by Brad Thor
“You should have told him where I was,” he said.
“What, and let him kill you? Besides, he was going to kill me anyway. That I’m sure of. Why would I want to make things any easier on him?”
“You’re right. Here,” said Scot, pulling the Toblerone chocolate from his pocket, “one of Fabia’s staff gave this to me. I thought you might like it.”
“Thanks,” she said as she unwrapped the chocolate and began to eat.
A light snow had started falling outside, and Scot turned on the windshield wipers.
“This ought to make things fun,” he said.
“If it keeps up, it will give us added cover. Don’t complain,” replied Claudia, who finished the chocolate and leaned over into the backseat.
“What are you doing?” asked Scot.
“Taking inventory and deciding how we’ll pack the gear so the weight is evenly distributed.”
“Don’t you want to do that when we get there?”
“I’m just getting organized. I don’t want us to be out in the open any longer than we have to.”
75
Forty minutes later, Harvath began seeing signs for Alpnachstad. Claudia showed him where to pull off. The snow was falling harder now, and she made Scot drive through the village twice before she found the road they were looking for. It led back toward the lake and the cogwheel railway station. Fifty meters before the entrance to the station, the road branched off into a clearing beyond a large grove of pine trees. Claudia instructed him to park all the way at the end of the clearing, as far away from the road as possible.
“The cogwheel station is normally jammed with tour buses and they use this lot for the overflow. The hikers use it because it provides better access to the trailhead,” she said.
Scot just nodded. His mind was on what lay ahead of them at the seven-thousand-foot summit of Mount Pilatus.
Claudia raised the VW’s hatchback and worked with extraordinary speed. Items were packed in the order they would most likely be used. The later it would be used, the farther down in the pack it was stowed. Claudia had already loaded the three magazines of her SIG-Sauer before Scot had maneuvered into his snowsuit. He had given Claudia his sizes, and she had done a good job of finding something that fit him. The snowsuit was warm and, judging from the fabric, relatively waterproof. It was made by a commercial ski manufacturer, and he didn’t much care for the brightly colored stripes around the wrists and pockets, but overall it was predominantly white, and that was the most important thing.
As if reading his mind Claudia said, “Catch,” and threw him a large roll of white tape. “I’m sure you know the proper way to wrap the weapons as well?”
Winter camouflage wasn’t something Scot Harvath, formerly of SEAL Team Two, needed help with.
They had agreed he, as the more skilled marksman, would carry the two-shot, silenced Makarov along with his Beretta. When they were close enough to their objective, he would remove and assemble the assault rifle from his pack. Claudia carried thirty-six rounds of ammunition in the clips of her SIG-Sauer, plus one in the chamber. Her role was strictly support, and Scot would be the point man. If things went well, Claudia would never even have to fire a shot, but they knew things seldom went exactly as planned.
Scot pulled on the climbing boots Claudia had purchased for him during one of her errands. They were snug, but hopefully wouldn’t be the cause of any blisters. Claudia had purchased the Swiss equivalent of moleskin and would have it ready at the first sign their boots were causing either of them any discomfort. They had a long trek in front of them, and they could not afford to compromise their feet in any way.
The weapons and gear packed up, they put on their headsets and tried the link between their commercial walkie-talkies. A-Okay. Claudia gave the thumbs-up, and they zipped up their suits. Normally, now would be the time to tape over the zippers, but with such a strenuous climb in front of them, they would need to vent their body heat often. Once they reached the top, they would finish taping up. They slipped on their white gloves, white balaclavas, goggles, and looking like a pair of phantoms, headed off into the woods toward the trailhead.
Two hours into the climb, Scot and Claudia stopped to take a rest. They each ate a PowerBar and polished off a liter of water between them. Scot applied moleskin to the inside of his right foot, which had been rubbed slightly raw by the new climbing boots. He leaned back on his elbows and breathed the cold air deep into his lungs. The snow had picked up in the last half hour. Judging by the altimeter on Claudia’s sport watch, they were making good time. Scot was carefully searching for any early warning devices Miner might have planted along the trail to alert him of an assault, but so far he hadn’t seen anything. He also frequently withdrew the assault rifle’s nightscope from his backpack to scan the terrain above them. He never felt compelled to look behind.
After their break, the pair got back on the trail and continued their hike toward the summit. The winds were fierce and bit at any exposed pieces of flesh. The snow blew from almost every direction, cutting visibility and forcing Scot and Claudia to move more slowly, choosing their steps with more care. One wrong move and they could tumble down the mountain. Scot took a length of rope from his pack and tied it between the two of them, so neither lost the other.
They stopped to rest two more times, finishing off their water and two more PowerBars. Because of the frigid conditions, they were happier when walking, their bodies burning more calories for warmth. Despite the high-quality suits, gloves, and boots, the cold found its way in everywhere, and each of them was feeling numb. Not a good situation, considering they hadn’t even faced the hardest part of the ascent yet.
Half an hour after their last rest stop, Claudia gave a tug on the rope and Scot stopped. When he turned to face her, she was pointing up. He removed the nightscope and peered through the green light to see what she was pointing at.
