Summit: A Novel

by Harry Farthing

  From somewhere distant and remote, Josef registered that the big Tibetan and his supporters took Ang Noru’s final victory in the game as badly as the porcupine, which someone stepped on at the exact moment the backbone segments settled to reveal that the Tibetan’s half of the room had lost all its money.

  With a roar, the Tibetan lunged across the table for Ang Noru’s throat.

  With a piercing squeal, the porcupine lunged its long, black and white quills at the legs of everyone else.

  The room ignited as surely as if it had been doused with gasoline and a match thrown into the center.

  In the midst of the screaming, brawling mass, the big Tibetan pulled both his knives on Ang Noru.

  Josef stood to help the Sherpa but the room was spinning so violently he could barely stand. He thought he was going to be sick.

  A man with a dagger in his guts staggered into him, knocking him to the floor.

  Josef got to his knees, only to be flattened again by another falling body.

  He was sick.

  When he raised his head again a small hand caught his and tugged.

  Josef crawled after little Phurbu out of the door.

  Part III

  IN THE DEATH ZONE

  IN DER TODESZONE

  62

  The Weisshaus Club, Allach Cargo Park, Munich, Germany

  September 19, 2009

  11:47 p.m.

  Police Inspector Martin Emmerich was intelligent. Could have been a lawyer or a doctor; should have been, his parents still said. That wet night in the dark of the Weisshaus parking lot, Emmerich almost wished he had listened. A soft, comfortable office or consulting room seemed eminently preferable to the rattle of the rain on an unmarked police Audi growing chillier by the minute. But yet, as he peered out at the grey, scabrous outline of the building holding his attention, he knew that it couldn’t be any other way. He was exactly where he was meant to be.

  Emmerich had been only thirteen, walking alone to his favorite model-making store in Munich, the afternoon he was pulled into a narrow alley and repeatedly kicked and beaten by four teenage skinheads because he “looked like a Jew.” He was released from the hospital three weeks later, already decided that he was going to devote himself to ensuring that, in Germany’s case, history did not repeat itself. His family and friends said he was being ridiculous; that the new generation skinheads were just young fools, more about fashion than fascism. They urged him instead to do just as they did: prove with good, honest careers, through leading respectable, civilized lives, that the dark days of the Nazis were a unique abhorrence, something to be forgotten.

  Martin had ignored them all, dedicating himself from that moment to understanding what created the Third Reich and how best to use his time to prevent any possibility of a fourth. It was even the topic of his final paper in modern history at the University of Munich. His entry into the Bavarian State Police was immediate and, after training and the monotony of a mandatory period in traffic, he got the transfer to the Group Crimes Division he desired from the outset. There, he was assigned to work alongside Gustav Klein, a twenty-five-year veteran of the department, and told to learn everything he could from one of the most knowledgeable and experienced officers in Munich.

  Doing exactly that, within two years he had been given responsibility for monitoring all the region’s youth gangs, quickly becoming one of the leading experts in the country on neo-Nazis, his chosen specialty. Senior voices in the department were already tagging him as destined for the very top after he had proven, almost single-handedly, that the high-profile German businessman and financier Stefan Vollmer had been making significant donations to the far-right NPD party and actively sponsoring other, more extreme underground neo-Nazi youth groups.

  Still only thirty-two, Emmerich’s vocation had been somewhat hampered at first by the fact that his face looked even younger than its years. However, recently he had aged. The dark bags beneath his determined eyes and the frown lines increasingly etching his forehead were beginning to betray the severity of his chosen profession. Even his slightly olive skin, the cause of the attack that set him on the course of his life, was becoming paler from too many long nights like that one, peering into the underbelly of the “New Germany” and asking himself if, despite his best efforts, he wasn’t fighting a losing battle. Neo-Nazi activity was on the rise wherever he looked …

  Emmerich was glad Klein was alongside him that evening. Even if Gustav was now more mentor than partner, the Weisshaus had a bad reputation and officers always went there in pairs. A tip-off from an informant that Max Schalb was expected at the club had pulled him there even if he knew it would be impossible for him to go inside. It didn’t matter, he felt that any proximity to the next neo he was determined to take down might prove advantageous. Martin knew well that Schalb was now Vollmer’s representative in Germany and, sitting there, he could only wonder what was going on inside and hope that their informant could get close enough to see and report. It would probably be difficult, judging by the huge crowd that had filed into the hateful nightclub earlier.

