High Time To Kill

A few people snickered. Chandra spoke up then. “In the Gurkha forces, we have a saying in Gurkhali: Kaphar hunu banda, marnu raamro. It’s our motto. It means ‘It’s better to die than be a coward.’ I shall go with you and Commander Bond.”

“Me, too,” Hope Kendall said. “Besides, I have a feeling you’ll need a good doctor up there.”

Paul Baack shrugged. “Hell, I’ve come this far. Why not?”

The others ultimately agreed. Only Otto Schrenk was silent. They all looked at him, waiting for an answer. Finally, he said, “I’m in.”

Keeping the murder from the Ghunsa police proved to be easier than they expected. Hope Kendall submitted a death certificate claiming that David Black had received a “puncture wound” when he fell on some equipment. Luckily, the police were accustomed to dealing with accident-prone westerners and allowed the team to take care of the matter without their interference. Permits were checked and the team were cleared to move on.

The Liaison Officer volunteered to take David Black’s body to Kathmandu and attend to the appropriate bureaucracy involved. After he left with the corpse on a wagon, the Sherpas performed a token prayer service for the dead climber.

As night fell, the entire team went to their tents in silence. They attempted to put the events of the day behind them, but there was no escaping the feeling that impending disaster was just around the comer.

The trek grew more difficult after the overnight stop in Lhonak. Everyone on the team was feeling poorly. The ascent was overly ambitious, and even Roland Marquis was coughing and breathing heavily when they finally reached Base Camp, six days after leaving Kathmandu.

It was located on the north side of the great mountain at 5,140 meters. Remnants of past expeditions were still there—broken tents, rubbish, puja shrines, and, most conspicuous, a few gravestones that had been placed to honor those who had perished on Kangchenjunga

The peak itself was massive, extending up into the clouds. It was a spectacular behemoth of rock, ice, and snow. Winds dangerously whipped around it. Billows of what appeared to be white “smoke” occasionally exploded off the upper regions. This was really snow and ice being thrown about by the high winds. From the base of the mountain, this phenomenon was beautiful to look at; but to be up there in it would be extremely hazardous. There, it would be a terrible blizzard. It was no wonder, Bond thought, that the Nepalese believed the gods lived at the top. The sight was so overpowering that his first instinct was to bow to it, proclaim himself unworthy to be in its vicinity, and then turn around and go home. The facts were well known to him—the mountain is eight miles in length and five in width, and its main summit is at 8,598 meters, or 28,208 feet, making it the third-highest peak in the world. Although Everest receives most of the attention in the Himalayas, Kangchenjunga is considered more difficult and “mightier.” Many people have attempted to summit the Kanch from the north side. It wasn’t until 1979 that three men made it to the top via the “north ridge,” bypassing the lower glacial shelves. The Japanese were the first to summit via the north face in 1980.

“All in all,” Marquis said as they approached the Base Camp, ‘there have been over twenty-five expeditions up this mountain, using seventeen possible routes. I’ve never tried the Kanch. I’ve always wanted to.”

“We’re not here to summit,” Bond reminded him.

“If we get our job done and there’s time, I’m bloody well going to do it,” Marquis said with finality in his voice. “And you can’t stop me, Bond.”

“Some of the Sherpas might.”

“Besides, I’d like to see Hope get to the top. Not many women have done it.”

Dr. Kendall overheard this and said, “Unh-unh. As much as I’d like

Mr. Bond is right. We’re not here to set world records.”

Marquis looked at them both with disgust and walked away from them.

In three hours the camp was set up and operational. Ang Tshering organized it quickly and efficiently. A tent was erected for Girmi to store the food supplies and cooking equipment. Paul Baack was in charge of expedition HQ, which consisted of all his various communications devices, cots, lamps, and other supplies. A portable satellite dish was constructed just outside the HQ tent, and it wasn’t long before he was in communication with the outside world.

Nearly everyone was wheezing and coughing. As the altitude change was now quite serious, people retired to their tents immediately after dinner. Most of them weren’t very hungry and had to force themselves to eat something.

The temperature was another factor that affected the team. At the Base Camp it was below freezing, and the windchill made it even worse. At subzero temperatures, Bond would wear a Marmot 8000 Meter down parka and trousers. Equipment and clothing weight is always something to consider, and Bond had chosen the parka because it weighed around one kilogram. His hands were kept covered by OR Promodular gloves, which were very strong, supple, and warm. Even inside the Marmot sleeping bag, he was constantly aware of the chill.

The next morning Bond felt better and found that others did, too. He was eager to get up the side of the mountain, but he knew that a week had to be spent at the Base Camp so that the body could properly acclimatize. He joined the others for the traditional puja ceremony in which the Sherpas and Chandra built a small shrine out of rocks and hung prayer scarves on it. Prayers were said, as it was believed that they had to ask permission to climb the mountain. They made offerings, and a live chicken that Girmi had brought along in a wooden cage was sacrificed for just this purpose. Supposedly, this would appease the gods at the top, and the climbers would be looked upon favorably.

“It is important not to take the climb lightly,” Chandra told everyone. “Always respect the mountain. The mountain is far more powerful than you will ever be. The gods don’t like men to be overconfident. They despise anyone who thinks he can get the better of the mountain. Misfortune will most certainly fall upon anyone who believes they can ‘trick’ the mountain.”

Everyone listened attentively, but Bond noticed Marquis holding back a snicker. He whispered to Bond, “You don’t believe that mumbo jumbo, do you, Bond?”

“It’s not a question of belief, Roland, it’s a question of respect.”

Marquis shook his head. “You always liked playing by the rules, didn’t you“

Afterward, Marquis addressed the group. “Right. I hope you all had a good night’s sleep. I know I didn’t. But as our bodies acclimatize, the sleeping will improve, isn’t that right, doctor?”

Hope said, “Well, for most people it should. Sleeping is automatically impaired at high altitudes. That’s why it’s important to take frequent rests. I should also remind you to drink lots of fluids.”

“Now,” Marquis continued, “all this week we’ll spend the time doing just that. However, beginning the day after tomorrow, some of us will commence short excursions up the face. Each day we’ll climb a little higher and return to Base Camp the same day. I’ll be watching you all to see how you do, and on that basis I’ll select those climbers who will accompany me in the Lead Team.” The Lead Team was the group that had the most difficult job. They had to install the hardware that helped other climbers get up the mountain—ropes, anchors, ice screws, pitons, carabiners, runners, and the like.

After the meeting the team broke up for “free time,” which Bond considered a joke, as there was absolutely nothing to do. He had brought two paperback books to read—an old thriller by John le Carre and a new nonfiction book about criminal profiling, written by a former FBI agent. Several of the men had brought playing cards and portable chess and checkers sets, and Paul Baack even had a television that picked up a few channels by satellite.

Base Camp life was long and dull in Bond’s opinion, and he found himself becoming restless and agitated by the third day. Marquis didn’t pick him to go on the first climb, but he did select Otto Schrenk. Bond thought he would use the opportunity to take a look inside Schrenk’s tent.

He got Chandra to stand watch as he slipped inside. Typically, Schrenk had insisted on pitching his own tent and bunking alone.

There were the usual accoutrements necessary for survival—a hanging Bibler stove, climbing gear, sleeping bag, clothing—but nothing that remotely resembled anything like a sniper rifle. The only weapon he found was an antique but beautifully preserved dress dagger that the Nazis wore as an item of uniform. They were special to each branch of the service, and this one was naval. It was not hidden but was lying in plain sight with a pile of other tools. A Union weapon perhaps?

Bond crept out of the tent and shook his head at Chandra. Perhaps they could find a way to search everyone’s tent before the actual ascent began.

Two days later Bond was attempting to nap in his tent after lunch. Gunshots woke him, so he leaped out of the sleeping bag and slipped on his boots. He ran outside, where it had begun to snow.

The shots were coming from behind the mess. Three or four people were standing around, watching something. Bond pushed through and saw that Roland Marquis had set up targets of bottles and tin cans and was practicing his aim with a Browning Hi-Power handgun. The Sherpas were quite agitated with this behavior, and Bond understood why. The gunfire would displease the gods.

“Roland, what the hell are you doing?” Bond snapped.

“What does it look like, Bond? I’m keeping my trigger finger up to snuff.”

“You’re upsetting the Sherpas. Stop it, now.”

Marquis turned and looked at Bond. “I don’t give a damn what the Sherpas think. I’m the leader here, and if I feel like target practice, by God, I’m going to do it. Care to join me?”

“Hell, no. Put the gun away.”

Marquis shrugged and laid the pistol on a rock. He picked up an ice ax that was at his side. “All right, how about a little game of ice ax throwing? Come on, Bond, aren’t you bored, too? We’ll throw ice axes at the targets. The Sherpas won’t mind that.”

Bond shook his head. He didn’t want to get into this kind of brawl with Marquis. More team members had heard the noise and had by then ventured to the area. Hope Kendall was among them.

“Come on, Bond, it’s all in fun. Don’t tell me that our Foreign Office rep is afraid of being beaten?” Marquis said it loud enough for everyone to hear.

“You’re acting like a schoolboy, Roland.”

Without warning, Marquis flicked the ice ax at Bond. It struck the ground an inch away from his right foot. The tool perfectly embedded in the snow with the handle sticking straight up.

Whether it was the effects of the high altitude, the relentless boredom, or his lack of sleep, he didn’t know; but this angered Bond to such an extent that he reached down and removed the ice ax, saying, “All right, Roland. Let’s do it.”

“Now you’re talking, Bond!” Marquis laughed aloud and looked around for another ice ax. He got one from Carl Glass and then said, “Carl, go and set up those bottles and cans again, would you? What shall our stakes be? I’m sure you didn’t bring much money with you, so we can’t have a replay of our Stoke Poges match.”

“This was your idea, Roland, you name it.”

Marquis grinned and looked around at the crowd. He spotted the doctor looking at him with wide eyes.

“Very well. The winner gets to sleep with Dr. Kendall tonight.”

“What?” she blurted out. “What the hell are you—”

Bond held up his hand. “Come on, Roland, that was out of line, and you know it.”

Marquis gave her a little bow. “I’m sorry, my dear. Just a little joke.”

“Screw you, Roland,” she said, then walked away.

Marquis shook his head and said, “Tsk-tsk, the fairer sex. I suppose they can’t be saints and sluts at the same time.”

It took all of Bond’s willpower to keep from slugging him. He knew, though, that it wouldn’t be good for morale to do so in front of the team. The man was behaving as badly as Bond had ever seen him.

“Well, never mind. We won’t play for anything except the satisfaction of being the best. Is that all right?” Marquis asked. “Fine.”

“Shall I start?”

Bond gave a slight, mocking bow. “By all means.”

Marquis sneered at him, then turned to face the targets. There were five bottles and five cans set on various objects—portable tables, rocks, canvas bags. . . .

Marquis raised the ice ax and tossed it. It knocked the first bottle cleanly off its base.

He smiled and said, “Your turn, Bond.”

Bond took a position, tossed the ice ax from hand to hand to get a feel for its weight, then flicked it forward. The second bottle shattered.

“Oh, nice one, Bond! Do we get extra points for breaking the target? I think not.”

Carl Glass retrieved the ice axes and handed them back to the players. The other members of the team were enthralled by the display of antagonism between the two men. Even Hope returned out of curiosity.

Marquis took a stance, raised the ice ax, and threw it. The tool whizzed past the third bottle, missing it by two inches.

“Oh, bloody hell,” he said.

Bond took his place, raised his own ax, then tossed it. He knocked the third bottle into the snow.

The axes were retrieved again, and Marquis took his place for a third try. He flung the ice ax and missed the fourth bottle by a hair.

“Goddammit!” he shouted. He was losing his temper. In fact, Bond thought, he was acting quite irrationally. Could he have AMS?

Bond knocked down the fourth bottle, which only angered Marquis more. Luckily for him, Marquis succeeded in demolishing the fifth bottle.

By the time they were into the tin cans, Bond was ahead by one hit There were only two targets left. Bond had hit every object he had thrown at except for one, which had allowed Marquis to catch up a little.

Marquis took aim, threw the ax, and knocked off the can. One to go

Bond stood his ground, aimed, and threw. The pick missed the can. There was an audible gasp from the spectators.

“Oh, bad luck, Bond,” Marquis said, cocky as hell. He took the retrieved ice ax and aimed carefully. He raised his arm slowly, then threw the ice ax hard. Instead of hitting the can, it struck the rock it was sitting on. The force of the blow, however, was enough to dislodge the can, causing it to fall into the snow

“Ha! It’s a draw!” Marquis shouted.

“I don’t think so, Roland,” Bond said. “You didn’t hit the can. You hit the rock.”

“The bloody thing got knocked off, though.”

This time Carl Glass intervened. “Well, since I’m the unofficial referee here, I have to side with Mr. Bond on that one, Roland. You didn’t hit the can.”

“Who the hell asked you?” he shouted at Glass.

“Let Bond have another go,” someone in the crowd said.

“Yes, that should clinch it.”

Marquis was fuming. “Very well. Bond, if you hit it, fine, you win. But if you miss, I win.”

“You’d still be tied,” Glass reminded him.

“Shut up!” Marquis snapped. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“Fine, Roland,” Bond said. “If I miss, you win.” Bond took the ice ax, concentrated on the tin can that had been reset by Glass, then threw the tool. It spun around, hit a nearby rock, bounced off it, and struck the can. The spectators applauded and shouted.

“Whoa, fancy move!”

“Well done!”

Marquis glowered at Bond. “You cheated.”

How? It was your bloody game. There were no rules.”

He stuck his finger into Bond’s chest and said, “I never liked you, Bond. Not back at school, not when we were in the service, and not now- Someday you and I will really have it out.”

Bond stood there, silently taking it. He couldn’t jeopardize the mission by getting into a fight with Marquis now. They had to get to the plane, and Marquis was the only one who could adequately lead them up the mountain.

It was Hope who defused the situation. “Roland, I want you to go to bed. You’re exhibiting AMS symptoms.”

“No, I’m not.”

“One of the first symptoms is denial that you have them.”

“I agree with Dr. Kendall,” Bond said. He attempted to control his anger and speak calmly. “Look, this was just a game. We’ll do it again sometime if it will make you feel better. But the doctor is right. You’re not thinking straight.”

Marquis looked around him and saw that the entire team was staring at him. He began to protest, then backed down. “Fine,” he said. He seemed to relax a little. “But you wait. I’m going to prove to you all that there’s no one else who can summit this mountain faster than me.”

“We’re not summiting the mountain, Roland,” Hope reminded him.

“Oh, believe me, I will,” he said. “I haven’t come all this way just to pick over a bunch of dead bodies in a plane wreck. I don’t give a shit about your ‘secret mission,’ Bond.”

That did it. Bond grabbed him by the parka. He whispered through his teeth, “Listen to me, Marquis, you had better start behaving. Might I remind you of your duty and of M’s instructions? I will not hesitate to exercise my own authority to have you replaced. I can do it, too.”

Hope Kendall was the only one who heard him. She said, “Come on, Roland. Lets go to the medical tent. I want to take a look at you. Let’s check your blood pressure.” She gently pulled him away from Bond. Marquis glared at his adversary but allowed her to take him away.

NINETEEN

KANGCH AT LAST

A WEEK PASSED AND Roland Marquis picked a small team to prepare the temporary camps up the north face of Kangchenjunga. The plan was to ascend the mountain over two weeks, with several days spent acclimatizing at the halfway mark. Camp Five would be set up at the crash site on the Great Scree Terrace.

Bond expected Marquis not to pick him, and when Marquis announced that the Lead Team would consist of himself, Philippe Leaud, Carl Glass, Tom Barlow, Otto Schrenk, Doug McKee, and two Sherpas, Bond protested.