Between gusts of snowy wind he could make out two buildings, which he knew from Claudia’s diagram would be Pilatus’s two hotels. Several hundred feet above the larger hotel, he made out the faint lights on top of the Pilatus radar station.
It had taken them over five hours to hike to this height. They came to a ridge hidden from above by a wide plateau. Had they been normal hikers, the plateau would have signaled the final part of their journey with plenty of cold beer and Würstel to be had only twenty minutes away in one of the hotel bars. But, Scot Harvath and Claudia Mueller were anything but normal hikers.
The plateau allowed Scot and Claudia to maneuver their way around the mountain without risk of being seen by any sentries above. The idea, which had been Claudia’s, was to come from a direction Miner would never suspect—right up the icy face below the church. To have attempted to infiltrate the perimeter by one of the typical tourist routes would surely have been to invite early detection and probably more than a few bullets. Scot had had enough of those.
Because of Miner’s comments, Scot and Claudia believed the church was the most logical point of entry into the fortress. Any other choice might have meant days of searching for entrances that were either impossible to find or impossible to access.
It took them over an hour to round the ridge and arrive at the base of their climb. Looking up, Scot saw only snow, rock, and ice. There wasn’t any sign of the church, but he trusted Claudia’s judgment.
They slid into harnesses, strapped on crampons, laid out their ropes, and taped each other the rest of the way up. As Claudia was the more experienced climber, it was decided she would lead this part of the ascent. She warned Scot again about the dangers of climbing with the assault rifle fully assembled, but Scot’s mind was made up. He had climbed more difficult mountains with bigger weapons before. Besides, the need to be prepared for what might lie waiting for them when they reached the top far outweighed all other considerations.
Scot assembled the rifle while Claudia removed the pickaxes from their packs and finished laying out the rest of the gear.
They checked each other’s rigs, and satisfied that they were completely ready, or as close thereto as possible, Claudia started to climb the face.
She moved with extraordinary skill and agility. Climbing was normally viewed as a man’s sport, requiring lots of upper-body strength, but Claudia was obviously very strong. She swung the axes with great force and had no problem hammering in the pitons as she worked her way up.
Scot was sure the climb could have been done in half the time if he hadn’t been working with an injured left arm. There was no other way to covertly assault the mountain, so they had decided this would be it, but that they would take it slow.
His left arm throbbed, from both the fatigue of the climb and also the cold. Scot was glad that Claudia was on point, chipping out toeholds and hammering in the pitons. He had no idea if he would have been able to do it. He was breathing heavily and appreciated Claudia’s frequent stops to rest. He knew she didn’t need to. She was stopping for him.
The climb was slow going, and the wind tormented the pair with every step, threatening to rip them from the face of the mountain and cast them into the valley far below. Scot was growing more tired and started initiating the breaks himself, and with greater frequency. Claudia never said a word. She waited for him to give her the thumbs-up and only then would continue.
Finally, the sound in his ears of his own heavy breathing was replaced by the sound over his headset of Claudia clicking her tongue twice against her teeth. That was their signal that they were approximately twenty meters away from cresting the top. Claudia froze where she was and waited for Scot to join her. When he did, he rested for ten minutes without saying a word. He was exhausted.
He couldn’t ask Claudia to go straight to the top and put her life in danger by peering over the edge toward the church. What if there was a guard stationed there, or some sort of motion detector? The fact was that because Scot knew what to look for, he needed to be the first one over. When he felt he had sufficiently regained his strength, he began to lead the climb.
Hammering in the pitons and cutting out the toeholds was excruciating. Scot hadn’t realized how much he had demanded of his right arm while he favored the left. He wasn’t a quitter, though, and they were so close now. Just a few more meters. Claudia hung back, monitoring his progress and giving him plenty of space, as he had requested. She was to have her weapon drawn when he went over the top, just in case he was taken by surprise and one of Miner’s men should happen to peer over the edge to see if anyone was behind him. Scot didn’t want Claudia to be easy pickings, unprepared on the face all by herself.
Harvath continued to cut his toeholds and hammer the pitons. Reaching above his head, he readied to hammer another home, and the unthinkable happened. An enormous gust of wind peeled him right off the face and sent him shooting downward. Although he knew he had set his pitons properly, this was the moment in which every climber fears he will discover his safety measures hadn’t been set as well as he thought.
Scot kept falling, his hands flailing, knowing there was nothing to grab on to, but trying nonetheless. Then came the snap of being jerked to a slapping halt, but instead of feeling it in his harness, where he should have, he felt it hard along the left side of his ribs and dangerously across his windpipe. It took a few moments for him to realize what had happened.
He had not been stopped by his rope and safety harness, but rather by the shoulder strap of the assault rifle. Somehow it had gotten caught on a piton and, with the downward weight of his body, was threatening to cut off all of his oxygen and strangle him. Scot clawed at the strap, trying to free himself, but it wouldn’t budge. His legs were completely out of energy, and he couldn’t muster enough strength to even push himself away from the frozen wall of rock behind him. Harvath’s eyes drifted out over the dark valley below, and he wondered if this was how it would end.
