Hunt the Wolf

Chapter Eight

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.

– H. G. Wells

Crocker dreamt he was a boy looking at a birthday cake, waiting for his opportunity to blow out the candles. The electric lights were off. Familiar voices were singing in a range of octaves. Most beautifully, one slightly off-key. He turned to look for the face it belonged to. Saw a cascade of beautiful strawberry blond hair, then awoke.

Who does that hair belong to? Not my sister.

His tent was suffused with a warm reddish light. He lay zipped into a sleeping bag, a woolen hat pulled over his head. When he sat up, his right side barked, from his shoulder to his knee.

Which made him remember the ice crevasse of the night before. The eerie blue light.

No more wandering out at night alone.

Pulling on his boots, he returned to the warm image of the cascade of strawberry blond hair and wondered where he’d seen it before. Didn’t it belong to the missing Norwegian girl Mikael Klausen had shown him on his laptop, back at the camp in Urdukas?

No, hers was lighter.

Could be he had her confused with another fresh-faced Scandinavian girl. He’d seen hundreds in his travels to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Admired their beauty, especially their delicate, perfect skin and smooth features. Like pale pink roses, he thought. Magnificent at the moment of bloom.

“Beauty is unbearable,” Camus wrote, “…offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.”

Men wanted to possess things, for the power they thought it gave them. But there were boundaries of right and wrong that had to be maintained.

Beautiful young women disappeared all the time. He’d heard stories. Like the FBI friend of his who had helped rescue an American girl of South Korean descent named Suzie. The sixteen-year-old was snatched right in front of her house in Washington DC by some slick dude in a Jaguar.

After being beaten, gang-raped, and locked in a small room for three weeks, Suzie was forced to be an escort to wealthy businessmen and lobbyists in her hometown. Five hours with her went for $15,000. Often she was sold three times a day to different clients.

After months of serving as a sexual plaything, she was informed that she was being sold to a Japanese businessman in Tokyo for $2.2 million. On the way to the airport, she and her female captor stopped at a diner to get something to eat. Realizing this was her last chance, Suzie wrote, “Help! Call Mom!” and her mother’s cell-phone number on a napkin while her captor wasn’t looking. Then she dropped it on the floor.

A waitress picked up the napkin and called the number. Suzie was rescued-what was left of her.

The general public didn’t understand the scope of the problem. Trafficking in young women didn’t just happen in Third World countries. It took place in Japan, France, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Germany, even the United States.

They were kidnapped while shopping at upscale malls, traveling with their parents, walking down the street to school. The kids who managed to escape had to overcome enormous physical and psychological problems. Those who didn’t get away were used up, then murdered.

It pissed Crocker off.

He thought of his own teenage daughter shopping, walking home from school, going to the movies-unaware of how vulnerable she was to predators.

Sheep and wolves.

Animals who kidnapped, then abused and sold young women, had to be stopped, thrown in jail to rot, or, better yet, made to die a slow and painful death.

Crocker carried his anger out into the brilliant sun, then into a nearby tent, where he found the Germans packing their gear.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“How are you feeling?” one of the German men asked back, as he reached for a kettle to pour the American a cup of green tea.

“Like I was tossed out of a speeding car and fell off a bridge onto a bed of nails, then run over by a steamroller.”

The German laughed. “You’re a lucky man.”

As he sipped the tea and looked around the tent, Crocker willed himself to focus on the present. “Where’s Akil?”

“Where do you think? Up into you-know-who’s business.”

The taller of the two Germans glanced at his watch. “He and Edyta left about two hours ago to set some ropes.”

“They think they’re climbing farther?”

“Ja.”

“What about Davis?”

“He’s outside somewhere, waiting for you.”

He handed back the cup. “Thanks.”

The taller of the two Germans announced, “The conditions are too perilous to climb farther, so we’ve decided to return to the Concordia. We’re leaving in an hour.”

“Oh.”

“You’re welcome to join us.”

“I might take you up on that.”

Mention of returning to the Concordia brought back memories of Holly and Jenny. He wondered how they were getting along without him and what new challenges lay ahead.

The two Americans stood shoulder to shoulder, looking up at the slope. What had once been swatches of ice and snow interrupted by rocky cliffs was now a soft, undulating sheet of white. The wind blew over it with a gentle hiss and slapped the sides of the tents behind them.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Davis asked.

“It’s so pure and pristine, it’s almost unreal,” Crocker answered.