“Let me and Chandra go with you,” he insisted.

“Sorry, Bond, only professional climbers are allowed to be in the Lead Team. It’s the rule.”

“Bollocks, Roland. You know damned well I can do it. So can Chandra.”

Marquis thought for a moment. He was quite aware that Bond was properly acclimatized simply from observing his ability and stamina during the trek from Taplejung.

All right, Bond,” he said patronizingly. “I suppose we can use you.”

Climbers usually work in pairs so that one can belay the other and take turns making pitches, so Marquis could not exclude Chandra.

Bond put on Boothroyd’s One Sport boots and made a thorough inspection of his equipment. His various ice tools—axes, ice screws—were made by Black Diamond, among the finest available. His snow pickets, the stakes used as anchoring devices, were MSR Coyotes. He had chosen the Deadman model simply because he liked the name. He examined the points on his Grivel 2F crampons to satisfy himself that they were sharp enough. Crampons are necessary for ice climbing, allowing the climber to gain a solid foothold on hard ice and snow. They were hinged so that they would bend naturally. He used the Scottish method of strapping them to his boots—a strap with a ring in the middle is permanently connected to the two front posts of the crampon; a strap then runs from one side post through the ring to the other side post, with a rear strap wrapping around the ankle from the two back posts. He knew it was a rather old-fashioned way of doing it, but it was how his father had taught him when Bond first started climbing at the age of five. Like everyone else, he carried Edelweiss 9mm Stratos ropes, made with polyamide braid in fifty- meter sections, and fixing ropes, which are different and made of 7mm Kevlar cord in one-hundred-meter sections.

Marquis and Leaud set off in the lead, followed by Barlow and Glass, then Bond and Chandra. The two Sherpas, Holung and Chettan, who had come back to the Base Camp after leaving the injured Bill Scott in Taplejung, were next, and Schrenk and McKee brought up the rear.

To get to Camp One at 5,500 meters, the team had to walk up a moraine and across a low-angle rock and ice glacier. They had made such a trip at least once during practice runs the previous week, so they were familiar with the path. Unfortunately, the wind was now blowing hard and the temperature had dropped significantly.

The first part of the ascent was relatively easy. The French had developed a widely used technique for ice climbing called ‘flat- footing,” which requires the climber to keep his feet as flat against the ice as possible at all times to keep all crampon points on the ice. The Germans developed a technique known as “front-pointing,” in which the climber kicks the front crampon points hard into the ice and then steps directly up on them. In both techniques, climbers must progress by moving their weight from one point of balance to another, supporting themselves as much as possible on their legs, and planning several moves in advance. Bond liked to call it “climbing with one’s eyes.” Climbers learn to rely on surface features, seeking out buckets and protrusions for handholds, footholds, and ice-tool placements.

Technical expertise was needed once they reached the upper glacier. One man climbed while his partner belayed. The belay had to be connected to an anchor, the point of secure attachment to the rock or ice. The belayer paid out or took in rope as the climber ascended, ready to use one of the various methods of applying friction in case the climber fell. Marquis took the lead, belayed from below, and moved up the rock face to the next desirable spot to set up a new belay. The last climber would take apart the belay and climb up, belayed from above. The distance between belays is known as a pitch. The climbers leapfrogged their way up so that the one who went first led all the odd-numbered pitches, and followed second on all even-numbered ones. The leader attached hardware—called “protection”—to the rock or ice on the way up.

All along the way the team pitched flags and ropes, marking the route so that the others would have less difficulty ascending. It was a strenuous four hours, but Bond felt great to be climbing again. It reminded him of his youth in the Austrian Tyrol, when he first fell in love with the sport. The cold air that burned his lungs was a painful yet exhilarating sensation.

As he and Chandra pitched their tent at Camp One, though, he got the disconcerting feeling that he was in grave danger. He felt that the Union could raise their ugly head at any time.

At dawn Bond and Chandra were awoken by the Sherpas, who brought them hot tea. The tea was welcome, but he would have given a year’s salary just to have a plate of his housekeeper May’s scrambled eggs. He also would have killed to have a cigarette, but this was truly a situation when having a cigarette would have killed him. He rose stiffly from the sleeping bag, coughed and hacked for several minutes, then sipped the tea. Chandra sat up, said “Good morning” but was otherwise atypically speechless. The climb was getting to them both. Bond had slept fitfully, with very vivid, disturbing dreams, which was quite normal at high altitude. What was worrying was that the conditions would worsen as they got higher. That day they were ascending to 6,000 meters. It wouldn’t be long before they would require oxygen.

The team met at Marquis’s tent, which would remain as Camp One HQ.

“Right,” Marquis said, breathing heavily. “Today’s climb is another five hundred meters up the ice glacier above us. It’s a relatively easy jaunt. First we have to climb through that small, low-angle icefall to get to the main glacier. We’ll set up Camp Two there.”

“There are some short ice steps we’ll have to fix rope on,” Philippe Leaud said. “How big are they, Roland?”

“Ten to twenty meters. No problem. How does everyone feel?”

They all mumbled, “Fine.”

“Let’s go, then.”

The team kept the same formation as the previous day, with Marquis and Leaud leading. The ropes were attached easily enough, and they trudged up the slope in silence. As the air grew thinner, their strength diminished with each step. It took twice as long to travel a few feet as it would have at sea level.

They got to Camp Two midafternoon, totally exhausted. Tom Barlow fell to his knees, gasping for breath.

“Chettan, take a look at him,” Marquis told the Sherpa. “Make sure he’s all right. The rest of you, set up the tents. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can collapse.”

Barlow regained his wind after a few minutes. So far no one except Marquis had shown any signs of AMS. They erected the tents and huddled in two of them to eat. Bond found himself in a tent with Chandra, Marquis, and Leaud. Marquis brought out his cell phone and punched the memory dial.

“Camp Two to Base, Camp Two to Base,” he said.

“Hello? Roland?” It was Paul Baack.

“Paul, we’re here. We’re at Camp Two.”

“Congratulations!”

“How are things down there?”

“Fine. We’re all restless, but we just watched Gone With the Wind on television. Uncut. No commercials. That passed the time.”

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” Marquis said, laughing at his own joke.

“Hope wants to know how everyone is feeling,” Baack said.

“Tell her we’re fine. Tom had a few moments of breathlessness, but he’s all right now. Tomorrow we’ll push on to Camp Three and wait for you to join us. In the meantime, can we order some Chinese takeaway?”

“Sorry, we’re all out of Chinese food. You don’t want Chinese food tonight. Why don’t you order a pizza?”

“That sounds fine, too,” Marquis said, laughing. “Over and out.”

He put away the phone as they began to eat Alpine Aire freeze-dried rations, which were types of casseroles made of vegetables and/or meat. Sealed tightly in waterproof plastic bags, the rations were lightweight and easily boiled to produce a high-calorie meal with no dishes to clean.

“Hey, come out here!” a voice called outside.

“Who’s that?” Marquis asked.

“Sounds like McKee,” Bond said. He stuck his head out the tent flap. Doug McKee was standing a few feet away, pointing at something.

“Come look at this,” he said. The others were gathered around a dark object in the snow.

Bond and his group climbed out and stomped through the ice and snow to see what the fuss was about.

I wonder how long he’s been here,” McKee said, pointing to the thing frozen in the ice.

It was a man’s skeleton, fully dressed in climbing gear.

Bond’s dreams that night were filled with unholy terrors. He thought that an avalanche had buried him at one point and that he was suffocating and freezing. As he dug frantically in the snow with his bare, frostbitten hands, he came upon the frozen skeletons of an entire expedition. The skulls were laughing at him. One addressed him in Roland Marquis’s voice: “Oh, bad luck! You never were the best, Bond. But you tried to be, didn’t you? Now look at you!”

He awoke with a start. Chandra was shaking him. “James, there’s a fire. Wake up!”

“What?” Bond snapped out of it, groggy and disoriented. The first thing he noticed was the biting, cold air attacking his lungs. He coughed hard and wheezed for a few seconds.

“One of the tents is on fire!”

Bond leaped out of the sleeping bag, slipped on his boots, and followed Chandra outside. The sun was just rising, casting an eerie orange glow over the ice around them.

Three men were stomping on a tent that was ablaze. Bond had to think a moment to remember whose tent it was.

“Schrenk?”

“He got out. He’s over there.” Chandra pointed. Otto Schrenk was one of the men putting out the fire. They were using snow shovels and blankets to snuff it out. Bond and Chandra jumped in to help, and within minutes it was extinguished.

“How did this happen?” Marquis asked, stumbling up to the scene. His voice was hoarse.

“The goddamn stove in my tent,” Schrenk said. “I was trying to boil water, and the tent caught fire. Look, it’s all ruined.”

“What gear did you lose?”

“I’m not sure yet. My extra clothes, I know.” Schrenk began to rummage through the blackened fabrics and pulled out some tools that were still intact. “There are these, thank God.”

“He can borrow some of my clothes until we reach Camp Three,” Philippe Leaud said. “You’re my size, Otto?”

“I think so, thanks.”

The team settled down for breakfast and attempted to get their wits about them. No one was thinking particularly straight. They gathered by Marquis’s tent as he pulled out a map of the route.

“Today we come to our first big obstacle. After we cross the glacier, we come to the so-called ice building. Now, we have a couple of options- The normal route is to climb six hundred meters on a steep ice slope to the left of the seracs of the ice building. We would then traverse right across the first snow plateau to make Camp Three at sixty-six hundred meters. Now, this is very steep ice climbing, which we will fix rope on. I know that an American team who did this claimed it wasn’t that difficult, just extremely tiring. The other possibility is to do what the Japanese did and climb directly through the ice building. This would be easier going technically, but it could be dangerous. This ice building is really the key to the north face— how to get around it. A serac collapse in the area killed a Sherpa in 1930. It’s pretty scary, I must say, and different teams chose different strategies for getting around it.”

“What do you recommend?” McKee asked.

“I say we should try the Worth method from 1983 and climb the ice-wall to the left of the ice building. Above that we would go right across the glacier back to the north face.”

“You’re the boss,” Leaud said.

“Now, when Schrenk—where is Schrenk?” Marquis asked, looking around. Only then did everyone realize he was the one member of the team missing.

“Maybe he’s putting his gear back together?” McKee suggested.

They looked around and found Schrenk walking toward them with his gear packed and ready to go.

“Sorry,” he said. “Did I miss anything?”

“It’s all right,” Marquis said. “Just follow us. Let’s go, everyone! I want to start climbing in ten minutes!”

Bond and Chandra rushed back to the tent and packed quickly. Bond slipped on his crampons and joined the party outside. The wind had died down, the sun had risen, and it was a relatively beautiful day considering the fact that they were on the side of the third tallest fountain in the world. They were already higher than many of the Peaks around them. This was what Bond truly loved about mountain climbing. It was a vigorous, dangerous sport that, when one achieved the goal, gave one a sense of accomplishing the impossible. Here one really was the king of the world.

The “ice building” is a beautiful but frightening formation that is virtually a tunnel of ice. It could have been used as a shortcut up to the plateau, but, as Marquis said, the possibility of icefalls is very high.

Instead, Marquis led them up the ice slope to the left, which was at a steep angle ranging from forty-five degrees to seventy. Slowly and carefully, they worked their way up a gully that proved to be quite strenuous an operation.

They were nearly halfway up the gully when it was Bond’s turn to make the next pitch. Chandra belayed while Bond used the ropes already set in place by Marquis and Leaud, who were a hundred meters above them.

Just when the angle was at its steepest, Bond’s crampons suddenly slipped off his boots. He lost his footing and began to plummet. He slid backward on the ice and attempted to stop himself with his ice ax, but he was unable to obtain a secure hold with it. Chandra jumped into action and held the belay rope tightly.

Bond fell thirty meters and was jerked to a halt by the rope. His back felt as if it had snapped in two. He yelled in pain as he dropped his ice ax.

“Hold on, James!” Chandra called.

Bond swung limply on the rope. The others became aware of what happened and stopped climbing.

“What happened?” Marquis called from above.

“James?” Chandra called. “Are you conscious?”

Bond lifted his hand and waved.

“Can you swing yourself to the wall and get a foothold?”

“I’ll try,” Bond called. He began to swerve and kick, gaining enough momentum to rock himself back and forth on the rope. Finally, he hit the wall of ice but couldn’t find a handhold. He kicked away once again, attempting to maneuver himself toward an anchor that had been set a few-feet to his right. After two more tries he grabbed hold of it and slowly worked his way down the rope to the ledge where Chandra was.

“What happened? Are you all right?” Chandra asked.

“Yes. Gave me a hell of a fright, though. Bloody crampons. They slipped right off my boots!”

“How could that happen?”

“Where are they? Did you see them fall?”

“I think so. Over there somewhere.” They moved carefully along the ledge and found one of them. The other had fallen into oblivion.

Bond picked it up and examined it. The ring that the straps went through was bent and had a two-millimeter gap in it. Bond removed his goggles for a moment to look at it closely.

“This ring was filed,” he said. “Look, it has serrated edges there. Someone tampered with it!”

“When was the last time you looked at them?”

“Well, last night, I suppose. But they were in my tent all night. Who could have . . . ?”

He thought a minute. “Schrenk. He was missing at the team meeting over breakfast. He could have had time to slip into our tent and do the damage.”

Chandra nodded. “It’s possible. Maybe that fire was something he set on purpose to cause a diversion.”

At that moment the two Sherpas caught up with them. Schrenk and McKee were not far behind at the rear. When they appeared on the ledge, Bond cheerfully addressed them.

“My crampons slipped off. Anyone have a spare pair?”

McKee said, “I do. I’m not sure if they’ll fit you. What happened?”

“I don’t know. They came undone somehow.” Bond looked directly at Schrenk, who averted his eyes.

McKee pulled off his backpack and dug into it. He found the two extra crampons, which were wrapped in cloth to protect the other gear from the sharp spikes. Bond tried them on. They were a little small but would do the job.

“Thanks. I’ll make sure the others bring up more when they meet us at Camp Three.”

“What the hell is going on down there?” Marquis called. He was quite some distance away.

Chandra waved the okay sign and they began to climb again.

Four hours later they reached the plateau, 6,600 meters above sea level. Everyone was coughing and attempting to take slow, deep breaths.

“What about oxygen?” McKee asked Marquis.

“We don’t need oxygen until we’re higher up. If you need it now, you’re going to use it all up. How many canisters did you bring?”

“Three, but the Sherpas have the team’s entire supply.”

Marquis nodded. “But we have to conserve it. We’ll need the oxygen at Camp Five, where the plane is. We don’t know how long we’ll be there. Try to make do without it, okay?”

McKee coughed and nodded.

Marquis looked at Bond. “What the hell happened to you down there?”

“Nothing,” Bond said. He thought it best not to alarm anyone about the tampering. “The crampons slipped off. I must not have fastened them very well. My fault.”

“Don’t let it happen again, Bond. As much as I can’t stand you, I’d hate to lose you.”

“Thanks, Roland, that’s comforting.”

Marquis walked away toward his tent. Bond and Chandra looked over at Otto Schrenk, who was helping Doug McKee erect a tent for the two of them.

Was it Schrenk? Or could it have been someone else?

At least they were safely at Camp Three, where they would spend the next week acclimatizing. The rest of the group would be joining them over the next few days.

Bond knew, though, that someone on the team definitely wanted him out of the picture.

TWENTY

HIGHER AND HIGHER

THE OTHERS FROM THE base camp began to arrive in groups the following day. Paul Baack was one of the first, carrying the lightweight laptop satellite phone with his own equipment. Hope Kendall had partnered him, and insisted on examining the Lead Team—but not until she had had a night’s sleep. Bond thought she didn’t look well, but then he remembered how he had felt on reaching Camp Three.

