Patrick Woodhead - The Cloud Maker (2010)

‘OK,’ he shouted, holding one of the ends tight. As Luca put tension on the pole, the end slipped past the attachment at the corner of the tent, digging down into the snow beneath. With the snow half-blinding him, Bill hadn’t seen what had happened and Luca pushed harder, digging the pole down deeper into the snow.

Suddenly it flexed then gave a brittle snap.

Luca looked up to see the main support for the tent buckling to one side.

‘Shit!’ he shouted, banging his fist against the snow.

He flung his end to one side and crawled across the billowing fabric to where Bill crouched on the opposite side. For a moment they knelt in silence, heads only inches apart, as they tried to work out what to do.

‘Rock-face?’ Bill shouted.

‘Too dangerous.’

Luca then squinted across to where Shara stood.

‘We don’t have much time. You stay with her. I saw some overhangs in the rock west of here. Before the weather closed in.’

‘OK,’ Bill shouted back. Balling up the tent fabric with both hands, he trudged round to Shara who was still standing, arms clamped around her body. Wrapping the fabric around her to shield her from the worst of the wind, he pushed her down on his rucksack. Then he put one arm around her shoulders and with his spare hand tried to brush some of the caked snow away from her face.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, Luca pulled out his GPS and waited for the satellites to triangulate. Finally he got a clean signal and took a waypoint of their position. Without looking back, he shouldered his pack and marched off.

Seconds later he was swallowed up in the blizzard.

Chapter 27

The strip light flickered, its pallid glow picking up the curls of smoke from Captain Zhu’s dying cigarette.

The green walls were pockmarked with patches of raw cement and there were no windows, only a decrepit metal fan bolted to the far corner of the room, one of its three blades missing. A plastic table, which had evidently been left out in the rain for many years, stood unsteadily in the centre, exuding a dank smell of mould.

Of the two chairs that stood to either side of it, one supported the considerable bulk of René Falkus. Squeezed in between the plastic armrests, his body filled every part of the chair, forcing him to sit unnaturally upright, thick thighs locked together as if the need for modesty far outweighed that of comfort.

Across the table, Zhu had one leg folded over the other as he delicately stubbed out what remained of a cigarette. They had been locked in the same position for almost an hour, Zhu asking questions while René tried to answer with as little detail as possible, the pounding in his temples only exacerbated by the remnants of his hangover.

Leaning back in his chair, Zhu allowed his eyes to settle on one of the stains on René’s shirt.

‘I understand that you feel some loyalty to your friends, but is it worth risking everything you own to protect them from something that is simply inevitable? You must know by now that we will find them.’

‘I’ve already told you,’ René said tiredly. ‘They’re just on the standard route.’

‘Tell me where they are.’

René shrugged and looked down at the table.

‘I don’t know where they are.’

‘You will lose everything you have worked for,’ Zhu continued, his voice suddenly softening, as if he personally would regret such an outcome. ‘Your restaurant, your bar, everything. All we need to know is where they went.’

‘One phone call to the Foreign Office and we’ll soon see what you can do to my restaurant,’ René countered. ‘I have rights and you know it.’

Zhu’s expression looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Of course, your rights . . . The problem is, I don’t think there are too many lawyers inside Drapchi Prison.’

A muscle flickered in René’s cheek. He had heard the stories. The miles of underground cells. The darkness.

There was a pause as he steeled himself, choosing his next words very carefully. He had been in Lhasa for a long time, and had learned how to deal with the Chinese. But somehow this newcomer was different. There was something about him that turned the stomach. Something that made René think that the worst thing he could do was to show any fear. Clenching his jaw, he looked straight into the captain’s eyes.

‘Either charge me with something or get me the hell out of here. Enough of this bullshit.’

Zhu didn’t respond. Instead he leaned forward, picking up the silver lighter lying on the table. Using his thumb, he sparked it then snapped the lid shut again. He did this several times before leaning back in his chair again, leaving the flame burning.

‘You still have no idea what I could do to you, do you?’ he said. ‘I can take your livelihood, just like that.’

As he said the word, he snapped the lighter shut. René dragged up a smile, the effort clearly costing him.

‘Yeah? Then what else have I got to lose?’ he said, squaring his shoulders across the table.

For the first time that afternoon a smile of genuine pleasure crossed Zhu’s face. He uncoiled himself from the chair and stepped over to the bolted metal door. He knocked twice and it swung back on its hinges.

‘Everyone has something more to lose, Mr Falkus,’ he said, and walked out into the corridor beyond.

René sat waiting in the dank cell, unable to make out the curt orders Zhu was giving outside. Sweat gathered on his upper lip and with a sweep of his tongue he licked it off. As Zhu’s footsteps softly receded down the hallway, a new silence fell. Despite the fact that he was craving a cigarette, something prevented René from leaning forward and taking one from the open packet that had been left on the table. Instead, he just sat there, listening to the hum of the fluorescent lighting.

A moment later the door burst open and three burly soldiers dressed in military fatigues rushed in. They shunted the table to one side, grabbing hold of René by his shirt collar and lifting him bodily from the chair. It happened so fast that he barely had time to shout out before one of the soldiers had kicked the chair from under him, sending it spinning to the far corner of the room.

They half-carried, half-dragged him down the corridor, his feet skidding along the smooth concrete floor.

‘Get your hands off me, you bastards . . .’ he started and one of the soldiers elbowed him right across his jaw. René howled in pain. The soldier raised his arm to strike again.

They pulled and shoved him down another corridor, and then another. Finally, with a fierce yank on his hair, they pulled him to an abrupt halt. One of the soldiers pointed to some wire mesh set at waist-height in the wall in front of him.

The mesh area was about the same size as a brick and René had to stoop to peer in. Through the cross-hatching of wire he could see a cell identical to the one he had just been in. A table stood in the centre and, to the left, two figures in profile.

René could feel his breath quicken and his heart start to beat faster.

Please God, no. Anything but that.

One of the figures was hunched over the table, her dark hair obscuring most of her face. Her gangly legs were clamped together at the knees and her upper half had been stripped bare. With only her crossed arms, she tried to cover her small, adolescent breasts. Even through the wire mesh, René could see that Anu’s hands were shaking.

The man next to her was a soldier. René didn’t recognise him, but he was wearing the same fatigues as the three who had just dragged him from the cell. He had a broad back which stretched the fabric of his military-issue shirt, and his hair had been shaved almost to the skin of his squat head.

As René stared in disbelief, one of the man’s coarse hands reached down to unbuckle his belt, while the other moved across and grabbed Anu’s slender leg. She flinched violently, her large brown eyes fixed on some unseen part of the floor.