by Matt Rogers
‘Holy shit,’ he breathed.
He seized Perry by the collar and hauled him toward the waiting chopper.
72
Slater could barely keep his eyes open, but when he spotted Jason King on the peak he couldn’t keep the smile off his face.
What surprised him most was Oscar Perry standing alongside the man, clutching a laptop between his fingers.
It was the fucking porter?!
He heard Drew’s muffled voice saying, ‘This might be rough.’
‘Whatever,’ he mumbled.
‘Hold on to something.’
He gripped the door handle, and the chopper smashed into the rocks underneath it a couple of seconds later. He lurched forward, thrown against his seat, and what little energy he had left hissed out of his body.
He almost moaned.
‘Go,’ Drew yelled through the windshield, coaxing King and Perry into motion. ‘Go, go, go!’
Slater was so preoccupied with finding King alive that he lost concentration on the Sig Sauer in his hand. The barrel drifted away from the pilot, arcing into the footwell.
Slater mumbled a curse and readjusted his aim.
Drew looked across. ‘I could have knocked that thing aside about a dozen times already. Give it a rest.’
Slater paused for thought as outside, King and Perry raced for the chopper.
He said, ‘Why didn’t you?’
‘You seem like a decent guy,’ Drew said. ‘You just want to help your friend.’
‘Friends, apparently.’
‘Who’s the blond guy?’
Slater muttered, ‘I know about as much as you do.’
King hurled the rear doors open and ducked low as he launched himself up into the cabin. He scooted across and allowed Perry to crush in behind him. Perry swung the door closed, then reached over and tapped Drew once on the shoulder.
‘All good,’ he yelled above the roar of the rotors.
Drew lifted off with a stomach-lurching swoop.
And something thwacked against the underside of the chopper.
Slater swore. ‘Where’s that coming from?’
King said, ‘Halfway up Gokyo Ri.’
Slater risked a glance out the window. Sure enough, it was bedlam. Trekkers were scattering to the sides of the trail or hitting the deck, reacting with understandable terror to the unsuppressed gunshots. The gunfire itself was coming from a convoy of more than twenty men bunched together, clad in ordinary hiking gear but wielding extraordinary firepower. There were rifles and pistols in the mix, and something that looked eerily like a—
‘To the right!’ Slater screamed. ‘Now!’
Drew understood, and worked the cyclic control and the collective control simultaneously. The chopper lurched violently to the right. Slater’s head nearly hit the roof, and the whiplash sent pain bolting through his neck. Without their seatbelts fastened, King and Perry smashed into the far door and collapsed back into their seats in a dazed heap.
But the missile streaked past them, missing the helicopter by a dozen feet, and that was all that mattered.
‘Holy shit,’ Perry shouted, watching the smoky streak whisk past his window. ‘Get us out of here.’
Drew complied.
He dropped the nose and worked the controls like an expert and the chopper rocketed to the left and plummeted lower in altitude, almost skimming the slope of Gokyo Ri in the process. Slater heard two distinct clicks — King and Perry getting their harnesses over their shoulders just in time — and the next thing they knew everyone was lurching this way and that, thrown around by the violent manoeuvres.
Slater gave silent thanks that Drew was such a competent pilot.
Then again, anyone who had to work in this region of the world would get good, fast.
They picked up speed and the surroundings outside flashed by, like a surreal dream, snow-capped mountains racing past the windshield and the sun glare nearly blinding them as they plummeted toward Gokyo. Drew pushed the chopper even harder, and it banked to the left like it was manoeuvring on the set of a Hollywood blockbuster. A sharp thwack emanated from the back seat and Slater twisted around to see King wide-eyed and pale, staring at a bullet indentation in the rear door, next to his chest. If it had penetrated the chassis, he’d have been a dead man.
Then another bullet shattered the window right by his head, spraying him with glass, and wind screamed and howled into the cabin.
Slater shielded his eyes from the glass shards whipping around in the centrifuge, and then checked to make sure King hadn’t been struck.
The man was unhurt. Riddled with cuts, bruised in a dozen places, on the verge of total exhaustion…
But not shot.
And that was the important thing.
They rocketed past the convoy on the mountainside and left them behind, the threat level now rapidly diminishing. Then they passed over Gokyo and followed the route they’d used to arrive in the village, only in reverse. Soon the town was a speck in the distance and they were surrounded by white valleys and rocky peaks.
Slater said, ‘Where are we headed?’
‘I’ll take you to Lukla,’ Drew said. ‘There’s an airport there you can use to get wherever you need to go. Then I need to go back to Gokyo. I’m sure there were civilians caught in the crossfire. The aftermath might be messy.’
‘I think it was clean,’ Slater said. ‘From what I saw, they all got out.’
‘No harm in checking.’
‘You’re a good man,’ Slater said.
‘I try to be.’
Slater let the silence settle over the cabin, and then something forced its way into his murky brain and hit him like a bolt of lightning.
He twisted around and said, ‘Where the fuck is Raya?’
73
King explained, and then gave him time for it to sink in.
Which meant shutting up and letting Slater compartmentalise.
Because it was bound to hurt.
