Summit: A Novel Read online

  Holding his mask tightly over the boy’s face, he saw Dawa now moving across to him, leaving Pemba alone on the snow but sitting up unaided. At least that was a hopeful sign. Quinn watched him slowly approach, wondering what he would tell him about the young Sherpa, until his attention was pulled back to Tate Junior who was beginning to writhe and moan.

  That too was a good sign.

  The oxygen was reaching into the kid, bringing him back.

  The boy began to mumble something.

  Quinn struggled to recognize the words, but when he pulled the oxygen mask back for an instant, he understood.

  “My hands. My hands. My hands,” the boy repeated.

  “What about your hands?”

  “I can’t feel them …”

  With Dawa kneeling down beside him, Quinn pointed urgently to the kid’s hands.

  Together they pulled off the boy’s black nylon insulated mittens to reveal only the thinnest of silk under-gloves beneath.

  Quinn and the veteran Sherpa immediately looked at each other in shared horror as they both understood that the boy wasn’t wearing at least another pair of fleece gloves, if not two.

  Quinn seized a hand and felt it.

  It was rigid.

  Peeling off the useless under-glove, he saw that the fingers were soapy white, each one an icicle.

  Dawa pulled off the other.

  It was the same.

  They each began to squeeze a hand, desperate to get some movement, some warmth back into the fingers.

  They remained locked solid.

  Motioning to Dawa to pull the kid forward, Quinn unzipped the front of his own down suit and forced the kid’s hands up and under the fleece layers inside, pushing them up as far as he could get them. He shivered as he felt the bitter cold of the frozen fingers touch his warm skin. Ignoring it, he clamped his elbows inward, squeezing the fingers into his armpits, trying to force every degree of his body heat into them.

  Huddled around the boy, Quinn felt the inside of his head suddenly wallow, reality rippling. He recognized it as a warning that the dull floating sensation he was already feeling was becoming a deeper hypoxia. Without his additional oxygen supply, he was entering the gelatinous world of true high altitude where urgency fades, the body slows, and the mind drifts off into the ether.

  You need your Os back, Major Tom …

  After asking Dawa to look at the kid’s oxygen system while he continued to warm the boy’s hands, Quinn said, “Dawa, Pemba not okay?”

  “Pemba sick, I not know, Mr. Neil,” the veteran Sherpa replied, momentarily lowering his head as if shamed by his brother’s infirmity. “He try for summit without using his Os for big track record, but he sick in stomach so big problem instead. Sorry, Mr. Neil. Pemba better with Os. Good now. You must worry only about boy.”

  A sharp hiss stopped any further discussion as Dawa broke the seal on a new cylinder by screwing it into the kid’s regulator and then concentrated on checking all the parts of the supply system once again.

  After several more minutes working on it, the Sherpa indicated to Quinn that it seemed to be functioning. He passed the kid’s mask back. Quinn, with one hand, hooked it over his head and pulled it onto his own mouth while Dawa wedged the kid’s old cylinder deep into the broken snow above Quinn’s ice axe to stop it sliding away down the slope. Taking a series of long, deep breaths from the mask, Quinn felt his head lift and clear slightly. Whatever Dawa had done, it had worked.

  “What was the problem?”

  “Don’t know, Mr. Neil. Maybe ice, maybe bad cylinder …”

  “Okay, Dawa. Well done, anyway. Now let’s do his hands.”

  Dawa pulled a white pair of knitted wool gloves from his bag and took some chemical hot packs from the cargo pocket of his bulky, insulated trousers. Tearing them open, he vigorously shook each one to bring it to life while Quinn released the boy’s arms from the inside of his suit. Together they both massaged the small hands some more before working the silk under-gloves and Dawa’s woolen gloves back over the stiff fingers.

  Quinn took off his own heavier, thicker mittens and passed them to Dawa to drop the hot packs inside. As Quinn took the kid’s thinner mittens in exchange, Dawa put the Englishman’s onto the boy’s damaged hands. They both knew well that there was not enough oxygen up there to fully activate the heat pads. There would be even less within the confined space of the mittens, but maybe a little heat and the thicker insulation of Quinn’s gloves would reduce the severity of what was well on its way to being severe frostbite.

  Tate Junior started mumbling again, more urgently. As Quinn replaced the kid’s now-functioning oxygen mask and took back his own, the boy continued to try and force a word through his cracked and blistered lips.

  “Pht … pht … pht …”

  “Feet?” Quinn questioned.

  “No. Pht …”

  “What then?”

  The word finally emerged.

  “Photo.”

  Quinn’s heart sank.

  “Really? Just breathe the fucking Os, for Christ’s sake.” Quinn pushed the kid’s mask hard onto his nose and mouth, pulling the elastic straps as tight as possible to secure it, hoping that it might also have the effect of shutting him up.

  As Dawa turned away to return to Pemba, Quinn shouted after him, “Dawa, get Mr. Yves and Lhakpa going down now. They got here a good time before us—too long on summit now. Down. Then you give more help to Pemba. Okay?”

  The veteran Sherpa nodded as he slowly moved away.

  3

  Quinn got out his radio and called down to Base Camp.

  “Quinn to NHBC. Over.”

  Sarron’s hard, Gallic voice responded immediately. “Quinn? Talk to me. What’s going on up there? Why haven’t I heard from you? And Nelson? Are you on the summit? Over.”

  “We are on the summit. Repeat: on the summit. Nelson and Pemba in bad shape. Yves, Lhakpa, Dawa, myself, okay. Is Ross MacGregor safely back at High Camp? Over.”

  “Yes, but how bad is the kid?” The heavy French accent snapped back, any radio formalities instantly forgotten.

