everest, Scott. He’s done other assassinations, too. I’ve pinpointed two periods when he’s vanished for a few months. I think he received special training then. He’s good, good enough to fool everyone for a long time.”

“If you already knew that, what’s he doing walking around free?” I asked as I tore at his clothing to get at the wound.

Fowl snorted. “No one at the Company believed me, and when I told them they needed to alert someone, they speeded up my discharge papers. Stern’s the reason I’m here. How’s Noblet?”

“He looked bad, but I don’t know.” I glanced back at Grant, who was grimly standing over Noblet.

“Stupid. Stands there with a gun in his hand and still manages to get jumped. Too much time behind a desk.”

Grant reached us. “He’s dead,” he said as he knelt down beside Fowl. “No last words.”

“Lester’s been shot in the side,” I said. “I can’t tell if it hit anything vital. I’ve got the bleeding mostly stopped with pressure.” This was usually a good sign, though not always. Sometimes a wounded man bled out inside, despite what you were doing outside. “He needs proper medical attention.”

Grant thumbed his small radio. He spoke in a muffled voice I couldn’t make out, listened for a bit, then put it away. “I’ve alerted Tony. The president’s stable. Stern missed him. Your friend Calvin, was shot, though, Scott. He’s getting medical treatment. The Ranger team has made contact just below where the firefight took place and has assumed responsibility for securing that area and finding our wounded, if any. The surviving agents are back in the camp. The Seal team will be here any minute and will sweep the area so we can get some choppers in here to get the president to safety and evac our wounded.”

“You need to get Stern, Scott,” Fowl said through his teeth. He was hurting. “He’s wily. He’ll avoid everyone and drop below the snowline. After that he’ll weave his way off this mountain in the bush and trees, probably back toward Kenya, where it isn’t so heavily visited. We’ll never find him after that. He’ll just vanish.”

Tony joined us just then, accompanied by an agent. I’d watched them stop at Noblet’s body. They both looked haggard and grim.

Grant briefed him on what had taken place and Stern’s condition. “Too bad about Noblet,” Tony said. “That was an expert cut. We’ll leave Fowl here until there’s a chopper for him. We don’t want to move him unnecessarily.” He looked at Fowl. “You knew Stern was an enemy operative and didn’t tell me?”

“No one believed me,” Fowl managed to say. “I didn’t think you would, either. I stayed close to him. Guess I blew it.”

Tony was going to say more when Grant spoke. “What do we know, boss?”

“We found a ceramic composite single-shot weapon beside the president’s tent. It’s specially made. That’s how he was able to get it past our scans.” He glanced down at Fowl and apparently decided to let it go. The man had been shot trying to catch the would-be assassin and deserved a bit of slack.

Grant nodded. “A bullet or two wouldn’t be a problem buried in toiletries somewhere. Anything else?”

“The situation is clear at camp. Resources are pouring in for now. Go after Stern, Grant. I’m in no shape for a manhunt, I’m sorry to say. But just track him, staying in touch, I’ll send help as soon as I can organize it. That’s priority now that the president is secure.”

“Still got your FN?” Grant asked. I nodded. “Give us your magazines,” he said to the agent. He took two, then handed me one that was about half full. “This should do it.”

“Take care now, Grant,” Tony said. “Enough of our people have died already.” He glanced at the mostly clear sky. “This is a window, I’m told, and it won’t last long. Don’t take any chances if it turns out I can’t get choppers in the air.”

We shook hands and headed off after Stern. Neither of us said anything. What was there to say? This was a manhunt, and in these conditions it seemed to me that all the advantage was with Stern, whatever his real name was.

We soon arrived where I’d spent the night. As I’d been told, the porters and guides were mostly gone, along with Msingi. The climbers and the guides who’d stayed were milling about, thankful to be alive but confused. They were a forlorn looking lot. I was pleased to see Magumbo among them.

Tom intercepted us. “What’s going on? No one’s told us anything. I heard a shot just now.”

Diana came over. “Scott, Quentin just tore through here like a man on a mission. I think he was carrying a gun. What’s happened?”

“Walk with us,” I said to them both. “We can’t stop.” Along the way I told them briefly what had taken place.

“Quentin tried to kill the president? He’s a jerk, he’s a pain, but I’ve never thought of him as a killer,” Diana said.

“Listen, stay put. Help’s arriving. You’ll hear the choppers coming in. We’re tracking Stern until the military is able to take over the manhunt. How’s Hooker?” That last came out without my thinking about it.

