The Cloud Maker

Chapter 51

Smoke rose from the crooked line of pencil flares, glowing orange in the darkness. Chen worked slowly, double-checking each marking. Every twenty yards or so he would reach into a small canvas sack and strike the base of a flare on a nearby rock, triggering it to life. Sparks shot up into the night sky, bathing the vast slabs of rocks in their blood-red glow before settling into a long, steady flame.

For three hours he had been moving from rock to rock, searching for the next marking and leading the way through the Kooms. The entire SOF unit followed silently in his wake. They moved with their rifles slung across their backs, keeping their hands free for balance. Despite their training and experience in mountain warfare, none of them had ever experienced such relentless terrain.

Eventually Chen came to a huge boulder separated from the rest. He reached inside his bag, thumbed off the safety and sparked another flare. In front of him, a wide tract of deep snow was suddenly illuminated, sloping up into a gulley. He reached up to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Finally they were through.

In the main sweep of the gulley the snow was even deeper, forcing him to rock his body forward as he tried to move forward. To his left was a towering cliff, possibly two hundred metres high. Jagged buttresses were lined in vertical towers along it, sweeping round to where they finally joined with the snow gulley ahead.

Chen tilted his head up, letting his eyes trace the sides of the cliff. The scale of them was simply awesome. The mountain seemed to loom over him with an air of silent menace.

Suddenly he caught sight of a light. It shimmered somewhere high up towards the top of the cliff. He tried to focus on it, but the light blurred back into the darkness. He waited, eyes straining against the dark, but there was nothing. Then, just as he was about to turn back to the other soldiers, he saw it again — but this time there were two.

‘Sir, you need to see this.’

Zhu came to a halt, his eyes following the line of Chen’s pointing finger. Reaching into the front pouch of his webbing, he pulled out his Leica binoculars, swivelling the focus wheel impatiently. After a moment, he lowered them again.

‘It must be the Westerners,’ he said, then continued matter-of-factly, ‘take three men and lead them up the cliff in front. You’ll need to move fast to cut them off.’

‘Climb that? At night?’

Chen heard the shock in his own voice. He stared in disbelief at the towering cliff-face in front of them. Even during the day it would have been a formidable climb.

‘Capturing the Westerners should be your only concern, Lieutenant. You have ropes and harnesses. I suggest you use them.’

‘But, Captain, if we were only to traverse round up the gulley…’ Chen trailed off as he stared into Zhu’s black eyes, made blacker by the darkness. He knew there was no point in arguing. The captain would never back down.

Ten minutes later he stood at the base of the cliff with three of the SOF soldiers as the remainder busied themselves establishing a new camp on the edge of the snowline. As he explained the mission he looked into their faces, suddenly realising how young they all were. At most they were in their early-twenties. In the moonlight, he could see their frightened expressions. Fighting men was one thing. Fighting nature was something else.

Roped together in two separate pairs they set off, rifles slung across their backs. They climbed without gloves, the rock ice-cold to the touch, with pockets of drifted snow collected in the deep cracks. But the granite itself was solid, making their footing more stable and their handholds secure.

Above them the clouds began to disperse, scattering in thin wisps across the sky and allowing a wash of silvery moonlight. Climbing slowly, they could just make out the route ahead. Both pairs followed the edge of one of the main buttresses, pressing their right shoulder against the cliff-face as they clawed their way higher. With no bolts or friends to jam into the cracks for security, the two leading climbers fed the rope over outcrops of rock that they passed, hoping it would snag if one of them fell.

Chen stopped to catch his breath and stared down between his legs, watching the soldier below him force his way higher up the face. He could hear the laboured sound of the man’s breath and see the absolute concentration in his eyes. Chen pulled up some slack, looping it over a spur by his head, then turned and began climbing again.

They had chanced upon a good route and with each minute drew closer to the summit. Chen’s confidence began to soar as he saw the twinkling of stars beyond the top of the ridge. They were close now. No more than fifty feet.

From somewhere lower down he heard a scraping sound, then a long, panicked yell. Chen turned to see the lead climber from the other pair slipping down the cliff. His arms flailed desperately and his body twisted round like a spinning top, gaining momentum as he fell. For a split second, the rope between the two climbers caught on a spur, then the sheer force of the fall ripped it free, yanking the second climber from the face also. There was a long, petrified scream.

Chen watched both bodies fall the length of the cliff before thudding into the rock at its base. One of the rifles went off with the force of the impact, sending a booming echo across the entire mountainside as the bullet ricocheted off into some unseen distance. A silence followed that seemed to drag on and on.