  There were no clues for Emmerich in the parking lot. Wedged with empty cars, it was totally still—the only sounds the patter of rain on the car roof and the distant buzz and thump of music from the club. Klein interrupted the calm. “I need to stretch my legs and have a cigarette.”

  He moved to get out of the car, saying, “It’s quiet,” as he opened the door.

  “I know,” Emmerich replied.

  “No, Martin,” Klein insisted, raising his index finger to focus Emmerich as he leaned back in through the door. “Listen. It’s too quiet for that cesspit.”

  It was indeed now totally silent. The rain had stopped, as had the dull pounding that always came from within the building.

  Feeling his senses alert to the unusual, Emmerich replied, “You’re right, something must be hap—”

  His words were interrupted by a rapid drilling noise.

  “Was that machine-gun fire?”

  “It was!” Klein shouted, grabbing for the car’s radio receiver.

  “Scheisse!” Emmerich swore, jumping from the car to see people already running from the club’s exits, heading for their cars. In seconds, the first vehicles were fleeing the parking lot, skidding and sliding on the dirt and gravel to get away as fast as possible.

  Closely followed by Klein, Emmerich began to run toward the building, unholstering his pistol as more shouting, screaming skinheads poured from the exits.

  He grabbed one of them by the jacket and shouted into the wild, panic-stricken face, “What happened in there?”

  “Shooting,” was all he heard before Klein dived to push the pair of them from the path of a blue Mercedes panel van that was reversing wildly toward the club.

  Regaining his footing as the terrified skinhead scrambled away, Emmerich caught a glimpse of the van’s driver as it sped back from him. A black balaclava was masking the face, its two ghostly eyeholes looking straight back at him while the van’s reverse gear whined in even greater acceleration.

  “Halt! Polizei!” Emmerich shouted, brandishing his pistol at the retreating vehicle, but the Mercedes didn’t slow. It continued to race backward to the building where it skidded to a stop just centimeters before crashing into the club’s cinder-block wall.

  For an instant, Emmerich thought he saw struggling shadows in the strips of bright light that surrounded the van filling the exit, but, just as quickly, the vehicle was accelerating toward him again.

  A burst of machine-gun fire from the club doorway ripped into the back of the escaping vehicle as the rear doors swung shut.

  Stray bullets cracked into the cars around Emmerich, who fell to the ground just as a red Volkswagen Golf, reversing out from its parking space in blind panic, smashed into the side of the van.

  In an explosion of red and white taillights and crumpl
ing bodywork, the force of the impact rocked the van wildly, the left-side wheels rising high into the air and causing it to veer to the right before crashing back down again.

  The vehicle stalled.

  Emmerich and Klein rushed forward again, badges in one hand, pistols in the other, screaming at the now stationary van, “Stop, or we shoot!”

  The masked driver looked out at them from the side window and ducked down to restart the van.

  Emmerich began pumping bullets into the front wheel directly below him as the engine desperately tried to turn.

  On the third attempt, it caught.

  Frantically pumping the accelerator to build the revs, the driver cleared the motor before gunning the van forward again.

  The shot tire spun violently and then exploded into shreds, leaving the bare wheel rim grinding and sparking on the gravel.

  The masked driver lost steering control but still didn’t stop.

  His arm suddenly thrust from the window to point a large caliber revolver at Emmerich.

  Seeing the silver firearm, Gustav Klein coldly aimed three bullets into the van’s cockpit at head height.

