As White as Snow (17 page)

Jiři had spread out two camping pads in one corner of the office and even found them sleeping bags.

“Good thing the company has a mountaineering division,” he said with a grin.

Apparently, that wasn’t a joke.

Jiři’s computer glowed with a blue light. He had been sitting at it without moving for the past three hours. Before that, he had only moved once to accept the cardboard delivery cartons from the Chinese restaurant. He’d assigned Lumikki to go over the family records, which were full of
Jiři’s annotations, question marks, and arrows. Lumikki hadn’t found any new earth-shattering secrets.

She decided to close her eyes just for a second. Just to rest them. The day had been so long. If she just closed her eyes for a second or two . . .

Lumikki woke up when her forehead hid the stack of paper. Jiři looked up.

“You should go to sleep. You’ve had a rough day.”

“I’m fine,” Lumikki said, just as her mouth stretched wide in a yawn.

“Or eat some chili tofu. That’ll wake you up.”

Jiři pushed a carton across the desk.

“Cold tofu? Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll hold off on that gourmet experience,” Lumikki replied. “Besides, I’m still stuffed. You ordered enough food for three people.”

“Your choice. But then don’t—bingo!”

Jiři yelled the last word so loud that Lumikki jumped in her seat.

“Come look!”

Lumikki came around the desk to see. On the computer screen was a picture of a man of about thirty dressed in a tailored, white linen outfit. His long hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Lumikki recognized the piercing gray eyes and bushy, almost owlish eyebrows even though he was much younger in the picture.

“Adam Havel,” Lumikki said.

“Actually, Adam Smith. Alias Adam Havel. This picture is from 1980, but even I recognize him, and I’ve only ever heard descriptions of what he looks like,” Jiři explained excitedly.

“Nebraska,” Lumikki read from the caption.

“Exactly. There was a cult there called the White Brothers. They only admitted young men as members and claimed they were all related to Jesus. The group’s leader was Adam Smith, but he disappeared—as it turns out, only to appear later in Prague using basically the same concept. This time he just decided to include women too.”

“Why did he disappear?” Lumikki asked.

“He convinced the other members of the cult to turn over all their property, which he was supposedly going to donate to charity. So they would be as pure as possible when they met their death.”

Jiři looked at Lumikki, his face darkening.

“They were going to commit mass suicide. Adam Smith along with the rest of them. But then someone tipped off the police, who managed to save most of them. They found them lying in a cabin, unconscious from carbon monoxide poisoning. Adam Smith was gone. With the money, of course.”

Suddenly, Lumikki’s drowsiness had vanished.

“The White Family isn’t planning an attack on anyone,” she said slowly.

Jiři shook his head.

Neither of them had to say it out loud. Still, the words surrounded them, cold as ice.

Mass suicide.

MONDAY, JUNE 20

Lumikki checked her phone: 11:45 a.m. She could still make it to their meeting place on time if she hurried.

She and Jiři had agreed that Lumikki would go meet Lenka and try to get her to leave the cult immediately. It was also important to find out if the date for the suicide was already set. Jiři had a meeting at the same time with the boss at Super8 who had assigned him the story about the cult in the first place.

Lumikki understood too late what was happening when strong hands pulled her off the street into a car and shoved her against the backseat. The cold muzzle of a gun kissed her neck.

“If you try anything or make one single sound, you’re dead,” the man hissed in her ear.

Lumikki hadn’t been this close to her pursuer yet, and she would have preferred to keep it that way. She saw his other hand fumbling with a roll of duct tape. Lumikki guessed he was going to put tape over her mouth, tape her wrists and ankles together, and then drive somewhere far out to do whatever he intended.

Lumikki didn’t want to find out what that was. Burning rage flared inside of her. Once again, she had been dragged into the middle of something she didn’t want anything to do with. Entirely without her consent.

There was no time to waste. She had to act. Taking advantage of the element of surprise was only possible for a brief moment.

Lumikki pretended to nod that she understood. But instead, quick as a flash, she continued the motion and struck the man in the nose with her forehead. The man’s grip loosened more from surprise than pain as his nose spurted blood onto Lumikki’s white cotton shirt.

Lumikki tore herself away, got the vehicle door open, and tumbled out into the street. As she darted forward, it wasn’t until the crowds grew thicker that she realized she must be near the Charles Bridge, which drew Prague tourists like a giant magnet. Near the bridge, the throng became even thicker. People stood in place staring up as Lumikki tried desperately to get past them. What on earth were they waiting for?

Lumikki glanced up, and then she understood. A bugle player had appeared on a balcony and was just beginning to announce the twelve o’clock hour. The mouth of the bridge was distressingly dense with people. Lumikki looked back.
Had she managed to lose her pursuer? She couldn’t see him. Lumikki moved farther into the crowd to hide. Her heart pounded alarmingly.

Suddenly, Lumikki heard a sound behind her. Looking over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of the man some distance away, but not far enough. He spotted her too and shoved past a few old ladies, who began screaming curses at him in French.

Lumikki’s mind raced. Should she try to get away across the crowded bridge or continue along the same side of the riverbank? Making any headway on the bridge might be impossible. On the other hand, her pursuer would have the same problem. And maybe he wouldn’t dare attack her or shoot at her on the bridge. There would be too many witnesses.

