by Matt Rogers
He lay down, breathed in and out twice, and was asleep in seconds.
54
King had never been the meditative type.
Then he’d spent enough time with Will Slater for the man’s Eastern philosophies to rub off on him, and he’d been a converted disciple ever since.
He employed the same tactics Slater had taught him a hundred times over.
Sit up straight. Focus on the breath — in, out, in, out — and repeat ad infinitum. Don’t get mad at yourself if thoughts float into your head — instead, detach from them and let them drift on harmlessly by. Try to separate yourself from the concept of “I” — get rid of the ego, and recognise that you are the same physical matter as the rest of the world around you. It’s all consciousness. It’s all one and the same. And then, when you reach this inner stillness, do nothing but sit and exist.
Those were the basics. When Slater laid them out, King dismissed them as wishy-washy bullshit, but then after much reluctant practice he’d managed to achieve a full hour of silence, and it changed everything. He came out of it thinking he was capable of literally anything. There was something about the process of blending into his surroundings that flipped a switch in his brain. Suddenly the pain and suffering of training wasn’t part of him — it was something separate, something controllable. He found he could push his body harder in the gym every day, just by making his mind quieter.
Now he detached completely, and settled into a gentle rhythm as the multiple layers of clothing kept him warm. Feeling returned to his ankle, but there was less pain. Halfway through his shift, he took the opportunity to probe the joint with two fingers, and found the swelling had reduced.
Maybe it’d all be okay after all.
A couple more hours passed without incident, and then it was four in the morning, and he woke Slater with a tap on the side.
Slater cracked an eyelid open and said, ‘You need more sleep?’
‘Let me get another hour and I’ll be fine.’
‘You sure?’
‘I know my body.’
‘Go for it.’
King stretched out on the forest floor, draped himself in more layers, and with his mind quieter than it had been in weeks, went out like a light.
55
Slater woke King at five on the dot, and together they packed up their gear and scouted the trail for signs of life in the pre-dawn light.
There was nothing.
Not a soul around.
The birds came to life as light bled into the sky, and Slater used the opportunity to skirt up and down the hillside, patting down corpses that had long ago gone cold. He found several with identical Sig Sauer P320s and fetched every spare magazine he could find. He came back to King with another eight fresh magazines in total, and again they split them four apiece. With their guns fully loaded, they donned their gear with the newfound expertise of seasoned trekkers and set off before they could convince themselves otherwise.
‘You hungry?’ King said.
‘Somewhat,’ Slater said. ‘I don’t want to bother that guy again, and there’s a greater chance he’ll be spotted interacting with us in broad daylight. Besides, there’s bound to be somewhere to eat further up the trail.’
‘Agreed on all counts.’
They didn’t talk much, and there was no wonder. The calmness of the morning quickly wore off after the first major ascent, which left them gasping for breath at the top of a long and winding climb. Then they pushed harder, weaving along rock formations and over bridges that crossed glacial streams nearly frozen over. Snow cropped up with increasing frequency, powdering the sides of the trails until they suddenly found themselves surrounded by the stuff. There was no need to shrug on another layer — the intensity of the trekking kept them warm the whole way.
They stumbled into Machhermo — resting at roughly fifteen thousand feet — just after ten in the morning. The small village was situated in a flat basin, surrounded on three sides by stunning snow-capped peaks spearing toward the heavens. The giant mountains weren’t in the distance anymore. They were right there in their faces.
But Slater wasn’t exactly paying attention to the scenery.
He was in terminator mode, all his focus concerned with keeping up a measured pace so he didn’t drop from exhaustion. The number of miles they were racking up each day had finally caught up to him, and when he stopped to assess his condition in the warmth of a random teahouse’s foyer, he realised he was in worse shape than he thought.
King, it seemed, was in a similar boat.
They both doubled over to catch their breath, and when they met each other’s gaze they found a certain hollow emptiness in each other’s eyes.
King said, ‘Shit.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Let’s eat and drink and see how we’re feeling.’
‘Yeah.’
There was little left to be said. They zombie-walked into the dining hall, catching the attention of a handful of trekkers treating themselves to a late breakfast after a sleep-in.
One of the Nepali guides regarded the newcomers warily. ‘Where you walk from?’
‘Phorste Thanga,’ Slater said.
His eyes widened. ‘It’s ten in the morning.’
‘Yeah.’
They thumped down into the seats and dropped their foreheads to the crooks of their elbows in unison. A young Nepali woman approached them as they tried their best to recover.
She said, ‘What can I get you?’
‘Food,’ they muttered together.
It didn’t take long. They were the only trekkers the kitchen was cooking for when the last of the breakfast hangers-on trickled out to get their journey started. Gokyo was the only destination worth reaching further up the mountain. Machhermo seemed to exist solely as a pitstop before the final push to Gokyo, and beyond to Everest, so it was no wonder the village was made up entirely of teahouses, supply shops, and, at the edge of the village, a small doctor’s office.
Neither Slater nor King needed a doctor.
