by Andy Lucas
Hoping the snow was sitting upon solid rock, rather than a thin ice bridge covering a deep crevasse, Pace gingerly set the Lynx down. As he dropped the final few feet, fresh powder was thrown up high by the downblast of the rotors, instantly creating their own private snowstorm. Feeling the skids pressing into the ground, where they sank for a few inches before stopping, Pace kept the powerful engines turning just in case he needed to jump back into the air.
He needn't have worried because the plateau was a flat bed of granite, covered with a thousand years of compacted snow and ice. It could easily have held the weight of a New York skyscraper.
Within minutes, engines now dead and their snowstorm quieted, Pace and Hammond were busy unloading equipment from the rear, dumping it out onto virgin snow so bright that it would have blinded them if both men had not now been sporting sunglasses. Rachel helped too, lugging items to add to their growing pile.
'You can always change your mind, Max,' Pace ventured. 'You don't know what's out there waiting for you. Baker should have sent one of his security teams in to protect her,' he nodded over to where Rachel was kneeling down in the snow, checking the contents of a white, military backpack. If she heard, she made no sign.
'Piece of cake, don't worry,' Hammond promised. 'I'm more worried about you and that weirdo scientist trekking up some mountain, looking for a lost village while being hunted by a hungry Yeti.' The twinkle in his eyes belied the genuine concern each man felt about the next few days. 'Anyway, I'm looking forward to trying out these things,' he said, motioning towards two heavy cases they'd recently lifted out of the helicopter. Everything they carried was either white, or bagged in white so as to help avoid drawing any unwanted attention.
The next ten minutes were spent assembling the contents of the cases, which was surprisingly simple. Designed to break down into a dozen separate parts, manufactured from strong composite materials, the heaviest piece was the powerful electric motor. When they had finished, the two men stepped back to admire their handiwork. Rachel, having watched the final few minutes of assembly, whistled excitedly.
'I cannot wait to try these,' she beamed. The two men had assembled two machines; the full contents of the case, which now stood dutifully in the snow, awaiting their human riders.
Pace had seen them hundreds of times before, along Spanish beach promenades and in American shopping malls; ridden by watchful security guards or police officers. The original design had not changed much since they had first appeared in 2001, when the Segway personal transportation platform had been an almost immediate hit, especially for any role that usually involved foot patrolling.
These two vehicles they were regarding, however, were variations on the original design. McEntire's designers often tinkered with existing technology to try and create new products for the world market. This was not the 007 'Q' branch at work; it was legitimate. The Corporation had purchased the development rights of the Segway, for an exorbitant sum of money, and set about designing a series of more robust versions.
There was very little substance to a Segway anyway but the refined components and upgraded battery technology had enabled McEntire's people to build a Segway with double the range; the best results so far measuring over fifty miles range on a single charge of the stronger, yet lighter battery pack. The performance had also been enhanced, producing a top speed topping twenty miles per hour.
Still, none of the improvements had anything to do with the reason they had carted two of the experimental machines half way up the side of the Himalayas. The reason was that these machines had been specifically designed for use in snow and ice.
Affectionately nicknamed the 'Sledgeway' by its designers, the principles were the same as with the original. Pressure from feet, and shifted body weight, controlled the machine's direction and speed whilst its steering was a simple turn of the handlebars. The immediately visible difference lay in the configuration of its drive wheels.
Whereas the Segway had two solid, knobbly wheels, this snow version's wheels had the appearance of BMX wheels devoid of tyres. Built on titanium-reinforced aluminium, they had twelve spokes and their metal rims were edged with thirty metal spikes, each an inch long, designed to dig into snow and ice, bite and hold. Additionally, a small tractor drive, similar to those that powered the rear of a snow mobile, sat directly underneath the rider's feet, below the platform. Designed to move freely, on a series of clever arms and linkages, it did not adversely affect the vehicle's necessary automatic stabilisation properties and provided the additional grip, and power, that produced the Sledgeway's additional speed and endurance.
