Powder Burn (Burn with Sam Blackett #1)

by Chisnell, Mark

  Tashi grabbed at his mouth as it filled with vomit and, turning into the base of the wall, managed to get it almost soundlessly into the dirt. There were tugs at his coat. He ignored them, nostrils full of puke and the fresh smell of blood gagging at the back of his throat.

  “Get a grip.” The words were spoken right in his ear.

  He pushed against Jortse’s grasp. “Leave me,” a faint croak.

  “Come on!”

  “What have you done?”

  “I had to do it,” whispered Jortse.

  He tried to shake his head, but his whole body moved in denial. “No ...” Jortse’s grip eased a little. The moments passed and Tashi managed to clear his nose, throat and then his head. He swayed to his feet; this time Jortse just steadied him. He had one coherent thought. “We must get his valuables, make it ... make it look like a robbery.”

  “I’m not a mugger – no, let this be a warning to those bastards,” muttered Jortse. “Maybe the rebellion starts right here!”

  “There’ll be reprisals, some of our people will die, many others will suffer, and you cannot defend them yet,” mumbled Tashi. There was a moment’s silence. Then a rustle as Jortse sheathed the sword. He bent over his victim, went through the pockets and straightened.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Jortse led them to the corner and peered round. He turned back to Tashi. “There’s a patrol.”

  Tashi pressed himself hard against the wall, blew more acrid snot silently into the sleeve of his coat. He tried not to think about the headless body just feet away – what it meant. He pulled his bedroll to him and clenched it hard. Then Jortse’s tug told him it was time to move. Blindly following, Tashi stumbled out across the open ground, not looking to one side or the other. They came to the wire. Jortse pushed the bottom strand up, and pulled him through. Tashi rolled in the dust, coarse against his cheek. And then he was up and running, through scrub, rocks. Jortse led a weaving dance until finally the land rose under their feet and they began to climb the hills to safety.

  Chapter 8

  “OK, this is it – we’re going to stay here tonight.”

  “Huh?” Sam was stretching her back when Lens had directed his announcement at her – watched by Pete and Vegas – and the surprise prompted the interrogative grunt which then prompted a coughing fit. The cough was courtesy of the altitude – this was a new high point. It was only midday, but she was very happy to hear that they were stopping. From warmth and easy walking to cutting steps in snow slopes and thin air – finally they were in the mountains. She gave a rasping clear of her throat. “I don’t understand, we’ve been pushing on hard since we started, why the holiday?”

  “This is our main gear stash before the mountain,” replied Lens. “The snowboards and all the final supplies are in that hut.”

  “I’ll go check on that,” said Vegas, and he headed towards the shack where they had stopped. It sat in an island of dirty snow – tarpaulin and corrugated iron sheets draped over it to make a roof, holes gaping in the walls.

  “So ... does this mean you’re finally going to tell me where we are, where it is?” she asked.

  “Before we go any further, we want you to sign a non-disclosure agreement saying that you won’t at any time reveal the position, identity or any aspect of the route to Powder Burn,” said Lens.

  She started to laugh, then stopped. “You’re not joking?” She looked in turn at both the serious faces. “But how can I write an article about the mountain if I can’t even say where it is?”

  “The same way as we’re going to do the film,” responded Lens. “We make it a mystery. Build up the myth of Powder Burn. The longer we can keep its identity a secret, the longer it will be before anyone else can possibly do it, and the longer our movie will be unique as the sickest mountain ever ridden.”

  “And what if I don’t agree?”

  “We’ll have to leave you here,” said Lens.

  “So, what ... you’re going to tie me up?”

  “That might be a little extreme – fun, but a little extreme. No, you can’t stay awake forever.” Lens glanced at Pete as he spoke.

  “This is bullshit, guys, you’re hustling me here,” she replied, hands on her hips. “If I go back from here, I will already have spent three weeks on this trip. If I don’t agree, I’ve wasted a ton of time and money and got nothing.”

