Introduction

International adventurer Derek Sodoc was shamefully abandoned and left to die on the deadly, snowy summit of Everest.

That’s the simple truth of this life and death. Until now, no one has had the courage to tell the sordid facts. Instead, judicious lies, endless excessive media hype, and obviously self-serving statements have passed themselves off for reality. “They’re all afraid to tell what really happened,” a source close to the story revealed to me. “The reality is so much worse than the lies.”

As is always the case in life, the truth is much stranger than mere fiction—in this case, far, far stranger. Stories from the slopes of the mountain describe drug addiction, sexual misadventures, pregnancy, abortion, cowardice, theft of vital equipment, and sabotage. It is a sordid, seedy tale. No wonder so many people have worked so hard to keep you, the public, from learning it. “They’re afraid of the father,” the same source confided. “I know that I am.”

Imagine, if you will, the tragic fate of one of the world’s richest and most famous glittering—if ill-starred—celebrities. This is a man who should have lived a long sunlit life and died comfortably between silken sheets at his estate, surrounded by his youthful fourth wife, numerous children, and handwringing accountants. That’s the way of it with the unbelievably rich. But it was not fated to be.

“Derek loved life,” the source said. “But he was determined to climb Everest. In those final days, however, he was obsessed with his wife and the new man in her life.”

As a result, Derek Sodoc died a miserable, inglorious death just yards from his lifelong goal, the precipitous peak of the world’s highest—and often deadliest—mountain. How is such a thing even possible? I ask that question because Derek Sodoc had it all, certainly by the standards of the rest of us. He could afford the finest in technology, the latest in scientific equipment, the most skilled and accomplished stalwart guides. He took with him as well his most steadfast friends, rugged men who’d demonstrated their mettle before, stout men he knew he could rely on in a pinch.

His death should never have happened—not then, not there.

Yet in the final agonizing hours of his all-too-short life, those well-paid minions and erstwhile friends turned their yellow tails and fled down the craggy mountain rather than rescue their gilded client and alleged friend. “Like rats abandoning a sinking ship,” an insider told me, “the bunch of them hotfooted it down that mountain. They didn’t let anyone stand in their way or care who they left behind.”

Wrapped in the inescapable cold and trapped in one of the worst blizzards in recorded history, Derek valiantly clung to life until finally succumbing to the overwhelming odds against him. Where were his friends? Where were the expensive guides?

He died alone and abandoned.

This is the true story of what happened on that ill-starred, disastrous expedition, and in particular on that final tragic day. Drawn from sources who witnessed events, this is unadulterated reality, unvarnished by media hype. “The truth,” one source says, “would turn your stomach.”

Yet it is said that the truth will set you free. This truth, unpopular as it is, should set free any number of liars. Watch them squirm.

For example, where was Derek’s wife as he lay dying? One of the world’s most gifted female athletes, Tarja Sodoc was to have climbed Everest with him. Many women were more than willing to have joined him on this glorious adventure and would have risked their lives to save him, but she did not.

So where was she that last, deadly day? Why wasn’t she on the final summit team as intended? What was she doing? What else was so important to her? For weeks, the expedition trumpeted that the husband and wife would reach that forbidding, towering summit together, but on the final tragic day she was nowhere to be seen.

What happened? And why won’t she talk? Is it true that she was keeping warm in her own little high-altitude love nest? That is what those who were there say.

And what about Dr. Calvin Seavers, Derek’s longtime friend and expedition physician? Where was he? Why is he silent? Or Scott Devlon, war hero and presumed fast friend? Why has he refused comment? What is he hiding?

“If talking would save their necks, they’d speak up,” an informed source says. “You can bank on it.”

And what about all the others—why stand on their silence? What is it they seek to conceal? What dark secrets do they hide? Why are they afraid?

This is the shocking story of how one of the world’s richest men was callously abandoned to his miserable fate on one of the deadliest points on earth. This is a story of self-serving betrayal, a shameful tale of loss—and it is a shocking story of unbridled lust.

You may think that you know what happened, but you don’t. Now, for the first time, the truth can be told. It’s not a pretty story, and it’s certainly not a happy one. It’s a lurid tale and one that everyone is entitled to know.