  The van swerved into a row of parked cars and flipped onto its side, the dead driver wedged on its horn.

  Approaching the rear of the van, Emmerich motioned Klein to cover him as he tentatively reached forward to open the rear doors.

  Lifting one he looked in to see a dark mess of blood and bodies. The light of a departing car briefly curled around him to illuminate the body on top, its bare torso was covered in tattoos and punctured by bullet wounds. Martin Emmerich realized that it was Max Schalb. He didn’t recognize any of the others.

  63

  HeiliggeIStrasse 67, Munich, Germany

  September 20, 2009

  1:05 a.m.

  Sarron was in the back room of Kassner’s bar drinking slugs of brandy, washing the taste of torture from his mouth, cursing Graf as he did so.

  What a fucking crazy old man.

  He had never seen anything like it—almost as if the man really did want a violent death in exchange for giving up the information about Quinn and his axe. Graf had goaded them continually, taunting Oleg Vishnevsky particularly to the point that the Russian had lost all control. It was ugly long before the end, a lot of blood and pain only to find out that what Quinn had discovered was not related to the Mallory and Irvine story.

  Initially Sarron was furious that the axe promised less than he hoped, incensed that they had wasted so much time to extract the information. It wasn’t even the right man tied to that metal chair. Quinn was the one he wanted to make whimper and bleed, the one who deserved to die so horribly. To make matters worse, he didn’t even know where the Englishman was now. All Oleg said was that Dmitri had called and reported he’d lost him.

  Sarron’s eyes snapped to Oleg as he asked, “Did Dmitri tell you any more about what happened? Call him again.”

  “No need. He says he will tell you everything when he arrives. For now, we wait and drink,” the Russian said, refilling Sarron’s glass and unscrewing a bottle of vodka for himself.

  Drinking back more brandy, Sarron thought some more about the story Graf told about the axe. The antiques collector was convinced, quite literally on pain of death, that it revealed a very different first summit of Everest, one where the first man to reach the highest point on earth had actually been a Nazi German. It seemed impossible, but there was no way that Graf could have been lying.

  It has to be true.

  Sarron began to think that perhaps that would be major news to certain people, people who would appreciate it for what it was, a shocking rewrite of history. He knew that there were fanatics who would welcome such a discovery, particularly in Germany.

  Maybe, but I don’t have Quinn and I don’t have the axe.

  Also Graf actually didn’t even know what else was up there, despite being convinced that more could be found. He had talked of finding frozen bodies, of equipment, of cameras, of undeveloped summit photos …

  Can that really be possible?

  It was several years since the Frenchman personally had climbed the Second Step, but he did remember that there were a lot of hidden nooks and crannies on that part of the mountain. They were largely unexplored. Off the main route, something or someone could well have lain undisturbed for years. They found Mallory and everyone said that would be impossible.

  But even if I can find it, what value does it really have?

  Sarron racked his brain as he sat there, sifting through ideas and alternatives until the door to the back room opened and Dmitri Vishnevsky entered.

  “Where the fuck have you been?”

  “In a club full of Nazis,” Dmitri said in his heavy Russian accent. “I brought you something.”

  From the inside of his long overcoat, he took out the old ice axe.

  Sarron stood up and grabbed it, demanding, “Tell me everything.”

  Studying the pick, Sarron listened as Dmitri Vishnevsky described Quinn’s kidnapping and what happened when he followed him to the Weisshaus.

  “So the Nazis already want the story of this axe?”

  “Yes. And, from what I saw, they didn’t get it. Probably why they started to beat the Englishman on the dance floor.”

  “Did they kill him?”

  “No.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “Possibly. I shot the van pretty good as it tried to get away. I aimed high to try for just the guys pulling him in. Police officers stopped the van soon after so I had to go. I don’t know the rest.”

  “So we now have what they want and, if Quinn is dead, only we know the details?”

  Kassner walked back into the room.

  “There is a lot of talk in the bar that Stefan Vollmer’s right-hand man in Germany, Max Schalb, was one of the people killed at the Weisshaus.”