  “Think about it, Sam,” Lens responded, “you don’t want to go back – we’re selling myth and mystery, the legend of Powder Burn. People love that angle, they love what they can’t have. The more secrecy that surrounds this mountain, the more money we all make out of it. We’ll get the buzz going on the circuit and in the resorts, and then we’ll release some clips onto the internet, use the social networks – it’ll be unbelievable stuff, and viral will do the rest of the work. Then we’ll time your article in National Geographic magazine with the launch of the film at one of the big competitions – it’ll just blow everyone away. This is the right way to do it. We can all be winners, but we need your help.”

  National Geographic – that dark little secret of her own ... But Lens’s hard sell was working, she could already see the story in her mind, the making of a myth. And, hustled or not, she needed this article. Or she’d be walking home to Vermont. “So ... you actually want me to sign something?”

  Lens dug into his pack, and handed across a rough couple of sheets of paper – at least they are typed, she thought. Essentially, it gave Lens the right to check in advance anything she wished to say or publish about the expedition. It looked like he’d lifted it from a magazine publisher. She pulled her pen out of the side-pocket of her pack and scrawled a signature along the bottom, then handed both to Pete to sign as witness.

  Vegas ambled back up just as they were finished. “She signed?” he said.

  “Yup,” said Lens, taking the document from Pete and stowing it back in his pack.

  Vegas grunted, noncommittal.

  “Everything OK with the gear?” Pete asked Vegas, tossing the pen back to Sam at the same time.

  “Reckon – looks just like it did when we left it. I guess we must have tipped that guy enough after all.” He hesitated. “Does she know where it is yet?”

  “No, she doesn’t,” said Sam. “Well?”

  Pete turned and pointed. “Over there.”

  She followed his arm; he was indicating the steep slope that ran along the northern side of the valley.

  “In Shibde,” added Lens.

  “Shibde?” she echoed, startled. “But Shibde’s closed to all foreigners, has been for a couple of hundred years or something. How can it be in Shibde?”

  “Because it is ...” said Pete, and tailed off.

  For fifteen seconds, she looked round her silent circle of so-called teammates as the full truth dawned. “We’re going to sneak across the border into Shibde ... to go snowboarding?” she said. “Are you completely fucking insane?” No one answered. So she carried on. “I mean, even if it turned out that the Shibdeese weren’t too bothered by us shattering the centuries of isolation that they have so carefully nurtured and defended ... what if all those stories of a Demagistani invasion are true? They’re paranoid. They’ll think we’re spies, what the hell happens if we get caught? I mean, I could understand if you wanted to go in there and make an amazing documentary about life in Shibde, especially if it’s life under a brutal Demagistani regime – but a fucking snowboarding video?”

  “We won’t get caught,” said Lens.

  “Who’s gonna catch us? Take a look around. You think the dude in the hut is going to chase us up that slope?” said Vegas.

  “He might report it,” she retorted.

  “Like, who to, exactly?” scoffed Vegas.

  “Sam, he thinks we’re headed up to climb that mountain.” Lens pointed at the peak that dominated the end of the valley as he spoke. “It’s the one that the expedition was climbing when they discovered Powder Burn. It’s a popular route. We’re going to leave
at one o’clock in the morning. We’ll be long gone by sunup. He won’t have a clue that we climbed the side of the valley instead.”

  Vegas opened his arms wide, to take in the empty meadow with its patchy snow, the expansive high-altitude air. “See anyone else you might mistake for someone who gives a shit?” he said.

  “God –” she started.

  “Whoa, easy, tiger,” jumped in Lens. “Vegas, go make coffee.”

  Vegas lowered his arms, smirking at her, and then returned to his gear by the hut.

  “It’s only about three days’ hike to the run on the other side,” said Lens. “Once we get over that hill” – he waved up the slope – “we walk around the head of a valley. There’s nothing and no one. Mostly it’s high-altitude desert, completely empty – no one goes there, because there’s no reason to go there.”

