Blind Date by Jerzy Kosinski Read Free Book Online

pushed him aside, as if by accident, and jumped in just as the gondola was moving out of reach. Levanter was not surprised; he knew they would not want a fourth passenger with them.
    â€œSorry,” said the man, shutting the door. “Terribly sorry,” he repeated through the half-lowered window as the gondola began its ascent.
    â€œThat’s all right, no problem!” shouted Levanter cheerfully. “Just unload my skis at the top. I’ll take the next gondola up!”
    â€œVery good! Don’t worry!” the bodyguard shouted back as the red cabin started to angle upward, its yellow lettering — Glacier PicSoleil Gondola 45 — shining in the bright sun.
    Waving up at the three passengers, Levanter turned as if to wait for the next gondola, but instead he left the platform through a side turnstile, removing his glasses and hat. He went out of the station and cut across the terrace to the start of the downhill run. He was sure no one had seen him. The Deputy Minister was here incognito, not on an official visit, and therefore no local secret-service agent would have been assigned to cover him. Levanter picked up a pair of skis he had left in another rack that morning and put them on.
    He pushed himself off and started to descend. After two minutes, he stopped on a large slope where he had a good view of the gondolas of PicSoleil. In the distance he could see a group of skiers traversing the white plateau. But here he was alone. As he looked up toward PicSoleil, he saw three gondolas, in evenly spaced succession, too far away for him to read their numbers. He unzipped his parka and took out his compact binoculars. Now he was able to make out the lettering and spot Gondola 45, the sun bouncing off its windows, well on its way up.
    Soon it would pass over a chasm more than a thousand feet deep. From another pocket Levanter pulled a transmitter and extended its antenna. The transmitter, no bigger than a cigarette pack, operated on two simple alkaline batteries. In a moment of anxiety, it occurred to him that he had forgotten to test the batteries before inserting them that morning.
    He reassured himself that even if the equipment failed him this time, he would have a dozen chances to use the skis as he had planned. This was the advantage of being on his own: if the circumstances changed, new opportunities would arise.
    As the gondola approached the stretch of cable suspended between the pylons on either side of the chasm, Levanter’s thoughts raced to the man in the cabin. He had first heard of the Deputy Minister in the course of his work with Investors International. This was the man who had created the notorious PERSAUD, a special independent branch of the police in charge of Indostran’s internal security. Trumped-up charges of “anti-Court activities,” both current and retroactive, had been leveled against thousands of teachers, university professors, writers, artists, and enlightened clergy, who were sentenced without trial to spend years in PERSAUD prisons, penal colonies, and work camps. These prisoners, men and women, were not permitted to read or write or to receive letters. They were given no medical attention, and not even their families were allowed to visit them. To extract confessions and denunciations of others, they were beaten with belts with heavy buckles, burned with cigarettes, dragged behind cars and motorcycles, subjected to electric shocks, pushed into pits which they had been forced to dig and which were strewn with splintered glass. During interrogations male prisoners had their testicles prodded with the spiked tails of deep-sea fish; women detainees had their pubic hair singed with cigarette lighters and were then gang-raped. PERSAUD had ordered public executions of several intellectuals; the deaths of many others were never made public.
    The previous winter, at an all-night party in a popular Alpine ski resort, Levanter had met several officials from