The next day Bond visited the doctor in her tent. They sat cross- legged opposite from each other as she examined him. Bond thought she seemed much better, but he could see that the climb was taking its toll. She wore no makeup, of course, had dark circles under her eyes, and looked thinner.

“How are you feeling, James?” she asked, listening to his breathing with a stethoscope.

“I’m fine now. When I first got to Camp Three, I felt like hell.”

“I know what you mean,” she replied. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“You should heed your own advice and get plenty of rest, then.”

“This is my job,” she said. “Cough, please.”

He did. It was a horrid, dry croup.

“That cough’s a beaut. Does your throat hurt?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m going to give you some lozenges. You need to drink more water. Are you drinking water?”

“Yes.” He coughed again.

“Then drink more.” She reached into her bag and gave him a packet of vitamin C and eucalyptus lozenges. “Otherwise, you’re fit as a buck rat.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

She smiled, but then rubbed her forehead and shut her eyes tightly. “Damn,” she said. “I can’t shake this headache.”

“You need to take it easy,” he said. He put a hand on the back of her neck and massaged it. That brought the smile back.

“Mmm, that’s nice,” she said. “Would you just do that for the next twenty-four hours?”

“Seriously,” he said, “are you all right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” she answered but wasn’t very convincing. “Go on, now. Send in your cuzzy.”

“My what?”

“Your cuzzy, your cousin, your brother, your mate . . .” she explained. “It’s Maori talk. Chandra. Send him in. Please.”

Bond let it go and crawled out of the tent.

It was about three hours later when he noticed Marquis rushing to Hope’s tent. Paul Baack was standing outside it, looking as if he were lost and didn’t know what to do. Bond approached him and asked, “Is something wrong?”

“Yes,” Baack said. “Dr. Kendall is sick.”

Bond stuck his head in the tent. Marquis was kneeling by Hope, who was lying on her sleeping bag. Carl Glass was with them.

“We have it under control, Bond, you can leave,” Marquis said rudely.

“It’s all right, he can stay,” Hope mumbled. “God, just let me die now.”

“She’s got acute altitude sickness,” Glass told Bond.

“My head feels like it’s going to explode,” she said. “Goddammit, this has never happened to me before!”

She coughed loudly and gasped when she attempted to breathe deeply.

“My dear Hope,” Marquis said, “you yourself said it could strike anyone at any time. You’re no exception. Now, please, let me take you down to Camp Two. You need to descend as quickly as possible. I can carry you on—”

“Shut up, Roland!” she snapped. “I’m not going anywhere. This will pass. Stop fussing over me. I hate it!”

“I’m only trying to—”

“Please just leave me alone! Get out of here!” she screamed.

Marquis stiffened, embarrassed and angry. He moved away and, without a word, glared at Bond and left the tent.

“What should we do?” Glass asked her.

“I’m sorry. He’s right, dammit,” she said. “I need to go to Camp Two but I just don’t have the strength. For three days I haven’t slept, haven’t eaten, haven’t peed . . . I’m constipated as hell. . . .” She was on the verge of tears, but she didn’t have the energy for it.

“Wait, I’ll get the Gamow Bag,” Bond said.

He left the tent as she mumbled, “Why the hell didn’t I think of that?”

Bond retrieved Major Boothroyd’s modified device from the Sherpas and brought it back to the tent. She climbed into it and sealed it up after thanking Bond and telling everyone to let her be for a few hours. Since the bag had its own generator to pump air into it, it was inflated within minutes.

A Gamow Bag artificially reproduces the pressure of a lower altitude. It temporarily cures symptoms of AMS, but the victim normally has to descend anyway to recover fully.

Bond looked up through his goggles and saw that the sun was still high in the sky, so there was possibly time for her to get down before nightfall, as descending wouldn’t be as time-consuming as the trip UP He then found Paul Baack and asked to use the satellite linkup. The Dutchman gave him the privacy of his tent.

Alone, Bond phoned London. After several rings the voice-messaging service kicked in.

You have reached Helena Marksbury. I’m sorry that I am away from my desk . . .”

It was almost a surreal experience. Here he was, halfway around the world, on the side of a fierce mountain and isolated from civilization, yet he was able to hear the voice of a lover, albeit a former one.

“I’m halfway up Kangch,” he said after the beep. “Camp Three. Where are you? I’ll switch over to Bill. It was nice to hear your voice.”

He quickly pressed the code sequence that transferred him to Bill Tanner’s office. Christ, Bond thought. He was thankful that she hadn’t picked up after all. It would have been awkward. He hoped that she was not still upset about their relationship.

There were a few pips, and Tanner picked up. “James?”

“Hello, Bill. I’m calling from sixty-six hundred meters. Nothing on Schrenk?”

“No, but we received some interesting intelligence from our new man in India. His name is Banerjee. He’s Zakir Bedi’s replacement.”

“What’s that?”

“They intercepted Union communications to Kathmandu. The man who tried to kill you there was indeed employed by the Union. An accomplice was snatched, a go-between apparently, and he confessed that the Union have infiltrated your expedition. It’s someone in your party, James.”

“I’ve suspected that all along. Thanks for confirming it.”

“Any idea who it might be?”

“I’ve been thinking it’s Schrenk.”

“If we find anything that ties him to the Union, I’ll certainly get a coded message to you. We also learned that the Russian expedition is being financed by certain military authorities in Moscow who have files in our offices a mile long. They have strong ties to the Russian Mafia. There can be only one reason they’re up there.”

“Thanks for the tip. I had better go. I don’t want the Ministry of Defence complaining about the phone bill.”

“There’s one other thing, James.”

Bond detected hesitation in his voice.

“What’s that?”

“Helena is missing. She’s been gone for two days and hasn’t phoned in. As you know, our security procedures are such that when someone in her position doesn’t call in, we—”

“I know,” Bond said, “you send someone to her flat. And?”

“She wasn’t there, either. The flat had been ransacked.”

Oh, no. Bond squeezed his eyes tightly shut.

“James,” Tanner said. “We concluded our investigation into the leak at M16.”

Bond said it before the Chief of Staff could. “It’s her.”

Tanner’s silence confirmed it.

“She’s probably in trouble if she’s mixed up with the Union,” Bond said.

“James,” Tanner said gently. “She’s probably dead. But we’ll keep looking. Try not to worry about it. Concentrate on the job at hand.”

Right. Bond gripped the phone tightly and said, “Keep me informed.”

“Watch your back, James.”

Bond rang off and stepped outside the tent. Paul Baack was standing there, shivering.

“All done?” he asked.

“Yes, thanks. Better get inside and get warm.”

“I will. You might tell the same thing to our illustrious leader over there Baack gestured toward Marquis’s tent, then went inside his own.

Bond found Marquis throwing his ice ax at a solid boulder of ice. He seemed to be in a trance. He threw the ax, walked over and retrieved it, returned to his position, and threw it again. And again.

Bond felt like joining him but decided not to bother.

Three hours later Hope Kendall emerged from the Gamow Bag and announced that she was going down to Camp Two for a couple of days. Bond offered to accompany her, but she said it wasn’t necessary. Marquis knew better than to volunteer, but he insisted that a Sherpa go with her.

Two days later Bond was in his own tent, having just completed reading the criminal profiling book, when Paul Baack stuck his head inside.

“I must show you something, James,” he said. Bond got up and followed the Dutchman back to his tent. There was a blurry photograph displayed on the monitor of his laptop.

“It’s a satellite photo,” he said. “It’s the north face of the mountain as seen from space, but magnified many times. Look, this is our camp here.” As he pointed to objects on the screen, Bond began to comprehend what he was looking at.

“Over here is something that wasn’t there yesterday.” He pointed to another mass of dark objects, slightly east of them. “Those are the Russians.”

“We knew they were close, but what is that, a thousand meters?” Bond asked.

“Less. Maybe eight hundred. They set up their equivalent of Camp Three there. To get there you would have to climb up and over the Bergschrund, see?” He pointed to a deep slit that delineated a glacier’s upper terminus. It was a phenomenon that formed as the body of ice slid away from the steeper wall immediately above, leaving a gap between glacier and rock.

Bond nodded. “We have to cross that to get to Camp Four,” he said.

“But then, to get to the Russians, you have to go down this way here. That’s quite a hike, at least an eight-hour journey. I don’t think we have to worry about them making a sneak attack on our camp.”

They’re probably waiting for us to make the next move, Bond thought.

“Thanks,” Bond said. “Keep an eye on them. If they show signs of activity, let me know.”

“Will do.” Bond started to leave, but Baack stopped him. “James?

“Yes?”

“What was Roland talking about the other day when he said you were on a secret mission? I mean, I know you’re on a secret mission I have known all along. They wouldn’t have given me all this stuff- Ministry of Defence . . . a Gurkha assistant . . . I mean, what’s going on? I have a right to know, I think.”

Bond sighed and clapped the big man on the shoulder. “Sorry, its classified, but I appreciate your hard work. Let’s just say I have find something on that plane and bring it back to England.”

Baack nodded and said, “Well, you can count on me to help however I can.”

“Thanks. You’re doing a great job already,” Bond said, then he left the tent.

The news about Helena still hung heavy on his heart. He had done his best to put it aside, but there was no denying that he was worried. What he needed was a different sort of distraction.

On the way back to his quarters, he saw Hope Kendall.

“Well, hello. When did you get back?”

“An hour ago,” she said. She pointed to her new tent. “I’m over there.”

“You sound much better.”

“I feel a lot better,” she said. “I guess I needed the extra two days at Camp Two before coming up here. This time the ascent didn’t bother me at all. I did it in less than four hours.”

“I’m glad you’re back,” Bond said.

“Hey, and thanks for that Gamow Bag. It saved my life.”

“Don’t mention it. Can I buy you dinner? I know a great little Nepalese takeaway in the neighborhood.”

She laughed. “You never give up, do you?”

Not now, Bond thought.

Roland Marquis finally deemed the Lead Team adequately acclimatized to ascend to Camp Four. Marquis, Glass, Leaud, and Barlow had all made practice runs and reported that it would take two, maybe three days, one pitch at a time, to get to Camp Four.

The first day went relatively well. On the second day they had to cross thirty-degree snow slopes that ended at the rock wall over the Bergschrund. The Sherpas had hauled an aluminum ladder that could extend across the crevasse. Roland Marquis, belayed by more than one person, carefully crossed the ladder and fastened anchors on the opposite side. He looked back at the others, then saw something in the Bergschrund.

There’s a person down there,” he called, pointing. One by one they all crossed the ladder and were in a position to see. It was indeed a corpse, a woman, with a blanket wrapped loosely around her. Bond thought that she looked well preserved.

“She has to be one of the plane survivors,” Bond said. “Look, she’s hardly dressed for climbing.”

Both Marquis and Bond thought it best to attempt to retrieve the body. Using an elaborate system of belays and anchors, the Sherpas climbed down into the Bergschrund and tied a rope around the woman’s shoulders and upper arms. They gave the signal and she was brought up to the ledge.

She was wearing blue jeans, tennis shoes, a sweatshirt, and the blanket. The woman had been a tourist in a comfortably pressurized plane. She had obviously survived the crash and had attempted to climb down the mountain. Now she was frozen stiff.

Bond broke the ice surrounding the blanket and pried it away from her body. He searched her pockets and found an American passport.

“Cheryl Kay Mitchell, from Washington, D.C.,” Bond read. “She’s the American senator’s wife.”

It was also apparent that her skull was cracked and the head and shoulders were horribly misshapen. Her clothes were torn in some places, and there were cuts and bruises on exposed patches of skin.

“Poor woman,” Leaud said softly.

“She fell,” Marquis surmised. “From a great height, too. Her body must have bounced and bounced and slid all the way down here from the crash site. There is absolutely no way she could have survived this far. Look at the way her body has frozen. I would bet that she has a million broken bones.”

“If she didn’t fall immediately, then I suspect she died within an hour or two after leaving the plane and then the body slid off the edge up there somewhere,” Bond said. “She was probably desperate to do something and knew she wouldn’t survive inside the plane. . . .”

“We’ll take her back to Camp Three tonight. Let’s leave her here for now. There’s nothing else for us to do but press on.”

The discovery cast a pall over the group, but they continued over the rock band in silence. It was the most technically difficult climbing they had done so far.

Camp Four was finally reached, and the next day the group began the assault to the final stop—the Great Scree Terrace at 7,900 meters. They had to climb 250 meters of a rock band via a snow gully and 100 meters of rock wall to reach an upper snowfield at around 7,500 meters. Tom Barlow and Doug McKee began using oxygen, something the Sherpas liked to call “English Air.”

On the thirty-first day of their journey, with five days left in the month of May, the Lead Team finally made it. The Great Scree Terrace was a bizarre, sparkling-white, gently sloping plateau that seemed to be out of place at such a high altitude. The remainder of the mountain, only 686 meters of it, towered over the plateau like a malevolent sentinel.

The Sherpas began to set up Camp Five while Bond, Marquis, and Chandra examined the wreckage spread out before them. One broken wing was half buried in snow and ice. Forty meters beyond that were pieces of the tail. Sixty meters farther was the fuselage, remarkably intact. The other wing must have been completely buried or blown off the plateau. The cabin door was wide open. Any footprints that might have led from the plane had long been covered.

“I have to go in there first, Roland,” Bond said.

Marquis said, “Be my guest.”

“Come on, Chandra,” Bond said as he trudged through the knee-deep snow toward the aircraft.

TWENTY-ONE

THE MISSING BODY

BOND TURNED ON A flashlight and stepped into the cold, dark cabin. Light filtering in from windows had a ghostly, incandescent quality that was unnerving even to him. Ice and snow had built up through holes in the fuselage, so it appeared that the passenger seats had been built in snowdrifts. An eerie whistling sound echoed throughout the cabin.

Nearly all the seats contained a body each.

Bond shined the light at the cockpit. The pilot and copilot were slumped forward in their seats, frozen in a macabre still-frame of death. Another man was lying in the aisle between the cockpit and cabin. He didn’t appear to be dressed like the crew.

“Help me pull this one up,” he said to Chandra.

Together they tugged on the hard, stiff body and turned it so that they could get a good look at the man’s face. Ice had formed a grotesque transparent mask across half of it. There was a bullet hole in his neck.

Bond recognized him from Station 1’s mug shots. “This is one of the hijackers.”

Chandra nodded. “I remember.”

“Come on, let’s look back there.” Bond stepped over the body and moved back into the small main cabin. He counted the corpses.

“The plane has twelve seats for passengers. The crew consisted of the pilot, copilot, and an attendant.” He indicated a woman sitting in a single seat facing the other passengers. “Here she is. There were ten tourists booked on the flight, which would have left two empty seats, right? I count nine bodies.”

“The woman we found near Camp Four would make ten,” Chandra said.

“But Lee Ming and the three hijackers would have made fourteen. One hijacker is accounted for, making eleven. That means there should be eleven bodies in here. Where are the other three?”

“Wait, here’s someone not sitting in a chair,” Chandra said, shining his light in the back of the cabin. It was another man, dressed similarly to the hijacker they found in the cockpit.

“It’s one of them,” Bond said, examining him. “All right, that means there are two missing. Let’s see if Lee Ming is one of these people.”

They each took a side of the plane and shined their flashlights on the faces one by one. The dead were all Caucasian men and women of varying ages. At least three had their eyes open, fixed in a frosty expression of fear.

“He’s not here!” Bond said through his teeth. “Damn!”

“Hold on, James,” Chandra said. “If that woman survived and got out, maybe Lee did, too. And the other hijacker. They couldn’t have got far. They must be in the vicinity.”

“Unless they dropped off the face of the mountain like that woman did. They could be anywhere!”

