79

Everest North Base Camp, Rongbuk Valley, Tibet—16,980 feet

May 11, 2010

6:30 p.m.

All the talk at the climbers’ dinner that evening was of the team’s imminent departure for the summit. Neil Quinn and his client would be leaving the next day. The remainder of the team was to follow a few days later. Everyone was excited, the mess tent filling with an electricity of anticipation and suppressed fear that almost made its poles vibrate with static. Bringing in the various courses of the meal, Pani, the assistant cook boy, was listening carefully to the expedition members talking. The more he heard, the more excited he also became. He had to tell himself to be patient. He knew the climbers would want to eat huge amounts if they were shortly going up. The meal would take time. He just smiled back at them as he worked, thinking of the money.

The supper finally finished, table cleared, dishes washed, Pani slipped away to the storage tent where he also slept. There, when he was absolutely sure that no one was in earshot, he quietly made one more call on the new mobile phone given to him by the two Russians in Nyalam. Waiting once again for that familiar voice message followed by the electronic beep that signaled he should speak, he thought of those two kind friends of Neil Quinn, so keen for news of how he was doing on the mountain. That evening, understanding its importance to them, he said his message twice to be sure they got it. “Your friend Neil Quinn leave Base Camp for Everest summit tomorrow morning. I say you again, Neil Quinn leave Base Camp for summit tomorrow.”

Putting his precious phone away, Pani felt pleased with himself. He was sure that the two Russians would be happy to hear that their old friend was going to the summit once more; they had seemed so interested in news about the climb. He was also happy for himself because, even if at times it had been a bit difficult to keep it a secret from the other Sherpas, it really was a lot of money for nothing. All he’d had to do was leave a short message each time Quinn returned from the mountain to the Base Camp and then a final one for when he was going to the summit. The Russians had paid him a hundred dollars up front and assured him that he would get another fifty each time he left a message.

So that’s another two hundred now, Pani thought happily. Plus the men had told him he could keep the phone and another present they would bring him if he kept it all a secret. And I have! Three hundred dollars was as much as his pay for the entire trip, and he would also be returning to Kathmandu with a new Chinese telephone. He only had to wait now for the Russians to visit him in the Base Camp and pay up as they promised they would do. Pani was a happy cook boy that night.

Sarron was also satisfied to get that final message. He knew the summit weather window was fast approaching, but until he received that last call, his plan couldn’t start. For the last five days he had been waiting for it, holed up in a small lodge in the village of Tingri, fifty miles to the north of the Base Camp. That time of year the place was crawling with tourists, climbers, and Chinese soldiers. Keeping a low profile, he let the Vishnevskys go about the business that needed to be done. The hours had dragged, stuck in that simple room, wondering whether there was even going to be a camera. What if Graf had been wrong? Without it, Vollmer had been clear, there would be no more money.

The only way Sarron could break his mind from the uncertainty was by shifting it to how he was going to kill Neil Quinn. His hatred for the British guide was so intense that it made him pace the room, talking to himself, acting out an end game with hacks and stabs of the ice axe, its edges carefully sharpened with a whetstone in preparation. With Quinn dead and an old frozen camera in his possession, Sarron could finally move on. And there had to be a camera—why else would Quinn be going back up? From the moment that Wei Fang had emailed him the Everest permit requests for that season, which showed Quinn as a member of Owen’s expedition, Sarron knew what he was returning for.

His plan now relied on that happening. Even so, he had found it a struggle to control himself as he spied on Owen’s team coming through Nyalam on their way to the mountain. It took all his willpower to not go over to the team’s hotel in the middle of the night and stab Quinn as he slept. But he needed the camera first. Quinn’s death, although essential, could only come after, and when it did, Sarron promised himself, it would be more spectacular than just stabbing him in his sleep. Reluctantly, he had bided his time as the two Russians had dealt with the cook boy, setting up their eyes and ears within Quinn’s camp.

When Owen’s team had moved on to start acclimatizing on Everest, Sarron and the two Russians had gone in the opposite direction to the mountains west of Shishapangma. At first, he thought they should climb that mountain to prepare themselves for the trip to altitude on Everest, but, even there, the possibility of being seen by someone who might recognize him was too great. Anyway, they didn’t need to go that high. As long as they could go once to at least twenty-three thousand feet, they would be ready to get up to the high camps on Everest and do what needed to be done.

The message signaled it could start at last. The next evening they would go to the Base Camp. Stopping only as long as it took to deal with the cook boy, they would then move on to the glacier, keeping themselves a day behind Quinn as he moved up through the higher camps on the hill. They were going to do it fast and light, taking only the minimum kit: high-altitude suits, sleeping bags, oxygen masks, and radios. Sarron knew that the high camps would now be totally stocked for the forthcoming summit attempts. All the oxygen and food they needed was already up there.