intercept him. But the week without food and warmth had depleted them. Daniel
pushed between them.
The officer barked a high reedy command in Chinese. When Daniel kept coming, he
unsnapped a leather holster cover at his hip. Abe watched the man perform his
motions, and they seemed perfectly natural. Of course he would draw his gun. It was
as inevitable as Daniel's advance.
With ritual determination, the officer pulled his automatic pistol and gestured Daniel
away. That didn't work, of course. There was too much forward momentum. But
when the officer extended his arm its full length and aimed the pistol at Daniel's face,
things stopped, or at least paused. Daniel had came to a halt.
Abe wanted to shout. This was a mistake. They were climbers and their climb was
over. They had finished with this place. It had finished with them. There was nothing
more to do here. This was unfair. They had tried to free Daniel. Now was his turn to
free them. He should let them go home.
All the climbers could see of Daniel's head was the greasy mane that hung to his
shoulder blades, black against his once white sweater. Over his shoulder, the officer's
face was in full view, cold eyes in partial eclipse.
For a full minute, the two men remained frozen and contemplative. Their impasse
was physically painful. Abe ached from it. The heat and whiteness lodged them in
their footsteps, all of them. The silence was immovable, larger than a mountain.
And then something happened. Bored by the human drama, one of the yaks moved
its head away. The small bell around its neck rang. A single note shivered through the
air. It was enough.
The silence broke. Daniel moved, skirting around the officer. The black pistol stayed
upraised, pointing at the climbers for a moment, then drifting downward. The officer
looked straight through them, and by that Abe knew he had come very close to pulling
the trigger.
Daniel circled to the back of the Land Cruiser. He pressed the door handle and
pulled. Everyone was watching as the Tibetan boy slowly spilled out upon the snow.
Even the soldiers seemed surprised by the power of their prisoner's appearance.
The boy was tied – with expedition rope – hand and foot. He was unconscious and
dirty in yak skins, exactly as Abe had first encountered him. He lay in a heap, jaw
slack upon the melting tire tracks.
Daniel bent to him. 'He's alive,' he said to them all.
'Ah, Jesus,' Stump muttered, and it was not a hallelujah Jesus. Abe felt the same
way. So did the others, he heard them.
'Why didn't the bastards just finish him?' someone said.
All the simplicity they had earned, all their separation from the world outside, was
ruined by this boy's reappearance. They were haunted, not by his death, but by his
life. It was a mean sentiment, Abe knew, but an honest one. No one, from the climbers
to Li to the weary soldiers, wanted to deal with this anymore. The monk would not let
go, though.
Abe started through the snow, following Daniel's track. He was the doctor and there
was suffering and misery lying piled before him. They all had their roles to play, and
this was his.
'Stop,' Li commanded. 'This Tibetan minority is a criminal of the state. This matter
is our internal affair. You have no right.' His words sounded rote, straight from a
government primer.
Abe pressed forward. Li spoke something in Chinese to the officer, who instructed
his two subordinates to step into Abe's path.
'Mr. Jones and Mr. Corder,' Jorgens interjected. 'Our liaison officer has stated a
position. And I remind you, we are guests in this country.'
'So are they,' Carlos said. 'These Chinese don't belong here any more than we do.'
His words were bold, but he didn't move to join Abe and Daniel.
'Screw your politics,' Thomas retorted. He'd had his fill of this country. 'I came to
climb. Period.'
They were all performing their designated parts, no more or less. Abe could not do
any differently than he next did. Like Daniel, he went around the soldiers.
'Repeat,' Li declared. 'Stop. Now.'
Abe knelt beside Daniel in the snow. He put his head close to the boy's mouth. The
respiration was delicate and fast. Even before taking the pulse, Abe knew it would be
rapid and thready. The boy's hands were bare and blistered with frostbite. His feet
would be black. His condition had been terminal enough without getting trussed and
frozen and starved for a week. They had just saved his executioner the price of a
bullet.
'Untie these ropes,' Abe said.
Daniel worked at the ankle knots, Abe at the wrists.
'You,' shouted Li. 'This criminal is property of the People's Republic of China.'
Abe held up a handful of loose rope. 'This is not your property. This belongs to us.'
He was talking about more than the rope. This child's captivity belonged to them, too.
Even without the betrayal, they had acted as if silence were enough.
'Let's take him to the mess,' Abe said.
'You, stop,' Li shouted. He issued a string of words to the officer. Abe and Daniel
went ahead.
When they lifted him, the boy weighed less on Abe's end than some of the pack loads
he'd carried on the mountain. They had taken scarcely one step when the gunshot
barked. The body twitched in Abe's hands. It may have been Abe twitching, he wasn't
sure.
A cry of anguish wailed out.
Terrified, Abe spun his head toward the officer. A thin signature of smoke bled from
his gun barrel. But the gun was pointing away. It had been more than a warning shot,
however.
Ten feet away, the yak that had carried Kelly down from ABC lay crumpled in the
snow. A geyser of blood pumped into the air from its head. The old herder was
struggling through the snow to his animal.
Now the officer pointed his gun at the boy dangling from Abe and Daniel's hands.
This time, Abe thought, it was checkmate. They couldn't push it any farther. There
came a point when you had to turn away from the summit and admit defeat.
'Damn it,' Abe whispered.
'It's not done,' Daniel said to him across the limp body.
'It is, Daniel. They'll kill him.'
'They'll kill him anyway.'
'Daniel, it's done,' said Abe. 'It is.'
'We can't leave him,' Daniel protested.
'We must,' he said. And with that a faraway darkness sealed itself off.
'Please,' Daniel said.
But before they could lay the boy on the ground or return him to the Land Cruiser,
the standoff ended. A slight snap sounded from among the climbers, an ounce of noise.
All eyes shifted from the officer and his black gun aimed point-blank at the body
between Abe and Daniel. They saw Kelly. She was holding a camera.
The Chinese didn't know she was blind. Abe didn't know if there was even any film
in the camera. But she had it pointed in the right direction. She triggered the shutter
again. With a single finger she stopped the violence.
Carlos was next. He groped for the camera dangling around his neck and took a
picture, then three, then twenty on autodrive. Robby aimed his own camera.
The officer's face darkened. Li winced. Even if they confiscated every camera and
strip-searched every climber, there were still witnesses.
Abe made the most of their pause. He spoke directly to Li.
'I'm a doctor,' he said. 'I must treat him. It's my responsibility. It's my duty.' He left