  “Who is Stefan Vollmer?”

  Kassner explained.

  When he finished, Sarron raised his glass to him in thanks and then to the two Russians.

  “Boys, I think we might have found a customer to take us all back to the Himalayas.”

  64

  Lachen Monastery, Northwest Sikkim

  April 13, 1939

  4:30 p.m.

  The noise of men outside the Dak Guesthouse in Lachen broke the silence of the valley alerting Macfarlane to the arrival of the patrol Colonel Atkinson had dispatched. It was a huge relief as the days waiting for them to arrive had been interminable. Quickly looking out the low door of the drafty bungalow where he had taken up residence after his hasty exit from Schmidt’s camp, Macfarlane was immediately disappointed to see that there were only five men. He had expected more.

  Four were uniformed Gurkhas. Behind forced smiles of arrival and determined salutes to their senior officer, they were exhausted, drop-shouldered, and stretched thin from traveling too far and too fast into the highlands. The fifth man accompanying them was not a Gurkha but a taller local man dressed in the almost medieval, heavy black-and-red robes of the Tibetan nomad, a long knife hung from his belt. The hood of his cloak was raised over his head, obscuring the man’s face but not the long, black beard that hung down to his breastbone.

  Macfarlane beckoned the sergeant in as the three riflemen unpacked and the Tibetan, offering them no assistance, walked instead to the bank of the small stream that ran in front of the little hunting and trekking cottage. Entering, the Gurkha sergeant saluted again and handed Macfarlane a dispatch pouch from the colonel. The leather case felt thick and heavy in his hands.

  Seeing that the sergeant was struggling to catch his breath, Macfarlane put the pouch to one side. “Thank you, Sergeant. Take a moment, and then tell me if you saw any sign of the two missing men on your journey north.”

  The small man looked pained, firstly, at having to wait to speak in order to
regulate his breathing, and then, secondly, at having to reply in the negative. “No, Lieutenant Macfarlane, sir. Nothing at all.”

  Drawing another long breath before he could continue, he added, “We have been vigilant and made inquiries all along the route, but there has been no sight or word of them.”

  “Disappointing.”

  “Yessir.”

  “I was expecting more men, Sergeant?”

  “We traveled up under Lieutenant Bailey as a patrol of nine. But we separated earlier when he took four men to go directly to the Zemu Glacier to escort the Schmidt team back to Darjeeling. Their expedition permit has been revoked. We four are to remain under your command.”

  “So who then is the fifth man with you, Sergeant?”

  “He is called Zazar, Lieutenant Macfarlane, sir.”

  Macfarlane repeated the name to himself before asking, “Tell me more about this Zazar.”

  “He is a Tibetan, sir, a tracker assigned to us by Colonel Atkinson. He joined us in Gangtok. It is said that he has worked as a man hunter across Tibet for many overlords. I think that it is true. He …” The sergeant hesitated.

  “What is it, Sergeant?” Macfarlane asked.

  “I think that you will need to talk to this man, sir. Throughout our journey, he has complained to Lieutenant Bailey that Colonel Atkinson is not paying him enough to track wanted men and then bring them back alive all the way to Darjeeling. He says it is far, and ‘alive’ makes more work than returning only with heads as the dzong pen favors. He says that all sahibs are rich so they can pay. You must be careful of him, sir. Zazar has no love of the sahib. No love for any man, I think.”

  “I note what you say, Sergeant. Does this Zazar have any idea where the men we seek might have gone?”

  “Zazar says they have gone north into Tibet. He says that if they had gone south he would have found them already.”

  Macfarlane walked away from the sergeant to look out the door at the Tibetan. A sinister, solitary presence, Zazar was squatting on his haunches and silently staring into the running water of the mountain brook as if willing it to stop. The hood of his cloak was now thrown back and his head, long hair tied back into a plait like something from the Boxer Rebellion, was slightly angled as if he was sniffing the air.