all-weather, all-terrain, one-man scoop. Someone had stenciled ST. BERNARD on Abe's
locker at work. Underneath someone else had taped a piece of movie poster:
Terminator. A lot of death, as well as life, had passed through Abe's hands in the last
dozen years.
'He just called again,' said the dispatcher. 'Says he needs you to contact him. And not
tomorrow. Tonight. Right now.'
All Abe could guess was that one of the schools had accepted him and wanted to give
him the word before Christmas closed their offices. What would Jamie say? he
wondered. Probably not much, they were so wounded by each other. Once upon a
time, he'd thought they would celebrate just such a moment. But those days were
gone.
Abe placed the call to an area code he didn't recognize.
A game-show voice answered, female. 'U.S.U.S. Expeditions,' she singsonged. 'Merry
Christmas.'
Abe's anticipation fell to pieces. U.S.U.S. Expeditions? This was no med school. They
were peddling something, American flags or adventure-travel tours or what? Worse,
they were peddling on his one night off and after snooping on him at work.
'May I help you?' the woman said.
Tired, his temper short, Abe nearly hung up. On second thought he decided to
confront their trespass.
'Yes.' He made his voice flat and statutory, a lawyer's trick. He wanted their full
attention, their fear of litigation or at least a promise to stay out of his life. 'I want you
to tell Peter Jorgens...'
'Oh, wait,' she interrupted. 'Pete just walked in the door. You can talk to him
directly. May I ask who's calling?'
Abe gave his name. He checked his clock. Thirty seconds. That's all this got.
'Burns?' a hearty man boomed. 'Abraham Burns? Do I have an offer for you.'
'Yeah, well I started to tell your secretary...'
'Wife,' Jorgens said, 'that was my wife. She didn't tell you yet, did she? I want to be
the one.'
The clock showed forty seconds gone. Abe meant to register at least one profanity
before hanging up on the man. 'Listen,' Abe tried again.
'Are you sitting down? It's the kind of thing that makes strong men weak,' Jorgens
barreled on. 'Even a bull like you.'
Abe said 'piss off' and hung up. He got as far as the hallway before the phone rang. It
was Jorgens.
'At least hear me out,' the man said.
'Whatever you're selling...'
'No, no.' Desperation came over the phone line. 'This isn't for contributions. Our war
chest is full. We're totally solvent. We're going. And we want you to go with us. We
need you.'
Abe was more mystified than annoyed by the man's persistence. This had to be the
worst sales pitch in history. 'Hurry up,' Abe growled.
'You're the one,' Jorgens said. 'Your buddy Corder said so.'
The name Corder tickled his memory, but not enough. Abe decided to finish this.
'Look, mister,' he told Jorgens. 'It's Christmas Eve, and you're not making any
sense.' Sometimes that worked on the Gomers, the get-out-of-my-emergency-room
riffraff destined for detox. A single moment of definition sometimes provided them a
floor to stand on. The screamers would shut up. The wild men would calm down. But
it only seemed to inspire Jorgens.
'You've heard of us,' he declared. 'The U.S. Ultimate Summit Expedition? The
Nordwand '92 team? That's us. We're in the latest Rolex commercial.'
'Rolex commercial?'
'The one with the ice climber, the backdrop...'
Abe's amusement expired. 'Time's up,' he said. 'Don't call here again.'
'Wait,' Jorgens shouted. He sounded shocked. 'Everest. I'm talking about Everest.'
It worked, that single word.
'Everest?' Abe breathed.
Now they started over again.
'My God.' Jorgens sounded chastened. 'I thought we'd lost you before we even had
you.' Abe could tell Jorgens was the nasty sort who believed in jumping out at people
to test their reflexes. Maybe next time he'd remember this backfire.
'I better start from square one,' Jorgens said. 'You've really never heard of us?'
They were a team of Americans going to the Tibetan side of Mount Everest. Three
days ago, their physician had fallen on a training climb and rebroken an old rugby
ankle. Almost on the eve of its departure for Asia, the U.S. Ultimate Summit
Expedition, a.k.a. Everest Nordwand 1992, was suddenly without medical backup. No
major expedition could afford to go without a doctor, not to a country as remote as
Tibet. But time was short. Their departure date was early February. A burst of phone
calls had failed to produce a single physician in all of North America willing to climb to
five miles high, commit to a hundred-day absence, and leave in five weeks.
'I've hunted hard these last three days. Days and nights,' Jorgens said. 'I've been
calling hospitals all across the country. I even hired a computer search of med
students and physician assistants and paramedics. And it all comes down to you.'
'You need a doctor,' Abe observed. 'An M.D. Not a paramedic.' He was too realistic
about mountain medicine to be modest. Whoever they took along would have to be a
walking hospital, capable of tackling everything from tropical parasites to compound
fractures.
'We've got you,' Jorgens said.
'I've never been to the Himalayas.' As much as he wanted to shout Yes, I'm your
man, these things had to be said. If they were going to disqualify him, he wanted it to
be now, not halfway up a mountainside. Not even next week. If there was any chance
they would extinguish this dream, he wanted it over with. 'And you're weak on ice
experience,' Jorgens said. 'Don't worry, I've asked. But you can lead 5.11 on rock,
which is solid, not hot. Then again, I'm not looking for any more ninja, Mr. Burns. All
we need is a good bones man who can make house calls to eight thousand meters.
That's you.'
'What about the mountain?'
Jorgens filled him in. Over the last ten years, three different teams had attempted
the route, a vertical chimera of rock and ice known as the Kore Wall. It was known
among mountaineers as a severe creation – 9,000 vertical feet from top to bottom –
that approached the summit straight on, a direct or direttisima up the right centre of
the vast North Face. The first try back in 1984 had been all British, with the exception
of one American climber. After pioneering to 27,000 feet and surmounting most of the
geological barriers, they'd gotten mauled and surrendered. In '89, half of a New
Zealand expedition had vanished on the upper reaches in a storm. And last spring,
two Japanese and a Sherpa had been killed by an avalanche.
'So it's the Kore Wall three, climbers zip,' Jorgens finished. 'She's had a lot of suitors.
But we own her cherry.'
Abe didn't trust the overstatement.
'What about other lines?' Abe asked. He was already trying to visualize alternate
retreat routes for injured climbers, because that would be his job. But Jorgens took his
question to imply second-choice lines for ascent.
'Not interested,' Jorgens said. 'There's three other routes on the north side, but
they've all been done, especially the North Col. Frankly our team's too damn good to
be pulling a repeat. It's the Kore Wall or bust.'
Like most climbers, Abe had dreamed of Everest, tired and exaggerated as it was.