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She found no crampons but there were ice axes and ropes, helmets with light, food, fire, water, and aspirin. She even found Alfredo's stove. She thought about climbing out, but she was more confident with the way down - she had taken it twice. If she got in trouble, she knew the places where she could settle and wait for rescue. She had the fire and food and clothing to survive a few days if she needed that much time.
    She made her bivouac in a patch of snow when the moon had finally set. At dawn she continued her descent, her body quivering with each movement. She found two climbers late that afternoon. 'What happened?' one of them asked, whilst they waited for a helicopter rescue.
    She shook her head, unwilling to say. The medics wanted to know as well, but Kate refused to talk. Too tired, too sore, too scared to relive it. They understood or at least thought they did.
    It was instinct that silenced her. Someone had sent those men after Robert, she was sure of it, and whoever had done it was still out there. If she lied about what had happened, he might imagine he was safe. He would certainly decide she was too timid to find him. But she would. She would have his life or die trying!
    When Kate had to speak and could no longer hide behind the fog of exhaustion, she was off the mountain and lying safely in hospital. She said she, her husband, and their guide had decided to join two men who were hoping to summit by the light of the full moon, five of them on two ropes. They had hardly started, she said, when the lead team lost an anchor and fell back into her party. The force of the collision had broken their anchor as well and all five climbers had slid back across the ramp, tangled in their ropes. She said that as she had started to roll she had managed to cut free, but the others had gone over.
    There were problems with her story - gear switched and missing. Why had she been carrying one of their rucksacks? How had she lost her crampons? What had happened to her rucksack? She said she didn't know. She found the equipment after she had lost her own. That didn't make sense, they said, and pressured her for details, but Roland made some phone calls and the following day the interrogation stopped. No more questions. The newspaper got the story, and Kate's version of what had transpired got written in stone.
    The Swiss made a helicopter search at first light the morning after Kate had finally had the strength to tell the authorities exactly where the fall had taken place. By then a spring snowstorm had come and covered the bodies and gear. Another search was made that summer, this too without success.
    The Ogre, they said, had claimed another four victims.

Chapter Two

    Zürich , Switzerland
    Sunday February 24, 2008.

    Attendance at the inaugural party of the Roland Wheeler Foundation came by invitation only. The luminaries gracing the list included politicians, CEOs, and the directors of Zürich's most prestigious foundations and museums. Naturally the city's philanthropists attended in force. They never missed a chance to have a look at the goods others were offering. Lest people imagine the occasion was only about power and money, Wheeler's daughter, Kate Brand, extended half the invitations to musicians, painters, leading architects, authors, and scholars. The list was finished off with rock hounds - friends of Kate and her new husband, Ethan. Old, young, rich, accomplished, crazy or beautiful: everyone brought something to the occasion. It was the crowd Roland himself would have put together, if he had only lived to see this day.
    Perhaps the most curious guest on the list was Captain Marcus Steiner of the Zürich police. A veteran of some twenty- nine years, Marcus had made his way in the world somewhat quietly, one might even say covertly. In the past his participation in functions of this sort had always been limited to providing security, but on this occasion he was a genuine guest - and nearly as mystified by this as