Summit: A Novel

by Harry Farthing

  It won’t be for much longer, Quinn thought as she quietly waved them on their way.

  56

  The Zemu Glacier, Northwest Sikkim—15,250 feet

  April 4, 1939

  9:45 a.m.

  Macfarlane had watched the drama of Schmidt’s return to the camp unfold, unsuspecting that the whole thing was as contrived as the Oberammergau Passion Play. The first act, the previous evening, was the arrival of a very exhausted Schmidt alone with the two Sherpas and rambling about the need for a rescue. The second was the subsequent sight of Becker being brought back to the camp in the small hours of the morning on a stretcher.

  Even in the dark, Macfarlane could see the bloody foam drooling from the man’s mouth and hear his labored breathing interspersed between the spasms of horrendous coughing. The Sherpa Ang Noru said that the German was going to die. The lieutenant knew little about mountain illnesses, but it did seem highly possible so he was somewhat relieved when a message from Schmidt was delivered to the mess tent during breakfast that announced Becker was going to make it as long as he was taken to lower ground as soon as possible.

  Now, as he stood in a semicircle with the rest of Schmidt’s team, he was observing what was actually the third act—the Sherpas pushing and pulling the seriously ill Becker up onto one of the two small ponies that Ang Noru would lead back down the valley, the other already loaded with their equipment. Their expedition was over. They would return to Darjeeling and then, when Becker was able, he would make his own way back to Germany. The thought that Becker had been so damaged getting Schmidt to the top of a mountain only made Macfarlane detest the fat führer even more.

  Although shaken up for a few days, the expedition slowly resumed its business and the British officer’s interest was turned elsewhere when one of the cook boys, eager for a tip, sought him out to say that the tracks of a “ghost cat” had been sighted further down the glacier. Macfarlane knew from his long reading sessions in the camp that “ghost cat” was the local people’s name for the snow leopard. The thought of even seeing one, let alone taking a shot at it, excited him immensely, especially after his earlier disappointments trying to hunt tiger. It would be a fitting finale to his time on the subcontinent.

  The lieutenant quickly sought leave from Schmidt to take a couple of the climbing Sherpas to see if he could find it. At first Schmidt seemed a little nervous at the idea, but when the Sherpas explained that it seemed be staying near to the glacier, he acquiesced. They left the next morning, Macfarlane, Sen Bhotia, and Dorge Temba intent on combing the rocky flanks of the glacier’s valley with the first objective of finding a small flock of bharal. The blue sheep had been seen with a number of recently born young, the Sherpas saying it was the lambs that would have attracted the snow leopard down from the high hills.

  Macfarlane liked the plan because even if they didn’t see the snow leopard, he could at least shoot a bharal ram for his trouble. However, the day tracking them proved to be as hard as any he could remember. The two Sherpas were incredibly strong, and he struggled to keep up with them as they searched high and low for the elusive bharal. Only as the sun was setting did they finally spy them grazing on a patch of stunted spring shoots pushing up amidst the blasted rocks at the very snout of the actual glacier.

  As it appeared the sheep were going to settle there for the night, Macfarlane and the Sherpas set up a makeshift camp in the boulders above, the Sherpas taking the first watch so that the lieutenant could rest until midnight and recover. After eating a little, Macfarlane could do no more than collapse into his sleeping bag. When a bitter cold pushed into it, waking him just before 11:00 p.m., he saw that a rising full moon was casting a grey light on the hillside, illuminating the tumble of rocks that descended below. The conditions were perfect to view the beast if it appeared, so, even though it was earlier than agreed, Macfarlane got up to join the Sherpas.

  Quietly approaching them from behind, he saw that they were having a hushed but animated conversation about something.

  Sen Bhotia was holding up a small silver object, his hand twisting it to catch the moonlight while they both looked at it with an intense concentration.

  “What have you got there, boys?” Macfarlane whispered as he silently arrived next to the two Sherpas.

  The pair jumped in obvious surprise, Sen Bhotia plunging the object of their attentions into a pocket with such speed that it instantly aroused Macfarlane’s curiosity.

