The Alex King Series by A BATEMAN (free ebook reader for ipad TXT) 📕

to the west put this region of Russia to shame. Although, there was precious little that far north to truly test the conditions.

So, a series of notes, transported by one of the crew of a freighter who had passed the note onto someone unknown. The notes had outlined what was expected of her, and what she would receive in return. Safe passage and a bounty of fifty-thousand pounds, with a well-paid job, a new identity, along with a house and car. The specifics were unclear on the latter, but she reasoned that any house and car would be better than what she already owned, and the chance of a fresh start in Britain appealed more than the material things. She assumed Britain, because of the currency, but anywhere would be better than the freezer she was living in now. And the hours and workload were breaking her down more than she could bare. She felt an old woman, yearned to live again.

It was the passing on of the messages that she feared the most. That was what had taken her so long to decide whether she should take the bait. Because once she did, then there was no going back. Could it have been a trap? Almost certainly. Was it? She would not know until the game played out. She had spent more than a year in her quandary. She left her reply, unsigned and carefully written in her left hand to avoid a comparison with writing samples that would undoubtedly be held on file. The last message had taken three months to reach her after her reply. It had given the date and co-ordinates. Along with a four-hour window. No further messages would be collected from her dead-drop, and no more received.

She looked at her watch. She had less than twenty-four hours to go, and she had heard that a storm was coming. She had seen many storms living out here. There were only a few miles of frozen land and then nothing but sea ice until the North Pole. Storms were common during the winter months, she doubted this one would be any different. She turned the newspaper over and glanced again at the front page, the headline grabbed her attention:

MORE BRITISH LIES!

RUSSIA IS NO THREAT TO WORLD PEACE!

 

She thought back to the day that changed her life, the day that she had learned the unthinkable. She looked back at the newspaper headline and tossed the paper across the table. Tears welled in her eyes, and she wiped them with the back of her sleeve. She had lost her appetite for tinned vegetable soup. Tomorrow, she would dine in style.

31

 

“Come on, I’ll show you the ice hotel,” Caroline said breezily. “I had a nose around after I checked in.” She nestled her head into King’s shoulder and said, “It’s breath-taking, you’ll see.”

King looked at the double glass doors. They looked thick, the sort of perspective you got from walking through an aquarium tunnel, where the sharks suddenly halve in size as they swim by. Man-eaters to dogfish in the blink of an eye. He looked at the rows of snow suits hanging on pegs. All black with panels of red or blue. They appeared to be generic, utilitarian. He unhooked an extra large for himself. Caroline chose a medium in blue. It wasn’t personal preference, the blues looked to have a female cut and were generally smaller than the reds.

“It’s like stepping into a freezer,” she said. “But there’s no wind chill, so it isn’t anything like as cold as outside.” She kicked off her shoes and stepped into the suit. It went on easily, and she was glad she had worn trousers instead of the cocktail dress she had been planning. Somehow, even in the warmth of the hotel with all its fires and cosy alcoves, a dress did not seem substantial enough given the extreme temperature outside. She pulled on a pair of loose-fitting and well-worn soft snow boots and looked up at King, who was dressed and waiting. “I’ll never know how you get dressed so quickly.”

King didn’t enlighten her with tales of the older bullies in children’s homes or of those early days in prison showers, the pecking order not yet established. He smiled and pressed the door release button. The doors opened with a satisfying whoosh like on the bridge of the Enterprise in Star Trek. The boy in him wanted to press it some more, but Caroline had already hooked her arm inside his and was leading him inside. A moment of intimacy for some, but all King could do was feel the unease at having his right arm clamped so tightly. He really did know little peace. He pulled her near, kissed her for a moment, then swung her round and took her right hand in his left. She squeezed tightly, blissfully unaware of his motives. He relaxed a little, the pistol in his right pocket, his right hand comfortingly close and unobstructed. He remembered a story as a child, how a man’s sword hand dictated which side his female companion should walk. That the tradition carried on, all the way to which side the woman stood at the altar.

The difference in temperature was remarkable, but as Caroline had said, the lack of windchill made it more bearable on the exposed areas of skin. The excavation and carving of the ice was truly impressive. King had no idea how it was made, but he didn’t imagine it had been tunnelled out. There was no reason why there should have been enough ice to do so. As a manmade concept, the hotel had been built on top of a purpose-built hill. There was no subsequent glacier to bore through with machinery. He imagined a frame being constructed, water pumped through, or even large slabs of ice cut elsewhere and bonded in place with water