She had made her decision. Lumikki crouched to slip under the arm of a Japanese tourist just as he raised it to get a cell phone picture of the bugler. She heard but didn’t see as, a few seconds later, the hit man collided with the tourist and the phone went flying through the air onto the cobblestones. Based on the Japanese man’s agitated protestations, the phone didn’t survive.

The statues of thirty saints stood guard on the sides of the bridge. Saint John of Nepomuk, Saint Vitus, Saint Luthgard, John the Baptist, Saint Wenceslas, Saint Sigismund, Saint Jude Thaddeus, Francis of Assisi. The names listed in the travel guide ran through Lumikki’s mind in time with the thudding of her feet on the stone pavement of the bridge. The Stone Bridge. That was its original name. The imagination of whoever named it had run absolutely wild.

Salty, stinging sweat ran into Lumikki’s eyes and she swiped at them with the back of her hand. She wouldn’t be able to run on the bridge blind. Dodging the tourists, kitsch vendors, and street musicians was hard enough as it was. Her sandals rubbed her feet raw. They weren’t running shoes, and her soaking wet cotton shirt wasn’t a running shirt. Eighty-five degrees also wasn’t the best possible running weather, but Lumikki couldn’t change the conditions now. She just had to keep moving and try to get away.

The man was keeping up with her, only a few yards behind now.

And their chase was attracting attention. The tourists thought it was some kind of performance. Some shouted words of encouragement to Lumikki, and others cheered for her pursuer.

A quintet playing a dramatic opera score faltered as Lumikki dashed past them. She heard them switch on the fly to a lighter piece. The Beatles singing about a little girl, admonishing her to run for her life.

Gee, thanks. I actually am running for my life here,
Lumikki managed to think just before she collided with a plump German woman who’d stepped to the side at just the wrong moment.

“Mein Gott!”
the woman exclaimed.

“Entschuldigung!”
Lumikki dug out from somewhere in her vocabulary and continued running.

Luckily, the German woman also slowed her pursuer, who shoved her roughly aside without an apology in any language.

As she struggled to speed up and felt the sweat streaming down her calves, Lumikki found she could no longer weave through the crowds of people as well as she had at first.

A Japanese bride was being photographed in the middle of the bridge. Lumikki wasn’t sure whether the photo shoot was genuine or staged. The bride’s gown had an insanely impractical long train, which Lumikki had to vault over at the last moment. A couple of seconds later, the sound of ripping satin revealed that her pursuer hadn’t been so nimble.

Lumikki gained a small lead.

Her next obstacle was a group of Americans with a tour guide. Lumikki looked at the wall of people in horror, but then saw one narrow break she just barely managed to slip through sideways.

“And as you can see, here we have a statue of a—running girl—I mean . . .”

Lumikki didn’t hang around to hear how the guide got his commentary back on track. The hit man had plowed through the wall of Americans like an icebreaker and shrunk her lead to almost nothing. Lumikki felt the heat threatening to cloud her mind. Her mouth was bone-dry. She felt like she’d never drunk a drop of water in her life.

Lumikki felt a tremor in her legs. Her elbow bumped a caricature artist’s hand just as he was sketching the nose of a man with a dark beard. Well, a bolder nose would probably improve the picture. The crush of people forced Lumikki to the side of the bridge. She had to reach out and push off a statue’s plaque to avoid ramming her side painfully into the
railing. The metal plate was shiny from thousands of people touching it. Saint John of Nepomuk.

A sainted Czech martyr who was executed by being thrown off a bridge.

You never knew what little things would stick in your head from reading a travel guide. Lumikki also remembered that touching the statue was said to bring good luck and ensure that the person would return to Prague again one day.

Good luck was just what she needed now. She heard her pursuer’s heavy breathing, and it was far too close. On the other hand, she wasn’t at all sure she’d ever want to come back to Prague if she made it out alive.

Lumikki was almost at the other end of the bridge already. Her heart was banging against her ribs, trying desperately to pump oxygen to her muscles, which were on the verge of complete collapse. Lumikki felt so hot it was like her whole body was boiling.

A glass player. No way. Ahead of her, Lumikki saw an old, frail man intently playing dozens of equally fragile-looking wine glasses arrayed in three levels in front of him. Lumikki strained with all her might, concentrating her balance to juke to the left around the man and pass him safely without breaking a single glass.

The old man, as if made from frosted glass himself, raised his hand in thanks.

A moment too soon.

Lumikki heard behind her as her pursuer’s heavy steps careened after her and the old man cried out as first one glass and then a second, a third, and a forth shattered. The domino
effect sent each breaking glass tumbling into the next, causing a new explosion of shards. Lumikki’s pursuer screamed and cursed. It was clear he’d injured himself and lost significant ground.

Lumikki rushed off the bridge, vowing never to cross it again by choice.

The knowledge that her pursuer probably wouldn’t be able to catch up with her now instantly made Lumikki feel better. Her legs found new strength, and the hot air didn’t parch her lungs. She couldn’t feel the blisters caused by her sandals, and the flow of sweat was pleasantly cooling.

She ran to the stairs leading to St. Vitus Cathedral and started loping up them two at a time. The joy of escape gave her heels wings. She would be late for her rendezvous by a few minutes, but she would make it there alive. That hadn’t been a given.

“Go, go, go!” some young boys sitting on the stairs yelled in encouragement.

She glanced back, even though she was already sure. No one was following.