  “Come on, let me see it,” he repeated amiably.

  The Sherpa feigned ignorance.

  The English officer asked yet again but still Sen Bhotia ignored him forcing Macfarlane to hiss, snow leopard or not, “Give it to me, man. Now!”

  Even then Sen Bhotia did so only reluctantly, eyeing Dorge Temba nervously as he handed it over.

  In the half-light of the spring moon, Macfarlane first thought it was some form of native talisman. But as he studied it, he saw that it was a fragment of beaten metal.

  Turning it over in his hand, he asked the two Sherpas what it was.

  They looked at each other but said nothing.

  “Tell me right now what this is, or I will write this disobedience up in your chits when we return to Darjeeling,” Macfarlane threatened, knowing full well that the chits, the written reports of their performance and behavior on an expedition, were extremely important to them. Just one bad chit could keep a good Sherpa pulling rickshaws for the rest of his days—such was the competition for climbing work in Darjeeling.

  At the mere mention, Sen Bhotia began to speak. “We find it when we return to rescue Sahib Becker. Namgel Sherpa speak of it, say that Sahib Becker only live because he killed the bones. They dead now.”

  Macfarlane was completely at a loss to understand what the Sherpa was hesitantly talking about. He looked at the other man, holding the crushed piece of metal up close to Dorge’s face and saying, “Dorge Temba, you tell me what this is. Tell me everything now.”

  Dorge Temba shied away from the badge’s proximity, looking down before replying. “Lieutenant Macfarlane, it is true what Sen Bhotia say, I swear it. It is a mark of death, the bones of dead men. Sahib Becker show it—here on his hat—when he climb peak with Sahib Schmidt. Namgel see it and tell to us.”

  The Sherpa anxiously tapped his finger against his forehead to show where the object had been placed on Becker’s hat.

  “Namgel says it make Sahib Becker strong, strong like Sherpa, stronger than any other sahib Namgel ever see in the mountains. But when they come down, they are all slow because of Sahib Schmidt. Namgel say the bones of the dead men attracted mountain demons that caught up with them because they were so slow. They start to eat Sahib Becker’s lungs because they are strong, and the demons are jealous, and the demons want to take them. When they stop on the glacier, Namgel says to Sahib Becker, ‘Destroy the bones or you die.’ When we come back for him, we see he has broken the bones so he can live, but Sen Bhotia takes the broken bones. Sen Bhotia does a bad thing.”

  Pulling out his lighter, the lieutenant held the “bones” up to its flame. The crumpled, mangled metal glinted as its damaged edges caught the flickering yellow light. Intently studying it, Macfarlane saw that it had indeed once been fashioned as bones, a skull and crossbones; in fact, it reminded him of a cap badge not dissimilar to that worn by the 17th/21stLancers, one of the most famous British cavalry regiments, even if it lacked the words “Or Glory” that traditionally hung beneath its motif of death.

  But Becker is a bloody German anyway, so what would …

  The sudden realization that it was a death’s-head—an SS soldier’s cap badge—splashed adrenaline across the inside of the lieutenant’s chest like acid. The shock made him gasp. Clenching the badge into his palm, he frantically began to ask himself what else he had missed, but his questions were immediately interrupted by a hideous squeal.

  A cloud of dust exploded up from the r
ocks below them. From within there was a momentary scramble of twisting and writhing, snarling and bleating, before the bharal flock fled in every direction across the hillside. When the dust settled, Macfarlane could see, in the silver moonlight, a snow leopard crouched at what had been the center of the disturbance. The ghost cat had seized a bharal lamb by the neck.

  The three men watched in silence as the leopard’s viselike jaws suffocated the short life out of it with little effort, the baby bharal’s pathetic kicks and stifled grunts slowly diminishing until the only movement was the end of the snow leopard’s long tail flicking rhythmically in anticipation of the coming meal. Only when satisfied that its prey was dead and the taste of its sweet blood was too much to resist any longer, did the beast effortlessly slink off into the darkness, the small lamb hanging like a rag doll, loose and lifeless in its mouth.