Again he thought of Malie, Jenny, and other young girls and boys.

It’s our job to protect them…

A whistle in front of them announced a larger gust of wind that twisted the new snow into curlicues of spinning powder as it passed. They started to climb slowly. Postholing, following the trail in the powder created by Edyta and Akil.

The mountain turned quiet. Crocker stopped to check that the loops of the gaiters on his snowpants were connected to the laces of his boots. It was important to keep your feet and ankles dry because frostbite was a constant danger.

“This reminds me of a story,” Davis said, the sun glinting off his orange-tinted goggles.

“What’s that?”

“There was an Indian chief out west named Two Eagles who was being interviewed by a U.S. government official.”

“Yeah.”

“And the government official asked him: ‘You’ve been observing the white man for ninety years. You’ve seen his technological advances, the progress he’s made and the damage he’s done. What do you make of it?’

“The chief stared at the official a long time. Then said: ‘When white men find this land, Indians were running it. No taxes, no debt, plenty buffalo, plenty beaver, clean water, women did all the work, medicine man free. Indian man spend all day hunting and fishing, all night having sex.’

“Then the chief leaned back and smiled. He said: ‘Only white man dumb enough to think he could improve a system like that.’ ”

Crocker laughed. “What made you think of that?”

“The beauty of this, I guess.”

“You feeling guilty for being a white man?”

“No. But sometimes I get the feeling that we’re not supposed to be here.”

“My dad said: Only a fool forgets to live in awe of nature.”

“He was right.”

Crocker started to climb again.

Sometimes he felt that all the reading Davis did made him a little morose. Crocker wasn’t a student of history to the extent that the young SEAL was, but he knew enough to understand that mankind had a tremendous capacity for destruction and a frustrating tendency to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Pausing, he turned to Davis and said, “We should be able to see them from the top of that ridge.”

He pointed his trekking pole to a crest in the snow two hundred yards ahead. It tapered gently to the right, then ended abruptly in a phantasmagoria of deep blue sky painted with wisps of white.

“When’s your wife expecting?”

“In about three weeks.”

“Does she know what it’s going to be?”

“No, but I’m hoping for a boy. Little girls are so delicate. They kind of scare me.”

“It’s exciting, either way,” Crocker said.

Since the air was dramatically thinner, they had to stop to catch their breath every fourth or fifth step.

As they continued climbing, Crocker thought about how his concern for his daughter and his efforts to protect her had sometimes gone too far. Like the night last summer when he sat up past two waiting for her to return home. His little angel had promised to be back by ten, and Crocker was getting sicker with worry with every minute that passed. Unable to stay still anymore, he climbed into his car and started driving all over town looking for her.

After an hour of increasing anxiety and frustration, he spotted an old Ford Mustang weaving down a local road. He saw the driver, a teenage boy, leaning across the seat with Jenny beside him.

Crocker turned off his headlights and tailed the Mustang into his neighborhood. When the old Mustang stopped in front of his own house, Crocker made a hard right and came within inches of crashing into the driver’s side of the car. Then he jumped out and pulled the boy from his car.

The kid was obviously drunk or on drugs, screaming, “You crazy old man! Get your hands off me before I call the police!”

Crocker held him up by the collar, slapped the hat off his head, and said, “If you say another word, I’ll kill you right here!”

The kid shut his mouth.

“You dare take my fifteen-year-old daughter out in your car when you’re drunk off your ass. Give me one reason I shouldn’t beat the living shit out of you.”

Jenny, meanwhile, was crying, screaming, “Dad, you’re overreacting! He didn’t do anything. Leave him alone!”

Crocker shouted, “Get your butt into the house.”

He threw the little punk to the asphalt, searched him, and had to fight the impulse to wring his neck. Irresponsible little shit. The kid never asked Crocker’s daughter out again.

Now the SEAL team leader stopped to catch his breath. God, I love my daughter.

Beside him, Davis readjusted his gaiters.

Crocker remembered holding baby Jenny on his right forearm. She had translucent skin like her mother’s, and light hair. A sweet, gentle sparkle in her eyes.

He turned to Davis and said, “Yeah, daughters are wonderful, but they’re challenging.”

“I bet.”

Long streams of white condensation issued from their mouths when they reached the crest. The snow-covered ground in front of them dipped slightly, then rose in a sharp U to the last peak, which shot up at a seventy-degree angle.