This time she said nothing about my use of his last name. “He’s in bad shape. I think he’s got frostbitten feet. He needs to see a doctor,” she said.

“As I say, help’s arriving. You’ll have a doctor and be out of here soon. I’ll see you when this is over.”

“Be careful, Scott,” Diana called after us. “Please!”

“Take care of her, Tom,” I shouted as Grant picked up the pace and we moved quickly along the trail westward toward the Machame Route we’d come up.

I saw what Tony meant. In just the few minutes since we’d left him, the sun had vanished and the sky had darkened again. The wind was unchanged, blowing against our backs, fortunately, but there was a renewed flurry of snow. I’d hoped we’d seen the last of this storm, but it looked like we were in for a final stomping yet.

Grant set a murderous pace but, as near as I could tell, we were not gaining on Stern. I recalled now how Stern the amateur had turned into a skilled mountaineer these last two years. Had his earlier incompetence been an act?

I had to think so, since it turned out that everything I thought I knew about him wasn’t real. I tried to reconstruct his life based on the little information Fowl had given us. He was in his late 30s by now and had been playing Quentin Stern for 15 years. The communists had been out of power for a long time when the substitution was made, but the Russians were still up to their old tricks. You had to wonder, though, just who held his loyalty? Why had he tried to kill the president? Who had ordered it? For what reason?

If he was still under Russian control, I couldn’t see him attempting to murder the president on their orders. The Russians had no reason to want the man dead, and the potential of Stern being uncovered as one of their operatives was simply too great. Of course, the KGB—or whatever it was called these days—was known for its Byzantine internal politics of endless wheels within wheels. A faction in opposition to the current regime might have given this order, intending for Stern to be caught, and would welcome the subsequent fall-out.

Or had he gone native? For that matter whatever happened to all the former Soviet sleeper agents? Would they be allowed to just move on? Or had they been contacted, put back on reserve, told to await future orders? Or activated?

The end of the Cold War hadn’t meant the end of espionage. In fact, there were more spies in America now than ever in our history. True, not all of them were Russian, as China had flooded us with their agents. And they weren’t alone. None of this, of course, included all of the remote digital spying and thieving going on routinely within our security apparatus.

Nor had the end of the Cold War meant the end of black ops. There was always a need for operatives, though with so many out of work spies I’d think most counties would prefer to hire one and gain that extra distance from the man and the deed—unless the operator getting caught and the link being made was part of the plan.

Now I’d gone full circle. There was no telling, and no point in my endless speculation. Maybe I’d find answers to all this someday, but it wasn’t likely. The world of sleeper agents is a warren of misinformation and misdirection. Stern’s own handlers, assuming he still had them, might not even be certain of his loyalties and motives at this point. And even if our intelligence services figured this all out, there was no reason to tell me. I wasn’t part of the club. I was good enough to hunt the man down but not significant enough to know the truth.

Grant pulled up and stopped to suck air. Both of us were finding this pace grueling. The wind, which was so often the source of misery on one of the Seven Summits, was presenting no problem, but the falling snow had picked up, and visibility was reduced to perhaps 50 feet. I hoped there’d been enough time to evac the president and wounded and bring in some supplies until everyone could get off.

Grant removed his communicator, a model I’d never seen before. It looked much like a thick iPhone. He thumbed it on and spoke. He listened, then spoke again. He turned it off and put it away. “They’re breaking up. I can’t make heads of tails out of what Tony was saying, and I don’t think he could hear me. We need for this stuff to ease up.”

“There are Rangers on each route down, right?” I asked.

“Yes. We were briefly in touch with them during the weather window and they’re moving up their routes to join us. That was the plan in the event we could not air evac. I doubt they’re far away.”

“If we can’t communicate with them, I don’t think they’ll be any help to us. My guess is, Stern will leave this trail at the first suitable place and head straight down the mountain. He wants to evade them and get out of this snow as quickly as he can. He gains nothing by staying on the established route.”

“I’m not a mountaineer, Scott. We’re at about 15,000 feet, right?” I nodded. “How far down do you think it’s snowing?”

“Hard to say. Storms like this push the cold down below the norm and take the snow with it. It could go below 5,000 feet, but we’re in the tropics and this is the end of the season, so even if that’s happened, it won’t stay on the ground long or even remain as falling snow for that matter. The natural temperature below the year round snowline is too warm, so my guess is that the snow hasn’t gone significantly down that far.”

Grant didn’t comment as he set off, with me following. Thanks to the heavy snow we could clearly make out Stern’s footprints, but it was important that we stay close on his trail because the storm would soon fill them up.

