This had to be it — sixteen crates loaded on four-wheeled carts. There were faded swastikas stenciled on the outside and writing in German. Petrov used his knife to pry up one of the lids. Nestled in straw inside were rows of bottles similar to the ones on the lower level of the cart. Inside each was a dried, coagulated reddish mass that Petrov assumed had once been blood. He ordered his men to wheel the carts out.
Kokol heard the squeal of unoiled machinery coming his way. Then he spun to his right as he heard a muffled curse. A soldier was struggling to get through the air vent and join him.
Kokol put his finger to his lips, then turned to face, back down the ramp, the butt of his AK-74 tucked tight into his shoulder. The sound was getting closer and he couldn’t figure out what was making it. Having fought in many wars, from World War II to the present, he decided to make himself a smaller target and went down to one knee.
The soldier managed to make it through and joined him as a second one appeared in the grate. Kokol sighted in as the muzzle of a weapon appeared, followed by the man wielding it, dressed in black. He saw Kokol just as the soldier yelled out for the man to drop his weapon.
The man did neither, bringing the weapon to bear instead, and Kokol squeezed the trigger of the AK-74 twice in rapid succession. The first bullet hit the man in the cheek, ripping a gash along the side of his face while the second hit right between the eyes, sending him flopping back down the ramp.
The reply was instant and fierce as automatic weapons let loose and high-velocity rounds tore up the ramp, bouncing off the walls and ricocheting all about. A round hit the soldier coming out the grate in the back of his head, killing him instantly and leaving his body jammed in the hole. Kokol dived to the ground and fired several rounds even though he could see no targets, figuring the ricocheting would work just as well the other way.
He heard a strange grunt, a sound he had heard before — a last breath of air being expelled as a bullet tore through lungs — and glanced to his left to see the other soldier sink to his knees, then fall face forward, blood seeping out of a wound just under his armpit where his vest didn’t cover.
Kokol rolled twice, putting himself behind the man’s body and resting his submachine gun on top of him. Several more rounds hit the body and Colonel Kokol emptied the rest of his clip, silently counting to himself, so that when he fired the last round, his finger hit the release, the magazine fell and he slammed another home without making the mistake of firing on an empty chamber and wasting precious seconds.
Where the hell was the captain? The firing from below suddenly ceased and Kokol heard voices, someone issuing muffled orders. Were they retreating? Regrouping?
The answer came swiftly as three hand grenades came flying through the air. Colonel Kokol rolled, pulling the dead body on top of him as the first one went off less than ten feet away. The concussion hit him, followed by two more, like body blows from a mule, but the dead SVD man absorbed the shrapnel. The last wave slammed Kokol’s head against the inner wall, knocking him out.
Petrov jumped in the van with the blood, as his mercenaries fired back at the security forces on the outskirts of the Kremlin wall. He pressed a detonator, and two of his own people’s cars exploded, behind his van, taking out several police cars with them, blocking the way, and allowing enough of a diversion for his van to disappear into the warren of alleys.
He had the blood. The issue he had now was what exactly to do with it. He was not sure any longer that turning it over to Adrik was the most prudent course of action — at least not without a substantial finder’s fee.
CHAPTER 16
Namche rubbed the frost off the eyepieces of his oxygen mask and checked his global positioning receiver. According to the data he’d been given, they were close to the other two bodies.
“Not far,” he shouted, the words muffled by his mask. He wasn’t certain whether Tai heard him or not. The other man was leaning against the side of the mountain, obviously exhausted. Namche wondered if he would still be paid the remainder of his fee if Tai died and had to be left on the mountain.
They were approximately two thousand meters from the top of Everest. To the right was the Kanshung Face, a practically vertical mile-long stretch of rock on the north side of Everest. From the display he had seen in Hong Kong, it appeared to Namche that the two bodies they were after had been on top of the Kanshung Face and fallen. Instead of plummeting all the way to the bottom, it appeared as if the rope connecting them had caught on a spur of rock jutting out from the face and they were frozen in place, an adornment to Everest’s deadliness. He looked in the direction, trying to see through the blowing snow.
“There,” he yelled, pointing. The wind had shifted direction briefly, exposing the Face. The bodies looked like white lumps on the rock wall about fifteen meters away.
This time Tai acknowledged he’d heard by nodding.
Namche climbed up, checking over his shoulder to make sure Tai was following. They gained another thirty meters in altitude, then Namche halted. He pulled four pitons off his climbing rack and used a small hammer to pound them into the mountain, making sure they were in place. Then he secured a fifty-meter length of doubled rope to all four.
“You stay here,” he yelled to Tai. Tai nodded once more.
Namche tied himself off to the fifty-meter doubled rope, gathering the slack. Holding the loose rope in one hand and his ice axe in the other, he edged over a meter, arriving at the left side of the Kanshung Face. Reaching as far as he could, he slammed the point of his axe into the ice that covered the Face. Then, using that as his leverage point, he scrambled out onto the Face. He dug the toes of his crampons into the ice and began making his way across. It was precarious climbing and Namche didn’t allow his mind to dwell on the numerous lethal possibilities.
He moved quickly, staying in no position for more than a few seconds, afraid the thin sheet of ice would give way. He glanced down and saw he was now above the bodies. It was clear that their rope had caught on a small spur, less than eight inches long, that poked out from the mountain. Namche knew he’d have one shot at this.
Namche let go of the mountain and fell. As he went down he slammed the point of the ice axe into the mountain to slow his descent and to be ready for when he reached the bodies, which occurred in less than two seconds. His axe caught on the dead climbers’ rope and slid along until he reached one of the bodies, where it jammed against the attachment point of the rope on the body. Namche came to a jarring halt, breathing hard.
Using short nylon slings, he made sure both the dead men were attached to the rope he had brought. Then he leveraged the ice axe underneath one of the bodies, trying to break it free from the mountain. It detached with a last crack of ice, sliding down until it reached the end of the rope, where it jerked to a halt, then swung to the left, coming to a halt just below where Tai was.
Namche did the same with the second, except this time he made sure he was attached to the body. Once more he fell free for a couple of seconds, then he and the body swung over and came to a halt.
Namche put in more pitons, securing the bodies in place as Tai climbed down.
“What now?” Namche asked. He assumed Tai was there to collect something from the bodies. Perhaps a family heirloom? Or to perform some burial rite? Namche was surprised when Tai began lashing the two bodies tightly together.
“We cannot carry them down,” Namche said.
Tai ignored him. He opened his pack and took out what appeared to be a very thin blanket, which he wrapped around both bodies. Namche had seen that kind of blanket before — it was an emergency heater, designed to be used to rapidly raise someone’s core body temperature. Numerous thin wire conductors were woven into the material and attached to a power source, in this case a pair of lithium batteries Tai had in his pack. Once the blanket was tight around the bodies, Tai turned it on.