Chandra knew Bond could be right. “What do we do?”

“Nothing to do except search the area. Let’s look at the ground outside again. Maybe there are some faint traces of footprints or something.”

They came out of the plane and found Marquis and Glass waiting patiently. Paul Baack was standing anxiously nearby, and Otto Schrenk was not far behind him.

“Well?” Marquis asked Bond.

He’s not in there,” Bond said quietly. “We’re going to have to search the surrounding area. Chandra and I will do that. You go on with the salvage operation.”

“Not in there? Are you sure?” Marquis looked as if he might panic.

“Quite sure.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Marquis said. He threw the ski pole he was holding against the side of the aircraft. “That’s just great.”

“Why are you so concerned, Roland?” Bond asked. “You did your job. You got me up here.”

“I just . . . I just wanted you to succeed in your mission, that’s all. I want Skin 17 back in the UK as much as you do.”

For a brief moment Bond thought that Marquis might be the Union operative. Could that be possible? Usually Bond’s instincts were sharp, but at such a high altitude all his senses and reflexes were numbed. He suspected everybody and anybody.

“We’re going to see what we can find,” Bond said, and walked away.

Marquis composed himself and turned to the others. “Right, let’s help set up camp.”

By the second day Camp Five was completed and the rest of the parts had made it up to the site. The salvage operation began, with the first stage being the removal of the corpses from the plane and hauling them down to Camp Four, one at a time. The plan was to start a convoy, assembly-line fashion, with some workers stationed at each of the four lower camps. The sirdar arranged for a yak herd to pick up the bodies at the Base Camp and take them back to Taplejung for a flight to Kathmandu. It was an expensive, time-consuming, dangerous, and absurd thing to do, Bond thought. The families and governments paying for this needless operation should have left the remains on the mountain. It would have been a different story had they been alive. But to go to all this trouble for the dead? At least it made a somewhat feasible cover story. Bond was thankful that he had a different job, although it was one he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to complete.

After three days Bond and Chandra had found no traces of Lee Ming or the other hijacker.

The physical changes one experiences at 7,900 meters are remarkable. Bond felt that every move he made was in slow motion. It was quite like being underwater in a JIM diving suit. He was packed in solid warm clothing, every inch of skin covered, with an oxygen canister on his back and a hose running to his mouth. He was concerned that the team might not have brought enough oxygen to last for the next few days. Even with oxygen, the team still found that they were able to perform only a few seconds of work before having to stop and catch their breath.

Bond sent a message to London via Baack’s laptop that Lee’s body wasn’t in the plane. Tanner came back with M’s instructions to keep looking until Marquis’s job was finished. If Lee wasn’t found by then, there was nothing to do but come home. Bond read between the lines of the coded message and saw her disappointment. He hated to let her down.

There was no news about Helena.

Tired and frustrated, Bond left the tent and found his companion.

“Dammit, Chandra,” Bond said. “If you stumbled out of that plane onto this plateau, where would you go?”

“I’d try to find my way down . . . over there,” he said, pointing to a gradual slope on the south side.

“That’s the first place we looked, remember?”

“Maybe we should look again. There were crevasses down that way that we didn’t examine. Maybe they fell in one.”

“You could be right. The ice seemed very unstable when we were there the other day. Freezing to death in a crevasse isn’t very appealing,” Bond said.

“It is not the way in which one dies that is important,” Chandra said. “It is the reason. Let’s look again.”

Bond knew he was right. “We also haven’t looked over there on the east side of the plateau. Let’s try there first. I want to find that bloody body and go home. All right?”

They had begun to trudge through the snow, when they heard Marquis calling.

“Damn,” Bond said. “Come on, let’s see what he wants now.”

They turned around and went back to the camp HQ, where everyone had gathered. Marquis had already begun talking.

“—with the extra men we hired for the lower camps. The yaks are in place at Base Camp now, and we shouldn’t have too much more to do. Oh, there you are, Bond. I was just saying that our time here is being cut short and we’re trying to determine how much more we can do before we have to get out of here.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Storms coming,” Baack said. “I got the weather report a few minutes ago. Two successive storms are on their way and will reach the upper altitudes of the mountain by tonight.”

“Bad storms?”

“Severe. Monsoons. One today and one tomorrow.”

“Right,” said Marquis, “and they can be quite deadly up here. We either have to take shelter for several hours or get down.”

“I can’t go yet,” Bond said. “I haven’t come all this way just to turn around. Our tents are built to withstand a storm. I’ll risk waiting the two storms out.”

“I figured you would say that. However, I must offer the option to everyone on the team of going down now. Some of you can make it all the way to Camp Three before the storm hits, or at the very least Camp Four. The next day you can descend to Base Camp. Just remember that you’d have to come all the way back up so we can finish the job.”

“How much is left?” Leaud asked.

“We’ve estimated it to be at least two more days, not counting the rest of today. That would completely clean out the plane. At the rate we’re going, we can send down only three bodies a day. There are six left.”

“What about you?” McKee asked.

“I’m staying,” Marquis said.

“So am I,” Hope Kendall said.

“No, you’re not,” he said.

“Look, I don’t—”

“I don’t want to argue with—”

“I’m staying!” she said forcefully.

Marquis glared at her. “Very well. Who else wants to stay? It would be less wear and tear on you, 1 think. We’ll just have to hunker down in our tents when the storms hit. But I can’t guarantee we’ll live through them.”

When all was said and done, everyone decided to leave except for the core group, which consisted of Marquis, Bond, Chandra, Hope, Baack, Leaud, Glass, Barlow, Schrenk, and three Sherpas. Those who elected to descend promised to be back in two days. Some of them were going to stay put at Camp Three rather than go all the way down.

One thing was certain, Bond thought. The Union man had to be one of those who had elected to stay.

An hour after the others left, the wind began to pick up.

Bond was looking on the far east side of the plateau for any traces of the missing men, when his cell phone rang. Digging it out of the parka pocket with the gloves was clumsy, but he managed to get it open.

“James, I think I found them!” It was Chandra.

“Where are you?”

“Where I said they would be. In a crevasse. Come down and look.”

The plateau was large enough that it would take him an hour of strenuous walking to cross it. “All right, I’m on my way. Mark your position and meet me at the top in an hour.”

It was midafternoon when Bond got to the slope that Chandra had pointed to earlier. The Gurkha was waiting for him, bundled up like a polar bear. The wind was stronger now, and dark clouds were forming in the sky. They hadn’t much time left.

Chandra led him a hundred meters over one crevasse to a second one that had a natural ice bridge at one end. Fifty feet down, wedged in tightly, were two bodies.

“Chandra, I could kiss you, but I don’t think I can find your face,” Bond said. “We’re going to need some help getting them out of there.”

Bond got on the phone to Marquis and Leaud, who arrived on the scene just as the snow started falling. With the windchill, the temperature dropped to eighty degrees below freezing. Bond pointed out the bodies to them, and Marquis said, “You had better wait until tomorrow, after the first storm passes. Paul said we should have ten to twelve hours of clear weather between the two storms.”

“I’m going down now,” Bond said. “We have at least an hour. Help Chandra belay me.”

“You’re mad, Bond, but all right. I’m as curious as you are at this point.”

It took Bond forty-five minutes to get down to the bodies. They had set up a Z-pulley system, which offers a three-to-one mechanical advantage through the use of two pulleys. The result was an ingenious method of hauling heavy objects safely on what could possibly be unstable ice.

Bond had his back flat against one wall of the crevasse, and his feet pushing against the opposite one. He inched down to one of the bodies and used the ice ax to free it enough to turn it over. It was the corpse of the third hijacker. The other body was five feet below. Chandra gave him more slack as he inched down into an even tighter squeeze. When he got to the body, Bond had to work for another twenty minutes chopping ice away from around the head and shoulders so that he could pull it up.

“The wind is getting stronger, Bond,” Marquis said over the phone. “You had better come up.”

“I’m almost finished,” Bond said. “Five minutes.”

Finally, he tore away the frozen blanket covering the man’s face. It was Lee Ming.

“All right, I got him,” Bond said into the phone. “I’m going to fasten the harness around him.” Since Lee was dead, Bond didn’t have to worry about fashioning a comfortable harness. He wrapped the rope around the man’s shoulders and arms and tied a Prusik knot.

The storm hit with frightening strength just as Lee’s body was near the top of the crevasse. Marquis, Chandra, and Leaud were pulling as hard as they could, but the wind proved to be a formidable opponent- Getting Bond up was much easier, as he could help by using his crampons to “walk” up the side of the crevasse as they pulled.

“We have to get into the tents as quickly as possible!” Marquis shouted. He could barely be heard over the howling wind.

They threw Lee’s body onto a plastic sled, then all four men fought their way to the camp. They were in a full-scale blizzard now, and they could barely see where they were going. Bond directed them to his tent, where they laid down the corpse on a sleeping bag. Hope Kendall had provided Bond with some sharp instruments and tools, although she didn’t know what he needed them for.

“I’ll stay in here,” he told them. “You all go back to your tents, and hurry. Chandra, keep the phone handy.”

Marquis nodded and the others left the tent. Bond closed the flap, but the noise outside was so loud that he could barely hear himself think. He didn’t particularly relish the thought of spending the night with the corpse, but he didn’t want to take the chance that the Union operative might get to the body if he left it alone.

The cadaver was frozen solid. Bond lit the Bibler stove, which generated a little heat. He took the standard-issue chemical hot packs, normally used when activated to treat frostbite, and placed them on Lee’s chest. He lit them, melting away the ice that held the man’s clothes in a solid straitjacket.

In ten minutes Bond was able to cut away Lee’s shirt and expose his chest. The skin was cold and hard. He carefully examined the area above Lee’s breast and found the pocket of skin where the pacemaker had been inserted. It was still intact. Now all he had to do was wait awhile for the skin to thaw

The storm raged outside. To pass the time, Bond took a snow shovel, opened the tent, and spent fifteen minutes clearing the entrance. It was quite common for climbers to find themselves buried inside their tents by huge snowdrifts after a big storm. Anyone caught inside without their shovel might never get out.

Bond came back into the tent and examined Lee’s skin. It was now a bit like rubber, not totally fleshy, but soft enough to cut.

He took a scalpel from Hope’s tools and began to carefully cut a square out of the man’s chest. It was tough, almost like cutting leather. Once the square was outlined, he used scissors to grasp a corner and pull it up, revealing bluish pink inner flesh and a gold- plated pacemaker.

Bond breathed a sigh of relief. He removed his oxygen mask so that he could get a better look. He snapped the leads with the clippers, then, with his bare fingers, wrenched it out of the now-pliant, liquidless flesh.

He had it! It was in his hand! Bond clutched the device triumphantly, ready to pick up the phone and call Chandra. He dialed his number and started to speak, when he felt a sudden sharp, heavy blow on the back of his head. The tent spun chaotically as everything went black.

Bond fell forward on top of Lee’s mutilated cadaver, dead to the world.

TWENTY-TWO

LOVE AND DEATH AT 7,900 METERS

OTTO SCHRENK HAD watched bond’s projected shadow from the outside of the tent, waiting until it was in the ideal position. Not wanting to kill him yet, Schrenk used a stone to knock Bond unconscious. He then tore open the flap, crawled in, and squatted over the two bodies. He rolled Bond off Lee, pried open the clenched fist, took the pacemaker, and reached for his mobile phone.

“You there?” he spoke into it.

“Yes,” came a voice from the other end. The storm made the connection tentative.

“Where are you?”

“I’m at our agreed rendezvous. Where else would I be in this storm? Do you have it?”

“I have it.”

“Good. Make sure Bond doesn’t wake up.”

“Ja.” Schrenk rang off, put the phone away, and drew the Nazi dress dagger from the inside of his parka. He grabbed Bond’s black hair and pulled his head back, exposing his neck. Schrenk placed the blade against Bond’s neck and was about to slit his throat, when a bullet shot through the tent.

Schrenk’s blood and brain matter splattered over Bond’s body as the German slumped over to the side.

Roland Marquis crawled into the tent, lowered his Browning 9mm, then wrenched the pacemaker from Schrenk’s hand. He put it in his pocket, then aimed the gun at Bond’s head.

The phone that Bond had dropped suddenly spurted to life with a burst of static. “James? Are you there?” Marquis thought it sounded like Chandra’s voice, but it was difficult to tell because of the noise. “If you can hear me, I’m on my way!” the voice said.

Damn, Marquis thought. He quickly put away the gun, covered his head, and left the tent.

Chandra, fighting his way through the blizzard, pushed forward toward Bond’s tent. He never should have left him alone. It was a good thing he had been watching with his Common Weapon Sight, which greatly intensified images. He had seen a figure enter the tent, followed by another.

He plowed ahead, barely able to see even through his goggles. There was a dark shape ahead, and it was moving toward him. It was a person. Chandra moved closer until they were face-to-face. He recognized Roland Marquis.

Chandra started to speak but saw that Marquis was pointing a pistol at him. He reacted quickly, turning away just as the weapon flashed. The bullet caught Chandra in the shoulder and spun him around. He fell to the snow and lay still. Marquis looked around to make sure he wasn’t seen, but everyone was safely in tents. The gunshot was muffled by the intense sound of the wind.

Chandra felt the cold snow on his face and opened his eyes. He could just see Marquis’s silhouette turn and walk away from the campsite. The Gurkha managed to pull himself off the ground. His quick defensive move and the thick layers of clothing had luckily helped to deflect the bullet so that it hadn’t entered his chest. Nevertheless, he was in an immense amount of pain. Chandra breathed deeply from his respirator, savoring the oxygen contained in the canister on his back, then began to follow Marquis.

“Wake up, damn you!”

The slaps came hard and fast on his face. Bond’s vision was blurred and his head was pounding. Someone was crouched over him, and the voice was decidedly feminine.

“James? Wake up!”

He groaned, felt a rush of nausea, then rolled to his side and stopped himself from vomiting. After a moment he turned on his back and looked up at Hope Kendall, who began to wipe his face and forehead with a cloth.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “You were out cold. You have a nasty bump on the back of your head. Answer me!”

Bond nodded. “I think I’m okay.”

“Can you sit up?”

He did so, slowly. His hand went to his head and felt a lump there.

“I was afraid you were dead. Everyone else is!” she said. He realized there was pure terror in her voice.

“What did you say?” She was terribly upset and in tears.

“Everyone—Philippe, Tom Barlow, Paul Baack, the sirdar—well, I can’t find everyone, but there are six people dead up here. James, they’ve been murdered! Their throats were cut! And look at him—” She pointed at the body of Otto Schrenk. “He’s been shot in the head!”

The news brought Bond out of the fog. The years of experience and living on the edge had long ago honed his ability to shake away pain and discomfort and focus on the matter at hand.

“Who’s missing?” he asked.

“Roland, Carl Glass . . . I’m not sure who else, I’m not thinking straight,” she said.

“What about Chandra?”

“I haven’t seen him, either.”

The storm was still raging outside. Bond peered outside the tent. It was night, and there was absolutely no visibility. He turned back and surveyed the scene in the tent. Lee’s body lay where he had left it. Schrenk was crumpled up next to him. The Nazi dagger was lying by his side. There was a bullet hole in the tent.

“I think I know what happened,” he said. “Schrenk. He hit me with something from outside the tent. He got the pacemaker.”

“The what?”

“Something I need,” he said. “He got it but was shot by someone else. Whoever shot him took the pacemaker.”

“What pacemaker? What are you talking about?” she asked.

He pointed to Lee’s body. She lifted the bit of clothing covering his chest and recoiled.

“Christ,” she said. “Someone dug a pacemaker out of this guy?”

“Yes, I did. That was my whole purpose for being on this expedition. You might as well know. Some classified military information was hidden inside it. I have to return it to England. Come on, let’s make some more room in here. Help me get rid of these bodies.”