I couldn’t help but recall the last time I’d pursued a killer. That had been at the base of Aconcagua, and Stern had been with me as we chased his former wife and her lover. I remembered also how he’d saved my life on Mt. McKinley and how, when everyone else was dead or dying, he’d stayed with me during the punishing trek from Vinson Masiff in Antarctica, across that barren terrain, in the dark of dead winter, to Patriot Hills and salvation.

Looking back on it now, though, I wondered what had really happened. Fowl claimed that Stern had murdered Michael Sodoc. The media tycoon had just threatened to have me killed when he climbed into a Russian-made helicopter at Everest Base Camp. A minute later the helicopter was a fireball. There’d been endless speculation as to the cause—and only now a clear verdict.

As for Mt. McKinley, if Stern was a trained agent, then his amateurish struggle with a killer there had been a show. He’d demonstrated considerable skill with a knife in killing Noblet. At the time, in Alaska, I’d assumed that he’d wanted to save me. Now I wondered what his motive had really been.

As for Antarctica, all the blame for the tragedy and so many deaths had been laid at the feet of Evo Zapata, a Cuban/Venezuelan agent. He’d even admitted as much—or at least it seemed at the time. But Stern had been there during his apparent confession. Had he known who Stern really was? And, recalling that expedition, I remembered that there were many unanswered questions about what had really happened.

Well, this wasn’t the time or place to puzzle it out. If I survived the next few hours, then managed to get off this mountain alive, I’d have all the time in the world to lay it out on my desk and reason my way through speculation. But in the end, I was certain I’d never know the truth. When Noblet had recruited me in Kabul for that first mission I had gone down the rabbit hole, and I was still looking for a way out.

Grant stopped again and reached down to scoop up a handful of fresh snow. I did the same, sucking on the hard, cold flakes to quench my thirst. I was suddenly hungry and realized I had no food left. Nothing.

I glanced up into the snow and realized that it was falling even more heavily. Looking about, I became aware that visibility was down to 20 feet. I leaned over to Grant and spoke loud enough to be heard over the wind. “We need to be cautious. He’ll lay an ambush for us.”

“I know, but we’ve got no choice, Scott. If we slow down at all, the snow will fill his tracks and we’ll lose any chance of keeping to his trail. I’m keeping a sharp lookout. Come on.”

I looked ahead and saw what he meant. Stern’s footsteps were clearly marked in the snow, but they already had the rounded edges that suggested they would soon vanish. Grant would seek to set our pace by those tracks, which meant that in these conditions, with the snowfall so heavy, we were very, very close to Stern. The cards were all stacked on his side in this game.

Grant pulled up and pointed. As predicted, Stern had turned from the established route. He wanted an easier pathway, and that meant dropping down out of the snow, getting across the open land to the high brush, then into the trees. Or so it seemed.

There were doubtless hundreds—even thousands—of trails climbers didn’t use but were known only to the guides who’d grown up in the shadow of Kilimanjaro. Stern couldn’t expect to know them, so going cross-country, away from a trail, was a dangerous option, especially in these conditions, when snow masked so many crevices and dangers.

Yet that was what he’d done. If Stern could get clear of the snow, across the Alpine desert—where he’d be exposed—and into the heavy vegetation beyond, he could pick up one of those trails and work his way westward.

All this assumed we could stay on his tail, and I was beginning to wonder if that was possible under the circumstances. Also, I wondered for a moment if he had allies here. He’d always been such a loner, the idea had never occurred to me before. When next we stopped I mentioned it to Grant.

“Unlikely,” he said, “but I suppose we can’t rule it out. The guides and porters mostly fled. Maybe some of them were in his pocket and are waiting for him. How good a mountaineer is he?”

“Adequate. If he’s got any real skill, he’s masked it well until now. Grant, how’d he expect to get away with it?”

“Looking back on it, I see that he’d been trying to get at the president the entire climb. It may be that he had more than one means for killing him. Once the president had his heart episode and became bedridden, Stern knew where his target was. With the firefight, I think he was looking for an opportunity that would mask his actions. He managed to get into the camp, but we had those two agents positioned there. Then the suicide bomber drew us away and got everyone else’s attention. He made a quick decision and took his best shot at that moment. It was his bad luck that Tarja hates him so much that she was watching his every move and wasn’t distracted by the explosion. Otherwise, had he actually shot the president, it would likely have been passed off as collateral damage from the firefight. It’s too bad that Calvin was hit. I know you two are close.”

