The Khumbu Hotel, Thamel, Kathmandu, Nepal
June 5, 2009
7:30 p.m.
The shower beat down on Quinn as he still tried to make sense of the swastika on the old ice axe. But however hard he thought about it, he could produce little more than a simple statement in response: the British had Everest, and the Germans had Nanga Parbat, a well-known, well-documented mountaineering fact from the early days of Himalayan climbing that he had learned as a boy—two countries, two mountains, two completely separate prewar histories of trying to climb them.
The earliest Quinn could remember reading of anyone other than an Englishman even going near Everest was the solitary Canadian, Earl Denman, in 1947, and then maybe a similarly solo Swede, or was it a Dane, a few years later. Whatever, they made valiant but strictly personal efforts long after the days of the swastika. They also hadn’t even gotten high on the mountain, certainly nowhere near to the Second Step. He squeezed his brain to think some more about the bigger teams of Swiss, French, Chinese, the rumored Russians, even, who all joined the race among countries to try to be first to the top by one route or another in the ’50s and ’60s, but still, there were no Germans, even without swastikas.
Perhaps it was one of the Russians that left the axe up there?
He recalled again the old climber’s legend that in 1952 a Russian team led by a Dr. Pawel Datschnolian had tried to snatch a first summit of the mountain from the British who, still unsuccessful, were due to return to the mountain the following year. It was said that they took the north-side route but that the entire summit party of six was simply blown off the mountain, never to be seen again. Even with the fall of the Iron Curtain and subsequent opening up of Russian records to the rest of the world, no one had ever been able to prove the veracity of the story one way or the other.
Did I find evidence that the story is actually true?
Nineteen fifty-two was only seven years after the end of World War Two in Europe—the axe could easily have been a returning Russian soldier’s souvenir from the rubble of Germany.
Well, it’s my souvenir now. An ice axe with a fucking swastika!
Given the current circumstances, it seemed in some way appropriate, Quinn thought, as he dressed quickly and checked his wallet for the little cash remaining to him. He then rummaged in another of his duffel bags to pull out some locking carabiners and a new set of four ice screws. As he held them in his hands, they seemed to offer a poor return for saving his life but they were the best he could do to tip Dawa. At least the Sherpa should be able to sell them for good money to one of the many trekking shops in Thamel. Putting them into the deep side pocket of his cargo pants, Quinn set off on the short walk to the Rum Doodle, the Thamel restaurant named after the imaginary forty-thousand-and-half-a-foot peak made famous in the 1950s novel of the same name.
The Rum Doodle was a well-known place of celebration for all the tours, treks, and climbs that finished in Kathmandu. If you summited Everest, you even ate there for free, after the restaurant owner had quickly verified the fact with Sanjeev Gupta, of course. He had little to celebrate this time, but for the sake of his two clients, Quinn told himself to put his troubles aside and make an effort. Walking into the bar, Quinn saw the pair already propping it up. The Sherpas weren’t there yet.
Yves handed Quinn a large, fiftieth-anniversary bottle of Everest beer, wet and cold. It tasted good as they rather halfheartedly toasted Durrand’s summit. As Quinn continued to drink from the oversized bottle, the gold-rimmed oval label featuring that same summit photo of Tenzing loosened and shifted in his hand as they always did. Quinn peeled it off. Everyone always did that too—some intent on sticking the label in the diary of their trip, others on the backs of unknowing teammates where they dried and loosened their grip to slip to the floor, leaving the most famous image in mountaineering to stare back up through the lesser feet that unknowingly trampled it. Quinn put his onto the bar counter, smoothing it out flat with still-numb fingertips. Whenever he looked at it, he felt the stab of pain from the thought that he was most probably at the end of the long road that photo had first set him on. It soured the beer in his stomach.
The three of them continued to wait at the bar but still the Sherpas didn’t arrive. In the end, they moved to their table and ordered. When the dinner was finished, Quinn reluctantly agreed to give up on them ever arriving and to continue on to the Tom & Jerry, one of Thamel’s best-known pubs. Tipping the waiter more generously than usual in compensation for the fact that he had to leave two steak dinners off the bill and that half their party hadn’t turned up, they left a message for the Sherpas that they had gone on and left.
The Tom & Jerry was even more crowded than the Rum Doodle, but they were eventually able to take one of the red vinyl-covered booths. There, the three of them drank and talked some more, until Quinn was interrupted by a small face at the end of the table frantically beckoning to him. “Mr. Neil, it is me, Phinjo. The cook boy. Lhakpa sends me to find you. You must come now, Mr. Neil, now!”
With some difficulty Quinn pushed his way out to the young Sherpa. Putting a big hand on Phinjo’s small shoulder, he directed him to the relative quiet of the street outside. “Phinjo, what is it?” he asked.
The boy started crying uncontrollably.
“Phinjo, tell me,” Quinn demanded.
Through sobs, the boy blurted out words that slowly became sentences.
“Pemba … it’s Pemba. He dead … Motorcycle. His motorcycle crash … on Durbar Marg. We think it because of the rain. Killed. He killed by fall.”
