Page 21 of Tom Clancy Line of Sight
He felt awkward borrowing the man’s car, but what the hell else was he going to do? Stay in his hotel room and watch reruns ofSay Yes to the Dresswith Slovenian subtitles?
TRIGLAV NATIONAL PARK, SLOVENIA
Struna’s BMW was a joy to drive and, fortunately, Slovenians drove on the right side of the road, for which Jack was grateful, given the twenty-four hairpin curves he traversed on the narrow road to the top of the highest point in Triglav National Park.
The good thing about the rain was that almost nobody else was out but crazed mountain bikers and he seemed to have the place mostly to himself.
He listened to an audio guidebook he’d downloaded onto his iPhone the night before. This high country was hallowed ground in many ways, part of the four-hundred-mile “third front” in the holocaust known as the First World War, where invading Italian troops battled the forces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to seize Slovenia for Italy. Jack passed battlefield cemeteries crowded with thousands of men cut down in their youth, and innumerable Catholic churches perched on seemingly every hilltop, bastions of faith that also served as fortified positions during foreign invasions.
It was hard to imagine the brutal tragedy of that mindless conflict in the middle of the stunning beauty of these snow-capped mountains covered in pines. According to the guidebook, the mountains had been utterly scarred and stripped away of all vegetation after four years of industrial warfare. But a hundred years later, the forests had returned, and the mountains, as always, remained.
Jack tried to imagine fighting in these steep, unforgiving mountains in the depths of winter under constant artillery barrage, hunkered down in frozen trenches or charging up the craggy heights into the teeth of withering machine-gun fire.No wonder more than a million men bled and died in these mountains. And for what? The flower of Western civilization had perished on these stony slopes, and in the fields, swamps, and forests of a thousand other battles all across the continent.
And for what?Jack asked himself.
For what?
No wonder the Europeans feared nationalism, Jack thought.
As he finally reached the top of the road and the magnificent view of the Triglav mountains, the audio guidebook reminded him that this was also Hemingway country. The Julian Alps were the setting for his famous novelAFarewell to Arms, though the eighteen-year-old ambulance driver never actually served in the region.
Jack parked the car, pulled up his jacket hood, and headed out into the misting rain for a look-see, following the paper map in his hands. Despite the weather, he was anxious to get out and stretch his legs and breathe cool, fresh mountain air again.
It was so worth it.
He followed the muddy path to the top of the hill, where an abandoned concrete structure stood. A bunker? Maybe. But the walls weren’t thick enough and the window frame was too large. Something else, then. The audio guidebook said that it was part of a tram for hauling hundreds of tons of ammo and supplies daily through the chain of mountains, dismantled for parts after the war.
Jack turned his attention to the view before him. The magnificent, snow-dusted “three-headed” Triglav was the tallest link in a chain of jagged limestone peaks piercing the wide, cloudy horizon. Jack stared in rapturous wonder at the enduring power of the timeless mountains before him. It made himfeel clean somehow, especially after the human filth he’d experienced in Dallas and the human trafficking ring The Campus had helped break up.
He felt no guilt for killing evil men, but he didn’t exactly feel like a righteous man, either, standing in this place where so many other men had died so long ago.
He took another deep, cleansing breath of the crisp mountain air. The bad memories receded in the spattering rain that washed over him in the quiet solitude.
No wonder the prophets of old went to the mountains to pray and commune, Jack thought. This place felt, well,holy.
Something from catechism bubbled up in his memory.El Shaddai. Wasn’t that one of the Hebrew names for God? God Almighty—the God of the Mountain?
Hard to believe that such butchery could happen in a sacred space like this. The sins of empires had drenched these mountains with innocent blood. It was a kind of blasphemy.
Jack spent the next twenty minutes exploring the hilltop area, where he found a few other manmade remnants from the war. But for the most part, Nature had prevailed, and there was little evidence that any murderous humans had ever defiled the sharp contours of her magnificent body, or scarred her lovely face.
13
NEAR KOBARID, SLOVENIA
Struna had promised him that the hike to the Kozjak waterfall was well worth it, a real showstopper. He crossed the Napoleon Bridge high over the deep chasm of the Soca River and passed through the small town of Kobarid on his way to the trailhead. His was the only car in the lot save for a mud-spattered Jaguar parked on the far end bearing Italian plates.
The rain was still falling, not so heavy as to keep him out of it, but strong enough to still keep the tourists away, which was fine by him. He enjoyed the solitude, and when he found his thoughts drifting back to Yuki or Ysabel, he easily put them out of his mind by taking in the stunning views around him, not the least of which was the surging Soca River. Struna’s guidebook featured the same photos he’d seen on the Web—a translucent turquoise, like a flowing gem.
But as he stood on the narrow hanging bridge that spanned the wide chasm, the rain-swollen Soca was altogether differenttoday—opaque, and light green, like liquid mint. It was no less impressive and certainly beautiful. He supposed it was the rain that was washing limestone and other minerals into the otherwise crystal-clear water.
He took in the view, thankful for the solitude but mostly for the sense of awe and wonder the river and mountains inspired within him. What was there to fear in a world with this much beauty?
Jack checked his iWatch. It was getting late. He needed to push on if he wanted to get to the falls. His weather app said more rain was on the way, but no telling how much. At some point he would have to beat a retreat if the storm got too bad here in the mountains, and he was still two hours away from Ljubljana.
He crossed the bouncing bridge and worked his way up the rough-hewn trail, following close to the surging tributary Kozjak cascading down its own sharp chasms in the midst of the trees until he reached a narrow wooden walkway spanning the river and hugging a wall of rock.
He stepped up onto the first plank and worked his way carefully along the slippery boards in a curving ascent in the steadily falling rain. Even with the rain spattering his hood and the river roaring over the rocks, he could hear the surging falls ahead. A few steps more and he entered a towering cathedral of wet, green granite opening up to a small, gray sky. The roar of the waterfall was nearly deafening now. One boulder jutted out along the wooden pathway like the corner of a building. Jack couldn’t see around it, but he knew the end of the walkway was near. He eased his way around the huge, slippery rock.