They had no desire to be loaded with pain pills — not when the culmination of their trip was likely to require all their fine motor skills and then some.
So they sat and recuperated in mutual silence, and popped a couple more altitude sickness tablets in the meantime.
Not that the Diamox was helping Slater in the slightest.
He didn’t have headaches, and he didn’t have nausea, but the full force of his aching muscles hit him as soon as he stopped moving and killed the momentum. The breath rattled in his throat as he desperately fought to move oxygen to his cramping musculature. It didn’t work. When the Nepali woman returned with the usual momos, fried rice and eggs, Slater could barely lift his fork to shovel the steaming food into his mouth.
King noticed. ‘What’s wrong?’
Slater shook his head — he could barely manage the gesture. ‘Nothing — I’m fine.’
‘No, you’re really not.’
‘I don’t think I’m getting enough oxygen.’
‘You going to vomit?’
‘It’s not that. It’s … my muscles.’
‘They’re cramping?’
‘I feel a hundred pounds heavier.’
‘Can you make it to Gokyo?’
‘How far?’
‘Four hours, probably.’
He clamped his jaw and clenched his teeth and said, ‘Yeah. Should be fine.’
‘You need to tell me if you’re going to collapse.’
‘I’m not. Not yet. I’ve been through worse.’
‘I need you on your A game,’ King said. ‘If you want the truth, we’re probably going to run into them en route to Gokyo. Violetta’s been sending intel dumps. Calculating average speeds, based on the sightings. We’re either going to reach Gokyo just after them, or at the same time.’
Slater chewed slowly on a mouthful of rice. It took all the effort in his system to simply open and close his mouth.
Then he nodded.
; ‘Sounds good.’
He could feel King’s eyes on him.
Slater mumbled, ‘How’s your ankle?’
‘Better.’
‘Great. At least one of us is managing.’
King slapped him on the back. ‘You’ll be fine. Finish your food, and let’s go.’
56
As soon as King stepped outside he bore the brunt of the weather.
It’s hard to tell whether the temperature’s plummeting or not when your body’s permanently warm and your heart rate’s constantly elevated. Now they’d had the time to cool down, they ventured out into the Machhermo air and King started shivering immediately.
Slater trudged behind him.
King couldn’t deny he was concerned.
‘How are you planning to get through this?’ he said. ‘We have close to another thousand feet of elevation to go. You sure you don’t want to stay here?’
Slater stared at him through half-closed eyes. ‘I’m not letting you do this alone.’
‘You’re no use like this. You have to admit that.’
Slater said, ‘All I need is to see them. Then adrenaline will take over. You know that just as well as I do.’
‘Sure, but that will only prop you up for so long.’
‘Then we’ll have to get it done quickly.’
Refusing to listen to another word, Slater brushed past King and began the trek up the hillside.
King bristled, but didn’t protest.
The truth was…
…he needed Will Slater.
He was far from a hundred percent, and he knew he couldn’t get it done alone. Not in this sort of compromised position. Sure, they’d decimated everyone they’d come into contact with, but exhaustion was creeping up on them. The silent killer. The more fatigued they became, the faster their reaction speed would plummet, and they’d lose the main advantage they carried over their competition.
Against trained insurgents, they’d fail spectacularly if they were doing it solo.
No, they needed each other, as much as their tender egos might hate to admit it.
King admitted it to himself. That was good enough.
They climbed out of Machhermo, weaving their way up sharp ascents until the rising elevation gave way to flat plains covered in snow and riddled with boulders. King likened it to a fantasy landscape — it was hard to believe the sweeping scenery was even real. He chalked half of it up to the terrain’s beauty, and half to his own delirium. Then it became a mad game of concentration as he struggled to balance the trekking itself with the constant need to watch for enemies.
He could see Slater struggling with it, too.
They passed handfuls of trekkers with recurring frequency, and each time King’s hand imperceptibly wandered to the Sig Sauer tucked under his jacket. He wouldn’t put it past the insurgents to disguise themselves amongst ordinary civilians, and each group they passed found themselves at the receiving end of paranoid stares from King and Slater. Frankly, they didn’t have the energy to be subtle.
They made it past all three of the Gokyo Lakes without so much as a glance of confirmation that they were on the insurgents’ heels.
It was somewhat demoralising.
And Slater clearly wasn’t happy with the nature of the terrain.
‘They could have one sniper out here and that’d be that,’ he said. ‘I don’t like this at all.’
‘Have you seen their arms?’ King said. ‘It’s all the same shit. P320s and AK-47s. Nothing else. I think they got a couple of shipments — one with the AKs, and one with the Sigs that fell off the back of one of our military’s trucks — and they’re working with that.’
‘It wouldn’t be hard to get a long-range rifle.’
‘Even so, they don’t know what we look like. We’ve got buffs covering our faces, glasses on our eyes — they’re not going to kill every pair of men walking together until they hit us. They’re not going to risk that kind of collateral — it’d kill their tourism industry and ruin the economy.’