  Watching the incredible scene below them unfold, Lieutenant Charles Macfarlane never once thought to get his rifle. All he could think of was that if Becker was more snow leopard than mountain goat, then his impeccable military record was in serious jeopardy. He needed to get a message back to Colonel Atkinson as soon as possible.

  57

  Parkhotel Koblenz, Schillerstrasse 5, Munich, Germany

  September 19, 2009

  7:55 p.m.

  The Mercedes pulled up outside the hotel entrance.

  Graf stopped the car, catching Quinn’s arm to prevent him from getting out.

  “Some things. You need to check out of this hotel. Your French friend will have arrived in Munich by now and if he has the right connections he’ll quickly find you in a hotel like this. Nightly guest rosters are easily hacked and I am sure you innocently checked in under your own name and passport. Well, that has to stop now. You need to keep moving, be elusive. Go in, pack everything onto your bike and I will send Dirk by at nine p.m. He drives a black BMW M5. Just follow it to my warehouse and store your bike there. After, he will take you on to my apartment. You will be safer there.”

  The collector pulled out a small tin from inside his attaché case and handed it to Quinn. “In the meantime, like your good Mr. Crowley, you should probably have this.”

  Inside the tin was a small black pistol. Quinn quickly closed it and thrust it back at Graf. “I don’t need that thing. It looks more like a bloody starter pistol than a weapon anyway.”

  Graf squeezed Neil’s forearm still tighter. “Believe me, Neil Quinn, if you need to use it, you’ll soon be running as fast as you can. It’s a Mauser WTP. Luftwaffe pilots used to keep them in their flight boots to defend themselves if they were shot down. From what you have told me, you may well need to take it from your boot if Sarron catches up with you.”

  Saying nothing more, Quinn pocketed the tin with its pistol.

  “I need to go to my shop now to catch up with what Dirk has sold today. I’ll see you later.”

  Quinn reached for the ice axe and opened his daypack to put the tin with the gun inside. Before he could get out of the car, Graf handed him the old Leica camera as well, saying, “Don’t forget this too. A souvenir of our day together perhaps?”

  Taking the camera, Quinn left the car and went into the hotel, crouching from the rain that had replaced the snow on their drive back, cursing to himself that the last thing he wanted to do was go back out in it again on his motorcycle.

  From the window of the crowded Istanbul Café across the street, Dmitri Vishnevsky watched Quinn’s return.

  Calling his brother Oleg, Sarron immediately took the phone. Hearing that Quinn was back at the hotel and Graf had left, he said, “Good. Stay on him, Dmitri. Just as planned. Does he have the ice axe with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Remember, I need Quinn and I need that axe. As soon as we have got the story from the antiques dealer, we will join you and go in later when Quinn is sleeping. We have got to wait, but there’s time enough. We’ll do one at a time. Just stay on him, Dmitri.”

  58

  Wunderkammer Graf Antiquitäten, Theatinerhof, Munich, Germany

  September 19, 2009

  8:50 p.m.

  Sarron watched Dirk Schneider cross the courtyard talking animatedly into his cell phone. Only when certain he was gone did the Frenchman silently emerge from the shadow of the church and follow the arched walls of the square to approach the shop entrance.

  Gesturing Oleg Vishnevsky to stay back, he clenched his fist around the door’s handle, determined to open it as gently as possible. He must have moved it only a centimeter, but instantly an old-fashioned but very loud bell began to clang like crazy.

  The Frenchman could only freeze in the doorway as Vishnevsky slipped back into the shadows of the courtyard.

  “Come in, Monsieur. I have been expecting you,” a voice said from inside the shop.

  As Sarron warily moved in through the door, Graf stepped forward, pointing his Luger pistol straight at him.

  “Hände hoch, as they say in all the best war films.”