  She looked up at the climb. She’d just tell them she wasn’t a real journalist anyway, and walk out of here. Screw them. Vermont suddenly seemed a very attractive option. Maybe her mother would even swing for the flight, she wanted her little girl home pretty bad.

  “It’s about nineteen thousand feet,” Pete said gently. “We went up there when we brought the gear in. This is fifteen thousand, and it drops back to about the same height the other side – walk high, sleep low. It’s the second time we’ve been well over fifteen thousand. With a rest here to acclimatize, we’ll be all right.”

  She stared upwards for a few moments longer before turning back to them. “If Shibde really has been invaded, it’s a hell of a story to go in there and get the pictures. Shibde, the pristine, peaceful, medieval Himalayan kingdom overrun by Demagistan, the authoritarian, nascent superpower with a human-rights record that would make Genghis Khan blush ...”

  “But that’s not what we’re going to do,” replied Lens, firmly, “because whatever is going on in Shibde politically is happening a long way from Powder Burn. I’ve had a look at the US spy-satellite images and believe me, there’s no habitation within three or four days’ walk of that run. There are no roads, no huts, no livestock – nothing, just mountains, glaciers, dust, rock, snow and ice. And even looking a bit further away, all I saw was a few small villages.”

  “Did you check the whole country?”

  “No, just along the border, near that mountain.”

  “So you don’t know if it’s true or not – the invasion?”

  Lens hesitated. “I might have seen trucks. I’m not a satellite-photo analyst. I taught myself what to look for when it comes to terrain, using images of areas I know, but I’ve no idea what I’m looking at when it comes to anything else. Anyway, there was no evidence of military activity anywhere near Powder Burn. They’ve no reason to come near the borders. The last thing Demagistan wants is to advertise their presence to the world – most people already believe they’re in there, they don’t want to make it worse by appearing in some trekkers’ viral video clip.”

  “People have tried to get in to find out what’s happening, haven’t they? Didn’t whatshername, that CNN chick, have a go a while back?”

  “People have been trying for decades, centuries, to get in – but their whole objective was to see the towns and villages, to see what life was like, to see if the stories of a golden Shangri-La were true. Then as soon as they get anywhere near the locals, they stand out like a sore thumb and are unceremoniously dumped back over the border. The last guy that got in there and managed to stay was Colonel Harry Spedding. He was sent in to spy out the land ahead of a British attack in 1854. He ended up befriending the king – and, more importantly, his daughter. The story is that they were lovers –”

  “What happened to the CNN girl?” Sam interrupted. She wasn’t to be distracted by the history lesson.

  “She didn’t get far. And she didn’t even know whether she’d been thrown out by the Shibdeese, or Demagistanis dressed as Shibdeese.”

  “And they beat her up, didn’t they?” It was coming back to her now, she’d watched a news report last summer.

  Lens folded his arms. “It wasn’t bad, just a little warning. And anyway, as I keep saying – we’re not going anywhere near any people. They won’t even know we’re there, and if we keep our mouths shut afterwards, they won’t even know we’ve been.”

  She looked back up at the climb; she could feel Lens and Pete watching her.

  “So you’re in?” asked Lens, hopefully.

  “I don’t know ...” She sank wearily to sit on a boulder, and dropped her head into her hands. She took a long, deep breath, all the way into her belly, and let it out slowly. “It’s all making sense now. That’s why Pete wasn’t bothered when I said they won’t let you back into the country after you release the film without a permit. And you brought your supplies up here in advance, so there’re no porters or guides this time, no one to see you sneak off. You’ve thought it all through.”

  “Lens, he’s the clever one,” said Pete, pushing his hands deep into his jacket pockets.

  She looked up at Lens as she spoke. “No, not clever – conniving, sly, duplicitous, scheming, manipulative, cunning maybe – but definitely not clever.”