Finally, a set of three titanium arms, equipped with small skis at their ends, added stabilisation to the Sledgeway so it could easily perform on heavily undulating terrain, unlike the Segway which had been designed for smooth, hard surfaces only. Forming a triangle, one ski rode the snow directly in front of the machine; about two feet ahead of the wheels, while the other two straddled the wheels; again about two feet out from the spinning spokes. As a final touch, everything had been painted white.
'The snow has been very heavy so far this winter,' Hammond said, noting the clouds beginning to form above them. 'You'd better get going, James. You won't be able to fly if it suddenly closes in on you, no matter how good your piloting skills.'
'You trying to get rid of me?' Pace smiled. 'I know, your toys are waiting a field test.' He could see Hammond; ever the adventurer, needing to get his Sledgeway up and running.
'We should be able to use these for most of the way,' Rachel stated emphatically, already climbing up onto her Sledgeway. She had never ridden a Segway before but she was confident it would not be too hard. 'Are you coming?'
Hammond shot Pace a parting glance of encouragement. 'We'll be back here, at these coordinates, in five days. Make sure you don't forget about us and try,' he added conversationally, 'not to get eaten by some gigantic, hairy monster. I do not want to be stuck out here, with her.' He dropped his voice to a sudden whisper, feigning a helpless expression.
'Are you fully equipped? Got everything? Food, phone…guns?'
Hammond patted beneath the left armpit of his white snowsuit, where his Beretta 9mm sat snugly in its holster, invisible beneath the insulating material. 'I lost my AK,' he said.
Pace did not need reminding about that. Relieved to have been pulled into the submarine alive, he was still upset that the Zodiac had sunk into unknown depths, carrying his beloved Sten gun with it. 'But Parry was able to find me a suitable replacement.' He glanced over to where a rifle holder had been so thoughtfully built into the Sledgeway's platform. Pointing skywards, the barrel of an AR-15 was about the only black-painted object in a sea of white.
The wind chose that moment to gust, hard across the plateau, kicking up a fine cloud of surface snow. Pace knew he could not delay any longer.
'Five days. I'll be here. Watch yourself and I hope you manage to find out what happened to Barbara.'
'I intend to find her, save her and bring her home,' Rachel cut in quickly. Pace nodded his understanding and watched as Hammond threw the last of their bags up onto the machines; shared out equally between the two, before stepping up onto his Sledgeway. It made the foot plate a little cramped but there would still be enough room to their feet.
Both power units were fully charged and they were ready to go.
Sidling up next to Rachel, Pace fixed her with a thoughtful stare. This time, oddly for her she struggled to meet his gaze and felt her heart sink as his eyes bore into her own.
'I am going to say this once, and never again,' he began slowly. 'Max is going with you and, knowing him, he'll put his life on the line at the drop of a hat to save you, Barbara Balvenie, or any other innocent person you may stumble across,' Pace explained. 'I don't trust you. I don't know why Doyle is trusting you but I promise, if you come back and Max doesn't?' He stopped, leaving the threat hanging clearly in the sub-zero air.
'You'll kill me?' She couldn't actually blame him. If
their positions had been reversed, she would doubtless be issuing the same warning. 'I wouldn't worry,' she said, frowning as she slipped on a set of tinted ski goggles. 'If anyone's not coming back, it will be me.'
'That attitude won't help,' Pace snapped, suddenly furious. 'You screwed up, royally, and now you're getting your chance to make amends. That's great but you need to do so carefully, with real caution. Flying off, gung-ho, with a martyr's perspective will just get both of you killed. Understand? Rachel?' He used her first name to hammer home his point. 'If you're going to succeed, you both need to be at the top of your game. No unnecessary risks and definitely no self-destructive choices.'
'Is the lecture over now?' Rachel's voice turned as icy as the rising wind around them. 'I've been in this business a lot longer than you have, and I'm bloody good at it. Yes, I fucked up and, no, I have no wish to commit suicide. If you'll step away, I'd appreciate it. Wouldn't want to run over your feet with these wheels,' she said.