Chen felt a pulse thundering in his neck. He could feel his hands shaking as he instinctively tried to tighten his grip on the rock. His eyes switched from where the two men had fallen and connected with the soldier beneath him, attached to his rope. They stared at each other, the same fear imprinted on both faces. Then, as one, they scrambled upward again, panic and adrenaline flooding their tired muscles.

They had to get off this terrible cliff-face.

‘What the hell was that?’ Bill said, looking in alarm towards Luca.

Luca was staring down into a long vertical crack in the ground. He adjusted the beam of his head-torch to see into its depths, scanning the light over the sheer sides. In the darkness, he had almost walked straight into it.

At the sudden sound he looked up, swinging the beam of his torch over Bill. No avalanche or rock fall could have made that sound. That was something else. Flinging his rucksack to the ground and unbuckling the top flap, he pulled out the climbing rope.

‘Tie me off,’ he muttered to Bill, uncoiling the rope into a pile on the ground. He ran the few paces to the edge of the cliff, then flung one end over. A few feet behind him, Bill jammed tight a quick-release knot around a nearby boulder, before feeding the rope over his back and gripping it tight with both hands.

‘OK,’ he whispered to Luca, widening his stance to take the strain.

Luca switched off his head-torch then edged his feet out over the cliff and sank his weight into the rope. Without using a harness, he gripped tight with his hands, walking back a few paces so that he could lean right out over the cliff’s sheer side.

His eyes scanned across its great flanks, searching the darkness. Then, thirty feet to the right of where he was standing, he caught sight of a figure. It was grey in the moonlight, merging with the colour of the rock, but its quick movement had caught his eye. It was climbing fast and was now just below the crest of the cliff.

‘That’s not possible,’ he muttered, the words dropping involuntarily from his mouth.

It was the Chinese soldiers. It had to be. But how had they found them so fast?

Signalling to Bill to haul him in, Luca made it back to the flat ground, his mind racing.

‘Soldiers,’ he breathed, staring from Shara to the boy. ‘Fucking soldiers! They’re climbing the cliff-face.’

Shara instinctively grabbed hold of Babu, her fingers kneading the collar of his jacket.

‘We’ve got to run,’ she said, voice rising in panic. She pulled Babu forward by his arm, turning back towards the monastery.

‘No, wait!’ Bill shouted, raising his hand. ‘It’s too dangerous. You’ll fall.’

Shara paused, fighting her natural inclination to flee. She stood with her legs shoulder-width apart, eyes wild in the darkness. Her hands gripped Babu more tightly.

‘I’m not going to let them take him,’ she hissed. ‘I swear, they will not take this boy.’

Babu looked up at her, alarmed by the sudden vehemence of her tone and the feeling of her nails biting through his sheepskin jacket. He stood silently, suddenly overwhelmed by fear.

‘What the hell do we do?’ Bill asked, breathing hard.

Luca was staring back at the cliff edge. The Chinese would be over it in less than a minute.

‘Luca, what do we do,’ Bill repeated. With a burst of determination, Luca sprinted over to where Shara and Babu stood. Grabbing them both by the arms, he pulled them towards the deep crack in the ground.

‘We’ll lower you down there. You can hide from them and use the rope to climb out when we’re gone.’

‘But what about you?’ Shara asked.

‘You worry about the boy,’ he snapped, pulling the rope in from the cliff-face and feeding it down into the crack. He turned to face Shara, grabbing on to her shoulders so hard that his face was only a few inches from hers.

‘You take care of Babu,’ he whispered. ‘I promise we’ll be back. Just stay quiet, whatever you do.’

Before Shara could protest, Bill had grabbed hold of Babu and was raising him on to her chest. Babu looped his arms behind her neck, clinging to her so that his head was pressed tight under her chin. With a final, questioning look at Luca, Shara gripped on to the rope and stepped backwards into the darkness beneath her.

While Luca lay flat on the ground, his arm outstretched, shining the torch as far down as he could to guide her, Shara’s felt boots edged down the sheer wall of rock, her arms shaking from the strain. Her feet suddenly pedalled out into mid-air and she hung from the rope, twisting her head to try and see below.

Luca’s torch flashed underneath her. The ground was close. Releasing her grip, she leaped back from the rope, landing heavily on the ground. For a moment she remained motionless, trying to get her bearings.