In truth, it hadn’t fully hit King either. He’d seen her die in front of him, but everything since had been a mad scramble for survival in a hostile environment. Now there was breathing room, and he replayed it over and over again in his mind.
The gunshot. Her body falling. Mukta’s sick, twisted smile.
‘How do people like that exist?’ he muttered to himself.
Perry noticed, and figured out what he was talking about. ‘I spent nearly a week with him. By the end, I understood.’
King looked across. ‘He told you?’
‘He let certain details slip.’
‘What’s his story?’
‘In India, he lived with his parents in a small rural village. The village rested on land that had been claimed by a right-wing militia. No one who lived there even knew, so they went on selling their crops and livestock to anyone who wanted them. Then the militia found out they’d sold a small amount of maize to left-wingers. So they burned the buildings to the ground, raped the women, and beheaded the men.’
‘Christ…’
‘I guess Mukta became a Naxalite out of necessity. Then, after nearly a decade of waging war as a communist insurgent, he realised you can’t get anything done without money. So he came here, put together some resources, and started hitting the special risks insurers fast and hard. Because you don’t hike to Everest unless you’ve got money to burn, and he found that a whole lot of hikers had all-inclusive insurance packages. None of it got reported, and he got rich beyond his wildest dreams.’
‘But he also got greedy.’
Perry shrugged. ‘Can you blame him? He thought he was doing it for a righteous cause.’
‘Yes,’ King said, thinking of Raya’s soul leaving her body. ‘I can blame him.’
Perry paused, then said, ‘Probably a poor choice of words.’
He cradled the laptop like it was made of twenty-four carat gold. It hadn’t suffered so much as a nick or scratch during its time in transit — clearly, Mukta had recognised its importanc
e and assigned great care to its protection.
King exhaled his misery and said, ‘Right, so what’s the plan? Get to Lukla, figure out if we’re still being hunted, and then rendezvous with Aidan in Kathmandu?’
‘Seems like our best bet,’ Perry said.
‘What altitude is Lukla?’ Slater mumbled from the front seat.
‘Under three thousand metres,’ the pilot said.
‘Thank fuck.’
‘You’ll be feeling better in no time,’ King said.
‘I sure hope so.’
‘What happened down in Gokyo?’
‘They came for me.’
‘Did you hide?’
‘Sort of.’
King realised Slater was being vague because of plausible deniability. He pointed to the pilot and said, ‘I don’t think this guy’s going to say a word. You can talk.’
‘I’m Drew,’ the man said.
‘Jason.’
‘It’s a pleasure, mate.’
Slater said, ‘No, I didn’t hide. I killed half a dozen of them.’ Then he turned to Drew and added, ‘In self-defence.’
‘Oh,’ Drew said, ‘of course.’
‘They’ll have men in Kathmandu,’ Perry cut in.
He’d been deep in thought.
King said, ‘But now they’re leaderless. It’ll all fall apart soon enough. They’ll realise their boss is dead and they’ll scatter.’
‘But not yet,’ Perry said. ‘Right now his corpse is still in that cave. If they have men in Lukla…’
‘There’s no alternative,’ Drew said. ‘Your friend here’s in terrible shape, and you need the lower altitude. And Lukla’s got the only airport for dozens of miles in any direction. It’s your only chance for a clean getaway.’
King paused, taking it in, then said, ‘Drew, how do you know we’re doing the right thing?’
‘Just a hunch, mate.’
‘I wouldn’t base it solely off that.’
‘Well, I don’t have time to do anything else.’
Silence.
Drew said, ‘Are you doing the right thing, lads?’
‘Yes,’ King said.
‘There we go. That’s good enough for me.’
‘You been in a situation like this before?’ King said.
‘I’m ex-SAS.’
‘Ah.’
No wonder you’re so calm.
‘How far’s Lukla?’ King said.
‘Ten minutes,’ Drew said. ‘I’ll drop you three in the heli landing zone and then take off again. As soon as you’re out, scatter. I can’t be bothered explaining myself to anyone who looks half-official. Not until this has all blown over.’
Slater said, ‘Do you think there’ll be insurgents in Lukla?’
‘This is uncharted territory,’ Drew said. ‘I’ve never known them to show their faces in front of foreign trekkers, ever. You three must have royally pissed them off.’
‘We have,’ King admitted.
‘They’ll be watching the airport, then. Planes are the only way to get anywhere undetected, because they’re keeping tabs on the helicopters. That schedule isn’t exactly private information. You’re lucky you ran into me.’
‘I assume you’re not going to report this,’ Slater said.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’
King said, ‘Slater, how much carnage did you leave back in Gokyo?’
‘My fair share.’
‘Enough to close Lukla’s airport down?’
‘No,’ Drew said. ‘Not yet. They don’t know I was there. As far as any investigation is aware, the only way for the culprits to get out of Gokyo is on foot.’
Outside, the ground swept up to meet them. They spotted Lukla resting on the hillside, its airport visible from the sky. King noticed the runway — it was possibly the shortest he’d ever seen. Nothing but a small strip of tarmac rolling toward a sheer cliff-face and then dropping away into nothingness. He couldn’t believe planes were even capable of taking off in such a limited window.