Then, with the hum of the electric motors, the two Sledgeways headed off across the plateau, towards a valley nestling between two soaring, snow-covered mountains.
With no reason to hang about, Pace had the Lynx back in the air within a few minutes, adjusting for the tug of a wind, before setting a course for their own destination. Pouring on the speed to beat the rapidly approaching snowstorm, he planned to get there within thirty minutes, despite his need to navigate through several valleys and keep as close to the ground as he could. Several times he lifted the old aircraft up and over smaller peaks, hoping that his dangerous proximity to the rock and ice would keep him hidden.
Hill, never a lover of small aircraft; still feeling very sorry for himself after his encounter with his pilot's fists, gripped his seat hard several times when Pace had to wheel around, or turn sharply to avoid colliding with a mountain. His repeated requests for a slower speed were resolutely ignored.
Pace made it clear that time was of the essence and then refused to discuss it again.
21
As night fell, Pace resolved himself to his task. There was no avoiding it any longer. He worked for McEntire and he'd been given this annoying job to do, for whatever reason he did not know. It would have made more sense to stay with Hammond; to help him and Rachel, instead of babysitting an obnoxious archaeologist, indulging him in his odd project.
The Lynx was parked in an open clearing, surrounded by thick broad-leaf forest, on a thick ice crust that had taken its weight without the skids digging in more than a few centimetres into the thin surface layer of fresh snow. Now hidden, and protected, by a thin, white nylon sheet, stretched completely over it and pegged down at multiple points around the edges, from above it would have appeared that the snowy clearing was empty. It also served to keep any snow from building up on the control surfaces; the whole thing could be pulled off, complete with any accumulated snow, in time for a rapid exit.
The snowstorm that had threatened, like so many in the mountains, had been confined to a small area. Here, surprisingly, the night sky was crystal clear and bejewelled with a million pinpricks.
Although the cover was tightly pegged down, it was still possible to lift the edge of the taut material and slide underneath. This meant they had no need to pitch a tent, or build an igloo; they simply settled down for the night in the rear of the Lynx.
'Coffee?' Pace offered Hill a mug of steaming black liquid, quickly knocked up in a small saucepan, on top of an old cooking stove someone had thoughtfully built into the back of the helicopter's empty cabin.
'Thanks,' replied Hill, adding a couple of sugar cubes from a plastic bag, pulled from his backpack, stirring with a pencil that had somehow appeared from behind his ear.
The atmosphere was surprisingly cordial. Neither man had mentioned the earlier incident because they both knew there was a job to be done. Pace, already concerned for Hammond's foray into Chinese territory and for Sarah's continued recovery back in London, knew he needed to focus properly. They were in a wilderness area, far from the nearest settlement, with no record that humans had even set foot in this particular zone for one hundred years.
'So,' he started conversationally. 'Why was this village abandoned? Disease? Famine?'
Hill smiled. 'Too many villagers kept disappearing,' he said. 'Especially when they moved the yak herds up through the narrow mountain passes to graze. In one year, they lost twelve of their men and five young boys. For a small village, it was too much to take. They did not have the people left to physically continue. Not enough men for the women to marry, or re-marry. That meant no children, no workers, no food.'
'What killed their people?' Pace knew the response he would get.
'The Yeti, according to the reports at the time. The final straw was a direct attack on the village, by several of the creatures, which claimed the lives of several of the women and two elders. That had never been heard of before so the elders, who survived, brought the remaining villagers down a few thousand feet and moved across to a more populated forest valley about forty miles from here. They abandoned their animals, fearing for their lives. They just fled.'
'That was a long time ago.'
'It was, and it was the very same village; Bruk, where two British ex-soldiers were attacked and killed by a Yeti a few years earlier. The press had already decided that this particular part of the mountains was awash with mythical creatures, feasting on human prey, so the final abandonment of Bruk came as no surprise to anyone.'
