There were small specks of metal on the rung below — iron filings.
The sort you’d expect to find after someone deliberately sawed through the steel.
Who just tried to kill me?
Or was Aliana their intended victim?
Despite the warm summer air, the thought sent a cold chill down his spine.
Aliana carefully climbed backwards down the steel ladder.
Below her, she could see that Sam had stopped, and that he was examining the steel ladder rung. Something about his facial expression worried her.
Then, she watched him run his hand along the intact rung immediately below it, and then bring it up close to his face, studying it carefully.
Sam looked directly up at her.
It was the piercing look in his eyes, which removed all doubt.
Shit! He knows the truth!
Aliana wasn’t sure what her next course of action should be. Her father had been explicit when he told her what needed to be done, but had never explained how it was going to happen. And she certainly hadn’t expected it so soon.
Aliana had agreed to help her father. She even knew that she would enjoy the task, but at no point, had she expected to fall for Sam.
Only just today, Aliana had found herself contemplating how she would find another way to solve the problem, without killing him. She’d even found herself grateful that her father hadn’t known where she was going, but the instant Aliana witnessed Sam’s fall, she knew with certainty that her father had caught up with her.
Now, what options were still available to her?
She gave serious consideration to continuing up the mountain, and leaving Sam behind and below her. Aliana even considered how much faster she could climb than him. Would it even be possible for her to outrun him?
It was Sam’s next statement that made her realize that she could never do that to him.
“Aliana! Wait there.” She could see him, frantically waving his hand at her. “Stop! I believe you’re in danger. Someone has made an attempt on your life!”
She looked down at him, but said nothing.
After everything that’s happened, he’s most concerned about my life?
It filled her heart with guilt at her betrayal, and then she recalled what her father had told her, and she stilled her nerves to continue with her initial resolution — in all wars, good men, must pay the price of future generations.
Stepping an additional four rungs down the ladder, Aliana stopped her descent, and then said, “There’s no way anyone could have known that we would be here today, Sam. That rung must have been damaged by the ice last winter.”
Below her, Sam shook his head.
“There’s no way that this damage occurred naturally.”
“Really? How can you be so certain?”
“Look here. These are iron filings. The kind you would expect to see after someone intentionally cut through the rungs with a saw,” Sam said. “But I haven’t a clue how anyone could have known I was going to be here today.”
They couldn’t have. I’m the only person who knew you would be here today…
She was just about to change her direction and make her way back up the ladder.
Still undecided, she looked up at the ladder above.
There, a man could be seen, approaching with German efficiency. Aliana recognized him instantly as the solidly built blonde man from The Summit, the bed and breakfast where she’d been staying. His name was Carl.
She recalled thinking that he seemed out of place at the time. He’d told her that he was a rock climber. In her opinion, he had the more solid physique of a member of Germany’s Military Elite GSG9 Unit, rather than the lithe muscles of a mountain climber.
Does he work for my father, or is he one of the others who were hunting for the Magdalena?
Aliana couldn’t readily answer the question, and her life depended on getting it right.
Of the two men on the Via Farrata with her, there was only one whom she was certain she could place her trust. The man, despite never mentioning it, was after the Magdalena, of that Aliana was certain. But not for the reason that her father had told her.
Of that, she was certain.
For what reason would her father have lied to her? She didn’t have an answer to that, her only chance now, was to trust her instincts. And they told her that Sam Reilly might be her only hope of survival.
Sam watched Aliana above him.
Her face looked torn, as though she had just witnessed a horrific accident, and knew that a decision needed to be made about what to do now, but remained motionless, and unable to make it happen.
She’d stopped again, and was looking up. He wondered what she could possibly have to do with the attempt on his life, and then dismissed the idea as impossible, soon after it crossed his mind.
In truth, he knew very little about her, but his years as a leader had taught him a lot about reading people. Sam was certain that whatever secret intentions Aliana had for bringing him up this mountain, murder was not one of them.
“We have to go right now!” Aliana said, as she started to move down the ladder toward him at a much faster pace than she’d used previously.
“Why, what’s happened?”
“Look up there, Sam. It’s the guy from The Summit,” she told him. “I knew when we met him that there was something about him I didn’t trust.”
Above them both, the large man from the bed and breakfast was continuing to climb down. He was still a fair distance away, but Sam could see that in his urgency to reach them, the man hadn’t bothered to clip his own carabiner into the running line.
It all seemed like too much of a coincidence.
The man had clearly just been starting his day at the bed and breakfast yesterday morning. Even the most expert of climbers couldn’t possibly have caught up with them so quickly. Sam was positive that he’d noticed some sort of recognition dawning in the man’s face when he’d mentioned Aliana’s name.
How had he caught up with them?
Then, Sam realized that the man must have followed them when they left the B&B, and then made his way past them when they’d stopped to enjoy their macchiato yesterday.
Aliana then grabbed hold of Sam and kissed him.
“Thank God you’re alive!” she said, with tears in her eyes. “We’ve got to go.”
“You’re absolutely right, but go where?”
“I have no idea yet. Let’s just start making our way down the mountain, until we can find a place to traverse, and then get up above him.”
“Agreed — I don’t like the idea of someone looming above me who wants to see me dead,” Sam said, as he started to climb downward.
Sam and Aliana had both climbed down the ladder a distance of about three hundred feet, until they reached a ledge. In that time, the man above them had significantly decreased the gap between himself and the two of them. He still hadn’t said so much as a single word to them, but his machine-like approach could hardly be considered as anything but sinister.
Sam looked at the ledge in both directions.
“Do you have any plans or idea as to where we go from here?” He asked.
“No, I don’t know this route very well. Let’s see if we can follow this one until we find another Via Farrata that takes us upwards from here. We just need to get to a position above that man. I don’t think he’s got a weapon or anything,” Aliana added.
“Why not?” Sam asked, moving as fast as he could along the ledge without falling. He was moving much faster than his nerves would ordinarily allow.