Excalibur

CHAPTER 19: THE PRESENT

Major Turcotte had stopped. Both hands were wrapped around the sling attached to his harness and he was leaning against the side of Mount Everest, hunched, lungs screaming for oxygen. He felt far removed from the world and the troubles that had precipitated his coming here and climbing the mountain.

Morris had said that the blood packing would last for forty-eight hours. Turcotte wondered how the medic knew that; had they tested it? Or was it a typical military SWAG — stupid wild-ass guess? The pounding in his head was worse; he couldn’t even come close to feeling like he had caught his breath, and his extremities felt like lead pipes.

He dully felt something vibrate the rope. Again. Reluctantly, Turcotte turned his head. Mualama was still moving along the ledge, heading for the cornice, jerking the rope with each step. Turcotte saw frozen blood around the edges of the archaeologist’s oxygen mask. He was amazed the older man was still moving. Leaning back on the rope Turcotte reached inside his parka. He pulled out a small metal thermos. He carefully unscrewed the cap. Steam rose out of the small opening. He pulled his oxygen mask away, distantly feeling skin rip where it had frozen to his face. He didn’t care at all about that as he slowly tipped the thermos and felt the scalding hot coffee pour into his mouth. In reality, he figured the coffee was lukewarm at best, but it burned into his core as it went down his throat.

He tucked the thermos under one arm and reached with his free hand once more inside his parka. Two pills lay in his gloved hand. The amphetamines that Morris had given him with his dire warning about their use. Turcotte took one, popped it in his mouth and washed it down with another mouthful of coffee, then did the same with the second.

The rope vibrated again and Turcotte almost lost his grip. He was reminded of the Darby Queen obstacle course at Ranger School at Fort Benning so many years earlier. There was a rope climb where there were so many students making it across at the same time that when one fell the entire thing whipsawed, often tossing off others.

Turcotte grabbed hold of the rope with both hands, pulled his left foot free of the mountain, swung it a foot to the side, and slammed it in. He was moving again.

McGraw hammered in two pieces of protection before checking out the three bodies lying on the thin ledge. Two were dressed in ancient clothing. And in the center sat someone with more recent, but still old clothing. And behind them, encased in a wall of ice, the scabbard with Excalibur inside of it.

McGraw reached over his shoulder and pulled an ice ax off his pack. As he pulled it back to strike the ice, Olivetti tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the northeast. A line of dots extended across a ledge about five hundred meters away. Olivetti pointed to himself, then once more at the climbers. McGraw nodded and turned his attention to the ice.

Olivetti put in two pieces of protection, then leaned back in his harness. He pulled his pack off, attaching it to one of the slings, then opened it, pulling out a hard plastic case about three feet long. Wedging the case between himself and the mountain, Olivetti opened it, removing a barrel and stock/receiver. He slid the barrel into the receiver and twisted, locking it in place. A scope was already in place on top and he pulled a ten-round magazine out, slamming it home. He tucked two more magazines into his parka.

He pulled the bolt back, putting a round in the chamber. Leaning back, he ignored the case, which tumbled away down the mountain. He put the rifle against his shoulder and sighted on the last in line. In between breaths, he smoothly pulled the trigger. He was already shifting to the next figure in line before the bullet reached its first target.

For a few moments, everyone thought the trail climber had slipped as the Chinese soldier slid down the mountain, then came to an abrupt halt as the safety line cinched tight. The other eleven climbers all gripped the mountain, holding on against the weight of the fallen man. But then they all heard the echo of the shot. Just then the next-to-last man was hit and tumbled off.

Lexina, second from the front, found she was struggling even harder for air as the harness around her waist tightened from the pressure on the safety rope. It was Aksu, climbing lead, who realized the danger as his third man was hit.

“Cut the line!” he screamed toward the rear.

A bullet hit the third from rear in the head, splattering the snow and ice with blood and brains. The fourth from rear had heard Aksu and had been reaching for a knife, but abandoned the effort in order to be able to avoid getting pulled off the face of the mountain by the deadweight of three bodies dangling below. Lexina didn’t waste any time as she pulled a knife from her belt and turned around. Coridan was the climber behind her and he had both hands on the safety rope, holding tight. Another shot rang out as Lexina slashed down with the knife, cutting the rope between herself and her fellow One Who Waits.

Without the support of Lexina and Aksu, the surviving climbers behind her didn’t have the strength to hold up the weight of the four dead. They were peeled off the mountain one by one, Coridan the last to go. He was reaching out toward Lexina as the rope pulled him away, tumbling down the side of Everest.

Lexina turned back to the front and looked. She could see someone leaning out from the side of the mountain ahead, a rifle in his hands, and she realized she had only gained a moment’s respite with her instinctive action.

Aksu had pulled his weapon from his pack and was trying to aim, while at the same time maintaining a grip on the mountain. He was bringing it up one-handed to his shoulder when a round from the sniper hit him in the chest. His body bounced back and he dropped the gun, but still he managed to hold on to the protection he had just put in.

