Chapter 3: You Owe Me
Mary controls her reactions so anyone looking at them would not know anything was amiss. The German is looking at her with a knowing smile.
He isn't just her contact.
She's been so stupid, missing the most obvious clue of all. The gaps in their conversation back in the hut when she'd been tied naked to the bed was due to Axel typing the message that had been voiced by the synthesiser.
Axel's erased the question and is now scrawling a new message on the board: Giorgi maybe SDS agent, looking for courier. You need to deflect/protect.
She nods, as he erases the marks with his sleeve. She says quietly in English, "What is the package?"
He smirks. Turning to her, he uses his lips to create an English word without voice: "Me."
Confirming what she's realised—Axel wants her to act as his bodyguard—she nods.
"Mission accepted."
oOoOoOoOo
Whatever Giorgi might suspect about Axel, Mary realises that he isn't sure. Over the next two days, as they walk further up the glacier towards the pass over the border, Mary watches as the Svan stages another inspection of everyone's belongings under the guise of collecting the group supplies that each of them is carrying. Giorgi's growing frustration is evident though when he starts getting nosier about their individual belongings. He starts conversations about their clothing and equipment, saying he wants to learn more about the different brands and how good they are. Most of the trekkers seem happy to brag about their kit; it's something on which a lot of them have spent lots of time and money.
She decides that the best way to 'deflect and protect' is to get closer to Giorgi, so she starts an energetic campaign of flirtation. After all, a single American woman on her holidays might well be interested in a bit of local R&R with an attractive young man. Alas, he seems impervious to her attempts, but she doesn't give up.
Levan is willing to answer her questions about Giorgi, even if he obviously thinks she is barking up the wrong tree. "No, he's not married, and he doesn't have a girlfriend. He's a former army man; like a lot of Svans, he went into the military as an escape route from his family. Got involved in the Abkhazia conflict as a ranger but, once that settled down, he was demobbed and came back to Mestia. He's my cousin's tenant so I am trying him out on this run. I think he has what it takes to do this expedition work. Because this is his first trek of Elbrus, he wants to be sure the gear is up to it. So, he's being like a soldier on inspection duty—a bit over-zealous."
The older Svan seems amused by Mary's interest. "Looking for a little holiday romance? Not likely. Svan men don't tend to mess around. We're a pretty conservative bunch."
She notices that Levan lets Giorgi do the regular satellite phone calls back to Sami—one every day at six pm. Mary listens to the odd glottal stops and the consonant clusters; it sounds as odd as the Georgian alphabet appears to her eyes. She's not the only one listening in; Axel seems as interested as she is.
When she asks Axel if he understands Georgian, he nods, frowns and then writes on the board 'But not Svan.'
Axel lets Giorgi go through his pack in search of team supplies and this time, he doesn't raise a fuss. Mary takes some comfort in that fact that, as long as the man keeps looking for something as opposed to someone, they're safe.
When Giorgi shows up on their second morning on the glacier, as she and Marie are taking down their tent, he picks up the fiberglass poles and examines the fittings closely, looking down the tubes.
She smiles flirtatiously and asks, "Maybe you'd like to share a tent with me?" When he frowns, she gives him a disappointed look. "Don't you like blondes?"
When he shakes his head, she can't resist asking, "What can I do to get you to smile?"
"Nothing," he mutters and stalks off.
oOoOoOoOo
When they are out of Giorgi's earshot, Mary has taken to talking to Axel in German. If the Svan is an agent of the Georgian security services, then it is quite likely he speaks Russian, so they've stopped using that language. As long as they are roped together as buddies, it makes sense for her to be seen to be talking to him in his 'native' language, which the Svan is less likely to know. When they can't be overheard by the Austrian either, she drops into a strange sort of game of twenty questions, where an answer can be given by a nod or shake of the head.
Most of all, she is concerned with Reichmann's health. Surreptitiously, when they take a rest break, she takes his pulse, checks what she can visibly, and asks him about his breathing. "This thin air, the altitude, it's affecting you more than you thought it would?"
She gets a reluctant nod, which worries her. Mary's not familiar with the consequences of a laryngectomy beyond the obvious basics. Trying to get his air through the stoma must be making it harder for him. The scars are well-healed, so she estimates it's been years. She has noticed, however, that he prefers soft foods and liquids, chewing solids very thoroughly. He is also finding the walking to be challenging; he's not as fit or muscular as the others. While the expedition clothing hides a lot of it, Mary sees the weakness in his knees, the occasional cramping calf.
"If you start to feel dizzy or your vision is affected, you have to tell me. Don't ignore it. If you pass out, then it's going to be an emergency evacuation back to a hospital in Georgia, and all this will be a waste of time," she warns.