He began to drag Schrenk’s corpse toward the opening. She got hold of the legs and helped push the cadaver out into the snow. They did the same with Lee, making the tent comfortable enough for two people.

“We’re going to have to wait until morning,” Bond said. “The storm is too severe to go out. At least we can stretch out now.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “What was in this pacemaker?”

“Military secrets. The entire reason this expedition was put together was for me to retrieve them.”

“You mean—this whole thing, I mean, this ‘salvage operation — was just a cover story?”

He nodded.

She sat back and folded her arms. “You son of a bitch,” she said. “Why the hell am I here? I’m lucky I’m not dead, too! You mean to tell me that you risked the lives of all these climbers and Sherpas just so your government could get hold of these so-called secrets? Are you out of your mind?”

“Look, Hope,” he said. “I’m a civil servant. I do what I’m told. I’ve always thought it was a crazy, almost suicidal mission. Sometimes I’m ordered to do some very unpleasant things. Often there are other lives at stake. I’m sorry you got involved.”

She was flabbergasted and, Bond thought, possibly in shock. She sat there, shivering, despite the layers of clothing she had on.

“Now tell me about the dead people,” he said. “Start at the beginning.”

She took some breaths from her oxygen canister, coughed, then began the story.

“After you and the others brought back the body of that guy from the plane, Roland told us all to get into our tents, use a tank of oxygen and try to sleep through the storm. So that’s what I did, except I didn’t go to my own tent. I went to the supply tent, where I had set up medical HQ. I got into the bedroll there, mainly because it was warmer in there with all that stuff than my own tent. I think I got about two hours of sleep, but I woke up restless. I decided to go out and grope my way to Roland’s tent. I found it empty”

“Who was he sharing the tent with?”

“Carl Glass. He was gone.”

“Go on.”

“I then went over to Philippe and Tom’s tent, and that’s where I found them. They were both dead, their throats cut. I don’t know, I guess I panicked. I went to the next tent, the Sherpas’, and found them dead, too. Same thing, throats cut. All of them. Paul Baack was lying in his tent covered by that parka of his . . . blood all over the place. Then I came here and found you. I thought you’d been killed, too, until I examined you. You have a slight nick on your neck, there’s dried blood there. Then I noticed the bump on your head.”

“It’s a good thing you weren’t in your own tent,” Bond said. “You might be dead now, too. Have you tried reaching anyone by phone?”

“Yes, and it’s impossible to make a connection in this storm. All I get is static on all channels.”

Bond considered the story. Had Schrenk committed the murders? He examined the Nazi dagger and saw that there was dried blood on it. Schrenk had most likely been in the act of slitting his throat when he was shot, but by whom? Could it have been Marquis? Was Marquis working against all of them? If so, which of them was Union? And if one was Union, whom was the other working for?

He then noticed his own mobile phone lying in the corner of the tent, still switched on. He picked it up, made sure it was working, dialed Chandra’s number. A message appeared on the digital display that read “No Connection.

“I told you that you’ll never get anything in this weather,” Hope said.

“I had to try,” Bond said. He put it away and closed his eyes. His head was throbbing.

“How important is that thing you’re after?” she asked.

“Important enough for it to be essential to keep it from the wrong hands. It contains technology that could upset the balance of power.”

“War stuff,” she said.

“I suppose.” There was silence for several long moments.

“Have you ever killed anyone?” she asked softly.

The absurdity of the question caught Bond off guard, but he was too weary and cold to laugh. Instead, he simply nodded.

“I should have known,” she said. “I did know, instinctually, I guess. It’s why I found you attractive.”

“You’re attracted to killers?”

“That’s not what I meant. Is there any water in that thermos?” She pointed to one in an open sack. Bond shook it, heard a splashing sound, and handed it to her. She took a long drink, then said, “Remember I told you that I like to see how far a human being can go? Killing is related to that. I’ve always wondered how someone can kill another human being. You see, in my career, I try to save lives. We all lose patients, of course, but I vividly remember a particular one. It was a Maori woman, a mother who died during childbirth. She was brought into the emergency room at the hospital where I worked. She had an ectopic pregnancy. I did everything I could to save her. The baby lived, but she died. I always blamed myself for her death.”

Bond put his hand on her leg and said, “It wasn’t your fault. Surely you know that?”

“Of course, but still . . . Actually once I knew that she wasn’t going to live, I used her to satisfy something in myself. I was so goddamned curious about her condition. I wanted to see it. Remember I told you that I look at the human body as a machine? I wanted to see if I could fix it. What I tried didn’t work. She would have died anyway, but I think I might have helped her along. And to tell you the truth, I was horrified and saddened, but at the same time excited by the thought that I had that power. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She took a breath of oxygen from the respirator hanging over her shoulder. She coughed a couple of times, then continued talking. Bond thought she might be exhibiting shell-shock symptoms.

“When I think of us up here where God never intended humans to be, the concept of life and death becomes such a trivial thing. Any one of us could die quickly and suddenly. Some of us already have. In the grand scheme of things, we’re just like bugs. Are we ants that wandered too far from home? I mean, here we are, stuck in this tent, sitting under God’s microscope—a male and female of the species. What kind of experiment is waiting for us? What kind of test?”

She looked at him and laughed, but it quickly turned into coughing. She grabbed the respirator again and took some deep breaths of oxygen. Then she said, “I’m babbling. Don’t pay any attention to me. Hey, you know, it’s medically advisable that one snuggle with a partner to keep warm at high altitude. Would you like to do that?”

Bond moved closer to her, and she clutched him tightly.

“Wait,” he whispered. He loosened her grip, then pulled out the bivouac sack with the built-in electric heaters. He unzipped and held it open. She laughed again and slipped her legs inside. He got in with her and zipped it closed.

They held each other for what seemed like an hour as the wind howled outside. Their bodies gradually warmed, and soon their hands were exploring each other. Her face, ashen and dirty, never looked more beautiful. Bond ran his hand through her blond hair and brought her head closer to his. Their mouths met in a passionate kiss, then they broke away, breathless. They read each others thoughts, then kissed again . . . and again. She unzipped his parka and slipped her hands inside so that she could feel his chest through his shirt. He did the same, running his fingers slowly and sensually around her firm breasts. They kissed some more, then he felt her hand exploring between his legs, encouraging his arousal.

They were breathing heavily, fighting for air. Bond managed to say, “We’re going to asphyxiate if we continue this way. Wait, I have another toy. Just a second . . .”

He reached for his bag and removed the dual respirator that Major Boothroyd had given him, then attached it to his oxygen canister.

“Oh, my God,” she said when she figured out what he was doing. He slipped the respirator on her face and attached the other to his own. Then he slipped his hands underneath her sweater and shirt and felt her nipples harden beneath the bra she was wearing. She moaned slightly, then moved in to kiss him, forgetting that they were both wearing respirators. They bumped and she laughed.

He expertly removed her bra and pulled it out from under her clothes. Then he began to work on her trousers, slowly inching them off, while her hands were busy with his clothes. It was awkward and clumsy, but in ten minutes they had undressed each other inside the bivouac sack.

It was a first for Bond . . . sex at 7,900 meters.

They used up the precious air in the canister quite quickly, but it was worth it.

TWENTY-THREE

BLOOD. SWEAT. AND DEATH

CHANDRA DID HIS BEST to follow Roland Marquis across the plateau. The wind was so fierce that it was an effort to place one foot in front of the other. Marquis’s footprints were covered within minutes of his making them, so Chandra had to force himself to keep moving or he would lose the trail. Using an ice ax as a walking stick, Chandra pulled himself forward one step at a time until he came to a rock face. Anchors and a rope had been affixed there, and there was no other possible route. Marquis had gone farther up.

Chandra found climbing the rock face surprisingly easier than walking against the wind. Here, the wind pushed him snugly against the wall. It took him nearly an hour, but he finally made it to the top, where a blast of wet snow and ice hit him in the face. He nearly lost his grip and fell, but he hung on for dear life and willed one leg to swing up and over the lip. Chandra slammed his ice ax into the rock and ice, using it as a lever to pull himself up. He lay there, totally exhausted, dangerously exposed to the vicious elements. He said a silent prayer to Shiva and breathed through his oxygen respirator for Several minutes, trying to regain some strength.

After an eternity, he knew he had to move or he would freeze to death. He rolled over and crawled away from the ledge, searching for some kind of shelter.

Through the blinding snow he saw a tent set up some forty meters away. That was where Marquis had holed up, Chandra thought. He wouldn’t be going anywhere until the storm let up, so the Gurkha figured he must find a bivouac for the night.

There was a Bergschrund to his left. His father had taught him how to enlarge a crack in the ice big enough to crawl into. It was his only hope. Mustering every ounce of strength, Chandra got to his feet and slowly moved forward.

He raised the ice ax and let it fall over and over as chunks of ice flew about him. It was tremendously hard work, and he had to stop every minute or so to take deep breaths of oxygen. His legs were beginning to feel numb, but he kept chopping.

Eventually, it was done. He had made a hole that he could crawl inside and assume the fetal position. He did so, closed his eyes, and was immediately asleep.

He awoke with a start. The storm had stopped, and the light of the new day was beginning to spread over the mountain. Chandra was stiff and cold, but alive.

Then he noticed his left hand. Somehow he had lost his glove during the climb or while he was digging the hole. His hand was completely frostbitten. The fingers were dark blue and the rest of the hand was purple. He tried to flex his fingers, but they were paralyzed. The skin was insensitive to touch.

He crawled out of the hole and stood. The rest of him appeared to be in one piece. With his good hand he slowly ripped off his backpack, opened it, and dug around for anything he could wrap around his hand. There was a prayer scarf that his father had given him when he was a boy, so he used that. It didn’t help much. He knew it was entirely possible he would lose the hand when they got back to civilization.

Never mind! he told himself. Get on with the job! He repeated the Gurkhali motto to himself, over and over: It is better to die than be a coward . . . it is better to die than be a coward. It served as a mantra of sorts. He found a bar of chocolate in his pack and ate it for energy, then put the pack on again and tromped forward toward Marquis’s tent.

Chandra flattened himself on the snow when he got around the glacier. Roland Marquis and Carl Glass were together, packing the tent. He decided to stay back and see where they went rather than confront them.

Soon they were off, moving toward the north ridge of the great mountain. What were they going to do? Summit? Were they mad?

Chandra followed them over the ridge, which was one route to the summit taken by many explorers over the years. But Marquis and Glass didn’t continue the ascent. They went over and down to a level plane, where four tents had been set up.

The Russians.

Chandra held back, got out his CWS and peered through it, watching Marquis’s every move.

Roland Marquis and Carl Glass had spent a rough night in the single tent. Marquis was anxious about the coming negotiations with the Russians, not sure if he wanted to go through with the deal he had arranged. In the early hours of the morning he had decided what he was going to do and made a plan with Glass.

They trekked to the Russian encampment, where they were greeted by two men with AK-47s. The sentries ushered them into a tent, where the leader, a man named Igor Mislov, was waiting.

He looked a lot like Joseph Stalin, with a thick black mustache and bushy eyebrows.

“Mr. Marquis!” he hailed in English. “Have some hot tea?”

“Thank you, Igor,” Marquis said. “It’s nice to meet face-to-face after all this time, eh?”

“Indeed, indeed.” Mislov looked curiously at Glass.

“Oh, this is my associate, Carl Glass,” Marquis said. “Igor Mislov.”

The men shook hands and sat down.

One of the guards served the tea, and it warmed Marquis considerably. Finally, he said, “Right, I have the specification for Skin 17. It’s worth . . . billions.”

Well, let’s see it!” the Russian said.

“It’s in the form of a microdot. The goddamned Union have been trying to get their hands on it, and they almost did. I got it first, and I even kept it from the Double-O agent who was on our team!”

“Ha!” Mislov roared. “Double-O agent? I didn’t know they still existed! When the KGB disbanded, I thought there was no more use for those guys.”

“One would think so,” Marquis agreed, humoring the man. “But I’m afraid SIS keeps them around to keep tabs on the Russian Mafia, too.”

Mislov dismissed the label with a wave of his hand. “Don’t call us that, it’s an idiotic name. We’re businessmen, that’s all. Russian Mafia—phooey! The Mafia lives in Sicily. We live in Moscow. That’s a long way from Sicily!” He laughed boisterously.

“Whatever you say, Igor,” Marquis said. “Now let’s talk business. I’ve come a long fucking way to get here. You picked one hell of a rendezvous spot.”

Mislov shrugged. “I know how valuable Skin 17 is. I knew the Union were after it, too. We found out one of our team was working for them. He . . . uhm, met with an unfortunate accident. They are everywhere these days, those goddamned Union. I’ve done business with them, but they have no loyalty to customers. Hey, I saved you the trouble of having to carry Skin 17 all the way down the mountain. Who knows what might have happened to you? This is a dangerous place. That was some storm last night, huh?”

“There’s another one in about eight hours,” Marquis said. “We’d like to get going before it hits. Now—we had agreed upon a starting price of one billion dollars. We both know it’s worth more than that. What are you prepared to offer now?”

“Two billion American dollars. We can pay you fifty thousand dollars in uncut diamonds right now. The rest you’ll get in Kathmandu after we get out of here.”

“Are you mad?” Marquis asked. He had been afraid of this.

“Am I mad? What do you mean?”

“You think I’d let this go for only fifty thousand in diamonds?”

“Are you mad?” the Russian asked. Suddenly there was a heavy tension in the air. “You don’t think we would carry two billion dollars in cash up Kangchenjunga, do you? It was difficult enough carrying these goddamned diamonds.”

“Where are they?”

Mislov nodded at one of the two guards, who produced an ordinary water thermos. He unscrewed it and showed the contents to Marquis. It was full of off-color stones. Marquis recognized them as uncut diamonds. He nodded, and the guard replaced the lid.

“I’m afraid it won’t be enough,” Marquis said carefully. “Perhaps the Union will pay more.”

“Mr. Marquis, we, too, came a long way for this. You will sell us the specification, or things will get unpleasant.”

Marquis turned to Glass and gave him a well-rehearsed signal. “I don’t know, Igor, but it seems that since we last talked, the demand for Skin 17 has skyrocketed. The Union want it, my country wants it back, the Chinese want it . . . I understand there’s a few Belgians that want it. . .”

Glass heard the code word “Belgians,” pulled a Glock out of his pocket with lightning speed, and shot the two guards neatly and efficiently. Marquis drew his own Browning and held it to Mislov’s head. Glass picked up one of the AK-47s and aimed it at the tent flap. Two more men rushed in but saw that their leader was in danger.

“Tell them to drop their guns,” Marquis said. Mislov spoke to them in Russian, and they did as they were told. Marquis then nodded to Glass, who calmly blasted them with the automatic weapon.

“Now, Igor,” Marquis said. “You’re all alone. How much is the Russian Mafia willing to pay me now?”

Mislov swallowed hard, then stammered, “Two . . . two billion now, and two more when we reach Kathmandu.”

“You have it?”

“In diamonds, yes.”

“Where?”

Mislov gestured to a bag. Glass looked inside and found several ore water thermoses. They were each filled with uncut stones.

“Why the hell didn’t you offer us these diamonds before?”

Mislov shrugged and laughed nervously. “I’m a businessman. I was going to tell my superiors that we paid you the diamonds, but, of course, I would have kept the rest.”

“I see. Well, thank you, Igor. I accept your offer,” Marquis said, then pulled the trigger. The side of the Russians head exploded as the bullet slammed through it.

They were alone in the camp now. After a moment of silence Glass said, “Christ, Roland, we’re rich.” He began to stuff half of the thermoses into his pack. Marquis took the remainder and put them in his own.