He could almost see the gears turning over in Slater’s head, using what little brainpower he had left to compute the possibilities. Then he said, ‘Fair enough.’
‘We’re not far now.’
King watched Slater’s hand instinctively go to the gun at his waist. Just for reassurances sake. Slater said, ‘Then there’ll be a fight.’
‘Yes, there will.’
‘I should be ready for a fight.’
‘You said it yourself, remember? Adrenaline will kick in. You’ll be okay.’
Slater’s footsteps seemed to become heavier. ‘Yeah… it’ll be okay.’
King didn’t linger on his friend’s condition. There was no other way to put it — Slater’s body was shutting down.
But you only need to make it to Gokyo.
Figure out who’s behind this, fire a few shots, grab the girl, get the fuck out of Nepal.
Simple as that.
He knew it wouldn’t be.
Nothing ever goes according to plan.
They passed the final lake, frozen over from the arctic temperatures, and then it was a simple flat path all the way to the base of the village. They saw Gokyo from a mile out, resting in the snowy plains, dwarfed by the enormous peak behind it. Gokyo Ri was a gargantuan piece of nature, rising up into the clouds, its peak invisible in the late-afternoon gloom. Trekkers summited it in the morning, often getting up at four a.m. so they had the best chance of a cloudless photo at the peak.
King saw it, and bristled.
Slater saw it too.
The cold seemed to intensify.
‘Be on guard now,’ King warned him. ‘They’ll see us coming from the village. Keep the buff over your nose and mouth, and don’t adjust your glasses. And get ready to fight.’
‘Mmm…’
King spun around and seized him by the shoulders, fear rippling through him. Not toward the insurgents they would almost certainly encounter, but toward Slater’s health. He’d never seen his friend like this. Snowy wind whipped and lashed against them, but they both steeled themselves.
‘Hey,’ King snapped, speaking over the snowstorm. ‘You hear me? Get it together. You might not have anything left in the tank, but you need to find some sort of reserves. You’re simply not going to survive if you walk into Gokyo like this.’
‘I’m trying.’
‘I know. Try harder.’
‘Okay.’
‘This is it,’ King said. ‘A few more hired thugs, and either Perry or the porter, and then it’s all over.’
Slater was sluggish as he nodded his understanding. ‘I’ll perform. Don’t worry.’
‘You ever felt anything like this before?’
‘No.’
‘Then how do you know you’ll be able to?’
Slater shrugged off King’s grip and started trudging through the snow again. ‘Because otherwise I’m dead.’
King wanted to say a million things, but elected not to.
He followed Will Slater into Gokyo.
57
It hurt to breathe.
Slater considered himself something of an expert in human willpower. He’d spent most of his career pushing his own limits, and been rewarded handsomely for it.
This, though…
This was a different beast.
His heart was working overtime to keep his body moving. There’d been a click inside his head halfway between Machhermo and Gokyo. He’d ignored it, just as he was ignoring all the discomfort rippling through him, but he knew what it meant. He was operating on full survival mechanisms now — when he stopped, he would crash. The fight or flight response was keeping him moving, but when he came to rest his body would likely shut down.
He couldn’t afford to think about it. Each step forward took a Herculean effort, and it was only going to get worse the longer they spent at this altitude. He’d been telling himself the adrenaline would override his exhaustion when it came time to fight for Raya, but as time passed
he found himself doubting that more and more.
You don’t know who’s behind it.
You don’t know what you’re walking into.
You don’t know anything.
The right move would be to call it in. Accept they were compromised, inform Violetta they were pulling out, and leave it to the professional negotiators to sort out the mess they left behind.
A few hundred feet from the mouth of Gokyo, he voiced his concerns.
King said, ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Now that we’re this close to it, I’m pushing ahead. If you need to stop here, then stop. But something about this whole thing is fishy as hell, and you know just as well as I do that the negotiators won’t get to the bottom of it. I have an awful feeling if we pull out, no one will ever work out what happened here.’
Slater wasn’t going to argue with any of that. He shut his eyes, screamed at his body to respond, and quickened his pace.
It worked.
Even though his muscles protested, he sped up. King matched his pace and suddenly they were moving fast underneath a snow-covered archway. It symbolised their official entrance into Gokyo. They exchanged a glance, tucked their buffs a little further up the bridges of their noses, and pushed on.
‘Door to door?’ Slater said.
‘Yeah,’ King said. ‘Door to door.’
‘We’re going to get ourselves killed.’
‘No,’ King said. ‘Somehow, I don’t think we are.’
Slater could see the man’s demeanour shifting. It was more obvious because his own body was refusing to respond — in past confrontations they’d shared, their adrenaline tended to peak in unison, narrowing their focus, giving them tunnel vision. Now Slater could see King going through the transformation. King straightened up, and his breathing intensified, and he seemed to expand across the shoulders as his muscles linked together in a cohesive chain. He was ready for a fight to the death.
Slater wasn’t.
He could move faster than before, but the cocktail of stress chemicals that his brain ordinarily released like clockwork was still buried deep down inside. Inaccessible for now.