The closer they get to the pass, the more apparent it becomes that he is struggling with the altitude. When the air is thin and so cold, everyone's breathing is affected, hers included. More often than not, they end up as the last pair in the line.
When Levan asks them why they are straggling, Mary steps in before Axel can get his white board out. "It's my fault. I guess I've not recovered as much as I thought I had from the accident. I just have to go slower." She flashes him a bright cheery smile. "Don't you worry. I'll make it. Once we're over the pass, it's downhill all the way."
Deflect and protect. She puts on a limp, and when they stop for a breather, she makes sure everyone's eyes are on her, not the pale-faced man to whom she is roped.
oOoOoOoOo
By the time they get off the ice and onto the scree fields on the Russian side of the border, her limp is not a fake. And neither is Axel's rasping breath. That night, he retires before the Austrian, with whom he has been sharing a tent, has finished his dinner.
Mary excuses herself from the campfire that they're sitting around. "Best give my buddy a check," she explains, as she limps away.
As soon as she raps on the tent pole, the zip is opened, and Axel beckons her in. Before he can start writing on the white board that he is shining a torch on, she interrupts. "Let's make this easy. I'm going to assume that you're not planning on going up Elbrus. If you were, now's the time for me to tell you to get real. I don't have a stethoscope, but my guess is that you're working on pneumonia. You look feverish, your breathing is shallow and too fast to sustain, plus the coarse raspiness is new. You've got a good excuse to bail out as soon as we get to the rendezvous point. I can easily fake my ankle being bad enough that I have to stop, too. Once we've made it down to the road, I assume that you've made arrangements?"
He nods.
"Good. That means the only challenge is going to be getting rid of Giorgi. He's most likely to try to escort us; Levan won't want us to think he's leaving us to our own devices since the company prides itself on looking after its guests. So, Georgi will use it as an excuse to come with us because the two of us bailing at this stage is a classic courier trick."
He nods again.
"I won't be able to deflect his attention from you, and it's going to be challenging to protect you without a weapon."
He scrawls a line and points outside the tent, looking to see if she understands.
"The path?"
After he nods, the marker pen is in motion again, meandering until it intersects at a T junction with what she soon recognises as a road.
"Okay."
Axel coughs and wheezes a bit before continuing. To the left of the road he draws an arrow and a small triangle.
"Elbrus?"
After the nod, he goes back to the junction, measures a thumb's width to the left and marks a small X, writing inn. He uses a hand signal of two fingers and then snaps his fingers.
She nods, voicing the meaning of that gesture, "Two kilometres then."
She files away the fact that what follows is also a tactical army gesture for a pistol and ammunition.
"Oh! Clever you. You've organised a cache at the first night's stop."
He smiles as he writes, 'then Nalchik hospital'.
"Preferably in one piece, yes. With a gun, I can do that."
oOoOoOoOo
Mary has to hand it to the Hawking Man. He's organised this well. So well, in fact, that he doesn't have to do much to make the scenario happen apart from crawl into the seat of the minivan taxi that has met them at the junction of the path and the road. There's not much acting involved; it's about all he is capable of doing. and she is very grateful that it's a short journey to the inn.
As soon as they get into the reception area, she helps Axel into a chair and tells him to keep his head down. He'd nearly fainted on the short journey from the car park to reception and she'd ended up half carrying him until Levan noticed and rushed over to help her get him inside.
While the hotel receptionist is dealing with the passports and handing out keys to the other trekkers who are looking forward to their first hot showers and cooked meal in a week, Mary tells Levan that that he's going to have to organise a medical evacuation. She volunteers to accompany Axel. "My ankle is getting worse and I think I'm going to have to bail, too."
He's not surprised, and seems rather relieved that she's said this, confessing to wanting to ask them both to remain at the hotel while the rest of the group heads east to make a few preparatory climbs before the Elbrus summit bid.
As she monitors Axel's breathing and sees some colour returning to his face, the two Svans enter into an in-depth discussion with the two Russian guides that have met them at the Edel'vey inn. Within minutes, the guides seem to have come to a conclusion. Georgi is on his satellite phone back to Sami; the Russians are on their mobiles. Clearly, mobile phone connections work well here—something that doesn't surprise Mary. This is Russia, after all, and the border with Georgia will be considered a military priority when it comes to resources. Under the guise of promoting tourism to this part of the Federation, the government will have ensured the infrastructure is capable of supporting its military.
Levan snags the first key from the receptionist and brings it back to Mary. "Ground floor; he can rest there until the ambulance comes. The hospital in Nalchik is sending one to collect Mister Reichmann tonight. It will take them about an hour and a half to get here. Are you sure you want to go, too?"