  “Look, Sam, I’m not proud of what I’ve done – but there was no choice. We couldn’t take the chance of you giving away the location of Powder Burn.”

  She shook her head again. “I can’t believe you’ve dragged me into this ludicrous, insane plan, way past the point of no return. I was beginning to think you were my friends ...”

  The two men exchanged a look. “Don’t blame Pete for this, it’s all my fault,” said Lens. “I’m sorry, but there was no other way,” he continued. “I’ll leave you to think about it, I’ll get a cup of coffee with Vegas.”

  When he was gone, Pete looked down and kicked at the snow with the toes of his boots. “I’m sorry too ...”

  “You’re sorry?” she replied. “Well, now I’m going to tell you a little secret. I’ve only ever had one travel story published, and that was about a climbing hotel in Kashmir, specially written for the 1,251 readers of Altitude. I’ve got about as much chance of getting a story in National Geographic as Lens has of being made Person of the Year by Time.”

  Pete’s head came up. “I don’t care if you can’t get it published in the church magazine. It’s Lens and Vegas that want the publicity.”

  “Oh, believe me, I want to get an article in that mag ...” She stopped. It didn’t seem necessary to go on: the pile of rejection letters from the New York editors; the failed interviews for the chichi magazine jobs; the aborted, of-the-moment novels whose moment passed before she got to chapter three; the hopeless evenings in her Brooklyn apartment when the only thing that tapped across the keyboard was the cat.

  “So why couldn’t you write a separate article about Shibde?’ said Pete, suddenly. “It doesn’t have to mention Powder Burn. That’s all you’ve signed up to, right? It doesn’t say you can’t write about Shibde completely separately, does it?”

  She looked at him, a little chill ran through her. “No, no it doesn’t.”

  “So, is that worth the risk?”

  She raised her head and shielded her eyes to stare at the rock-strewn slope towering above them. “Yes,” she said, “that’s worth the risk.”

  Pete grinned. “Awesome, I’m so pleased you’re coming, this is going to be amazing, really.”

  “The other story will be our secret. Lens doesn’t need to know, right?”

  “Right, and you won’t mention Altitude? Your journalism?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t worry, that can wait till we get back. Now let’s get something to eat. We’re going to burn a few carbs getting up that mountain in the middle of the night,” she replied, starting towards the hut. There would be plenty of time to reveal that Altitude was the high point of her journalistic career, and that Lens might have brought her along for nothing – revenge was, after all, a dish best served cold.

  Chapter 9

  The rock still felt cold, even through Sam’s over-tro
users and thermal layers, not yet warmed by a sun that had barely peeped into the rim of a cobalt-blue sky. It was perfect weather for the high-altitude passage over the border, but Sam had slept badly. She wasn’t good with early starts, waking up over and over again in a little panic that they’d somehow left her behind after all. And now she sat on the rock, high above the snow line and almost at the top, hauling in fast, rasping lungfuls of air.

  “How are you doing?” asked Pete, coming to a halt in front of her.

  She nodded, tried for a smile, her head spinning.

  “You’re drinking plenty? You need four liters a day at this altitude, remember.”

  “So you keep telling me,” she replied.

  “Sorry. It’s not much further,” he told her. She nodded again, as Pete held out a hand and pulled her to her feet. She dropped in behind him, following the trail that Vegas was breaking up the final few hundred yards, her head down – one step, two steps, three steps. Stop. Breathe, one, two, three ... heart thrashing through her blood, looking for the oxygen that wasn’t there.

  The second she topped the rise out of the wind, she rolled her backpack off. Pete and Vegas were close by in a huddle, picking out the route they would ride their snowboards down to the valley. Lens was still plodding up behind her. She slumped onto the pack and sat, breathing hard. The slope fell away before her in a series of rocky outcrops, open sections and precipitous drops. Then she raised her gaze and the view took away what little breath she had regained.