‘OK,’ she shouted, her voice echoing up the closed rock walls. In the single beam of the light they could see her staring up at them, the same look of uncertainty in her eyes. Without another word, Luca pulled the torch away, pitching the crack into absolute darkness. They heard Babu cry out before the sound was quickly muffled by Shara’s gloved hand.

Luca began moving forward with his head bent low, swinging the beam of the torch from side to side across the broken ground.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Bill whispered.

‘Trying to stop those bastards,’ he said and, squatting down on the ground, picked up two rocks lying by the edge of the crack. They were each the size of a man’s head. Holding one under each arm, he ran to the edge of the cliff to where he had seen the soldiers climbing. Dropping one by his feet, he sent the other hurtling down the rock-face. It clattered down, splintering with each turn, before the pieces spun off, away from the cliff.

Luca had just picked up the next one when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw an arm appear over the edge of the cliff, just a few feet to his right. He swivelled round as a massive Chinese soldier pulled himself over the lip and rolled on to the ground beside him. The soldier was panting hard, his face bathed in sweat.

Luca stared down, a terrible rage rising within him. He felt his cheeks flush with heat and adrenaline pump into his chest. He was not going to let them take the boy.

With an animal sound, he raised the rock above his head with both hands, ready to crash it down on the soldier’s face. Dazed by the glare of the head-torch, the soldier made no attempt to move, staring up in mute horror as Luca towered above him.

‘Luca!’

Bill screamed his name with all his strength.

Luca stopped, fists white from the tightness of his grip. He hesitated, then slowly turned towards Bill.

‘Don’t do it, Luca,’ he shouted.

From behind there was a loud metallic click. A second soldier had crawled over the edge of the cliff a few metres further to the right. He was breathing hard like the one before him but this time there was a rifle in his hands. It was pointing directly at Luca.

The soldier slowly clambered to his feet, the muzzle of his rifle dipping in the process. He stepped closer, catching his breath, before shouting an order in Mandarin. Luca didn’t understand but let the rock fall from his grasp and stepped back a pace.

The first soldier dragged himself up and swung his own rifle off his shoulder, loading a round into the chamber. His brown eyes were round with shock, and Luca could see his chest still rising and falling in double-time. A moment later both soldiers stepped forward, their rifles trained on Luca’s forehead.

A few paces further back, Bill already had his hands up. His eyes remained fixed on the ground where the coil of rope was still wrapped around the rock, feeding down into the gap below. The soldiers would see it. They would discover Shara and Babu. Using the toe of his boot, he dug his foot into the loop of the quick-release knot and pulled. Just as the rope whizzed round the boulder, he stepped forward, waving his hands to distract them.

‘What do you want with us?’ he shouted.

Both soldiers instinctively swivelled towards him, fingers curling around the triggers.

‘Stay back,’ Chen said in a thick Chinese accent. He advanced a pace while the other man remained at a distance, covering them.

‘Where boy?’ Chen asked.

Luca remained silent. Chen’s eyes darted between them.

‘Where boy?’ he repeated, jerking his rifle towards Luca’s chest.

‘There is no boy,’ Luca said angrily. ‘We’re climbers.’

Chen stared into his eyes for several seconds. Then he slowly took in their surroundings, eyes scanning every inch of the ground. He walked in a semi-circle around them, taking in the two rucksacks lying at their feet and the flat ground above the cliff. There was no other place to hide.

‘Then you tell Captain,’ he said, signalling with a nod towards the cliff edge.

He turned and barked an order in Mandarin to the second soldier who immediately threw off his rucksack and pulled out a second, longer rope. He moved forward, looping it around the same heavy boulder Bill had used on the edge of the crack.

Bill and Luca exchanged glances but the soldier continued tying off the rope, oblivious to what lay just beneath him in the shadows. He drew up next to the cliff edge, throwing the coils over.

‘If we’re going to abseil off there, we’re going to need more than one rope,’ Bill said, gesturing to the rucksack at his feet.

Chen stared at him for a moment, then nodded his consent. As Bill folded back the top of the rucksack, he saw the big soldier’s grip tighten on the rifle, taking no chances.

‘Easy,’ Bill said, moving with exaggerated slowness. ‘Easy. We’re not going to cause any trouble.’

He handed their rope over to the soldier, then moved back a few paces so that he was shoulder to shoulder with Luca.

‘Take it easy, Luca,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’

Luca stared directly ahead, watching every movement the soldiers made.

‘They’re trapped in there,’ he breathed, glancing sidelong towards the crack. ‘We’ve got to think of something. And fast.’