The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier Read Free Book Online Page B

entrance vanished behind them. Masses of rock flashed by the Plexiglas bubble; then a lake appeared, much smaller than the one further down. Its surface, tucked in the hollow of the mountain, was covered with a thick crust of snow and ice; it resembled the crater of a frozen volcano.
    Servaz saw a house on the shore of the lake, built right up against the rock face, near a dam.
    â€˜The upper lake,’ said Ziegler. ‘And the workers’ residential “chalet”. They get up here on a funicular which climbs straight from the depths of the mountain into the house; it’s connected to the underground plant. That’s where they sleep, eat and live once their work day is over. They spend five days here, then go back down to the valley for the weekend, for a period of three weeks. They have all the mod cons, even satellite television – but it’s still a pretty tough job.’
    â€˜Why don’t they come up this way to get to the plant, rather than closing down the underground river?’
    â€˜The power plant doesn’t have a helicopter. This pad, like the landing area down below, is only used by mountain rescue in extreme emergencies. And even then only when the weather allows it.’
    The helicopter began a gentle descent towards a flat surface carved out amid a chaos of scattered patches of fresh snow and moraines. They were surrounded by a cloud of powdery snow. Servaz could just make out a huge H beneath the drifts.
    â€˜We’re lucky,’ she said into the headset. ‘Five hours ago, when the workers discovered the body, we couldn’t have got this far, because of the awful weather!’
    The helicopter’s landing skids touched down. Servaz felt alive again. Solid ground – even at more than two thousand metres. But they’d have to go back down again the same way, and the very thought of it made his stomach churn.
    â€˜If I’ve understood correctly, when the weather’s bad, once the tunnel is filled with water, the workers are prisoners of the mountain. What do they do if there’s an accident?’
    Captain Ziegler made an eloquent grimace.
    â€˜They have to empty out the tunnel again and go back to the cable car through the access shaft. It takes at least two hours, maybe three, to get to the main station.’
    Servaz would have liked to know what sort of bonuses these guys got for taking such risks.
    â€˜Who does the plant belong to?’
    â€˜The Lombard Group.’
    The Lombard Group. The investigation was only just getting started and this was the second time the name had come up. Servaz imagined a loose conglomeration of enterprises, subsidiaries, holding companies, not just in France but in all likelihood abroad as well, an octopus whose tentacles reached everywhere, with money in its limbs instead of blood, flowing by the billions from the extremities to the heart. Servaz was no expert on business, but like most people nowadays he knew more or less what the word ‘multinational’ meant. Could an old factory like this one still be profitable to a group like Lombard’s?
    The rotation of the blades slowed and the whistling of the turbine faded and died.
    Silence.
    Ziegler put down her headset, opened the door and stepped out. Servaz followed. They walked slowly towards the frozen lake.
    â€˜We’re at two thousand metres up here,’ said the young woman. ‘You can tell, can’t you?’
    Servaz took a deep breath of pure ether, intoxicating, icy. His head was spinning slightly – perhaps because of the helicopter ride, or the altitude. But it was a sensation more exalting than it was disturbing, not unlike, he supposed, the thrill that deep-sea diving could bring. He wondered if there was a similar thrill at high altitude. He was awed by the beauty and wildness of the place. The mineral solitude, a white, luminous desert. The shutters to the house were closed. Servaz imagined what the workers