“Come on, let’s go.”

They left the tent and started to move up the slope toward the north ridge. As they passed an icewall, Chandra Gurung jumped from a perch and tackled Carl Glass. Glass dropped the AK-47, and it slid on the ice toward the edge of a cliff and into space.

Both men got to their feet. Chandra slugged Glass hard in the face with his good fist, knocking him into Marquis, who was in the process of drawing the Browning. He, too, lost his grip on the gun, and it sailed into the air and lodged in a snowdrift behind Chandra. The Gurkha backed off and stood between the two men and the drift.

They were dangerously close to the precipice.

“You are both under arrest,” Chandra said. “You must accompany me back to Camp Five.”

Marquis laughed. Glass, not sure how to react, laughed with him.

“Oh, really!” Marquis said. “You are going to arrest us! I tell you what. How about we pay you twenty rupees to porter our bags for us?”

“Give me the pacemaker,” Chandra said. “And I will let you both live.”

“Carl, throw this stinking Gurung off the mountain.”

Glass, a sizable and very strong man, rushed Chandra. The Gurkha, however, was far better trained and much faster.

“Ayo Gurkhali!” Chandra shouted as he drew the khukri from the sheath at his side.

With one swift movement Chandra swung the khukri evenly and neatly. All it took was one stroke. Carl Glass’s head separated from his shoulders, spun around in the air, and sailed off the edge of the cliff-

The body stood there a moment, trembling, blood gushing from the gruesome wound at the top.

This so unnerved Marquis that he turned to flee. Chandra knocked Glass’s body over the cliff and ran in pursuit.

A slick rock face stood in Marquis’s path, but that didn’t stop him. Using an ice ax in one hand, he began to ascend, finding footholds and handholds where he could. There was no time to use hardware— this was climbing using brute strength and skill.

Chandra stood at the bottom of the wall and looked up at the figure who was already thirty feet ahead of him. He didn’t know if he could do it. His left hand was useless. How could he climb with only one good hand? Should he let the traitor go?

The mantra reemerged in the Gurkha’s head: It is better to die than be a coward.

With determination Chandra swung his ice ax at the rock, lodged it in tightly, and pulled himself up. His boots found edges in the rock to hold his weight as he hugged the wall. He pulled out the ax, almost losing his balance in doing so, but swung it back into the rock just as quickly. It was slow going, but he managed to ascend a few feet with every try. Marquis, on the other hand, was rapidly approaching the top of the ridge.

Chandra had climbed twenty feet when the air in the respirator noticeably changed. The oxygen canister was empty! He winced, spat the respirator out of his mouth, took a lungful of cold, biting air, and kept going.

He looked up at his prey and saw that Marquis was sitting on the ridge, watching him. The man had something shiny and metallic in his hand. Marquis let it go, and the tool fell straight for Chandra. It was a carabiner, and it struck the Gurkha on the shoulder. The surprise almost caused Chandra to let go of the ice ax.

He had to get down. He couldn’t climb farther or he would surely die.

Marquis extracted an ice screw from his pack, held it in the air, and dropped it.

The object struck Chandra on the head. He clung to the handle of the ax, hugging the wall, praying that his feet wouldn’t slip. He was breathing in gasps, and never knew that pain could be so severe.

A few seconds later, another ice screw struck him on the forehead, successfully disorienting him enough for him to lose his balance.

One foot slipped. He struggled to hold on to the ax handle, but it was wet and slippery now. He reached with his dead left hand, but this proved to be the fatal handicap. The other boot lost its footing as his hand slipped away from the ax. He fell backward into thin air and bounced off the edge of the cliff.

Instead of screaming, the Gurkha was aware of the words running through his head as he plummeted to the vast lower depths.

It is better to die than be a coward . . . it is better to die than . . .

Roland Marquis cursed the fact that Carl Glass had been carrying half of the diamonds. He didn’t know how much he had in his own pack, but it wouldn’t be enough to buy his way out of England and into a foreign country where he could hide behind a false identity and live out the rest of his life in splendor. That had been the plan, such as it was.

If only the Union hadn’t interfered. Nevertheless, this was still his show, and he wasn’t going to let anyone wreck it—not them, not the Russians, not the damned Gurkha, and certainly not James Bond.

He could still find a buyer for Skin 17. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps he could sell it to the Union! They wanted it badly enough. Their incompetent minion, Schrenk, had been unsuccessful in getting it. Perhaps they would pay him a handsome fee. After all, they had employed him before to help steal it in the first place. It was only a matter of finding the right person to talk to. He hadn’t known who Steven Harding’s contact was. When Harding had approached him several months before with the Union’s pitifully low offer, he could see that the doctor was a greedy bastard and could be turned. He had talked Harding into going along with the Union’s orders, but instead of delivering the specification to them, Harding and he would “lose it, sell it to the Russian Mafia, and make even more money together. Harding had been afraid of the Union, but Marquis was able to ease his fears. They had worked together. They had stolen the formula and were successful in diverting it from the Union. Now he had it and could name his price.

Would the Union seek revenge on him? Would they refuse to deal with him? He thought not. They wanted it too badly. They were probably the most likely buyers. The Chinese would offer too little. He didn’t know who was behind the Belgian team, but he didn’t care. They were probably being funded by a European consortium of some kind.

The trick would be contacting the Union before they found him. He wasn’t sure how he would do it, but he had plenty of connections. He would go back to Camp Five, keep the pacemaker under wraps, and try to avoid Bond at all costs, if he was still alive.

He looked up at the sky. Dark clouds were beginning to form again. The storm was probably three or four hours away. He had to make it back to camp before then. It wasn’t very far. The trouble was, he was exhausted and had a splitting headache. Marquis checked his oxygen canister and saw that it was nearly empty. That must be the cause of the headache, he thought. He found his last canister and attached the respirator to it. The new air felt good. That was another reason to risk going back to Camp Five. He needed more oxygen. He took another five minutes to eat two granola bars and drink some water from his canteen, then he set off toward the camp. Now if he could only avoid running into 007.

James Bond and Hope Kendall had spent the morning looking around the camp for any signs of the missing people. The storm had completely covered any tracks, so they thought it best to stay put and see if anyone came back. They had decided that they would perform crevasse burials for the dead, stay put through the coming storm by sharing the bivouac sack again, and begin their descent the following day. Bond hated to give up, but there was nothing, else to do. Attempting to search the upper reaches of Kangchenjunga for people who might be lost or buried was foolhardy. To hell with Skin 17, he thought. If it had been created once, it could be created again. Britain had plenty of intelligent physicists. If Marquis had indeed stolen the specification and had found a way down the mountain, then so be it. If it fell into the wrong hands, it was beyond Bond’s control at this point.

He was past caring.

Hope pulled Barlow’s and Leaud’s bodies out of their tent so that they could be buried. Bond went into Paul Baack’s tent, looked at the bright yellow and green parka covering the body, and sighed. It was too bad. He had liked the Dutchman. Before pulling him out, though, Bond decided to get a message to London on Baack’s satellite phone.

Reception was surprisingly good. He got Tanner, who put him through to M herself. She agreed with Bond’s plan to descend the following day if the missing climbers failed to show up. As for Roland Marquis, an all-points warrant was issued for his arrest. If he dared to show his face at any western airport, he would be nabbed.

“Don’t worry, Double-O Seven,” M said. “I’ve explained to the Minister what has happened. He was furious, but he’ll get over it. You did your best.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t, ma’am,” Bond said. “I feel as if I let you down. I’m also very concerned about Sergeant Gurung. If he died up here, I would—”

“If he died up there,” she interrupted, “he died for Britain. That was his job. He knew the risks. Now put it behind you. That’s an order, Double-O Seven.”

“Yes, ma’am. Uhm, any news on Miss Marksbury?”

“Nothing. Not a trace of her. Now, finish your own job and get home safely.”

He rang off and sat there a moment. Had he tried hard enough? Had he pushed himself to the limit? Had he gone the distance? And what about Helena? Had there been a clue of her betrayal—some sign that he may have missed? Bond suddenly experienced a crushing feeling of guilt and anger. What could he have done better?

He stood and prepared to drag Baack’s body out of the tent but then decided to let it go. He would do it later. At that moment he felt like taking a good look at the Himalayan range and cursing the gods.

He emerged from the tent and called for Hope. There was no answer.

He walked back to his own tent, calling her name.

“Over here!” she yelled. She was busy digging out the snow from the front of the plane fuselage. Bond joined her, took another shovel, and began to help.

“We should have buried the plane passengers in the first place instead of trying to haul them down the mountain,” he said. “How- many are still in the plane?”

“I don’t know, five or six,” she said. They would have to make do with giving the victims crevasse burials, which meant that they would simply haul the bodies to the nearest crevasse and throw them in. This avoided having to dig in the ice and snow, which was a major expenditure of energy.

They worked hard for several minutes, then stopped to take a break. They sat on rocks, breathed oxygen, and drank from their water bottles.

“I’m hungry,” she said. “How about I boil up some freeze-dried?”

“Why, I haven’t had a dish like that in such a long time. By all means!”

She laughed and started to get up, but he surprised her by standing quickly, shoving her out of the way, drawing the P99 from his outer holster, and firing into the distance. She screamed.

“Stop right there!” Bond shouted, holding the gun level. Hope turned to look and was shocked by what she saw.

Roland Marquis was fifty feet away, his hands raised.

TWENTY-FOUR

A BETTER WAY TO DIE

MARQUIS STOOD HIS GROUND, not moving. Bond walked toward him, the Walther still in hand. Hope stood spellbound, watching the two of them.

“Put the gun away Bond,” Marquis said. “I’m not the bad guy.”

“How do I know that’s true?” Bond asked.

“I saved your miserable life, you fool. It was Carl Glass and Otto Schrenk. They were working together. They tried to kill you and take the pacemaker.”

“What happened to the pacemaker? Where have you been?”

“I saw Schrenk and Glass enter your tent. It was a good thing I was watching with a CWS. I didn’t like the look of it, so I went over to the tent but stood outside. I heard a gunshot and rushed in. They had already hit you on the head, and Glass had just shot Schrenk. I don’t know why Glass turned on Schrenk. I suppose he got greedy Anyway, I surprised him, and Glass panicked. He knocked me down running out of the tent. I chased him over the north ridge.’’

The story was plausible but something wasn’t right. “Go on.”

“Not much else to tell except that Glass fell. I never did catch up with him. He was near a precipice and lost his footing. He saw that was behind him and he got careless. The weather was bloody horrific. I was mad to go after him, but I thought you would appreciate it if someone did.”

“So the pacemaker .. . ?”

“It went down with Glass. It’s gone forever. Can I put down my hands now?”

“I’d feel better if you empty your pockets and throw down any weapons you might be carrying,” Bond said.

“I assure you that I’ve lost my Browning. I tried to shoot Glass, but I dropped the bloody thing. Couldn’t find it.”

Bond approached him and patted the pockets on his parka. He looked through the goggles into Marquis’s eyes, attempting to judge whether or not something there would betray him. All Bond saw, though, was the familiar hatred emanating from his old school rival.

“All right, Roland, but don’t try any sudden moves. I’ve got an itchy-trigger finger.”

Marquis lowered his hands. He looked around and said, “Where’s everyone else?”

“They’re dead,” Hope said, walking up to them with an ice ax in hand. “Everyone is accounted for now that you’re back and you’ve confirmed why Glass is missing. Except for Chandra.”

Bond said, “We don’t know where he is. Do you?”

Marquis shook his head. “No. I haven’t seen him since we brought up Lee Ming’s body. Everyone else is dead? The Sherpas, too?”

“Yes,” Hope said. “They were all murdered in their tents. We think Schrenk did it.”

“So you’re burying people? That’s what you’re doing now?”

“Yeah,” Hope said. “We were going to stay here tonight, sit through the storm, and go home tomorrow.”

“Well, then,” Marquis said. “I’ll help you. I’d like to go home, too. I daresay we’d be safer traveling together, don’t you think?”

“You’re no longer our leader, though,” Bond said. “I take no more orders from you, Roland.”

“Fine, Bond. If it makes you feel victorious or something, then you be the leader.”

Bond didn’t comment. He lowered the gun and said, “We had better hurry and finish the job with these corpses. The storm is coming. He put away the Walther but was still wary. There was something about Marquis’s story he didn’t like.

They walked back to the hole that Hope had begun to dig. She asked, “Have you had food? Do you need something before we get to work?”

“That would be very nice,” Marquis said. “Some hot tea would be quite welcome indeed, Hope.’’

Bond stopped her and said, “Wait. Roland, did you happen to run into the Russians?”

Marquis replied, “As a matter of fact, yes. Just saw their campsite, is all. It was over on the other side of the ridge. We steered clear of it.”

Bond’s eyes narrowed. “We?”

Marquis flinched. He knew he had said the wrong thing. Without a moment’s hesitation he lashed out at Hope, grabbed her ice ax and swung it at Bond. The point buried itself in Bond’s right shoulder. He cried out in pain as Hope screamed. Marquis pulled the ax out, turned, and ran the way he had come. Bond fell to his knees and clutched his arm. Blood was pouring out of the wound. Hope squatted beside him and tried to examine the injury.

Bond watched Marquis running, or, rather, trudging through the snow toward the rock face. The bastard had done it. He had betrayed his country and the security of the western world. Bond couldn’t let him get away with it. Not Roland Marquis. Not the only son of a bitch at Eton who believed he beat Bond at wrestling. All this time Marquis had been in denial that in reality, Bond had gotten the better of him back then. Everyone watching had known that Bond had been the victor. The bloody instructor gave the match to Marquis and the bastard never let Bond forget it.

“Stay here,” Bond said to Hope. He struggled to his feet.

“You can’t go after him, you’re hurt!” she cried.

“Stay here!” Bond said firmly, then set off after Marquis.

Neither man was wearing a backpack. Bond had his weapon and an ice ax, but no oxygen canisters. Chasing Marquis at this altitude was complete madness, but he was determined to catch the bastard. Bond hoped that Marquis was telling the truth when he said he hadn’t eaten. Perhaps he would be more fatigued than Bond and that would slow him down.

Even so, Bond was under extreme physical stress. He was already breathing so rapidly that he was afraid he might hyperventilate. The wound in his arm didn’t help.

Marquis scaled the wall like a lizard. It was uncanny the way the man could climb. Bond conceded to himself that his rival was indeed the superior mountaineer, but it was time to push himself further than his body could go.

Bond found handholds in the rock wall and attempted to follow along Marquis’s route. He felt as if he were moving in slow motion again. He was gasping for air, and every move he made was torture.

Thirty minutes later Marquis was over the wall. Bond was not far behind, but he was ascending at a snails pace. When he got to the top, he collapsed onto his back as his lungs screamed for oxygen. He felt dizzy and disoriented. If he stood up, he would surely fall.

If only he had brought an oxygen canister! He had been about to put one on his back when Marquis had hit him with the ax. He should have heeded Hope’s admonitions to stay put. This was madness indeed!

The sky was darkening above him. He felt cold, wet drops on his face, reminding him to cover his skin with the muffler. The wind was picking up again and the snow began to fall in earnest.

His lungs were on fire. Could he make it back down the wall without falling?

Wait! How could he have forgotten? He reached into the side pocket of his parka, praying that Major Boothroyd’s little tube was there. Bond grabbed it and brought it to his mouth.

The emergency air breather was a godsend. The oxygen was cold and dry, but it sent bursts of energy into Bond’s veins. He took several deep breaths, willing the clouds of confusion from his mind. He would have to conserve the air, though, and use it only when necessary- After a few minutes he put it away, got to his feet, and continued the chase.

