“Not like you, Roland. I go climbing only once every three or four years”
“That’s too long a gap. What if a golfer played only once every three or four years? He wouldn’t be a very good golfer.”
“It’s a bit different.”
“I’m just making a point, that’s all,” Marquis said.
“What is it?”
“That climbing isn’t a sport for you. You’re an amateur. You’re a good amateur, don’t get me wrong, but you’re still an amateur.”
“You haven’t seen me in action yet, Roland.”
“True, I suppose I should wait until we’re at seven thousand meters before I make that assessment.”
“Everything has to be a contest with you, doesn’t it, Roland?” Bond said rhetorically.
Marquis laughed aloud. “Admit it, Bond, you’ve always been a little jealous of me. I beat you too many times on the wrestling mat back when we were boys.”
“Once more, I seem to remember it the other way around.”
“There you go again distorting history,” Marquis said.
“I wouldn’t think of it.” It took everything to keep Bond from losing his sense of humor. They walked for ten minutes in silence again.
Finally, Marquis asked, “So, Bond, what do you think of our good doctor?”
“She seems capable,” Bond said tactfully.
Marquis laughed. “Oh, she’s a fine doctor. I meant, what do you think of her as a woman?”
Again, Bond said, “She seems capable.”
Marquis snorted. “I think she’s simply amazing.”
Bond normally didn’t like to discuss other people’s relationships. He was curious, though, to see what Marquis might have to say about her. He was the type of man who enjoyed boasting and had a loose tongue when it came to sexual exploits. The trouble was that his kind man also tended to exaggerate.
“I know what you’re thinking, Bond,” Marquis said. “You’re wondering what kind of relationship I have with her. We’re not lovers, if that’s what you think. We were once, a few years ago. We tried to rekindle it at the beginning of this little venture, but it didn’t work out. We’re just friends now.”
“Are you saying she’s fair game?” Bond asked.
Marquis stopped dramatically in his tracks. Bond almost stumbled, then halted and looked at Marquis, who had a glint in his eye that was full of menace.
“She’s absolutely fair game, if you can manage it,” he said. There was, however, an implicit warning in the voice.
At that moment Hope walked up and stood between them. Her long, golden tresses blew in the wind and around the pack on her back. Even with no makeup and none of the normal day-to-day personal conveniences enjoyed by western women, she was wholesomely attractive.
“I expected to find you two arm-wrestling up here,” she said. “Roland, you look like you’re ready to hit your friend, here. Did he say something mean?”
“It’s nothing, my dear,” Marquis said. “Bond and I go way back, that’s all.”
“So I’ve heard. You two had better behave. The smell of testosterone over here is overpowering. I don’t want to have to patch up either of you after you’ve beaten each other into a pulp.”
“We’re not fighting,” Marquis said.
“Not even over me?” she asked facetiously, but Bond thought she was more earnest than she let on.
Marquis turned to her and said, “Yes, Hope, my dear, that’s precisely what we’re doing. We’re fighting over you.”
She didn’t rise to his anger at all. She turned up her nose flirtatiously and said, “Well, in that case, may the best man win.” With that, she moved back toward the others, who had all interpreted Marquis’s stopping as a signal for them to halt and rest.
“What are you doing sitting on your arses?” he shouted at them. “We’ve had our rest already! Get up! There’s still about an hour to go before we reach camp.”
Irritably, he turned and began trekking forward. Bond let him lead on and waited until Chandra caught up with him. Hope passed him, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye but not saying a word.
Bond thought that she was the biggest tease in the Eastern Hemisphere. Normally he disdained women of that ilk, but with her, the come-on was more of a challenge. He was beginning to understand her better. By her own admission, this was an intelligent woman who liked to get physical. She was unable to separate her rough, clinical manner as a medical practitioner from the rather coarse nature of her individual sexuality. Just as she liked to see what made human beings tick, she was stimulated by the primal rituals between males and females. She enjoyed the mating game in its purest sense. Perhaps this explained her love for the outdoors and for adventure. Bond was convinced that she probably had a healthy percentage of testosterone in her own body. He wondered what she might be like in bed. . . .
Bond continued up the path with Chandra and Paul Baack. The camp was a welcome sight when they finally reached it at four o’clock in the afternoon.
The overnight stay in Ghaiya Bai was uneventful, and the team had settled into a daily routine that would vary little until they reached the Base Camp. The goal for the day was to reach Kyapra, at 2,700 meters. The following day the team would ascend to a relatively major village called Ghunsa, located at 3,440 meters. Normally, a few days would be spent there acclimatizing, but that wasn’t in Marquis’s plan.
Bond stayed with Chandra most of the morning, purposefully avoiding any contact with either Roland Marquis or Hope Kendall. He had enough to worry about without getting into a match of wills with one or the other. Instead, he concentrated on the day’s goal and tried to enjoy the scenery. They were seeing fewer and fewer signs of civilization as they ascended above 2,500 meters.
At lunchtime Paul Baack approached Bond and said, “The Chinese are less than a mile that way.” He pointed toward the southwest. The big man handed him a pair of binoculars. Bond stood on a rock and looked through them.
He could see a group of at least ten men moving slowly across the side of a hill toward a site where many Sherpas had set up their own lunch stop.
Marquis climbed on the rock and asked, “What do you see?”
“We have company,” Bond said. He handed the binoculars to Marquis so that he could look, then asked, “I think Chandra and I should leave you here and do a little reconnaissance. We’ll meet you in Ghunsa tomorrow afternoon.”
“What, you’ll do a bivouac tonight?”
“That’s right,” Bond said, “we’ll go without a tent. We both have bivouac sacks. We each have copies of the trekking route. We’ll be fine. We’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”
“I don’t like the idea of you wandering off, Bond,” Marquis said.
“Sorry, Roland,” Bond said. “We’re going.” He jumped down from the rock and went to explain the plan to Chandra.
Roland Marquis frowned to himself. He needed Bond in one piece, at least until they found Skin 17.
Bond and Chandra slipped away from the others and made their way as surreptitiously as possible toward the Chinese expedition. They got within one hundred meters of them, close enough to make an assessment of their group.
“There are eleven of them,” Chandra said, looking through binoculars. “And a lot of porters.” He scanned each man carefully and noted, “At least three of the men are carrying rifles. Why would anyone want a rifle on an expedition up Kangchenjunga?”
“Unless they were planning to do someone some harm when they get there,” Bond suggested. “Come on, they’re moving.”
Chandra moved stealthily, and Bond followed. The Gurkha was superior mountaineer. He also knew tricks and techniques to move around the hills unseen. Bond gladly turned over the leadership of their side venture to him.