Eventually, it was done. He had made a hole that he could crawl inside and assume the fetal position. He did so, closed his eyes, and was immediately asleep.
He awoke with a start. The storm had stopped, and the light of the new day was beginning to spread over the mountain. Chandra was stiff and cold, but alive.
Then he noticed his left hand. Somehow he had lost his glove during the climb or while he was digging the hole. His hand was completely frostbitten. The fingers were dark blue and the rest of the hand was purple. He tried to flex his fingers, but they were paralyzed. The skin was insensitive to touch.
He crawled out of the hole and stood. The rest of him appeared to be in one piece. With his good hand he slowly ripped off his backpack, opened it, and dug around for anything he could wrap around his hand. There was a prayer scarf that his father had given him when he was a boy, so he used that. It didn’t help much. He knew it was entirely possible he would lose the hand when they got back to civilization.
Never mind! he told himself. Get on with the job! He repeated the Gurkhali motto to himself, over and over: It is better to die than be a coward . . . it is better to die than be a coward. It served as a mantra of sorts. He found a bar of chocolate in his pack and ate it for energy, then put the pack on again and tromped forward toward Marquis’s tent.
Chandra flattened himself on the snow when he got around the glacier. Roland Marquis and Carl Glass were together, packing the tent. He decided to stay back and see where they went rather than confront them.
Soon they were off, moving toward the north ridge of the great mountain. What were they going to do? Summit? Were they mad?
Chandra followed them over the ridge, which was one route to the summit taken by many explorers over the years. But Marquis and Glass didn’t continue the ascent. They went over and down to a level plane, where four tents had been set up.
The Russians.
Chandra held back, got out his CWS and peered through it, watching Marquis’s every move.
Roland Marquis and Carl Glass had spent a rough night in the single tent. Marquis was anxious about the coming negotiations with the Russians, not sure if he wanted to go through with the deal he had arranged. In the early hours of the morning he had decided what he was going to do and made a plan with Glass.
They trekked to the Russian encampment, where they were greeted by two men with AK-47s. The sentries ushered them into a tent, where the leader, a man named Igor Mislov, was waiting.
He looked a lot like Joseph Stalin, with a thick black mustache and bushy eyebrows.
“Mr. Marquis!” he hailed in English. “Have some hot tea?”
“Thank you, Igor,” Marquis said. “It’s nice to meet face-to-face after all this time, eh?”
“Indeed, indeed.” Mislov looked curiously at Glass.
“Oh, this is my associate, Carl Glass,” Marquis said. “Igor Mislov.”
The men shook hands and sat down.
One of the guards served the tea, and it warmed Marquis considerably. Finally, he said, “Right, I have the specification for Skin 17. It’s worth . . . billions.”
Well, let’s see it!” the Russian said.
“It’s in the form of a microdot. The goddamned Union have been trying to get their hands on it, and they almost did. I got it first, and I even kept it from the Double-O agent who was on our team!”
“Ha!” Mislov roared. “Double-O agent? I didn’t know they still existed! When the KGB disbanded, I thought there was no more use for those guys.”
“One would think so,” Marquis agreed, humoring the man. “But I’m afraid SIS keeps them around to keep tabs on the Russian Mafia, too.”
Mislov dismissed the label with a wave of his hand. “Don’t call us that, it’s an idiotic name. We’re businessmen, that’s all. Russian Mafia—phooey! The Mafia lives in Sicily. We live in Moscow. That’s a long way from Sicily!” He laughed boisterously.
“Whatever you say, Igor,” Marquis said. “Now let’s talk business. I’ve come a long fucking way to get here. You picked one hell of a rendezvous spot.”
Mislov shrugged. “I know how valuable Skin 17 is. I knew the Union were after it, too. We found out one of our team was working for them. He . . . uhm, met with an unfortunate accident. They are everywhere these days, those goddamned Union. I’ve done business with them, but they have no loyalty to customers. Hey, I saved you the trouble of having to carry Skin 17 all the way down the mountain. Who knows what might have happened to you? This is a dangerous place. That was some storm last night, huh?”
“There’s another one in about eight hours,” Marquis said. “We’d like to get going before it hits. Now—we had agreed upon a starting price of one billion dollars. We both know it’s worth more than that. What are you prepared to offer now?”
“Two billion American dollars. We can pay you fifty thousand dollars in uncut diamonds right now. The rest you’ll get in Kathmandu after we get out of here.”
“Are you mad?” Marquis asked. He had been afraid of this.
“Am I mad? What do you mean?”
“You think I’d let this go for only fifty thousand in diamonds?”
“Are you mad?” the Russian asked. Suddenly there was a heavy tension in the air. “You don’t think we would carry two billion dollars in cash up Kangchenjunga, do you? It was difficult enough carrying these goddamned diamonds.”
“Where are they?”
Mislov nodded at one of the two guards, who produced an ordinary water thermos. He unscrewed it and showed the contents to Marquis. It was full of off-color stones. Marquis recognized them as uncut diamonds. He nodded, and the guard replaced the lid.
“I’m afraid it won’t be enough,” Marquis said carefully. “Perhaps the Union will pay more.”
“Mr. Marquis, we, too, came a long way for this. You will sell us the specification, or things will get unpleasant.”
Marquis turned to Glass and gave him a well-rehearsed signal. “I don’t know, Igor, but it seems that since we last talked, the demand for Skin 17 has skyrocketed. The Union want it, my country wants it back, the Chinese want it . . . I understand there’s a few Belgians that want it. . .”
Glass heard the code word “Belgians,” pulled a Glock out of his pocket with lightning speed, and shot the two guards neatly and efficiently. Marquis drew his own Browning and held it to Mislov’s head. Glass picked up one of the AK-47s and aimed it at the tent flap. Two more men rushed in but saw that their leader was in danger.
“Tell them to drop their guns,” Marquis said. Mislov spoke to them in Russian, and they did as they were told. Marquis then nodded to Glass, who calmly blasted them with the automatic weapon.
“Now, Igor,” Marquis said. “You’re all alone. How much is the Russian Mafia willing to pay me now?”
Mislov swallowed hard, then stammered, “Two . . . two billion now, and two more when we reach Kathmandu.”
“You have it?”
“In diamonds, yes.”
“Where?”
Mislov gestured to a bag. Glass looked inside and found several ore water thermoses. They were each filled with uncut stones.
“Why the hell didn’t you offer us these diamonds before?”
Mislov shrugged and laughed nervously. “I’m a businessman. I was going to tell my superiors that we paid you the diamonds, but, of course, I would have kept the rest.”
“I see. Well, thank you, Igor. I accept your offer,” Marquis said, then pulled the trigger. The side of the Russians head exploded as the bullet slammed through it.
They were alone in the camp now. After a moment of silence Glass said, “Christ, Roland, we’re rich.” He began to stuff half of the thermoses into his pack. Marquis took the remainder and put them in his own.