He said, ‘Is that the airport?’
Drew said, ‘Most dangerous in the world.’
‘Great.’ King paused for thought, and then said, ‘Wait, why were you in Gokyo?’
‘I made a friend,’ Slater said. ‘The teahouse owner called it in.’
Drew said, ‘See? Most of us can tell you guys are doing the right thing.’
‘But if he called it in,’ King said, ‘it’ll show up on the schedule. And you said the insurgents are watching the schedule.’
Halfway through descending to a flat grassy field on the outskirts of Lukla, Drew said, ‘Shit.’
They craned their necks to look down at the landing zone.
Trying to see if anything was awry.
There was activity all over the field. Workers in high-visibility vests wearing hard hats lugged slabs of soda, gallon jugs of water, and crates of foodstuffs from aircraft to building. There were two choppers parked on the dusty dirt — one had just touched down, its rotors still spinning, and the other lay dormant. Everyone seemed to be bustling to and fro. No one was loitering.
It was impossible to tell if anyone was anticipating their arrival.
‘They won’t know you’re coming here,’ Drew said. ‘So you probably have a narrow window to take advantage of.’
‘Then we need to move,’ King said. ‘Slater, how’s the body?’
‘Not good.’
King grimaced, then inched forward to speak to Drew. ‘How long will it take him to get back to normal?’
‘Depends. He might have exhausted himself. If he’s too depleted, he’ll take days to recover.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Slater said through gritted teeth.
‘You might not be,’ King said.
Drew touched down. The mangled landing skids thumped into the dirt and a couple of workers in high-vis vests ran over to greet them. Their hands were bare, and they seemed unassuming enough.
But there was no way to know for sure.
King’s head spun. There was too much to handle at once. He looked over at Perry, who was clutching the laptop tight.
‘Keep that thing close,’ King said.
Perry nodded.
King slipped the P320 under his jacket, but kept a tight grip on it. He checked to make sure Slater had done the same, then pushed the door open and stepped out into Lukla.
74
The first thing Slater noticed was how much warmer it was.
They’d covered over twenty miles since departing Gokyo, and the altitude had plummeted the whole way. Now they were comfortably below three thousand metres, and he could immediately taste it in the air. His body cracked and groaned and protested as he swung himself out of the cabin, but each inhale drew glorious oxygen into his system. He touched down in the dirt on shaky legs and ducked low to avoid the rotors screaming above his head.
One of the workers saw him struggling to stand and reached over with outstretched hands.
Slater darted away from them, almost bouncing off the side of the chopper in his haste to protect himself.
When he realised the guy just wanted to help, he held up his hands in apology and set off hobbling for the edge of the field.
King came over and grabbed him by the arm. ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah, actually,’ Slater said. He could feel the vigour returning, ounce by ounce. ‘I just… need time.’
‘How much time?’
‘Shouldn’t be long, right? Just need to… get oxygen in.’
They made it a dozen paces from the chopper before they pulled to a halt. Together they turned and saw Perry skirting around from the other side. The bodyguard flashed a thumbs-up through the windshield and Drew returned the favour from the cockpit.
Slater raised an arm in farewell, and King did the same.
Drew nodded to them all, worked the controls, and the helicopter lifted off and rocketed back toward Gokyo.
Gone.
Just like that.
‘Let’s get you
somewhere safer,’ King said, still holding up most of Slater’s weight. ‘That reminds me — I need to change the bandages on your arm.’
Slater tried to mumble something in return, but he saw stars. He froze on the spot and waited for his vision to return and the light-headedness to dissipate. He knew what it was. His body, now flooding with oxygen, was struggling to process the development. It had just been acclimatising to Gokyo’s altitude, and now it was back in favourable conditions.
King said, ‘What’s wrong?’
When his vision returned, Slater felt half-human.
‘Nothing, actually,’ he said, suppressing a smile. ‘I feel brand new.’
He flexed his hands and feet and breathed audible relief. It was the first time since they’d stumbled into Gokyo that he’d felt a marked improvement in his condition. He was nowhere close to a hundred percent, but he might as well have been.
He might as well have been flooded with superhuman strength.
Because Will Slater at fifty percent was still a force to be reckoned with.
And now he could move without worrying his body would snap.
He ushered Perry over and said, ‘Let’s get a room somewhere while we figure out what to do next.’
Perry regarded him warily. ‘You seem more energetic.’
‘It’s the air.’
‘You had altitude sickness?’
‘Of sorts.’
Perry paused for thought and said, ‘Let’s get to the nearest teahouse, then, and stop standing around in this field.’
King said, ‘Can you walk?’
Slater nodded. ‘Take the lead.’
King and Perry made a beeline for the corner of the heli field, where a short flight of chipped concrete steps led up to one of Lukla’s cobblestone streets. From there it spiralled into the town, weaving through teahouses and general stores all made of the same faded wood. Slater followed in their stride, letting his body warm up before committing to anything drastic. He shook out his legs with each step, each aching muscle relaxing as he kept inhaling deeply and fully. He figured it was vital to pump as much oxygen through his system as possible for the foreseeable future.