  Raising his hands half in the air, palms forward to show they were empty, Sarron edged forward into the shop’s unholy menagerie until Graf pointed the short barrel of the weapon to the side, saying, “Take a seat in one of those chairs. From what I have heard, they could have been made especially for you. Would you like a schnapps or do you prefer pastis? We should be civilized, after all. You are, I assume, Jean-Philippe Sarron?”

  Sarron didn’t reply. He just stared back at Graf as he slowly stepped toward the first of the chairs. He eased down onto it, noticing that the arm holding the pistol over him was beginning to waver slightly in its aim.

  It won’t be long.

  Sarron regulated his breathing and waited in silence.

  “Nothing to drink or say? Oh well, so be it,” Graf said as he stared at Sarron. “I must say that my first impression of you is rather disappointing. I had a clear premonition while I took a walk around Dachau this afternoon that you were going to be my nemesis, but perhaps it is not to—”

  A tapping on the glass of the shop door interrupted Graf, who instinctively turned to the source of the noise.

  There was a moment’s silence before the door exploded open in a blast of glass fragments, its old bell flying deep into the shop.

  Instantly, Sarron lunged for the distracted man, slapping the pistol from his weak grip and jumping onto him.

  Locked together, they crashed back against a tall glass display case. It shattered under their combined impact, a long shard of glass skewering Graf’s upper arm before they both fell back to the floor. The collector passed out from the shock, blood pooling under him.

  Sarron quickly pulled himself free as Oleg Vishnevsky stood above, pointing the Serbians’ AKM down at the unconscious man. “Put the gun away, Oleg. We won’t need it now,” Sarron ordered, checking Graf’s neck for a pulse. “Turn off the main lights and find something to tie him with. We’ll take him into the back of the shop and put a tourniquet on his arm. I need him alive.”

  The Russian went to work cutting some lengths of electrical flex with a long ceremonial SS dagger that had fallen from the broken display case, while Sarron pulled one of the two heavy metal chairs to the very rear of the store with a screech of its bare metal feet.

  Holding the knife and the lengths of cable in one hand, Vishnevsky then dragged the still-unconscious, bleeding Graf along the floor after Sarron. After lifting him up into the metal chair, he bound Graf’s hands to it and twisted another length of flex high around his upper arm in an attempt to slow the bleeding from the wound.

  With the collector where he wanted him, Oleg ripped a moth-eaten battle flag from the wall and, bunching its fabric in his hand, took hold of the shard of protruding glass and pulled it from Graf’s arm as fast as he could. Dropping the fragment, he forced the flag’s red, white, and black material into the wound instead before binding it with more flex.

 
The searing pain of the glass blade’s removal shocked Graf back to consciousness. He groggily angled his gaze up at Oleg Vishnevsky, whose cell phone began to ring.

  Vishnevsky answered it, conversing rapidly in Russian.

  “Russisch. Of course,” Graf said faintly to himself, as Oleg passed the phone to Sarron, saying, “Quinn is on the move.”

  Sarron listened intently and shouted, “Well fucking well follow them! There’s nothing we can do now, we’re busy.”

  Passing the phone back and seeing the collector was conscious again, Sarron stepped forward to put his face close to Graf’s ear.

  “Listen to me, Graf. I don’t want to kill you. You’re not worth the trouble. I just want you to tell me about the ice axe. I know it has value. Tell me why.”

  The collector, missing his spectacles and with a thin dribble of blood running from the corner of his mouth, turned his head to stare back at Sarron and said, “The biggest wound you inflict on me is that you deem me not worth the trouble.”

  “What? Look, old man, you need to be smart about this. You are going to tell me whether you want to or not and if you make me extract the information, I warn you, it will not be pleasant.”

  Graf looked again at the Russian. “This beauty undoubtedly has the capability to make me tell you what you need to know, but I should warn you: I have the capability—the need, in fact—to necessitate that you kill me in the process.”

  “Shut up with your nonsense, Graf. You’re wasting my fucking time!” Sarron screamed, slapping the collector so hard across his face that it twisted to hit the metal back of the chair. The old firing mechanism of a rifle dug into Graf’s cheek, lifting a flap of skin that quickly released a stream of crimson down the collector’s face.