Quinn struggled to take in what he was hearing as the boy continued to speak.
“Then people find Dawa by the river. He beaten. Very bad, Mr. Neil, beaten very bad. Maybe he die too.”
All Quinn could manage in reply was a shocked, “What?”
“They break his legs, Mr. Neil, so he can’t climb. Now we think maybe also Pemba killed. Not accident. Lhakpa say Sarron.”
The little cook boy broke down, once more crying hopelessly.
Quinn looked back over his shoulder, his horror at the news developing into a chilling recognition that it must be connected with the two men who had tried to find him at the hotel earlier that day. Sarron really was coming after them as he had threatened.
Phinjo regained some control. Wiping the back of his hand across his eyes, he stuttered, “Lhakpa send me to say to you, ‘Be careful.’ They think Frenchie Sarron mad, mad for long time now, and he pay killers to hurt you and Dawa and Pemba. Lhakpa hiding. He safe. He say you be safe too, Mr. Neil.”
Quinn pulled some notes from his wallet and pushed them into the boy’s hand. “Thank you, Phinjo. Now go home quick in a taxi. Don’t stop for anything or anyone. Do you understand me?” Wiping his sleeve again across his nose and mouth, the boy hugged Quinn then ran off into the Kathmandu night.
Quinn hurried back into the bar and quickly forced his way to the booth.
“Yves, we’ve got to go now. I can’t explain here. Just get Ross moving. Come on. Now.”
MacGregor was drunk and unsteady on his feet, forcing Quinn and the Swiss climber to pull him outside and into a passing taxi with them. As they traveled the few blocks back to their hotel, Quinn explained to Durrand what the cook boy had told him, the Swiss climber sobering up in front of his eyes.
At the hotel the little doorman was nowhere to be seen.
Quinn looked into the darkened lobby. He could see no one, so, with Durrand’s help, they moved the wasted Scot inside and up to the door of the small cage elevator.
“Yves, if they’re here, I don’t think they will be after you two—only me. Get Ross up to his room and leave him on the floor in the recovery position. You know it, right?”
“Of course.” Yves nodded.
“Then if you hear anything else, please get help—whatever you can, just get it, okay?”
The cage door of the old elevator closed with a screech, and after a dull thump and a whirr, the car elevated slowly upward.
Watching it rise, Quinn wondered what to do next. He searched the lobby for something with which to defend himself. There was nothing.
A hint of panic was stopped by an idea. Reaching into the pocket of his cargo pants, he took out the two longest of the ice screws he had intended to give to Dawa.
Each one was about ten inches long. He ripped off the sleeves of blue plastic webbing that covered the tubes’ sharp threads and uncapped the ends to reveal the four razor-sharp points with which each chromoly tube finished. The sharp, steel edges glinted in the light as, taking one in each hand like a dagger, Quinn slowly and silently began to ascend the stairs.
Creeping up to the top-floor corridor, he then approached the door to his room at the end of the hall.
Nearing it, he thought he heard a faint noise from inside.
Inching closer, he saw that the door was very slightly ajar, yet the room was pitch black inside.
Quinn paused, took a deep breath, and then, touching the tip of the ice screw in his right hand against the door, slowly pushed it back.
When the door was almost open, the head of the old ice axe swept down from the dark interior, crashing onto the ice screw, causing Quinn to instantly drop it.
A figure leaped forward from the dark to grab him by both shoulders and pull him headlong into the room.
The shaft of the ice axe smacked violently down a second time, hitting Quinn across the back as he fell forward.
His face smashed into the floor, and the hands on his shoulders forced him down into the funk of the carpet as the side of the ice axe slammed across his back, again and again.
Every time the flat side of the axe’s metal head beat on his spine, bolts of white lightning flashed up through his body and into his brain.
The Englishman squirmed, trying to free himself, but the weight of the man holding him down kept him hard against the floor as more blows from the old axe beat his body.
Amidst the explosions of pain, Quinn had crystal-clear images of Dawa helping him down from the Second Step. With all his might, he responded to them by twisting his body up from the floor, thrusting his left arm wildly upward at the unseen attacker restraining him.
He felt the ice screw that hand was still gripping push into something soft.
The man to the front of him howled horribly, immediately releasing him.
As the man pulled away, Quinn felt the motion tugging the ice screw.
He let it go, still lodged in his attacker’s right eye socket.
Freed, Quinn scrambled to get up only to see the head of the ice axe, this time with its sharp pick facing downward, hurtling toward him.
He rolled to his side just as the axe crashed down, scraping across his chest in a rending tear, hooking the fabric of his shirt and sticking point-first deep into the carpet and wooden floor beneath.
The figure above tried to pull the axe back up, but it was stuck fast. He lifted a foot to stomp down on Quinn’s head only to be knocked backward by the other assailant making crazily for the door.
Screaming in agony, the figure ran out, holding his blood-spurting face from which the long, steel ice screw still protruded.
The other attacker released the embedded ice axe and chased after him.
Quinn blacked out as another heavy monsoon rain started to hammer on the flat concrete roof of the hotel.