Jonathan spoke gently. "Can you get a flight to the States today?"

She concentrated on the napkin in her lap, pressing it flat again and again with her hands. "I don't know. I guess so."

Jonathan rose, touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers, and left the cafe.

The climbers' last meal together was strained; no one ate much except Anderl, who lacked the nerve of fear, and Ben who after all did not have to make the climb. Jonathan watched each of his companions in turn for signs of reaction to Clement Pope's arrival, but, although there were ample manifestations of perturbation, the natural pressures of the impending climb made it impossible to disentangle causes. Bidet's ill humor of the morning had ripened into cool formality; and Anna did not choose to emerge from behind her habitual defense of amused poise.

Karl took his self-imposed responsibilities too seriously to indulge in social trivia. Despite the bottle of champagne sent to the table by the Greek merchant, the meal was charged with silences that descended unnoticed, until their weight became suddenly apparent to all, and they would drive them away with overly gay small talk that deteriorated into flotsam of half sentences and meaningless verbal involutions.

Although the room was crowded with Eiger Birds in garish informal plumage, there was a palpable change in the sound of their conversation. It lacked real energy. There was a sprinkling of girlish laughter allegro vivace sforzando over the usual drone of middle-aged male ponderoso. But underlying all was a basso ostinato of impatience. When was this climb going to start? They had been there two days. There was business to conclude and pleasure to pursue. When could one expect these falls—God forbid they should happen?

The actor and his florid mate entered the dining room late, as was their practice, and waved broadly to the climbers, hoping to create the impression that they were privileged with acceptance.

The meal closed on a businesslike note with Karl's unnecessary instructions that everyone get to sleep as soon as possible. He told the climbers that he himself would make the rounds of the rooms two hours before dawn, waking each man so that they could steal out before the guests and reporters knew they were gone.

The lights were off in Jonathan's room. Filtered moonlight from the snow beyond the window made the starched linen of the bed glow with its own phosphorescence. He sat in the dark; in his lap lay the gun Pope had left for him, heavy and clumsy with the silencer that gave it the look of an iron-monger's mutant. When he had picked it up at the desk (the gift of candy from one man to another arching the desk clerk's eyebrows) he had learned that Pope had departed for the States after receiving first aid for what he had creatively described as a series of slips in his bathtub.

Despite his need for sleep before the climb, Jonathan dared not take a pill. This night was the target's last chance to make his defensive move, unless he had decided to wait until they were on the face. Although a hit on that precarious mountain would endanger the whole rope, it would certainly leave no evidence. Jonathan wondered how desperate the target was; and how smart.

But no use sitting there worrying about it! He pushed himself out of the armchair and unrolled his sleeping bag on the floor opposite the door where anyone entering would be silhouetted against the hall light. After sliding into the sleeping bag, he clicked the pistol off safety and cocked the hammer—two sounds he would not have to make later when sound might count. He placed the gun on the floor beside him, then he tried to sleep.

He had no great faith in these kinds of preparations. They were the kinds his sanction targets always made, and to no avail. His mistrust was well founded. In the course of turning and adjusting his body in search of a little sleep, he rolled over on the gun, making it quite inaccessible under his sleeping bag.

He must have slept, because he experienced a plunging sensation when, without opening his eyes, he became aware of light and motion within the room.

He opened his eyes. The door was swinging ajar and a man—Bidet—was framed in the yellow rectangle. The gun in his hand was outlined in silver against the edge of the black door as he stealthily pressed it closed behind him. Jonathan did not move. He felt the pressure of his own gun under the small of his back, and he cursed the malignant fate that had put it there. The shaded bulk of Bidet approached his bed.

Although he spoke softly, Jonathan's voice seemed to fill the dark room. "Do not move, Jean-Paul."

Bidet froze, confused by the direction of the sound.

Jonathan realized how he had to play this. He must maintain the soft, authoritative drone of his voice. "I can see you perfectly, Jean-Paul. I shall certainly kill you if you make the slightest undirected movement. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Bidet's voice was husky with fright and long silence.

"Just to your right there is a bedside lamp. Reach out for it, but don't turn it on until I tell you."

There was a rustle of movement, then Jean-Paul said, "I am touching it."

Jonathan did not alter the mesmeric monotone of his voice, but he felt instinctively that the bluff was not going to hold up. "Turn on the lamp. But don't face me. Keep your eyes on the light. Do you understand?" Jonathan did not dare the excessive motion required to get his arms out of the sleeping bag and scramble about under it for his gun. Do you understand, Jean-Paul?"

"Yes."

"Then do it slowly. Now." Jonathan knew it was not going to work!

He was right. Bidet did it, but not slowly. The instant the room flooded with eye-blinking light, he whirled toward Jonathan and brought his gun to bear on him where he lay incongruously in the eiderdown cocoon. But he did not fire. He stared at Jonathan with fear and anger balanced in his eyes.

Very slowly, Jonathan lifted his hand within the sleeping bag and pointed his finger at Bidet, who realized with a dry swallow that the protuberance within the bag was directed at the pit of his stomach.

Neither moved for several seconds. Jonathan resented the painful lump of his gun under his shoulder. But he smiled. "In my country, this is called a Mexican standoff. No matter which of us shoots first, we both die."

Jonathan admired Bidet's control. "How does one normally resolve the situation? In your country."

"Convention has it that both men put their guns away and talk the thing out. Any number of sleeping bags have been preserved from damage that way."

Bidet laughed. "I had no intention of shooting you, Jonathan."

"I guess it's your gun that confused me, Jean-Paul."

"I only wanted to impress you. Frighten you, perhaps. I don't know. It was a stupid gesture. The gun isn't even loaded."

"In which case, you would have no objection to tossing it onto the bed."

Bidet did not move for a moment, then his shoulders slumped and he dropped the gun onto the bed. Jonathan rose slowly to one elbow, keeping his finger pointed at Jean-Paul, as he slipped his other hand under the sleeping bag and retrieved his gun. When Bidet saw it emerge from beneath the waterproof fabric, he shrugged with a Gallic gesture of fatalistic acceptance.

"You are very brave, Jonathan."

"I really had no other choice."

"At all events, you are most resourceful. But it wasn't necessary. As I told you, I did not even load the gun."

Jonathan struggled out of the bag and crossed to his armchair where he sat without taking his gun off Bidet. "It's a good thing you decided not to shoot. I'd have felt silly wiggling my thumb and saying bang, bang."

"Aren't bothmen supposed to put their guns away after a Mexican—whatever?"