The Gemini Contenders (35 page)

The shattering of machine gun fire filled his ears, evoking the memory he abhorred. The swirling clouds of smoke were there, the arched bodies of loved ones in succeeding instants of death, seen in the blinding light of the flood-lamps.

Champoluc is the river! Zürich is the river!

The words were screamed, then repeated, twice, three times! Roared up at him but aimed higher than where he was, above him, as the bullets pierced his father’s chest and stomach.

Champoluc is the river!

The head raised? Was that it? The head, the
eyes
. It’s always in
the eyes!
A split fraction of time before the words poured out, his father’s eyes had
not
been on the embankment,
not
on
him
.

They had been leveled to his right, on a diagonal. Savarone had been staring at the automobiles, into the
third automobile
.

Savarone had seen Guillamo Donatti! He had recognized him in the shadows of the back seat of the car. At the instant of death, he knew the identity of his executioner.

And the roars of fury had poured forth, up at his son, but beyond his son. Up and beyond and … what
was
it? What
was
it his father had done at that last instant of life? It was the missing connection, the line that completed the pattern!

Oh, Christ! Some part of his body. His head, his shoulders, his hands. What
was
it?

The
whole
body! My God, it was the gesture in
death
of the
whole body!
Head, arms, hands. Savarone’s body had been stretched in one final gesture!
To his left!
But not the house, not the lighted rooms so viciously invaded, but beyond the house.
Beyond the house!

Champoluc is the river.…

Beyond the house!

The
woods
of Campo di Fiori!

The
river!
The wide mountain stream in the forest! Their own personal
“river”!

It was part of his childhood. The river of his childhood was a quarter of a mile beyond the gardens of Campo di Fiori!

Sweat fell from Victor’s face; his breath was erratic, his hands trembled. He gripped the edge of the stirrup bench in the darkness. He was spent, but certain; it was all suddenly, totally clear.

The
river
was not in the Champoluc, nor in Zürich. It was minutes away from
here
. A brief walk down a forest path made by generations of children.

Etched
for a millennium.

Part of his
childhood
.

He pictured the woods, the flowing stream, the rocks … the rocks … the
rocks
. The
boulders
that bordered the stream in the deepest section of the water! There was one
large
boulder used for diving and jumping and lying in the sun, and
scratching initials
, and childish
messages
, and secret
codes
between very young brothers!

Etched for a millennium. His
childhood!

Had Savarone chosen
this rock
on which to etch his message?

It was suddenly so clear. So
consistent
.

Of course he had.

The night sky turned gradually to gray, but no rays of the Italian sun broke through the overcast. Instead, there would be rain soon, and a cold summer wind whipping down from the northern mountains.

Victor walked down the stable road into the gardens. It was too dark to make out the colors. Then, too, there were
not the rows of flowers bordering the paths as there had been; he could see that much.

He found the path with difficulty, only after examining the uncut grass, angling the beam of his flashlight into the ground, looking for signs of the past. As he penetrated the woods beyond the garden familiar things came back to him: a gnarled olive tree with thick limbs; a cluster of white birches, now concealed by beechwood vine and dying spruce.

The stream was no more than a hundred yards away, diagonally to his right, if memory served. There were birches and tall pines; giant weeds formed a wall of tentacles, soft but uncomfortable to the touch.

He stopped. There was a rustle of bird wings, the snap of a twig. He turned and peered into the black shapes of the overgrowth.

Silence.

Then the sound of a small animal intruded on the quiet. He had probably disturbed a hare. Strange, he should assume so naturally that it was a hare. The surroundings jogged memories long forgotten; as a boy he had trapped hares in these woods.

He could smell the water now. He had always been able to smell the moistness when he approached the stream, smell it before he heard the sound of the flow. The foliage nearest the water was thick, almost impenetrable. Seepage from the stream had fed a hundred thousand roots, allowing rampant, uncontrolled growth. He had to force back limbs and spread thickets to approach the stream.

His left foot was ensnared in a tangle of ground vine. He stepped back on his right and, with his cane, worked it free, losing his balance as he did so. The cane whipped out of his hand, spiraling into the darkness. He grabbed for a branch to break his fall; the small limb cracked, stripping itself from its source. On one knee, he used the thick stick to push himself off the ground; his cane was gone; he could not see it. He held onto the stick and threaded his way through the mass of foliage to the water’s edge.

The stream seemed narrower than he remembered. Then he realized it was the gray darkness and the overgrown forest that made it appear so. Three decades of inattention had allowed the woods to impinge upon the water.

The massive boulder was on his right, upstream, no
more than twenty feet away, but the wall of overgrowth was such that it might have been half a mile. He began edging his way toward it, crouching, rising, separating, each movement a struggle. Twice he butted against hard obstacles in the earth, too high, too thin and narrow, for rocks. He swung the beam of the flashlight down; the obstacles were iron stakes, rusted and pitted as though relics from a sunken galleon.

He reached the base of the huge rock; its body extended over the water. He looked below, the flashlight illuminating the separation of earth and flowing stream, and realized the years had made him cautious. The distance to the water was only a few feet, but it appeared a gulf to him now. He sidestepped his way down into the stream, the thick stick in his left hand prodding the depth.

The water was cold—as he remembered, it was always cold—and came up to his thighs, lapped over his waist below the brace, sending chills throughout his body. He shivered and swore at the years.

But he was
here
. It was all that mattered.

He focused the flashlight on the rock. He was several feet from the edge of the bank; he would have to organize his search. Too many minutes could be wasted going over areas twice or three times because he could not remember examining them. He was honest with himself: He was not sure how long he could take the cold.

He reached up, pressing the end of the stick into the surface of the rock. The moss that covered it peeled easily. The details of the boulder’s surface, made vivid by the harsh, white beam of the flashlight, looked like thousands of tiny craters and ravines.