They were climbing a snow gully of mixed rock and ice that cut through a rock wall to reach the West Ridge, which was a hundred meters from the summit. Marquis was climbing without oxygen at all, something that many professional mountaineers dared to do. Bond had never attempted an 8,000-meter peak without oxygen, but he had known men who had. They were usually like Marquis, cocky and egotistical, believing that they were invincible against the might of the mountain. Perhaps this time, Bond thought, the gods would not look favorably on Marquis. Perhaps his arrogance would be his downfall.

As he climbed higher, Bond lost sight of Marquis. He stopped and looked around frantically, wondering what had happened to the man. Had the falling snow somehow obscured his escape?

Suddenly Marquis leaped from a ledge, jumping on Bond and knocking him to the rock. He raised the ice ax and attempted to smash it into Bond’s head. Bond grabbed Marquis’s arm and held it tightly, forcing it back in a life-or-death arm wrestle. Marquis, too, was wheezing loudly, fighting for air. Bond shoved with all his might, rolling the man off him. Without giving him time to counter, Bond jumped on his opponent and hit him twice in the face. The thin air inhibited the blows’ effectiveness, for the degree of force behind the punches was nowhere near what Bond perceived it to be.

Marquis slammed the side of the ice ax against Bond’s head, stunning him. Bond fell over and was momentarily helpless. His vision blurred and he began to gasp for breath again. He expected the point of the ice ax to come crashing down into his chest, but it never did.

He forced himself to shake away the stars and stand up. His vision returned, but his head was pounding. Marquis had run. He was climbing farther up the mountain—toward the summit. Bond took a few more breaths from the emergency breather, then continued the ascent.

The snow fell faster as the wind blew harder.

Marquis, doing his best to move in rhythm, felt like hell. He was totally exhausted from the climbing he had already done that day. He was hungry and thirsty, and his headache had increased by the minute It was so excruciating that he wanted to scream. He was certain that h« had developed High Altitude Cerebral Edema. The symptoms were quite evident. If he didn’t descend soon, he might have a stroke.

He had to get over the top, he thought. His only hope was to go up and over the summit and descend Kangchenjunga into Sikkim. He could easily lose himself there if he could get away from Bond. That’s what he would do, then!

Roland Marquis might have recognized the symptoms of HACE, but he didn’t realize how delusional he was. He had completely forgotten that he was without supplies, a tent, a sleeping bag, or any other necessities for spending a night on the mountain, much less surviving a monsoon and attempting to descend to the bottom. He didn’t think about the fact that it would take three or four days, or more, to get to the Sikkim-side Base Camp. He was convinced that he was going to reach the top of Kangch and escape.

He made it to the West Ridge. All he had to do now was scramble a hundred meters to the summit, then he would be across the border and over. Marquis thought he was running, but in reality he was taking two steps every ten seconds. To him, everything around him was a blur. He had to concentrate on the goal . . . the top of the third highest mountain in the world.

Why did it seem like he was on a treadmill? It felt as if he were not moving any nearer to the summit. He had to push harder. Run, dammit! he told himself.

I will conquer this mountain! he screamed in his head.

“To hell with you, Kangchenjunga!” he yelled, but he was so breathless that it came out as a whisper.

The Nepalese believe that the gods see and hear everything, and what happened next might have been attributed to this faith. Through the heavy snow Marquis thought he could see the markers, prayer flags, and spikes that other climbers had left on the summit. It was within reach! He crawled forward on hands and knees, and then suddenly went blind. It was an unexpected, horrible sensation. This was followed by a searing pain moving through his skull. He thought his head was going to explode.

Marquis screamed and fell to his knees.

Hope had warned them about retinal hemorrhage. It had struck him hard in both eyes. Simultaneously, he experienced severe symptoms of HACE. He writhed on the ground and beat his head, trying to knock the pain away. It was no use.

He continued to crawl forward, feeling his way to the summit.

Breathe . . . breathe . . . !

His lungs couldn’t take it. His heart was pounding in his chest.

Just a little farther . . .

He reached out his hand and felt a flagpole. He had made it— 8,598 meters! Marquis collapsed and lay still, trying to breathe the thin, precious air.

He could rest here, he told himself. He deserved a reward for making it to the summit. He could afford the rest he needed. Whoever was following him would surely never make it. It was he who was king of the world now. He was Roland Marquis! He was . . . invincible!

Then James Bond caught up with him. He, too, fell beside Marquis in exhaustion, fighting for air. He removed the emergency breather from his pocket and inhaled. The Himalayan range spread out before him in all directions. It was as if he were in an airplane but without the plane.

“Who’s there?” Marquis gasped.

“It’s your old friend from Eton,” Bond managed to say between breaths. He put away the breather.

Marquis was confused. Who?

“Oh . . . right,” he said. “Bond. I almost forgot who I was running from,” he whispered. “We’re at the top, aren’t we?”

“Yes.”

“How . . . how are you?”

“I’m alive,” Bond coughed. “You . . . you don’t look so good, Roland.”

“No,” he agreed. “I probably don’t. I can’t see a damned thing Bad . . . bad luck. You have any air?”

“Yes.”

“You wouldn’t want to give me some, would you?” Marquis, pleaded, but with dignity. “For old time’s sake?”

“Where’s the pacemaker?” Bond asked coldly.

Marquis coughed and choked. The spasm lasted for nearly a minute. Finally, the officer caught his breath and said, “See what happens when I try to laugh?”

“It’s an honest offer, Roland,” Bond said. “Oxygen for the pacemaker.”

“You bastard.”

There was silence. The storm was getting worse. The wind was screaming, and Bond could feel the subzero temperatures penetrating his parka. They had to get out of there.

“Come on, Roland, I haven’t got all day.”

Roland reached into a pocket. Bond caught his hand. “It’s all right, Bond,” Marquis said. “There’s no gun there.”

Marquis brought out the gold object and held it in his palm. Bond took it, verified that it was indeed Lee’s pacemaker, and put it in a pouch. He then removed the emergency breather and placed the mouthpiece to Marquis’s lips. Marquis choked on the air but was soon breathing steadily.

“How much was the Union paying you?” Bond asked.

Marquis tried to laugh but coughed again. He said, “I’m not Union, Bond. I never was. It was Steven Harding, not me.” He began to tell the story slowly, between breaths. “The Union got to him and paid him something to steal Skin 17. . . . He came to me and offered me an insulting fifteen thousand pounds to help him. . . . I, of course, would remain a silent partner because of my high profile in the RAF, but 1 was the ideal person to bring in on the job because of my proximity to the Skin 17 project. . . . Even though the money was ridiculous, I thought about the scheme’s potential. I talked him into double-crossing the Union and helping me sell it to the Russian Mafia. . . . You see, I’ve done business with them before. . . . I convinced Harding that he would make a lot more money. . . . Besides, better the Russian Mafia get it than the Chinese, which is whom the union wanted to sell it to. . . . We were just eliminating the middlemen and their commission!”

Then the business with the pacemaker, and Lee Ming . . . ?”

“That was the Union’s plan all along. . . . When you interfered in Belgium, the Union changed the scheme . . . . They decided to reroute Lee’s journey to China through Nepal and Tibet. . . . Since I had connections in Nepal, I came up with the plot to hire hijackers, kidnap Lee from his hotel, and whisk him away to an airfield in Sikkim. . . . There he would have been picked up by my people and hidden. . . . Harding made most of the arrangements. After selling the formula, Harding and I were going to split the money, but he was careless . . . . I knew the Union would eliminate him and then the fortune would be all mine. . . . Unfortunately, the damned tourist plane crashed on this . . . fucking mountain . . . it was carrying a goddamned MP and an American senator. . . . I knew that the Skin 17 microdot was somewhere on Lee Ming’s body, but exactly where was one piece of information that was withheld from me. You knew where it was. . . . I needed you to find it for me. And now . . . here we are.”

He returned the emergency breather to Bond.

“You had better get going,” Marquis said. “That storm is getting worse.”

“You’re coming with me,” Bond said.

Marquis shook his head. “I don’t want to be court-martialed. I couldn’t face it. I don’t want to die in prison. No, this is a much better way to die. Leave me here. Let me die at the top of the world.”

“What happened to Chandra?” Bond asked.

“He did his best to stop me. He fell. He didn’t die a coward, that’s certain. Unlike me. I’m sorry, Bond.”

Bond became aware of another person climbing toward them. At first he thought it might be a supernatural being—a yeti or a ghost. But it was only Hope Kendall. She was carrying a backpack and had oxygen. She dropped the respirator from her mouth and yelled, “Christ, what the hell are you two doing here? We have to get down!”

“Hope . . .” Marquis said. “Congratulations . . .”

“What?”

“Congratulations,” he gasped. “You can count on one hand the number of women who have summited Kangchenjunga.”

That news surprised her. She involuntarily laughed, then dropped to her knees beside Bond.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” she said. “I was in, boots and all, and didn’t even think about that. I just wanted to catch up with you two.”

“Both of you,” Marquis said. “Go. Leave me. I’m staying here.”

Bond pulled on Hopes arm. “Come on.”

“What?”

“We’re leaving him.”

“We can’t leave him!” She struggled against Bond. “Let’s give him oxygen. We can get him down the—”

But Marquis gasped, choked a moment, and went limp. Hope examined him, reached for his wrist, and felt for a pulse. She put her head to his chest.

Bond gently tugged on her arm again. “The storm is getting bad,” he said.

She finally raised herself, nodded, and got to her feet. She helped Bond stand, but his legs were very weak. She reached into her pack and brought out an extra oxygen canister. “Here, put this on,” she said.

The new air helped tremendously, and they began the torturous descent back to Camp Five. Bond paused to look at the figure of Roland Marquis, lying amid the prayer flags and country markers. He might have been a great man, Bond thought, but his pride got him in trouble. The gods disapproved of it. He had not shown the mountain the proper respect. As he had betrayed his country, he had betrayed his pact with the deities who controlled the elements in this cold hell, high above the living earth.

“Come on,” Hope urged.

She helped him as he stumbled along, trying to keep his balance on the West Ridge. He hadn’t realized how wrecked he was until he started moving. The wind was intense and was getting worse by the minute. If they stopped at all, they would perish.

The storm hit full force when they were a hundred and fifty meters from camp. Hope could see the Great Scree Terrace below them. All they had to do was climb down the rock wall.

Bond took one look and knew that he couldn’t do it. Like Marquis, he was ready to give up and die.

“Get up, damn you!” Hope cried. “You’re not wimping out on me now! You’re coming down with me.”

Bond attempted to wave her away.

“Breathe, dammit! Breathe the oxygen!” she yelled.

Bond took some breaths, but he could barely find the strength to inhale.

“Fine, I’ll have to do it the hard way,” she said.

Working as quickly as she could, Hope removed anchors, rope, a harness, and a pulley from her bag. She got the harness around Bond, who was barely conscious. She drove the anchors into the rock with her ice ax, fixed the pulley and threaded the rope through it. She then attached the rope to the harness and pushed Bond over the wall.

She slowly lowered him, belaying his body as he bounced like a marionette against the side of the rock. When he reached the bottom, he crumpled as if he had no skeleton.

Hope then began her descent, holding on to the bits of rock and ice, praying that the wind wouldn’t blow her off. It was more difficult than she had thought it would be, but she kept going without looking down.

After what seemed like an eternity, her boots touched the plateau. She fell against a snowdrift and rested for a minute, then pulled Bond to his knees.

“Get up, you bastard,” she yelled at him. “We’re almost there!”

Bond mumbled something. He was completely out of it. He could barely stand and lean in to her. She helped him along, acting as a crutch.

“Right foot . . . left foot . . .” she called, telling his brain what to do, for it had ceased to function. Nevertheless, he understood her commands, moved his feet forward, and marched with her.

“That’s right,” she said. “You’re doing great! Right foot . . . left foot . . . !”

They continued in this manner until they reached the tents. She opened the flap, pushed Bond inside, then crawled in after him.

This time, the Q Branch bivouac sack saved their lives.

TWENTY-FIVE

HUMAN MACHINES

“ARE YOU AWAKE?” SHE ASKED HIM.

They were both inside the bivouac sack. Bond moved slowly and groaned. He had slept the sleep of the dead.

Sunlight oozed through the top of the tent. Hope didn’t know how long they had been asleep, but it was obviously the next day. She put on her boots and opened the tent to inspect the damage. The entrance was completely blocked by snow and ice. She took a snow shovel and began to dig her way out.

Bond heard the scraping and sat up. “What year is it?” he asked. His voice was hoarse.

“It’s the year they’ll put on our tombstones if we don’t dig ourselves out of here and get moving, what do you say?” She continued to scrape. “How do you feel?”

“Terrible. How did I get here? The last thing I remember was leaving the summit.” He then noticed a large bandage wrapped around the wound that Marquis had made with the ice ax.

“Your fairy godmother took care of you,” she said. She stopped and put down the shovel. “I suppose I should boil some water before exhausting myself.”

The few hours of sleep had worked miracles. Bond recovered quickly.

His shoulder was extremely sore, but he could manage. He pulled his down jacket over him and together they cleared the entrance to the tent. While Hope continued to drag bodies out of the fuselage, Bond dug his way into Paul Baack’s tent to use the satellite phone. He wanted to make another call to London before they made the descent to Camp Four. He also wanted to alert Ang Tshering at the Base Camp that they were on the way.

As soon as he entered, Bond felt a burst of adrenaline.

The satellite phone was not sitting on Baack’s portable table. Someone had been in the tent before the storm had hit.

The body was still there, covered by the brightly colored parka. If he remembered the tents contents correctly, there was a pack missing, but the rest of the Dutchman’s belongings seemed to be intact.

On an impulse Bond stooped over Baack’s pack, which had been stored in the corner of the tent with other things. He dug in the clothing and found pieces of a rifle: a stock, barrel, telescopic sight— and 7.62mm cartridges. It was a gas-operated sniper rifle much like a Belgian FN FAL.

A chill slithered down Bond’s back. It couldn’t be! This was the weapon used to shoot at Bond and Chandra during the trek. The gun that killed young David Black. The sniper had been Paul Baack!

He turned to the body on the tent floor. Bond took hold of the parka and yanked it off the corpse.

It wasn’t Baack at all. It was a Sherpa, one of the new men who had come up from the Base Camp to help haul. His throat had been cut, like all the others.

Bond leaped to his feet and ran outside.

“Hope?” he called. She wasn’t out by the plane. Bond tromped as fast as he could through the deep snow. He could now clearly see another set of footprints other than Hope’s around the fuselage.

Paul Baack was standing in the open hatch, holding a Hechler and Koch VP70 to Hope’s head.

“Hello, James,” he said. “Raise your hands. Now. Where I can see them.”

Bond did so. Carefully, his gun still trained on Hope, Baack ordered, “Dr. Kendall, please take Mr. Bonds pistol out of that little pouch on the side of his parka. Pick it up with your thumb and index finger, please.”

She did as she was told and held it gingerly.

“Throw it over there,” Baack commanded. Bond watched as his Walther sailed several feet away, landed with a plop, and sank into a soft snowdrift. Baack pulled her next to him again and repositioned his gun to her head.

“I heard you were still at Camp Five,” Baack continued, “so I thought I’d pay you a visit. It’s a pity that Otto didn’t kill you and our good doctor like he was supposed to.”

“Let her go, Baack.”

“No, James, I have to finish the job that Otto botched up. He was working for me, you see. I hired him. In the eyes of my superiors, if he fails, then I fail. I have to make sure they don’t see me as a failure. It could damage my reputation. That damned Roland Marquis. I didn’t count on him being a free agent in this mess. He screwed up my plan.”

“So that’s it,” Bond said. “I didn’t count on two Union operatives infiltrating the team. Schrenk was the muscleman and you were the brains, right?”

