“I’m looking for someone,” McBride said. A spiky-haired waitress with silver lipstick opened her mouth, and McBride cut her off. “No jokes. I’m looking for a Dutchman. Big guy. Blond hair. His name’s Henrik.”
“Sure,” the waitress said. “I know Henrik. He’s here a lot—unless he’s traveling.”
“Was he here tonight?”
“Yeah. He left an hour ago.” She frowned. “Is he a friend of yours?”
“I’m his therapist,” McBride told her.
She nodded, as if this made perfect sense. “Well, you got that right—Henrik is one sick fuck.”
“You know where he’s staying?” Adrienne asked.
The waitress gave them an evaluating look. “Maybe… is he in trouble?”
McBride made a sort of hapless gesture. “I wouldn’t be here at seven in the morning if—”
“He’s in the Alpenrösli flats—on the way to Klosters.”.
The man with the barbell in his tongue looked surprised. “And how do you know that?”
“Fuck off,” she replied.
The Alpenrösli condominiums were in a half-timbered building on a hillside just out of town. The structure housed four self-catering flats that were rented out by the week or the month, and a caretaker’s flat below.
“We are complete,” said the gray-haired woman who lived on the lower floor.
“We’re looking for Mr. de Groot,” McBride told her.
The woman shrugged. “Of course. Number 4—but he doesn’t come home yet. All night, he’s dancing, and then I think he goes to work.”
“And where is that?”
The woman shook her head. “I don’t ask.”
They sat in the car in the parking lot outside the Alpenrösli and waited, turning the heater on and cranking it up whenever they couldn’t stand the cold any longer or the windows steamed up. They took turns napping (there was nothing else they could do), and Adrienne went out for sandwiches at noon, walking halfway into town. By two P.M., the sky had darkened to the color of a deep bruise, and there was still no sign of de Groot. An hour later, the mountains were rumbling with thunder, and a soft snow had begun to fall.
“Maybe it’s time for Plan B,” McBride suggested.
“And what is that?” Adrienne asked.
McBride shook his head. “I dunno—I was hoping you did.” In fact, Plan B was the police. It was their only option. But after what had happened at the clinic, no one was going to listen to them. By now, they were almost certainly the objects of a massive manhunt. If taken into custody, there’d be a million questions about the slaughter at the clinic, before anybody was going to listen to their theory about Jericho. And by the time they did listen, it would be too late.
Lights began to flicker on across the valley at 4:15 in the afternoon. Cramped and cold, McBride felt as if his legs were about to fall off at the knees, even as a carbon monoxide headache gathered at the back of his head. And then, quite suddenly, he was there—de Groot was there, head down, trudging up the street, wearing jeans, boots and a shearling jacket. In each hand, a plastic supermarket bag. “There he is,” McBride said, suddenly sitting up behind the wheel.
They watched the Dutchman through a screen of falling snow, as he pushed open the gate to the Alpenrösli and tramped up the exterior stairs. Then he was out of sight, presumably inside Apartment 4—which was on the top floor in the back.
“Stay here,” McBride ordered, pushing the button that unlocked the trunk, and opening the driver’s door.
“Are you out of your mind?” Adrienne demanded. “I’m not going to stay here!”
He leaned toward her, and brushed her lips with his own. “Watch my back.”
Not waiting for an answer, he got out and grabbed the shotgun from the trunk. Then he followed de Groot’s footprints through the snow to the exterior stairs, and climbed to the top. There, he paused at the door to Number 4, took a deep breath, and rapped softly on the door. Then he stood back and waited with the shotgun in his hands, the barrel pointing at the floor. But nothing happened. He rapped again. Still no response. Frustrated, he pounded harder on the door, which swung open of its own accord.
Still carrying the shotgun, he stepped inside the doorway, casting his eyes left and right, listening hard. To nothing. If de Groot was in the flat, he must be standing stock-still, McBride thought, and holding his breath. And if he wasn’t in the flat…
Entering the living room, McBride noticed a table with half a dozen lightbulbs scattered across it. Little lightbulbs, and all of them broken. Nearby, an electric drill and a glue gun. What the fuck?
A few steps took him into a truncated hallway—with one door on the left, and another on the right. Opening the door to the left, he found himself looking into de Groot’s bedroom. Which was not so much a place to sleep as it was a sort of quacked-out racist diorama, with crude collages plastered to the wall. Pornographic pictures of black men and young blond women. Desmond Tutu’s head on a chimpanzee’s body. Some UFO photos, and a poster of Nelson Mandela with a circle drawn around his head in Magic Marker, the whole bisected by a diagonal red bar. Nearby, a third collage, consisting of Thabo Mbeki’s head amid a bonfire of worms, with the nightcrawlers rising around the South African president’s cheeks and ears like flames. On the floor beside the bed, a pile of strange and unpleasant zines: The Odinist, Contre le Boue, Der Broederbond Report. And on the far wall, facing the collages, simpy and idolatrous portraits of Adolf Hitler and Swiss ufologist Billy Meier.
It’s a stageset, McBride thought. Prima facie evidence that the occupant’s a “lone nut.” But there was nothing imaginative about it. Like de Groot’s screen memory, the scene in front of him was crude and trite, reminiscent of a cheap television show—a second-rate producer’s idea of a racist’s inner sanctum. If he looked around a bit, McBride was sure he’d find a diary filled with Freudian slips and parapolitical mumbo-jumbo. Maybe a picture or two, with de Groot holding a gun and a copy of The Turner Diaries.
But where was the actor himself? Where was the star? Heart thudding, McBride returned to the hallway and, holding the shotgun level at his waist, pushed open the door to what turned out to be the bathroom.
“Henrik?”
With the shotgun’s barrel, he drew the shower curtain aside. But there was nothing. And no one.
Confused, he made his way back to the living room—and there he was, standing behind Adrienne, holding a gun to her head.
The Dutchman smiled. “Dr. Duran! I’m so glad to see you—”
“Look, Henrik, there’s no need to—”
“Welcome to Davos! Really, it’s a great place! Now, if you’ll just put your gun down… I don’t want to hurt you or your pretty friend.”
McBride set the shotgun on the floor, never taking his eyes from de Groot. “Just let her go. She isn’t—”
“Shhhhhh,” de Groot said, finger to his lips. “We’re with the Worm.” He angled his head in the direction of the sofa. “Over there,” he ordered, and gave Adrienne a gentle push. McBride joined her and, together, they sat down. The Dutchman stooped to the floor, picked up the shotgun, and removed the magazine. Tossing it into a corner of the room, he ejected the rounds that remained in the weapon’s chamber, and threw it onto a nearby chair.
Going into the kitchen, he returned a moment later with a roll of duct tape. Tossing it to McBride, he ordered him to bind Adrienne’s hands and feet, and tape her mouth. Seeing his reluctance, de Groot approached the couch and, without warning, hit McBride flush in the mouth with the butt of his revolver.
Stepping back, he watched with satisfaction as his erstwhile therapist did as he’d been told, tearing off a strip of tape to place across the terrified young woman’s mouth.