Raymond Benson - High Time To Kill

Bond sat with Chandra and Paul Baack. For starters, Bond had Ukrainian borscht made from a famous, “original” Boris Lissanevitch recipe. As a main course Bond chose yogurt-marinated chicken, which was lightly spiced and served skewered with buttered rice pilaf. With it he had aubergine and sun-dried tomato Charlotte with solferino potatoes and a black-eyed-pea stew.

“This is very good,” Baack said, pouncing on an oven-roasted tenderloin with an onion relish and port wine jus. “Why can’t we just stay at this hotel for the next six weeks?”

Chandra had smoked beckti, a Bengal fish. “Yes, it is good, but the Sherpa food is better,” he said, grinning.

“Ha!” Baack laughed. “Are you mad?”

Chandra said, “I’m not mad, but I can be very crazy sometimes.”

The Dutchman laughed again. “What’s your story, Mr. Bond? Why are you on this trip?”

“I was ordered by the men in suits over in Whitehall. They want me to make sure everything is shipshape.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, why do you need a Gurkha to accompany you?”

Bond and Chandra looked at each other. Chandra answered, “Commander Bond is my good friend. We always look after each other.”

“Actually,” Bond said, “the Foreign Office thought it would be helpful for us all to have someone here who knows the territory. Chandra has been on Kangchenjunga before.”

“Really?” Baack asked. He was genuinely interested.

“Only halfway,” Chandra said. “This time I’ll do better. At least to the Great Scree Terrace.”

“Tell me about the equipment our people gave you,” Bond said.

“Ah! Very nice stuff, I can tell you,” Baack said. “Of course, I helped design the satellite linkup. We have an extremely light laptop computer with enough power to last three months. It’s equipped with the linkup, and that will be kept at Base Camp. With the use of cellular phones, every team member can stay in contact with each other and the outside world. We will all use the same channel, although the phones are capable of several private channels. We can even hook up to the Internet from wherever we are. I can send a fax from eight thousand meters if I want.”

“Speaking of faxes, I need to send something to London. You have something handy?” Bond asked.

“Certainly. It’s right here,” he said, indicating a portable computer case at his side. “Would you like to do it now?”

Bond opened his own file folder containing information on the expedition and team members. He found the recently added photo of Otto Schrenk, scribbled a message on a Post-It note, stuck it to the bottom of the photo, then handed it to Baack. The Dutchman opened the case, turned on the computer, noted the phone number that Bond had written, then fed the photo into the machine.

“That should do it,” he said, handing it back to Bond. “I’m in constant contact with London, Mr. Bond, so anytime you want to talk to the Foreign Office, just say so.”

“Thanks. Let me know when you get a reply. And call me James-

He had a good feeling about Baack, and was pleased that he was on the team and looked forward to getting to know him better.

Roland Marquis and Hope Kendall entered the room. She had gone to the trouble to change clothes before coming in to dinner. Instead of the trousers she was wearing at the meeting, she now had on an attractive red evening gown. Marquis had put on a sleek dinner jacket but was still wearing the civilian clothes underneath.

She laughed as she walked by Bond’s table. “I figured that this was mv last chance to be a lady before six weeks of hell.”

“Doesn’t she look marvelous?” Marquis asked.

The three men muttered appreciative comments, then the couple sat at a table isolated from the others.

After a few glances in their direction, Bond decided that the two of them were indeed having some kind of love affair.

Although there was no rational reason for it, this notion gave Bond a twinge of jealousy.

SIXTEEN

THE TREK BEGINS

THE REST OF THE stay in Kathmandu was unremarkable, and local police never connected the deaths of Zakir Bedi and the Nepalese assassin, who might or might not have been Union, to the group of mountaineers staying at the Yak and Yeti. The remaining days were spent exercising and gathering supplies for the trek across eastern Nepal.

One of the more interesting events for Bond occurred the morning after the team meeting. Every member of the expedition had to submit to a physical examination performed by Dr. Hope Kendall. Bond reported to her in one of the hotel suites at the appointed time and found her to be cool, clinical, and objective, as a physician should be. At the same time, though, she seemed overly intrigued by his body and took her time feeling his muscles, testing reflexes, and looking into orifices. In fact, she was somewhat rough with him, pinching him here, jabbing him there. Perhaps, Bond thought, she was merely a very physical person.

“You sure have a lot of scars,” she said, examining the faint mementos of Bond’s illustrious career that adorned various parts of his naked body. “You’re in the Foreign Office?”

“That’s right.”

“How does someone in the Foreign Office get so many scars?”

“I do a number of outdoor activities for sport. Sometimes you get injured,” he said.

“Hmm, and I think you’re lying,” she said. “You’re some kind of policeman, aren’t you? Sorry, you don’t have to answer that.” He didn’t. She turned to her table and put on a rubber glove. “Okay, Mr. Bond, let’s see how your prostate feels.” 5he wasn’t very gentle with that exam, either.

The expedition members flew in two Twin Otters to the Suketar airstrip near a small village called Taplejung in east Nepal. The stretch of dirt runway, located on a high ridge at 2,000 meters, is at a significantly higher altitude than Kathmandu, at 1,300 meters. The plan was to stay in crude lodges that had been erected in the village specifically for trekkers, then take a steep drop down to the Tamur Khola valley the following day. It was a more direct route to go down and north through the valley rather than east, over the alternate route to Khunjari.

The view was spectacular, and this was only the first day. The Himalayas could be seen from Kathmandu, but there they were so far in the distance that one felt they couldn’t possibly be part of the same country. Here, however, it seemed as if the mountains were just over the next hill. The white-covered peaks spread over the northern and eastern sky, some disappearing into white clouds.

Their immediate surroundings were rich with the colors of spring. The hills were terraced so that farming could be accomplished on a steep surface. Bond thought it was a marvel that anyone could live their lives cultivating this difficult land. Yet, nearly everyone in Nepal did, and they did it well.

The wind was brisker here and Bond could immediately feel the thinness of the air, even at this relatively low altitude. He glanced at his Avocet Vertech Alpin watch that Q Branch had given him. It showed altitude, time, barometric pressure, and cumulative vertical ascent rates. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, but it felt later. The change in altitude made it seem as if he had already spent an entire day exerting himself. One of the Americans, Bill Scott, complained of headache shortly after arriving. Hope Kendall examined him and told him to get plenty of sleep that night.

I want everyone to go to bed immediately after dinner,” Marquis said as they gathered at the small building that served as an air terminal. “We’re to have dinner with the respective families who are putting us up. Remember—eat with your right hand, don’t even gesture with the left, and leave your shoes at the door. Don’t enter a Hindu kitchen unless invited. Let your hosts direct you to a seat. Don’t touch any food unless you intend to eat it. Utensils or food is jutho, or impure, once it has touched your lips or tongue. Everyone eats from their own plate and drinks from their own glass. These people know that all food must be cooked, but just in case, don’t eat anything that has to be washed or that isn’t cooked immediately before it’s served. Remember to offer a good hearty belch at the end of the meal, for that’s a sign of contentment in this country.”