She nods and says, "Yeah, buddy system and all that. Anyway, I'd just slow everyone else up, even if this damned ankle of mine had a miraculous recovery. I've had a stress fracture before, and this is starting to feel a lot like one."
Levan tells her that Giorgi has agreed to accompany them. "We want to see that everything is okay. Once you're in Nalchik, he'll inform Sami back in Tbilisi and the two of them will make arrangements for your return home. Don't worry. These things happen."
As soon as she's got Axel in his room and lying down, she has one more task. "Where is it?" she asks quietly.
Weakly, he gestures for the white board. Once it's in his hands, the marker pen seems to have a life of its own and he struggles to make the scrawl legible.
Eventually, she manages to decipher the scribbles: "Gazebo?"
He can barely manage a nod before his eyes close.
She uses her sleeve to erase the board. As soon as she drops her pack into the bedroom she is sharing with the French climber, Mary announces that she's going to explore the hotel grounds before it gets dark.
Surprised, Marie asks, "The ankle? I thought it hurt?"
"It does. But if I stop now, it's going to seize up and if this is the closest I'm going to get to Elbrus, I want to see the damned thing before it gets dark."
It's a pretty weak excuse, but Marie seems happy enough to bag the first shower to wave her off.
The grounds are surprisingly large, enough to strain her ankle before she eventually finds the small gazebo. Luckily, it is empty and surrounded by trees; no one observes her thorough search. The light is starting to fade as she finds the weapon; it's wrapped in a plastic waterproof pouch, taped to the underside of an eave.
Ten minutes later, as she goes down the hall to Axel's room, Mary's smile of appreciation is still on her face. Her loot is a PL-15, one of the newest semi-automatic pistols, better than the standard Markova issue used by the Russian security forces. It's now fully loaded and safely hidden down the back of her trousers, disguised by bulky pullover she's wearing against the cold. The extra ammunition magazine is hidden in her underpants, as is the silencer. It would take a full-scale body search to find them because she's covered them with a large sanitary towel. It's been enough to stop many a male searcher in the past.
The smile is wiped off her face as she finds Giorgi is in the room with Axel. A quick exchange of glances between her and Axel is enough to stop her from taking any decisive action. The Svan's not had any time to do anything other than unpack everything from Axel's backpack, rooting through the stuff to find what is the expedition's kit.
"Have to take stuff to the others for their trek. Your pack, too," the Svan mutters. "Lots missing… What have you done with it?" He growls at Axel.
Smiling sweetly, she says, " I've been carrying some of his stuff, given he's so ill. Marie is already in my room. Just knock on the door to make sure she's out of the shower and take what you need. Tell her to just shove everything back in and bring it down to the reception desk. I'm going to sit with him here until the ambulance arrives." No way is she going to risk the Svan getting aggressive about what he thinks they might be carrying.
Mary thinks Giorgi will wait before doing anything more overt until they reach the hospital; he is likely to assume that this where a courier will hand over the package, whatever it is.
Axel lets his eyes close as soon as the Svan leaves the room.
Mary grabs his shoulder and gives it a shake. "Hey, not yet. Nearly safe, but we still have twenty questions to play before you can relax. I need to know the who, when and where of your collection in Nalchik. Then, I promise, you can sleep."
oOoOoOoOo
As Axel is wheeled into the private room on the third floor of Nalchik hospital, Mary heaves a sigh of relief. He'd lost consciousness on the outskirts of the city—the capital of the Kabardino-Balkar Russian Republic. It's a surprising oasis of modernity after the long drive through the empty forests down from the heights of the Caucus mountain ranges. Within minutes of setting off from the inn, she'd pushed the rather useless paramedic aside to jury-rig the oxygen feed into Axel's stoma, since the standard mask wouldn't work.
Now that he's under a doctor's care, she can finally take the weight off her ankle. With hindsight, Mary now realises that it wasn't just her special ops training that had attracted the attention of Hawking Man; her nursing skills would have been a decisive element, too—something that few bodyguards would have in this part of the world. Add to that the fact that almost everyone underestimates a woman, especially one her size and shape, and Mary can see why she'd been chosen. All of her skills had been needed on the journey between the inn and the hospital.
Before it had been taken off her, the PL-15 had been useful. While she'd never liked the idea of killing in cold blood, Mary is a realist. Taking advantage of surprise means that at times scruples have to be sacrificed. She hadn't asked for this assignment, but it was the only way she was going to survive. Them or me. When put that starkly, self-defence comes into play.
Her first bullet had killed Giorgi who had insisted on riding with them in the back; the second had taken the life of the ambulance paramedic who had been so useless at seeing to Axel's immediate needs. Her original plan had involved a third bullet—for the driver of the ambulance. The silencer on the pistol was good, but not that good, and she'd only just got the sliding window open into the driver's area when he'd hit the brakes.