Lexina desperately searched for someplace to hide, but they were in the middle of a flat space. She scrambled forward toward Aksu, trying to put his body between her and the sniper.

Turcotte heard the shots and could tell they were emanating not far from his location, just around the cornice where the two climbers had disappeared. It was less than ten meters away and from the first shot he had increased his climb, trading safety for speed, closing on Mualama.

Through the telescopic site, Olivetti could see the last members of the Chinese expedition. Next to him, McGraw was working steadily at the ice, chipping away. With one hand, Olivetti ejected the empty magazine and grabbed for another in his parka. As he brought it to the magazine well, it slipped out of his fingers, falling down the mountain. Olivetti reached for the third magazine.

Aksu turned to Lexina, blood bubbling up through his oxygen mask. He was trying to say something, but he couldn’t make a noise. She reached around his body for the automatic weapon dangling by its sling.

She rested the barrel on Aksu’s shoulder and took aim at the sniper. She pulled the trigger just as she saw the blossom of flame from his rifle, indicating he’d fired. She kept the trigger pulled, as the thirty-round magazine emptied on full automatic. About a third of the way through the magazine she felt Aksu’s body jerk from the impact of the sniper’s round.

The fire was wild, bullets spraying the rock face well above Olivetti’s location. That changed the moment Olivetti’s round struck the body concealing the rifle, jerking its muzzle down. A string of bullets chipped away from ten feet above his head, moving down, two rounds slamming into his body and the rest below his feet.

Olivetti blinked, feeling the wounds, not quite believing he’d been hit. The nanovirus went into overdrive, forcing him to keep moving. He reaimed the sniper rifle, shifting the reticules to the head that could be seen behind the body he’d already shot twice. Olivetti pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit Lexina directly between her red cat eyes, plowing through her skull.

Olivetti slumped in his harness, life draining from his body. Faintly he heard McGraw’s surprised yell. Twisting in the opposite direction, he saw someone coming around the cornice, hooked into the protection they had put in.

McGraw was standing on the ledge, his ice ax up in a defensive position. With a dying effort, Olivetti brought up the rifle and pulled the trigger repeatedly. As the magazine ran empty, he slumped away from the mountain, held in place by his harness.

The bullets slammed into the figure, blood spraying out the exit wounds onto the cornice, a melange of red on white. The body slid off the ledge and dangled five feet below, held up by the safety line.

McGraw turned back to the shallow cave and returned to chipping away at the ice with his ax.

Turcotte was nearly pulled from the mountain as the rope abruptly jerked downward. His harness, instead of going up, was being pulled down. With one hand on the mountain, Turcotte reached down and with great difficulty unsnapped from the line. He shoved the MP-5 around so that it was against his chest. Then he continued. He’d heard the firing and didn’t know what to expect.

He reached the cornice. There was no ledge around it. He had to assume there was a continuation of the ledge on the other side. Turcotte realized his heart was racing, pounding in his chest frantically, trying to push blood that simply didn’t have the oxygen anymore.

If he missed his hold on the other side — if there was no hold on the other side — Turcotte shook off that thinking. The safety line went around, even though it was down near his knees. He leaned his mask-covered forehead against the side of the mountain for a few seconds. Then he pulled away and reached as far to his left as he could with his hand, then his foot. He pushed off from the mountain, scrambling for a hold. His left foot touched the ledge and he continued to swing around until he was on the other side.

Turcotte was presented with Mualama dangling limply on the safety line; a man hanging dead in his harness; another man with his back to him, swinging an ice ax at the small cave; three bodies seated on a shelf in front of the cave; and in the cave, protected by only a few remaining inches of ice, Excalibur. Turcotte was using both hands to edge his way closer and the man with the ax seemed oblivious to everything except the task at hand. As Turcotte stepped around Mualama’s body, the man suddenly wheeled, ax held high. Unable to defend himself, Turcotte waited for the blow to fall, staring into the man’s deranged eyes.

The man’s eyes seemed to focus for a moment and shifted down to Turcotte’s parka, fixing on the Special Forces insignia pinned there. Turcotte saw the insignia on the man’s coat — the trident, anchor, pistol, and eagle symbol of the Navy SEALs. They locked eyes, the ax wavering in the air. The conditioning of the guardian tried to suppress the decades of SEAL training.

The ax came flashing down, cutting through the nylon straps attached to the man’s protection. Turcotte could have sworn he saw the faintest smile on the man’s lips as he fell out and away from the mountain, taking his dead partner with him.

Turcotte put both feet on the ledge, ignoring the three frozen bodies, his attention completely captured by the sword. The pommel glittered as it caught the rays of the setting sun and he could see the carvings on the scabbard. Only a scant inch of ice remained.

Turcotte hooked his nylon loop into one of the pieces of protection, then lifted his ice ax.