“If you say so,” Baack said. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Bond’s eyes narrowed. “And you had constant contact with London. You knew my every move. You hired the hit man in Kath- mandu and had me followed.”

“He was a disgraceful amateur. I apologize for that,” Baack said.

“You knew where we were going to be and when. Where were you hiding all this time?”

“I went down to Camp Four to wait for Otto, but he never showed. As you say, I overheard your conversation with London that you were still alive. That’s the problem with mobile phones. They’re very easy to eavesdrop on. I waited for you and Hope to descend, but you insisted on staying here through those dreadful storms. So I came up here to surprise you this morning.”

Bond was furious. “Did you recruit my personal assistant? Do you know what’s happened to her?”

Baack laughed. “Miss Marksbury? I had a part in recruiting her, yes. As for her whereabouts, do you think I’ll tell you? Forget it. If she’s not dead already, she will be soon. Now give me the pacemaker.”

“It’s gone,” Bond lied. “Roland had it. It went down the mountain with him.”

Baack studied Bond’s face. Finally he said, “That’s very disappointing. And too bad for you. Now let’s march to the edge of the plateau over there. You two are going on a thrill ride that beats anything they have at Disneyland.”

“Why don’t you just shoot us?” Bond asked. “Or cut our throats? Isn’t that the Union’s preferred method of disposal?”

“Oh, this will be much more fun,” Baack said with a smile. “I want to hear that wonderful scream that fades out when someone falls, like you hear in the movies. You know, Aaaaaaaiiiiiiiieeeeeee!” He laughed at his sound effect, then wiped away the smile. “Now, move.”

Bond turned and walked through the deep snow toward the edge. Baack shoved Hope out of the plane but kept hold of her. “Follow him,” he said.

When they got to the cliff, Baack said, “It’s high time to kill, James. You first.”

“You’re making a big mistake, Paul,” Bond said. “How are you going to get down the mountain by yourself?”

“I’m an experienced mountaineer. I’ll be fine. You’ll get there before me, though. You’re going headfirst.”

Bond turned to face him. Baack was still holding the gun to Hope’s head.

“You’re going to have to push me,” he said.

“Either you jump off the edge, or you get to see me blow a hole in her head. Which is it?”

Bond looked at Hope and peered through the goggles. He could see a flicker of understanding in her eyes. Bond blinked twice.

Hope raised her right boot and kicked Baack hard in the shin. The sharp points of the crampon dug through his clothing and into his skin.

Baack screamed. Hope pushed the gun away and dropped to her knees. At the same time, Bond lunged for the big man. They fell together and rolled. The VP70 arced through the air and made a deep hole in the snow.

Bond hit Baack hard in the face, cracking the goggles. Baack roared like a bear, grabbed Bond’s hood, and pulled it off. The cold air felt like needles on Bond’s skin and head. Baack’s large hand fixed on Bond’s face, his fingers digging into the skin and pushing him back.

There was genuine strength behind Baack’s size. Bond fell backward, giving his opponent time to regain his balance and stand. He kicked Bond hard in the chest, the crampons ripping the fabric like tiger claws. The boot came down again, but Bond grabbed Baack’s ankle and twisted it sharply. Baack yelled again and lost his balance. He toppled over, dangerously close to the edge of the cliff.

Bond wasted no time counterattacking. He leaped on top of the big man and attempted to roll him over. Baack lodged his shoulder against a rock to brace himself, but it was very slippery from ice. As he started to slip over it, he took hold of Bond’s parka and said, “You’re coming with me!”

Hope jumped into action and held Bond’s legs. “I’ve got you!”

Bond kept pushing and hitting the man, forcing him closer to the dropoff. Finally, Baack’s waist went over, pulling his legs with it. Now he was hanging on to Bond’s shoulders for dear life. His weight was dragging them both over the cliff. Hope dug her crampons into the ground, trying her best to keep Bond from sliding forward.

Bond was face-to-face with Baack. Now there was terror in the man’s eyes, but he wasn’t about to plead for mercy.

“Going down, James?” he said through clenched teeth. “First floor . . . lingerie?”

Bond dug his fingers into Baack’s hands, trying to wrench them away from his parka.

Christ!” Hope said, gasping for air. “I can’t . . . hold . . . much . . . longer!”

Bond felt his torso slipping forward. Except for his head, shoulders, and arms, Baack’s entire body was now over the edge.

The Union . . . will . . . crush . . . you,” he spat out between gasps.

A blast of cold wind reminded Bond that his hood was off, and that sensation prompted Bond’s next action. He slammed his forehead into Baack’s, inflicting the hardest possible head-butt he could give Baack’s eyes rolled up into his head as his hands loosened their grip ‘ Bond broke free, sending the man off the cliff and into space.

“Aaaaaiiiiiieeeee . . . !”

Bond inched back onto the ledge and held Hope in his arms as the scream faded into thin air.

“Just like in the movies . . .” he said.

It took them three days to get to the Base Camp, where Ang Tshering met them with open arms. Since he had heard nothing by mobile phone, he was convinced they were dead. He had resolved to wait a few more days before leading the surviving team members back to Taplejung.

That night they built shrines to the men who had died on the mountain. Bond spent two hours scratching Chandra’s name on a stone, then drove a piton in above it and attached a white prayer scarf through the eye. When Hope made a stone for Roland Marquis, he made no objections.

They began the long trek back to civilization the next morning. Bond had regained much of his strength after descending the mountain, and the rest at Base Camp worked wonders. Bond and Hope were inseparable, ignoring the disapproving looks of the Sherpas. The Nepalese, shaking their heads, would never understand the decadent ways of the west.

The couple made the seven-day journey a memorable one, if not by day, then certainly by night. They made love for hours every evening after dinner, knowing full well that they might never see each other again after they left Nepal.

One night, as they lay naked in the sleeping bag at the Gunsa campsite, Bond lit his first cigarette in weeks, coughed loudly, then said, “You realize that we’ve been to the brink of disaster and lived to tell the tale.”

“What has it taught you?” she asked. “Other than that you really should give up smoking.”

“No way,” he said, taking another drag. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about our earlier conversation concerning limitations.

Despite what my government thinks, I’m just a man. You don’t realize how mortal you really are until you’re fighting for your life at eight thousand meters.”

“In my opinion,” she said, “you’re the finest specimen of a man I’ve ever seen. Speaking as a medical doctor, of course.”

He smiled. “Hope, you saved my life up there. More than once. I’ll be forever grateful.”

“Don’t mention it. I’ve learned a lot as well.”

“Such as?”

She sighed. “I don’t think I have something to prove anymore. Hey, I summited the third tallest mountain in the world, right? I now know that the capabilities of the human machine are far greater than I could ever have imagined. I need not concern myself with limitations anymore, because there are no such things.”

“Doesn’t one’s mind have a lot to do with it as well?” he asked. “Without the will, the body doesn’t have much of a chance.”

“Quite right,” she said. She reached between his legs and held him. “Speaking of will, will you please make love to me again?”

She didn’t have to ask him twice.

They said good-bye at the Kathmandu airport. She was flying to Bangkok, then on to Auckland. He was traveling in the opposite direction, to London by way of Delhi.

As her flight was called over the intercom, she said, “Take care of yourself, James. Keep in touch.”

“I’m not very good at that,” Bond admitted. “But we can try.”

Hope placed a hand over his face and let her fingers run smoothly over the faint scar on his cheek. She gazed into his clear blue eyes, then pushed the comma of black hair off his forehead. She leaned up and kissed the cruel mouth she had come to know so well. Without another word she turned away, picked up her bag, and walked toward the gate. Bond watched her as a wave of melancholy washed over him. It was a familiar friend, a bittersweet companion for his wretchedly solitary life. Hope handed her ticket to the flight attendant, then went through the door to board her plane.

She never looked back.

TWENTY-SIX

THE COLD STONE HEART

M LOOKED HARD AT Bill Tanner and said, “I don’t care how little time you’ve had. I want your new proposal for security procedures on my desk in the morning!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tanner said. He stood, glanced at Bond, and left the office. M turned to Bond, took a breath to redirect her thoughts, then said, “Needless to say, the Minister is very happy with your work on this case. Skin 17 was returned to the DERA and they have some new people working on it. I must admit I had my doubts about this one, Double-O Seven, but you pulled through. Well done.”

Bond sat stiffly across from his chief with a frown on his face. He wasn’t used to such praise. It disturbed him. There also seemed to be an edge to her voice that wasn’t quite right.

“I’m supposed to extend an invitation to you,” she continued. “The Minister asked that you come to a dinner tonight. Black tie. Ministry of Defence dining room. Seven-thirty. You’re to receive a commendation, Double-O Seven.”

Bond didn’t think he had heard right. “Ma’am?”

“A medal. You’re going to get a medal.” She looked at him, waiting for some kind of response.

“Ma’am, I’ve never accepted commendations in the past, not even a knighthood. Your predecessor knew that. I thought you did, too.”

“The Minister thought you might reconsider this time,” she said.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but please give the Minister my thanks and my apologies. I have an engagement.”

M knew he was lying. She was silent for a moment, then said, “It’s just as well. I must admit I didn’t approve of you receiving it, either.”

Bond now knew what was coming.

“Double-O Seven,” she said. “I have to turn down your request for two months’ leave. I want you around London in case the Union retaliate. Although you did a fine job in Nepal, I’m extremely unhappy with what has occurred with Miss Marksbury.”

“I understand, ma’am.”

“No, you don’t,” she said. She leaned closer to him and narrowed her cold blue eyes. “Your relationship with that girl nearly cost you your life. It caused a massive security breach in our organization. Didn’t you ever learn that you cannot be romantically involved with colleagues at SIS? Especially your bloody personal assistant! What the hell was the matter with you?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“Yes, well, of course you are. Now she’s probably lying at the bottom of the Thames and the Union have a good idea of how we work. This better not happen again, Double-O Seven, do you follow me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s all. Take a week, then we’ll talk about how we can go after this Union.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you,” he said, then got up and left the room. Barbara Mawdsley sighed and shook her head. She should have taken disciplinary action and had his head on a platter.

But that was something she could never do to her best agent.

Bond sat in the sitting room of his flat off the King’s Road, a double bourbon in hand and a cigarette hanging from his mouth. He had sent May away so that he could be alone with his demons. Sometimes they were the only things that could comfort him.

The white phone rang. He was tempted to let it go, but he inexplicably detected an urgency in the pips that forced him to pick up the receiver.

“Yes?”

“James! Thank God, you’re there!”

It was Helena Marksbury.

Bond sat up abruptly, completely alert. “Christ, Helena, where are you?”

“I’m . . . I’m in a hotel in Brighton. I came here a few days ago. I’ve been hiding. I assume you know—”

“Yes, Helena. I know.”

“Oh, God, James . . . James . . .” She started to cry.

“Helena,” he said, attempting to control his rising anger that he knew would be inappropriate. “Tell me what happened. From the beginning.”

She sobbed uncontrollably. “Oh, James, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. . . .”

He waited a few moments for her to get it out of her system. He was unable to detect that any of it might be pretense; her sorrow was genuine.

“It’s best if you tell me everything, Helena,” he said.

She gained control of herself and slowly began the story. “They got in touch with me the night we had that fight, after your golf game at Stoke Poges.”

“The Union?”

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

“They must have been watching my flat. They waited until you left, then two men came to the door. At first I wouldn’t let them in. but they convinced me they were from SIS. But they really weren’t.

“Who were they? What did they look like?”

“One was English. The other was Dutch or Belgian, I think. They told me that they were from the Union. They showed me . . . oh, God, James . . . they showed me photographs . . .”

“Of?”

“My sister. In America. Her two children. Photographs of her dropping them off at school. The men threatened their lives if I didn’t cooperate with them.”

“What did they say?”

“Only that my nephew and niece would meet with a horrible accident, and that my sister would suffer terrible torture.”

“What did they want from you?”

He knew that she was trembling. Her voice shook as she answered him. “They said they wanted to know everything you were going to do with regard to Skin 17. I had to report to them where you would be and when. I had to tell them what the Ministry of Defence were planning at all times. I had to answer any questions they asked.”

“For how long?”

“As long as they deemed necessary, they said. Oh, James . . . I didn’t want to do it. It was extortion, you see that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” he said. “But I’m not sure how the Ministry of Defence will see it. You could be in a lot of trouble, Helena. How would you contact them?”

“I wouldn’t. They contacted me.”

“At the office?”

“They had my private number, somehow. They would call and demand to know everything. I tried to put a trace on the calls, but it was never any good. They had some kind of block on the line. They warned me not to alert anyone about them or my sister and her children would die.”

“And you believed them?”

“Of course I believed them! I had no choice but to believe them!”

“They could have been bluffing.”

“I thought about that, but there were the photos. They seemed to know exactly what my sister was doing at any given time. Oh, James, I’ve been a nervous wreck. I’ve been horrible to you. You could have been . . . killed! It would have been my fault!” She broke down again.

Now he knew that her treatment of him those days before he left an assignment had nothing to do with their relationship. He had selfishly thought that she was upset about him, when, in fact, she was in torment over what she was being forced to do.

He might have taken her in his arms, but his heart was quickly cooling toward her. Betrayal was something that never sat well with him.

“I’m in danger,” she said quietly.

“I should think so.”

“A blue van is parked outside on the street. It’s been there for two days. A man has been watching the hotel. They know I’m in here.”

“Is he there now?”

There was a pause as she peered out the window. “The van is, but it doesn’t look like anyone is inside now.”

“Listen to me, Helena,” he said. “Tell me where you are. I’m coming to fetch you. You have to turn yourself in. It’s the only way out of this mess. It’s the only way to protect you.”

“I don’t want to go to prison,” she choked.

“Better that than lose your life. We’ll make sure that the FBI in the States is contacted so that they can get your sister and her family to a safe place.”

“Oh, James, will you help me? Please?”

“I’ll do what I can, Helena. I must warn you, though, that there will be a question of treason. Only the courts can answer that one, I’m afraid.”

He heard her crying again. The poor girl was in agony.

“Helena, you have to surrender. It’s the only way. I’ll take you straight to headquarters.”

After a few seconds of silence she said, “All right.” She gave him the address.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.

He hung up the phone and rushed out of the flat. He drove the Aston Martin recklessly across the river and down to the popular seaside resort, where there are literally hundreds of small hotels He quickly found the street she had mentioned in the less fashionable part of Brighton some five minutes’ walk from the seafront.

He parked in front of the building and looked around. The blue van was nowhere in sight. He got out and went inside the building-

Ignoring the elderly woman at the reception desk, Bond rushed through the small lobby as a feeling of dread poured over him,

He took the stairs two at a time to the second floor, drew the Walther, and peered carefully around the landing. The hallway was clear. He quietly moved to the correct room and listened at the door. A radio inside was broadcasting the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Bond raised his hand to knock but realized it was slightly ajar. He slowly pushed it open, his gun ready.

Helena Marksbury was lying in the middle of the floor in a pool of blood.

Bond entered and shut the door behind him. He quickly checked the bedroom to make sure he was alone with the corpse, then kneeled down beside her.

The Union had gotten to her first. Her throat was completely severed.

He took a moment to collect his thoughts, then picked up the phone and dialed the emergency number at headquarters. After ordering a cleanup crew, he sat down in a chair and stared at the body of the beautiful girl he had once made passionate love to.

The music filled the room as the orchestra on the radio reached an emotionally charged climax.

He was sorry for her, but he no longer felt any affection for the girl who had been a wonderful part of his life for some time. Just as he had always shut his heart to other women who had betrayed him in the past, Bond forced Helena out of his life then and there.

As he took out a cigarette and lit it, Bond wondered what was colder—the cruel realm of espionage that had victimized and ultimately destroyed Helena Marksbury, the icy summit of Kangchenjunga, or his own hardened heart.

The End