The League of Night and Fog by David Morrell

Out here, though?”
    “There might not be fillings. But there’d be cavities.”
    “If you still had teeth. But this guy doesn’t just have teeth.He’s got
perfect
teeth. It’s been a while since I went to a dentist, so I don’t know what the going rate is. But my guess is … since when do Arabs from outlying villages have a mouthful of three-hundred-dollar crowns?”
    She nodded in outrage. “Professionals.”

BOOK TWO

COMPULSION

BETWEEN AN ANTEATER AND A DOG

1
    I cicle: that was how Pendleton now thought of himself. Angry, determined, identifying with his lost father, he drove his rented car along the narrow blacktop road that fronted his destination. He saw the gravel lane that led up through trees toward a sloping lawn and a mansion on a bluff above the river. Instead of turning up the lane, however, he continued along the blacktop, rounded a bend, crossed a metal bridge above the river, and five kilometers later turned left at the next intersection. Fields of knee-high corn surrounded him. Turning left twice more, completing a square, he came back to the road along which he’d first driven. This time he stopped two kilometers away from his destination, hid the car on a weed-grown lane among trees off the blacktop, and hiked overland, through woods, toward the mansion on the hill.
    He wore brown outdoor clothes and woodsman’s boots purchased in a town called Milton that was along Highway 401 halfway between Toronto’s airport and this lush farming area near Kitchener. He hadn’t risked bringing a handgun through Canadian customs, nor had he attempted to buy even a rifle at a sporting goods store—Canada’s laws controlling the sale of every type of firearm were extremely strict. If this had been acountry in Europe, Africa, or South America, he could have easily retrieved a weapon from one of his many hiding places or have purchased one from a black-market contact. But he’d worked in southern Ontario only once, seven years ago, within a rigid time limit that had prevented him from establishing caches and contacts.
    Still, to find his father, Icicle had to take this present risk. He shifted with greater resolution through the forest. Thick leaves shut out the sun; the pungent loamy ground absorbed his weight, making his cautious footsteps soundless. He reached the edge of the trees and stooped, concealing himself among dense bushes. Ahead, he saw a waist-high wire fence. Beyond, a well-maintained lawn led up to a tennis court and a swimming pool next to the mansion on top of the hill.
    The sun was behind the mansion, descending toward the opposite side of the hill. Dusk would thicken in just a few hours. He scanned the top of the hill but saw no one. Earlier, though, when he’d driven past the entrance to the estate, he’d noticed two cars in front of the mansion, so he had to conclude that the house was not deserted. He’d also noticed that the estate was not equipped with an obvious security system. There weren’t any closed-circuit television cameras in the trees near the lane, for example, or guards, or roaming attack dogs. For that matter, there wasn’t even a decent, high, solid fence around the property, only a flimsy wire one, and the front gate had been left open.
    But despite the apparent innocence of the place, Icicle had no doubt he’d found his target. Before leaving Australia, he’d gone to the safe-deposit box he and his father kept for emergencies. He’d hoped that his father, on the run perhaps, had reached the box not long before him and left a message, explaining his sudden disappearance. He’d found the weapons, money, and documents he and his father had stored there, but heart-sinkingly, there hadn’t been a message. Nonetheless, as he’d sorted through the documents, he
had
found the sheet of directions his father had been sent for what they’d assumed was a wake, but what was actually an emergency meeting, here in Canada. The directionshad been specific, complete with