'Tell me more about it, please.' Pace was genuinely interested to find out what had caught the archaeologist's interest in this particular story.
Hill took a swallow of his drink and settled down into a lecturing style of speech; laconic and relaxed.
'These two guys were both on their last chance,' he started. 'They'd worked hard in the army, in the time when it still held sway in India, but never made anything of themselves. They dabbled in adventuring and treasure hunting but, like so many of their peers, ended up flat broke after they left the military.' Pace listened intently, sipping at his own mug of sugarless coffee. 'They had tried their luck in Nepal before but failed. Purchase records dug up by the newspapers at the time suggested they had used every last penny and were hoping to trap a Yeti.'
'Even back then, all those years ago, this myth was luring people to their deaths?'
'Of course. Though no serious scientist has ever believed they exist, at the time several of the more prestigious natural history museums were running competitions for the first person to bring in a specimen, dead or alive. It was all a showpiece, mainly paid for by the newspaper owners of the time, but serious money was on offer.' He dug into the dusty archives of his memory, chewing on his lower lip absently as he did so. 'I think there was a reward of three thousand pounds being offered around the time the unfortunate explorers were killed, by the Natural History Museum in London. It would have made them both very wealthy, let alone given them the fame they probably craved.'
'Do you know any more about them?' Pace pressed him further, hearing the wind begin to pick up mournfully outside. They were stuck in there for the night and neither man was sleepy yet. A good tale would help pass the time, as well as give him a better idea of what they were hoping to find, in Bruk, if they even found it.
'I do my research, Mr Pace.'
'James, please. Call me James. Do you think they were really killed by a mythical beast?'
'First things first,' said Hill. 'The men were good soldiers, and very close friends. Arthur Braithwaite and Jonathon Ferrier. They did not have the money for guides, dogs or sledges. It was just the pair of them and whatever they could carry on their backs. Don't forget,' he added, draining his coffee and placing the empty mug down on the worn, rubberised flooring of the cabin, 'in those days, British soldiers were used to walking miles at a time, carrying huge loads of personal kit. They would have been fit and well able to cope with the terrain. Expert shots and hunters too, when they needed to be, I have no doubt.'
Pace won
dered about these men, calling him from behind a misty veil of time, shrouding their faces and their stories. Had they just been another pair of wandering treasure hunters who ran into a sticky situation they could not find a way out of.'
'You said they did not have much money?' Hill nodded. 'Did they owe anybody? Was there any reason that it might be better not to come back, unless they had a Yeti?'
Hill saw his angle and shook his head solemnly. 'If they were going to get in debt, they would have been far better equipped than they were. I think this was their last shot at doing it themselves. If they'd have lived, perhaps they might have ended up borrowing money for another try but they didn't make it. I don't think they just decided to skip out, fake the incident, and head off into the sunset. Their egos, for one thing, wouldn't have allowed it.'
Dead end, damn, thought Pace. Still, it all helped build a picture of the past. He poured them each a fresh coffee, before pulling another old friend from a long case, tied to the side of his own backpack. The highly polished rifle that he pulled out, cradling it across his knees, was almost as old as Hill's story, though not quite.
Especially with his Sten now lost at sea, Pace glanced lovingly down at the Mauser 98; picked up on his last adventure to the Antarctic before pulling out a cloth and beginning to buff it carefully.
'What are our chances of finding the village?'
'Oh, excellent. We'll find it, I have no doubt. The maps, even in those days, were fairly good. Locals made detailed drawings of the valleys, crevasses and mountain trails and there was quite a bit of trade between the towns and the upper villages in those days.' His certainty surprised Pace and Hill chuckled as his expression. 'It's not like we're digging in the dirt for a Roman temple,' he explained. 'I had hoped to pick it up on a satellite map, or even Google Earth, but the forest is still thick at the height we're heading up to. The trees would have reclaimed much of the village since it was abandoned. Finding it from the air will be nigh on impossible but, if we follow the old trail, we should walk straight into it.'