I didn’t want to think about that. There was nothing I could do to help him. “Sounds reckless to me.”

“Only because he got caught. It had a very good chance of succeeding. And his plan all along, in the event he was discovered, might well have been to do just what he’s doing now. For all we know, he’s headed somewhere specific, to a stash, or maybe a place he can hole up until the manhunt is over. Come on. We’re burning daylight.”

Stern was taking a route almost straight down the mountain, moving in a zigzag only when conditions dictated it. His track remained easy to follow, as we were so close, and every time we paused I reminded Grant that Stern would surely attempt an ambush at some point. He had to, as he wasn’t pulling away from us.

Our situation was actually quite desperate. We’d left with no supplies of any kind, and neither of us had eaten a significant meal since the morning of the previous day. We were properly dressed, so there was no issue there, especially as we descended into less cold conditions. Even now we’d dropped enough to see a change in the texture of the snow. No longer was it the hard, biting flakes but had morphed into its fatter brother.

Every time we stopped for a minute to catch our breath and scan for sign of our quarry Grant attempted to establish communication with Tony, without success. The storm was showing no sign of lessening, which meant he’d not be able to call in support. And even if he could, helicopters couldn’t fly in these conditions. We were on our own.

“Grant,” I said late in the afternoon. “Let’s talk about this. We aren’t gaining on him, and there’s no chance of getting either a Seal or Ranger team on the hunt. Maybe we need to just let him go. I’m not happy about it, but there it is. We know who and what he is now. We’ll get him some day.”

“And how many more have to die first?” Grant answered grimly. “He’s right there,” he gestured forward into the snowfall, “and if we keep at this, we’ll catch him.”

“We aren’t equipped for a night out in these conditions. And once it’s dark we won’t be able to track him at all.”

“We’re dropping. I suspect we’ll be out of the snow soon. I think we can tough it out. He’s no better suited than we are. And if we press, we still have time to overtake him.”

“All right. We can’t get back before dark, even if we turn around now. It makes more sense for us to just keep moving down the mountain, even if we lose the trail. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“There’s more to this, Scott. A sleeper assassin infiltrated a presidential party and made an attempt on the president’s life. With all the trouble the service has had lately, how do you think that’s going to play? Tony’s only a year out from retirement. If we don’t catch Stern, they’ll hang this whole thing on him and he’ll finish out his time testifying before Congress. I’m up for promotion myself. It’s supposed to happen this fall. We need to catch this guy, if we can. Or doesn’t that make sense to you?”

I sighed and sucked it up. “I get it.”

Over the next hour the snow turned to heavy flakes, and the once-white stuff through which we trudged turned grey, heavy and wet. Our conditions didn’t improve with the change. If anything, they became worse, as we were now wet.

I was exhausted but didn’t want to be the one to cry uncle. Knowing Stern as I did, I found it impossible to accept that he could keep this up. He wasn’t Superman. We’d catch up with him or he’d turn and fight, or, I had to admit, we’d lose his trail—and that was looking increasingly likely.

There was much less of the falling wet stuff and visibility was improving even as the late afternoon light faded. I realized that we were through the Alpine desert region and well into moorland or heather. I recognized it by the strange shapes of the looming vegetation. Next was the forest, not that far away.

We were dogging Stern, I could see. The snow was gone, and what fell was now a cold rain, almost a heavy mist. The lingering tracks in front of us were discernible, but with the rain and the onset of nightfall we’d lose the ability to see them, and the chase would be over.

We were pressing hard now because, despite the muddy conditions, it was easier going on ground. We didn’t stop again but let our friend, gravity, gently ease us forward. My knees were burning like hell from our pace and the downward movement of our trek.

Finally, I realized we were moving through brush that grew thicker every few minutes. We were also on an established trail of some type, narrower than one used by climbers but one used by someone, nonetheless. Then we reached the first cluster of trees, just as the wind finally gave up and the light drizzle dropped on us in a direct line from above. It was all but night, and the chase was ended. We’d given it our best shot and come up short. We’d not be able to see anything in another few minutes.

“Let me try this again,” Grant said when we reached a large rock formation on the side of the trail. He pulled out his communicator and lifted it to his ear.

I heard the gunshot and saw its effects at the same instant. Grant was struck in the chest and leaned heavily against the stone, his eyes wide in surprise. He looked at me as if to say something, his mouth moved but formed no words, then he slowly extended his arm to hand me the device.

I reached forward—and the dying day turned black.