Following the footsteps left by Edyta and Akil, he spotted them approximately two hundred feet ahead, with Edyta leading the way, breaking trail in the fresh snow.

“Where’s she taking him?” Davis asked.

Crocker pointed at a crease in the mountain. “She’s going to start her final ascent there.”

“What about Akil?”

“I assume she’s got him carrying supplies that she’ll leave at the bottom. Unless he’s so damned pussy-whipped that he’s following her up to the summit.”

“Knowing Akil, it’s hard to tell.”

The final ascent looked almost impossible, especially since the entire peak was covered with several feet of fresh snow. Crocker admired Edyta’s courage. But it struck him as extremely foolish to attempt the summit in these conditions.

In the whiteness before him, he saw Edyta turn back and measure how far Akil lagged behind. He felt he could read her thoughts-having to do with men, strength, and her unending appetite for sex. Maybe men related to her easily because she thought like they did.

Spotting Crocker on the ridge, Edyta waved with a yellow mitten that matched her parka.

“Stubborn old bird,” he muttered under his breath.

She seemed to be shouting something. Her eyes widened and brilliant sunlight glinted off her teeth. Then suddenly her expression darkened, and she turned back to face the mountain.

Crocker stood, wondering what was going through her head, when he heard a deep rumble and immediately understood.

“Avalanche!” he shouted at Davis.

“Where?”

Crocker pointed ahead.

The ground beneath them started to tremble, then shake, and the entire peak in front of them shifted, as though the hard granite mountain had decided to shrug off its white coat.

“Jesus!” Davis exclaimed.

Quickly the roar grew louder. A massive, incalculable amount of snow slid off the mountain, picking up speed and funneling into the crease that Edyta had been climbing to. She and Akil were standing a mere hundred feet away from it, directly in its path.

“They’re gonna get hit!”

As Crocker watched, both climbers turned their backs to the mountain and assumed a seated position, with their heads bent forward and arms over their faces.

A horrible chill came over him as he saw the enormous wave of snow bear down and overwhelm them. His mind worked fast, calculating the route the avalanche was going to take and his and Davis’s safety. Its momentum and the configuration of the mountain would push the snow into the U, then off the mountain to their right.

He grabbed Davis by the shoulder. “This way!” he said, pulling him sharply left. Around them rose a huge billow of white. A thunderous crunching, rushing sound. The snow and ice shifted under them.

“Davis, hold on to me!”

There was nothing they could do but try to keep from being swept off their feet-and pray. Somehow, through the enormous whiteness, he saw a red object tumble past.

“It’s Akil!”

“Where?”

His mouth and nostrils filled with fine powder, making it hard to breathe. The two big men shook.

As quickly as the massive surge had started, it settled, and the roar echoed farther down the mountain and faded. Then the eerie silence returned, and the mountain stood still. Defiant. Clouds of fine powder rose and disappeared.

Davis grabbed Crocker’s shoulder. “Jesus, boss. Do you see them?”

“I’m not sure. Hold on.”

“Incredible. Fucking incredible!”

Crocker used the rope in his pack to tie the two of them together. He warned, “Walk carefully. The snow hasn’t settled. Step into an air pocket and you’ll disappear.”

“Okay. But you said you saw him.”

“I did for an instant. Hold on.”

“Where?”

Crocker calculated the approximate spot where Akil had landed, got down on his knees, and used his ice axe and hands to start digging through the mélange of snow and ice. Davis did the same, approximately two feet away.

“They should have been wearing their avalanche beacons!” Davis shouted.

Nothing in that spot.

Crocker said: “Let’s try farther right.”

Every second that passed felt like a loss. They dug furiously, burrowing into the snow, then moving forward.

Davis found a bone-a human femur. An awful reminder that another climber had died in that location sometime earlier, maybe from the same cause.

Anger, fear, and determination were clashing with one another.

Dammit, Edyta. An experienced climber like you should have known better.

His mind was performing jumping jacks.

Do we keep looking here, or move closer to the edge? Should we shift farther left or more to the right? What are the chances they survived?

Both men were breathing hard. The muscles in Crocker’s arms and shoulders burned. His knees and calves were rigid from the cold.

Somewhere in front of them they heard a scratching sound. Davis pointed, “Boss! Jesus, boss. Two o’clock!”

Ten feet closer to the edge of the mountain, they saw the heel of a boot poking through the snow. Pouncing on the spot, they dug frantically. One leg, to his butt, to another leg, then his torso. They found Akil sitting upside down under five feet of snow.