Mary had expected panic, perhaps a shout of don't shoot, but what she got was a great guffaw of laughter and a hearty "Спасибо!" and the sight of a pistol being aimed straight at her.
She was still processing all that when the driver had followed up with "You've just saved me a lot of trouble."
In English.
The ambulance skidded to a halt by the side of the road, and the driver kept his gun on her, smirking. "Stand down. I'm on your side. Well, his to be more specific. I meant the thank you, by the way, for taking out the SDS agent and for getting rid of the other guy. He's not a paramedic, just an ex-army medic junkie I brought along to make this look authentic."
"Glad to be of service. Now that we're friends, perhaps you can put your gun away?"
"Only when you've handed back the PL-15," he'd said.
"I need it; while you dispose of the bodies, I'll keep an eye on the package."
He'd shaken his head, laughing. "No way. The name's Ivan, by the way. I'm here to keep an eye on you. You get locked in the cab while I clean up the blood in the back and dig a couple of shallow graves. Try anything clever and I will dig one more for you. Once we're underway, you get to play nurse in the back, but I lock you in there. When we get to the hospital, if he's still alive, then so are you."
"I'm not a doctor," she protested, cursing internally.
Hawking Man had anticipated his vulnerability. Until the driver intervened, it had been her plan to let nature take its course; shut off the oxygen, and if that didn't do the trick, she'd have used the fifth bullet. Now that she had a passport, a gun and was in Russia, she could make her own way to safety. Dead men can't collect a debt.
As if he is reading her mind, Ivan continues, "He knew he would be vulnerable to you once you were over the border. You might cut and run, he said. So, this is me telling you that if he dies, so do you. You underestimate this man at your peril, ребенок.*"
Everything that has happened reinforces this message, as Mary is realising. From start to finish, the man's preparations have been clever and meticulous, leaving nothing to chance. Yet again, her respect for the man's cunning rose.
That said, Hawking Man wasn't superhuman. By the time they'd reached the hospital, her patient was in trouble, his breathing tachypneic and very shallow. She'd put the rig's stethoscope to use and heard the tell-tale rawl sounds of pneumonia. It's dangerous for an ordinary person, but for a person relying on a stoma and still recovering from altitude sickness, it was far worse.
Once the driver revealed that he was there to keep an eye on her, she knew Hawking Man had been clever enough to anticipate her plans. And despite his weakness back at the inn, he'd never once told her that the ambulance was part of the set-up; the first contact was supposed to have happened at the hospital. After turning over the PL-15 to the ambulance driver, he had also confiscated at gunpoint the Mary Saunders passport and her wallet, telling her that it would be kept until her departure.
All this had led to the moment at hand: she is sitting quietly in the chairs outside the ward, waiting for the doctor to tell her how the patient is getting on. With no gun, no money and no passport, her situation couldn't have been worse even if she'd been handcuffed to the waiting room chair. She knows she can't run. She also knows that if the doctors aren't successful in getting Hawking Man well enough to fly to Moscow, Ivan will tidy her up like the other loose ends he's deal with so far.
Patience, she tells herself; at least she can use the time out here to do some serious thinking. She's learned from the admission procedure that her patient is no longer known as Axel Reichmann, but rather a Russian called Fyodr Knaslovsky, resident of Moscow. The bag Ivan brought in from the ambulance and handed over to the medical team had the details of their tourist trip to Terskol. She was introduced as his special "American Friend", one whose presence was permitted with a proper visa.
Before he'd left her, Ivan sat down next to her and rummaged through a pouch of travel documents, waving at her the two open-dated first-class Aeroflot tickets from Nalchik to Moscow's Sheremetyevo-Pushkin airport.
"When he's better, you get these. The deal is to get him safely to Moscow; once there, you'll be free to go. Until then, you wait and hope he survives. When my shift is over—yes, I am actually an ambulance driver—I will come back to collect you and take to a place where you will be held until he is well enough to move."
While the clock ticks the minutes away, Mary realises that she is lucky. If Hawking Man had only wanted her to take him to safety across the border, then she'd probably be dead by now—a loose end cleared up by the driver in the same way he'd planned to take out Giorgi and the ex-Army medic. He'd not been joking about digging another shallow grave out in the forest.
This must mean he wants to use her services again. And that is the reason why she is still alive.
It's a sobering thought. Given what she knows about the man, even being unconscious and confined to a bed has not stopped him from anticipating her every move and countering it.
Mary knows when she's been outsmarted. There aren't many people in this world who can invoke that kind of fear in her, but he has. Putting her elbows on her knees and her head down into her hands, she does her very best to push away the panic that has dogged her every moment since she met Hawking Man.
Author's Notes:
*Little Woman, in Russian