Read White Death: An Alex Hawke Novella for Free Online Page A

would not be humble.’ That’s Wolfie in a nutshell.”
    “So when do we finally meet this saint in human form?” said Hawke. A modest man himself, he hated exorbitant praise on anyone.
    “Tomorrow morning. He’s on maneuvers with his Tenth Mountain Division high up in the mountains south of Lucerne, but he knows you’re both coming to talk. I’ll provide you with transportation, of course. We’ll be driving down there at first light, a little under an hour. And then military transport to his classified location high in the southern Alps.
    “Hope you don’t mind driving in a fifty-year-old Mercedes 200 with studded tires for the first leg of our journey. Heavy snow tomorrow. Anything else? If not, I’ll have a schnapps and then on to a lovely fondue!”
    “Splendid!” Ambrose said. “I could eat a horse.”
    “We have that, too, Chief Inspector. A great delicacy here at the hotel Bauer au Lac!”
    Hawke laughed out loud.
    “You’ll get to see the famous Eiger tomorrow—you know, the one they filmed that spy movie about. Clint Eastwood, I think, yes.”
    “I’ve seen that mountain from a distance but never climbed it,” Hawke said. “Looked down on the Eiger from near the summit of Der Nadel. Quite a spectacular sight.”
    “Quite the view from up there, Alex,” Blinky said.
    “Not really. I was hanging upside down by my heels at the time.”

 
    C HAPTER T EN
    T he two Englishmen got their first glimpse of Baron von Stuka the next morning as he climbed down from his command vehicle. It was a clear and frosty morning in mid-December, and a giant, bright red Sno-Cat with brilliant white Swiss crosses on the doors was gleaming against the mountain newly frosted with snow. The sun was shining, almost blinding at this altitude, and Hawke had to use his binoculars to see their host.
    He strode quickly down the length of a long, wide swath in the snow, one the Sno-Cat had just carved on the slope. It was near a wide crevasse on the snow-packed Eiger, six thousand feet above the lake below.
    Hawke raised his binoculars to his eyes and watched von Stuka’s descent down the mountain. On the baron’s shoulders—and nested in the fleece of his Finnish hat—were pairs of stars. There was a Swiss cross in the center of each star. The divisionnaire was tall and trim, with wavy dark hair, a narrow, suntanned face, and a manner about him that was quietly convincing.
    It occurred to Hawke that Gregory Peck in his military film roles had resembled the baron, who in turn actually resembled General Douglas MacArthur.
    Blinky, his apple-red cheeks wrapped in a fur-trimmed parka, said, “The baron must go to remote locations to see his men in action. In Switzerland there are no Fort Braggs, no Fort Knoxes like the U.S. Army has, you see, no vast terrains set aside for explosive games. If the Tenth is using live ammunition, like today, they must climb to the higher elevations to shoot and blow things up. This company of grenadiers looks upon themselves the way United States Marines or your SAS men see themselves. A breed apart. Only these men specialize in combat that takes place at altitudes of six thousand feet and skyward.”
    “Most impressive, Blinky,” Hawke said, and he honestly was impressed.
    “These Tenth Mountain Division troops are all technical climbers, extreme skiers, demolition experts, and crack shots. They sleep on granite mattresses and eat chocolate-covered nails. Some of them, like Wolfie, are wealthy bankers, or CEOs of major Swiss corporations. The older man you spoke to when we first arrived, carrying the heavy machine gun, is the chairman of Nestlé.
    “Others are chauffeurs, dental technicians, civil engineers, and alpine guides. One young lieutenant up here works for IBM in Armonk, New York. Today the grenadiers have uncovered an enemy command post and are moving up toward it under the covering live fire of Russian automatic weapons, simulating what might be a reality one day. You see