Philip Kerr - Esau

‘You heard what happened, huh?’ he said. ‘About those poor guys?’

They nodded.

‘Gee, I’m sorry, Tsering. Naturally, my organization will pay its share of expenses. Y’know? Ceremonies. Compensation. Whatever.’

‘Thank you, sahib.’

‘At least the sirdar is okay. According to Link he’s on his way back down here.’

They went back into the clamshell and found that Warner had already boiled a kettle.

‘I heard you coming,’ he said. ‘Coffee, anyone?’

‘Coffee. Great.’

‘How is your own work coming along?’ Jutta asked Boyd pleasantly.

‘Okay, I guess.’

‘You know,’ said Warner, ‘I thought you had to drill real deep to get core samples.’

‘Not for these cores. These are only supposed to relate to the last thousand years. The really deep stuff we already did in the Antarctic. Most of it offshore too. On the Amery Ice Shelf, off the Lambert Glacier, we went five hundred metres deep, and ten thousand years back in time.’

Boyd took hold of the steaming mug being passed to him by Warner and sipped it with noisy enthusiasm.

‘Thanks a lot. But great news for you guys, huh? I hear Hurké saw not one but two fancy-dress costumes. Hey, Link, maybe now you can do some work?’

‘I sure hope so. I’m getting kind of bored.’

Tsering frowned and shook his head. ‘Two fancy-dress costumes? I do not understand, sahib—’

‘It’s just Boyd’s weird sense of humour,’ explained Jutta. ‘He means two yetis.’

‘We saw something interesting ourselves,’ said Cody. ‘Something that might interest you, Boyd. You being a meteorologist ’n’ all.’

‘Climatologist,’ insisted Boyd. ‘Meteorology’s different.’

‘Some fellow scientists. A small team of Chinese meteorologists. Just six kind of ragged-looking guys.’

‘You don’t say?’

‘Where was this?’ said Warner. ‘I thought we were the only people up here.’

‘Only Tsering thinks maybe they were Chinese army deserters,’ added Cody. ‘On account of how they didn’t have any Sherpas.’

‘If they had hired porters in Kat, I would have heard about it.’ Tsering sounded adamant.

‘Maybe they’re an invasion force,’ laughed Cody. ‘From Tibet.’

‘Where was this?’ repeated Warner.

‘The valley above MBC,’ said Jutta. ‘The one that runs toward Tarke Kang. They’re camped at the foot of Fluted Peak.’

‘And you spoke to them?’ said Warner.

‘Yes,’ said Jutta. ‘Byron speaks some Chinese.’

‘Some.’

‘Where’d you learn that, Byron?’ inquired Boyd.

‘In Vietnam. For a while I was in Special Forces. Interrogating prisoners, that kind of thing.’

‘No kidding,’ said Boyd. ‘Torture any?’

Cody snorted a contemptuous sort of laugh and shook his head.

‘Special Forces. Wow. Did they say what kind of meteorology they were doing?’

‘No. But I said we’d go back sometime. Bring them some cigarettes and whisky. We could maybe find out what they were up to?’

‘Maybe we could.’

‘I’d be very surprised if they were still there when we went back,’ said Tsering. ‘I’d be very surprised if they didn’t just pack up and leave the minute we left their camp.’

‘You know your trouble, Tsering?’ said Boyd. ‘You have no faith in your fellow men.’

ENCAMPMENT IN THE AREA, 83°75 EAST OF GREENWICH, 28°45 NORTH. ONE OF OUR SHERPAS BELIEVES THAT THEY MAY BE DESERTERS. ON THE OTHER HAND THEY MAY BE A PARTY OF HOSTILES INTENT ON TREADING UPON OUR TOES. MY OWN INCLINATION IS TO ASSUME THE LATTER AND TAKE THEM OUT OF THE PICTURE STRAIGHTAWAY. PLEASE ADVISE. YOURS, CASTORP.

Jack took a deep breath and knelt down at the edge of the crevasse. He felt as if he should have prayed. He wanted to confess his sins, ask for courage, and seek guidance as to some other way of rescuing Swift, all at the same time. He badly did not want to do what he was about to do. His stomach felt as sour as if he had swallowed vinegar, while his heart was beating so quickly he thought he must be on the edge of a cardiac arrest.

Come on. Get a grip on yourself. She’ll freeze to death if you leave her down there.

He twisted around carefully and chopped at the ice with each ice axe. Only when he was entirely satisfied with the holds did he complete the turn, lower his legs into the crevasse like a man slipping into a swimming pool, and then hack at the wall beneath him with the double-front points of his crampons.

It wasn’t the first time he had made a free climb on an ice wall and Jack was aware of all of the hazards, which were mostly dependent on the ice quality. Toe points could pull out. The ice could split. Even worse, ice could shatter under the blow of an axe and the whole shard could carry you on a one-way toboggan ride. It was fortunate that the picks on the two ice axes were slim enough to permit easy penetration and yet sharp enough along their top edges to help extraction. Hardest of all was the technique of ice axe climbing in reverse. Having found a couple of good handholds, you had first to pull out of the ice one toe and then one pick, lower your body until your hand was at the very end of the fixed axe shaft, and then hammer in with the other axe and kick in with the other toe. It was as nerve-racking a way of coming down a wall as any human being could have devised.

Nine metres was not so far. Except that if he did fall off the blue-green wall of the ice-encrusted rock Jack knew it would be fatal. He knew his weight and the angle of his body would carry him over the edge of the shelf and into the depths of the crevasse. With such a climb there was no margin for error.

Bryan Perkins sat down at his desk, glanced at the Post, and then threw it into the bin. He preferred the City Paper, a free alternative weekly with better gossip and arts coverage. Perrins liked going to the movies, and the Post — not so much resting on its laurels as sleeping under them — never seemed to have the same amount of movie reviews as the City. He switched on his computer and stared out the window at the Potomac River, wondering if he might get a chance to go to the American Film Institute over the weekend and see something from the early Hitchcock season they were running. Vertigo, maybe — one of his favourites. The thought of vertiginous heights made him think of the Himalayas, and he called up HUSTLEr’s e-mail and checked to see if there was something in the tray from CASTORP.

The news that there was a Chinese army encampment in the Anna-puma Sanctuary did not particularly surprise him. The Agency had been expecting something of the kind from the Chinese. What surprised Perrins more was the alacrity with which CASTORP offered to dispose of the Chinese, without any attempt to verify his own suggestion that there was a possibility that the Chinese were actually deserters. Perrins saw little point in authorizing a surgical strike unless it was necessary and immediately e-mailed CASTORP to do nothing until the Agency had organized an aerial surveillance of the Chinese position. Then he contacted the NRO and Reichhardt, who agreed to arrange an overflight by a U2R from an air force base in Saudi Arabia. The U2r’s onboard computers would be able to gather the signals picked up from the site of the Chinese camp twenty-seven thousand metres below on the Annapurna Sanctuary, and then beam them via satellite back to Langley. The signals could then be analyzed and evaluated before being passed up to Perrins with a recommendation.

Swift shone the Maglite up the wall as Jack descended into darkness, uttering only the odd word of encouragement so as not to distract him. But when, about halfway down, he stopped moving altogether, she realized that something had gone wrong.