His pulse accelerated at the first signs of human intrusion. They were faint, barely visible, but they were there. And they were his marks, from more than half a century ago. Descending lines scratched deeply into the rock as part of a long forgotten boyhood game.

The V was the clearest letter; he had made sure his mark was vivid, properly recorded. Then there was b, followed by what might have been numbers. And a t, again followed by what were probably numbers. He had no idea what they meant.

He peeled the moss above and below the scratchings. There were other faint markings; some seemed meaningful.
Initials, mainly; here and there, rough drawings of trees and arrows and quarter circles drawn by children.

His eyes strained under the glare of the flashlight; his fingers peeled and rubbed and caressed a larger and larger area. He made two vertical lines with the stick to show where he had searched and moved farther into the cold water; but soon the cold grew too much and he climbed onto the bank, seeking warmth. His hands and arms and legs were trembling with cold and age. He knelt in the damp overgrowth and watched the vapor of his breath diffuse itself in the air.

He went back into the water, to the point where he had left off. The moss was thicker; underneath he found several more markings similar to the first set nearer the embankment. V’s and b’s and t’s and very faint numbers.

Then it came back to him through the years—faintly, as faintly as the letters and the numbers. And he
knew
he was right to be in that stream, at that boulder.

Burrone! Traccia!
He had forgotten but now recalled. “Ravine,” “trail.” He had always scratched—recorded—their journeys into the mountains!

Part of his childhood
.

My God, what a part! Every summer Savarone gathered his sons together and took them north for several days of climbing. Not dangerous climbing, more hiking and camping. For them all, a high point of the summers. And he gave them maps so they knew where they had been; and Vittorio, the eldest, would indelibly, soberly record the journeys on the boulder down at the stream, their “river.”

They had christened the rock The Argonaut. And the scratchings of The Argonaut served as a permanent record of their mountain odysseys. Into the mountains of their boyhood.

Into the mountains.

The train from Salonika had gone into the mountains! The vault of Constantine was somewhere in the mountains!

He balanced himself with the stick and continued. He was near the face of the rock; the water came up to his chest, chilling the steel brace beneath his clothes. The farther out he went the more convinced he became; he was
right
to be there! The faint scratching—the faded scars of half lines and zigzags—were more and more numerous.
The Argonaut’s
hull was covered with graffiti related to journeys long forgotten.

The cold water sent a spasm through the base of his spine; the stick fell from his hands. He slapped at the water, grabbing the stick, shifting his fee in the effort. He fell—glided, actually—into the rock and righted himself by pressing the stick into the mud below for balance.

He stared at the sight inches from his eyes in the water. There was a short, straight, horizontal line deeply defined in the rock. It was
chiseled
.

He braced himself as best he could, transferred the stick to his right hand, manipulating it between his thumb and the flashlight, and pressed his fingers into the surface of the boulder.

He traced the line. It angled sharply downward into the water; across and down and then it abruptly stopped.

7. It was a 7.

Unlike any other faded hieroglyphics on the rock; not scratches made by awkward, youthful hands, but a work of precision. The figure was no more than two inches high—but the impression itself was a good half inch deep.

He’d
found
it!
Etched for a millennium!
A message carved in rock,
chiseled in stone!

He brought the flashlight closer and carefully moved his trembling fingers about the area. My God, was this
it?
Was this the
moment?
In spite of the cold and the wet, the blood raced to his head, his heart accelerated. He felt like shouting; but he had to be
sure!

At midpoint of the vertical line of the 7, about an inch to its right, was a dash. Then another single vertical line … a 1, followed by yet another vertical that was shorter, angling to the right … and intersected by a line straight up and down.… A 4. It was a 4.

Seven—dash—one—four
. More below the surface of the water than above it.

Beyond the 4 was another short, horizontal line. A dash. It was followed by a … Z, but not a Z. The angles were not abrupt, they were rounded.

2.

Seven—dash—one—four—dash—two.…

There was a final impression but it was not a figure. It was a series of four short, straight lines joined together. A box … a square. A perfect geometric square.

Of course, it
was
a figure! A
zero!

0.

Seven—dash—one—four—dash—two—zero
.

What did it
mean?
Had Savarone’s age caused him to leave a message that meant nothing to anyone but
him
Had everything been so brilliantly logical but the message itself? It meant
nothing
.

7—14—20…. A date? Was it a
date?

My God! thought Victor. 7–14. July 14! His birthday!

Bastille Day. Throughout his life that had been a minor source of amusement. A Fontini-Cristi born on the celebrated day of the French Revolution.

July 14 … two-zero … 20. 1920.

That was Savarone’s key. Something had happened on July 14, 1920. What was it? What incident had occurred that his father considered so meaningful to his first son? Something that had a significance beyond other times, other birthdays.

A shaft of pain—the second of what he knew would be many—shot through his body, originating, once again, at the base of his spine. The brace was like ice; the cold of the water had chilled his skin and penetrated the tendons and muscle tissue.

With the sensitivity of a surgeon, he pressed his fingers around the area of the chiseled numbers. There was only the date; all else was flat and unspoiled. He took the stick in his left hand and thrust it below the water into the mud. Painfully, he sidestepped his way back toward the embankment, until the level of the water had receded to his thighs. Then he paused for breath. The flashes of pain accelerated; he had done more damage to himself than he had realized. A full convulsion was developing; he tensed the muscles of his jaw and throat. He had to get out of the water and lie down. Lurching for the overhanging vines on the embankment, he fell to his knees in the water. The flashlight spun out of his hand and rolled over some matted fern, its beam shooting out into the dense woods. He grabbed a cluster of thick, exposed roots and pulled himself up toward the ground, pushing the stick behind him into the mud for propulsion.