Crocker figured he’d been there two or three minutes at the most as he dug around Akil’s head and found a pulse on his icy cold neck. “He’s barely breathing and is probably hypothermic.”

Working together, they grabbed him around the legs and torso and carefully slid him free. They had him seated on the ground, and were brushing snow off his beard and head when the big Egyptian American opened his eyes.

“What the fuck…”

“Easy, Akil.”

“Where the hell am I?” Blinking, grabbing his right shoulder.

Davis gave him a drink of Jack Daniel’s from a small metal flask.

Crocker warned, “Just a sip.” He knew that any attempt to warm a victim of even moderate hypothermia too quickly could result in metabolic acidosis, which could cause a stroke or heart failure. “We need to get him off the ground and warm him up slowly.”

They sat him on Davis’s backpack, then wrapped Akil in a lightweight Tyvek blanket, making sure his head was covered. Within minutes his breathing and color returned to normal.

Akil looked up into the faces of his two colleagues and asked, “What’d you do with Edyta?”

“We haven’t found her yet.”

“What?” Akil tried to pull himself up. He got as far as his knees and fell back.

“You stay with Davis,” Crocker instructed. “I’ll look for her.”

“Hurry up!”

The team leader worked his way to the edge, zigzagging every three or four feet to dig, but found no sign of her. He thought of circling back, but since he was within six feet of the drop-off he decided to get on his belly, slide forward, and steal a look.

Akil shouted behind him. “Boss. Boss! What the hell are you doing?”

The distance down was even worse than Crocker had thought. A two-hundred-foot drop-off at least. The huge mass of snow had hit the gray granite face at an angle and dispersed. Most of it had ended up hundreds of yards lower, on another slope.

He was thinking No living thing could survive that when on his left periphery he noticed a bright yellow spot about 250 feet down. His heart sank.

Removing a small pair of binoculars from his pack, he focused on the yellow mitten with the palm facing upward.

Edyta!

He watched and waited for her hand to move. It didn’t.

Together the two men helped Akil over the ridge. He was still groggy and having trouble putting weight on his right ankle. They stopped to rest.

“You saw her? You one hundred percent sure about that?” Akil asked for the third time.

“It was her, yes. I ID’d her by her mitten. Yellow. Her hand wasn’t moving.”

“How can we be sure she’s not alive?”

“I can’t be absolutely positive. But there’s no way anyone could survive that fall.”

“Edyta’s tougher than shit.”

“I know that.”

The SEAL team leader tried to be patient. He understood his colleague’s distress. “It’s at least two hundred feet onto a solid granite face. Like I said before, I watched and waited, but her hand wasn’t moving.”

“That’s all you saw? Her hand?”

“Her gloved hand, part of her wrist.”

Hurt and anger burned in Akil’s dark eyes. “I think we should go back and try throwing her a line.”

Crocker had considered that option and come to the conclusion that it was impossible and too dangerous to attempt. He said, “The ledge won’t hold our weight for one thing. Number two, it’s impossible to descend from there. Three, if we throw down a line, we’re gonna need something like four hundred feet of it, which we don’t have. And finally, if by some miracle she’s alive and able to grab it, there’s no way we’ll be able to pull her up without the whole ridge giving way.”

“I’m going to try!”

“No you’re not.”

Akil tried to push past.

Crocker grabbed the front of his parka. “Look, the only way to reach her is from below. That would mean climbing down way past last night’s camp and making an ascent from there. We’re talking two days at least.”

“Two days? Bullshit.”

Crocker understood Akil’s desire to reach her. He said, “When we get to camp, we’ll radio for a rescue party. It’s the best, fastest option by far.”

“Maybe we do have enough line if we tie everything together. We can try that at least!”

“How is she going to grab onto it if her hand isn’t moving?”

Akil stared hard into his eyes. “You don’t give a shit about her, do you?”

“I like her a lot, Akil. Edyta’s a brave, amazing woman. A good friend. But I’m telling you, I watched for ten minutes at least, and she wasn’t moving. I’m sorry.”

“Maybe she’s unconscious but alive.”

“It still won’t work.”

“If she were your wife, you’d be climbing down there.”

“Edyta knew the risk she was taking.”

“So what?”

“She died on the mountain she loved.”

“She was with you, Akil,” Davis added. “She was happy.”

“Maybe she belongs here, Akil,” Crocker offered.

Akil looked up at the peak and sighed. “Fuck.”