76
Claudia scrambled up the icy face to where Scot hung choking. In a flash, she had unsheathed her blade and was preparing to cut away the strap of the assault rifle pinned against his throat. As she brought the blade down toward the strap, what she saw amazed her; Harvath was shaking his head no.
He didn’t want her to do it. Choking was okay, but God forbid the soldier should lose his assault rifle. Men!
Claudia frantically assessed the situation. If Scot didn’t want her to cut away the strap, maybe there was another alternative. She raced up to just about his shoulder level and tried with all her might to lift the strap and untangle him from where he was caught. As strong as she was, Scot was too heavy. It didn’t work. Time was running out.
She thought about trying to wedge herself between Harvath and the face, using her legs push him out and off the piton, but there was too great a danger of them both becoming entangled and then falling with a combined weight that their equipment couldn’t handle. No, there was only one solution. Scot had to be lifted up, and that could only happen with Claudia off the face and anchored on the crest.
After wrapping an extra length of rope around Scot’s chest and under his arms, Claudia shot upward. There was no time to dig proper toeholds or hammer pitons; safety was forgotten as she focused on the man slowly choking to death below her.
The wind continued to buffet her body as she climbed. Twice the gusts threatened to rip her from the face, but she dug in deeper and refused to be beaten. Claudia’s axes swung and cracked into the ice, delivering bone jarring pings through her arms as she scrambled up the mountain. With each swing of the ax came a synchronized kick of the foot; her crampons sending shards of ice and rock flying in all directions, until she was just below the snow-covered crest of the face. From here, it would be two to three more ax holds, and then Claudia could swing herself over the top. This was the spot where Scot had said they would most likely encounter the first signs of danger—an intrusion-detection system or worse…a sentry.
Claudia thought about unholstering her SIG, but realized that her death-defying free climb had left her with no nearby pitons to snag her if she should fall. She would have to go without.
The wind howled with a ferocious intensity. It was so loud that even if someone was standing directly above her, they probably would not be able to hear the sound of her axes digging into the last of the ice. Claudia held her breath and tried to concentrate on what she was about to do. Traversing the last two meters as if it were only two feet, she prepared to hoist herself over the lip. Digging in her crampons, she gave herself a count of three and then swung her body with dangerous abandon over the top.
Unbeknownst to her, the other side of the crest sloped at an extremely steep incline, and Claudia lost control as she began rolling down the slick snow-covered surface. She dug in her heels as hard as she could and was able to stop rolling. The last thing she had expected was that the crest would give way to such a steep hill.
Claudia’s mind raced with more pressing concerns. Had there been any intrusion detectors? There was no way of knowing. The incline took her by such surprise that she didn’t have time to look. Scot could be on his last breath, she reminded herself. I have to get to him. But what about sentries? Claudia took a quick look around and saw nothing. Time to get Scot.
Hammering with a vengeance, she placed two pitons a few feet back from the lip of the crest and anchored herself in. Scot had insisted on total radio silence, but Claudia decided to break it, if only briefly, to let him know she was about to pull on the rope. She didn’t want him to give up.
“On belay,” she said into her microphone.
There was no response.
What if I’m already too late? Once again, Claudia dug in her heels, leaned back into her harness, and began pulling hand over hand with all of her might.
The rope instantly became taut, but wouldn’t move. He’s more tangled than I thought. Claudia leaned farther back and pulled harder. She willed Scot Harvath to live, and to move. Her arms ached, her back and shoulders burned, but she wouldn’t give up. Slowly, she felt herself making progress. He’
s free!
She kept pulling, hand over hand, an inch at a time. The pace and strain were excruciating, though Claudia didn’t care. Scot was free. She continued pulling him toward her. The rope piled in a twisted coil as she fed the slack off her waist. Not too much longer…almost there.
“Halt, stehen bleiben!” (Stop, don’t move!)
The voice came from behind her right shoulder and took Claudia completely off guard. She was so frightened by it that she almost let go of the rope.
“Stehen bleiben!” the voice commanded again.
The man was dressed in all white, much like them, and carried an automatic weapon, which was pointed right at her. Claudia stopped pulling on the rope, but held it taut with her left hand.
“Was machen Sie hier?” (What are you doing here?)
“Auf halber Höhe wurden wir von einem Sturm überrascht. Wir haben auf besseres Wetter gewartet und uns entschlossen, den Absteig nicht mehr zu machen.” (We are climbers. We were stuck by the storm halfway down. We waited for it to get better, and when it did, we decided to finish the climb.)
“Mitten in der Nacht? Das glaube ich nicht. Komment Sie mit!” (In the middle of the night? I don’t think so. Come with me!)
The man had been steadily closing in on her. She wrapped the rope twice around her left hand for security.
“Ich habe die richtige Ausrüstung. Schau!” (I have the right equipment, look!)
With that, Claudia grabbed one of the ice axes with her right hand, spun to her left, and with a snap, let it fly. The ax hit the man square in the chest. His throat let out a dry rasp of a death rattle as his winter white combat fatigues went red with the gush of blood pouring from his body.
“I don’t know if you can hear me,” said Claudia over her headset as she began pulling furiously on the rope, “but I’m not alone up here. We’ve got to get moving.”