Apartment E, 57 Sukhra Path, Kathmandu, Nepal
May 29, 2010
11:30 a.m.
Quinn knocked on the door of Henrietta’s apartment.
“It’s not locked, Dawa. Sanjeev is ill today so just show yourself in,” was the immediate response from inside.
“It’s not Dawa, Henrietta. It’s Neil Quinn.”
“Well, you can come in also, Neil.” Quinn stepped in as Henrietta’s voice continued. “I was expecting Dawa to arrive first. I thought he should come to get his monthly money and then wait for you so that we could both talk to him about Ang Noru. I think he should know the full story.”
Henrietta was seated in her usual chair. She looked up at Quinn over her half-moon glasses. “Well, I’m glad to see you back in Kathmandu and in one piece. I am also pleased to hear that you have finally done a half-decent Everest climb, a north-south traverse almost without supplementary oxygen. It doesn’t make you a legend, of course, but it’ll do under the circumstances.”
She winked at him as she stood up. “I’ll make us some tea. Sit down. What took you so long to get back here?”
Quinn put down the rucksack he was carrying, the old ice axe strapped to its side. “I holed up in Namche Bazaar for a while. I needed time to recover, and you were still locked up by the Chinese, so I thought it best to disappear until things settled down. I assume you heard from the Sherpa how I made it over the top.”
Henrietta nodded as she walked to the small kitchen of her apartment. Filling a kettle, she shouted back above the rattle of the water. “Yes, evidently they were quite surprised to find you up there. Rather stole the thunder of their first summit of the season. One of them told me they thought you were pretty close to death, talking to yourself, seeing ghosts, covered in blood and ice. Evidently they had quite the job to get you down. I heard you wouldn’t even leave until you got your original ice axe back.”
“Yes. Its replacement was proving to be a bit troublesome. How was your stay with the Chinese?”
“Positively vile. It was very nearly a major diplomatic incident. Given the reason Martin Emmerich and I were there in the first place, it had to be handled with kid gloves by our chaps in the Foreign Office and their counterparts in the Bundestag. That’s why it took us nearly two weeks to get out of the country. The death of Stevens and your disappearance didn’t help matters, although I can hardly blame you for that.
“Martin’s still here, you know. He’s at the Tiger Hotel. He wants to see you before he goes back to Germany. He’s unhappy with the result but doesn’t think that we could have done things differently. Sarron played a clever hand getting us all ousted from the Base Camp like that, but so far there seems to have been no shocking photographs of a first Nazi summit of Everest, so I guessed that none of you found what we were looking for up there. Perhaps it was all a bit of a long shot.”
She returned with the tea set on a tray. She’d intended to put it on the small table between her armchairs, but Quinn had already covered it with items from his rucksack. Looking up at her, he said, “Henrietta, it’s not George Leigh Mallory’s handkerchief, but I brought down a few souvenirs.”
She set the tea on another side table and looked at the lime-green oxygen cylinder from the Nelson Tate Junior summit and the medical syringe next to it.
“Wow, finally some evidence relating to the cause of the boy’s demise,” she said. “We’ll get them looked at. Tea now?”
She turned back to the side table and poured two cups of tea. When she returned, Quinn had replaced the cylinder and the syringe with Stevens’ red freezer bag and the old ice axe.
She looked at the case and back at Quinn.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“Yes.”
“Now I really do feel like Pandora.”
She unzipped the red nylon cube and pulled out a plastic ice block. Setting it to one side, she lifted out Becker’s Leica, sealed within two clear plastic bags. As she turned it over in her hands, Quinn said, “I think it should live in your freezer until you tell me what we are to do with it. It needs to stay frozen.”
Henrietta quickly replaced the camera back into the little nylon case and, holding it like a holy offering, hurriedly carried it into the kitchen. Quinn heard her freezer door slam shut on it.
There was another knock at the door as she returned.
“It’ll be Dawa. I’ll let him in.”
Walking to her front door, Henrietta stretched forward to open it, saying in a loud voice, “Hold on. I’m letting you in.”
Before she could turn the handle, the door slammed into her face, knocking her off her feet.
Sarron burst through it to immediately put a foot against the prostrate lady’s neck.
Pointing a large kukri knife down at her, he screamed, “Don’t move! You either Quinn, you bastard.”
Quinn stared back at the deep curve of the spoon-shaped knife now being raised toward him. The blade was about a foot and a half long. Kukris like it were for sale all over Kathmandu. Even if they were made for the tourists, Quinn knew that it would still be strong and sharp.
He looked back at Sarron. He’d lost his oiled sheen. His face was lined, darkened, totally crazed.
“Make one move, and I will hack this old hag to pieces before your fucking eyes,” he screamed at Quinn.
Raising the curved knife above his head as if preparing to carry out his threat, he demanded, “Where’s the German’s camera?”
“In the freezer in the kitchen—to keep it cold. Let her go, and I will give it to you.”
“You are in no position to bargain, Quinn. Just get it and bring it out here now.”
Quinn slowly backed into the kitchen, holding his hands up, watching Sarron intently with each step.
The incensed man remained where he was, swaying slightly, his left eyelid trembling violently.
Henrietta seemed to have passed out.
Stepping into the kitchen, Quinn quickly went to the fridge, shouting as he opened the door, “I’m getting it now.”
Without removing anything, he slammed the freezer door loudly. He stood in front of it for a second, eyes racing around the kitchen, searching for any possible weapon, a knife, a bottle, anything, but in that moment, he saw nothing suitable. Totally desperate, he grabbed a large salad bowl sitting on the draining board next to the sink.
“Put it down, Quinn. That fucking thing is not going to save you.”
Quinn froze, releasing the bowl. Turning around, he saw that Sarron had followed him into the kitchen.
He took another step toward him, pointing the knife’s blade directly at Quinn’s face. “Go back to the freezer, and this time get the camera out.”
As Quinn did so, Sarron blocked the doorway, moving slowly from side to side, drawing a figure eight in the air before him with the long blade.
Quinn slowly passed him the freezer bag.
Sarron stepped forward to seize it with his left hand.
Quinn heard Henrietta moan from the main room.
Sarron twitched, hearing it also, but his eyes remained fixed on Quinn as he shouted back, “It’s a pity you can’t see this, since you like mountaineering history so much—the tragic death of Everest guide Neil Quinn here in your very own apartment.”
Sarron lifted his right arm, rotating the knife’s cutting edge toward Quinn, its razor-sharp blade catching the light.
Quinn readied himself to try and dodge its fall.
But it never came.
Instead he fleetingly glimpsed the steel head of the old ice axe rising high above Sarron’s head before it chopped forward.
Momentarily, the raised kukri blade hung in the air separated from Sarron’s stunned body until they both crashed to the floor.
Quinn looked up from the geyser of crimson blood erupting from the body at his feet to see Dawa, the end of the axe’s wooden shaft still firmly clasped in his hands, its long pick wedged as far as it would go into the back of the Frenchman’s skull.