  “Os frozen or blocked. Not sure which. No Os for last forty-five minutes. Exhaustion. Probable severe frostbite to both hands.”

  “Merde!” The shout of rage made the radio crackle and distort. “What the fuck are you doing up there, Quinn? Let me speak to him; I need to patch him through to his family in America.”

  Quinn looked at the barely conscious boy slumped next to him. “Not a good idea at the moment, too weak. If he improves, we will call them on the sat phone.”

  He already knew there was no way he was going to make that call.

  “No! You won’t do it. We must make the call. I repeat: we must make the call. We need a summit photo and a call. Do you understand me, Neil Quinn? A summit photo and a call home.”

  “I hear you, but he’s in a bad way. It’s not the right thing to do.”

  “Fuck the right thing! You must do it!”

  Quinn looked out from the summit, wondering why he was even wasting precious time having the conversation.

  “Speak to me, Neil Quinn. Is he standing?” the Frenchman continued, relentless.

  Quinn didn’t reply, contemplating turning the radio off.

  Sarron became incensed at the lack of a response. “Answer me!” he screamed as he swept a laptop computer off the communications table. It audibly clattered onto the rocky floor of the expedition’s mess tent. “I said fucking well answer me!”

  “No, he is not standing. Descent will be difficult. I repeat: descent will be difficult.”

  “Put him on the radio now!”

  Quinn relented, pulling the kid’s oxygen mask back down and putting the radio up to the boy’s mouth. A series of uncontrollable tremors ripped through Nelson Tate’s body as Quinn said, “H
e’s on. Make it fast.”

  “Bonjour, Nelson, my young friend. You’ve done it, boy. Do you hear me? We’ve done it! You are the youngest guy to have climbed the Seven Summits. It’s a world record. We have a new world record. Ça va? Bien, huh?”

  The kid looked confused before slurring a faint “yeah” in reply.

  “We’ll get you a summit photo and then get you down, okay? Want to call your parents at home, kid?”

  “Home?” the boy questioned pleadingly, looking to Quinn as if he had the power to instantly make it happen.

  Before Quinn could say anything in reply, there was a burst of interference from the radio receiver followed by a repeated, “Hello. Hello. Hello.”

  Sarron had patched them through to the kid’s family in America, regardless.

  “Bonsoir, Long Island. This is Jean-Philippe Sarron speaking, your Everest expedition leader. Are you ready?” There was a pause, then Sarron screamed at the top of his voice, “Well, here it is. SUUUUUMIIIIIT!” He drew the word on and on, in a never-ending howl, as if commentating on a last-minute goal in a Paris Saint-Germain soccer match.

  A distant yet equally prolonged cheer went up in staticky reply.

  “Neil Quinn, tell us all, mon ami, what is it like up there today on the top of the world?”

  Quinn groaned inwardly, before being compelled by the return of silence to speak into the radio. “Hello, everyone. This is Neil Quinn here with Nelson, giving you a late-night call from the highest point on earth. We are on the summit of Mount Everest. I repeat: we are on the summit of Mount Everest!”

  The radio distorted yet again as another cheer went up from the assembled group in Tate Senior’s study. From amidst the cacophony, a deep, languid voice began to speak. “Thank you, Mr. Quinn. Good job, sir. How are you, Junior? What’s the view like from up there? Can you see us all down here?” The voice became a self-satisfied laugh as a champagne cork popped loudly in the background.

  Against his better judgment, Quinn held the radio up to the kid who, after a long pause, said only, “Buddy?”

  “What was that, Junior?” came the immediate reply.

  The kid said nothing more.

  “Daddy, I think he’s asking to speak to his dog,” a shrill voice said in the background followed by some laughter.

  It abruptly stopped.

  “Nelson, do you hear me? How are you, boy? What’s going on up there?” Tate Senior’s voice tightened with urgency as his questioning accelerated.

  The kid, silent, just looked down at the snow as Quinn quickly took back the radio.

  Steeling himself to sound confident, he said, “Don’t worry. We are doing fine up here. A bit tired but all good. Don’t worry. Nelson’s …”

  Sarron cut back in. “Well, there you are, Mr. Tate: a call from the top of the world. Just some photos now, and then we will get your boy back down safe and sound. I will call you again in a few minutes for a fuller update after I am sure we are getting Nelson some fantastique summit photos.”

  With a sharp click, the line was cut. A second later, Sarron’s voice screamed out again from Quinn’s receiver, “Get that fucking summit photo, Quinn, then get him down fast! If he loses his fingers, you’ll be responsible, all of you up there! I’ll fucking see to it that none of you ever work on Everest again!”

  The radio fell silent.

  Neil Quinn looked at Dawa, who had moved back alongside him to listen to the call.

  Slowly shaking his head as Dawa shrugged his shoulders in return, the Englishman asked, “How is Pemba now?”

  “He good to go down. I help you do photo quick.”

  “Okay.”

  Quinn unclipped his pack from his ice axe, put it back on, adjusted the routing of his oxygen supply tube and then, together with the Sherpa, got the boy to his feet. They each took an arm to drag Nelson Tate Junior to the very top of the world, passing Yves Durrand and Lhakpa Sherpa with a nod of acknowledgement as they began their own descent.

  Quinn and Dawa put the boy down amidst the multicolored jumble of prayer flags, tattered climb banners, laminated photos of loved ones, and discarded oxygen cylinders that litter the summit every spring. The Sherpa sat alongside, supporting the boy with an arm around his shoulders. Quinn pulled up the kid’s goggles to expose as much of his pale face as he dared before reaching to the side of the kid’s rucksack to tug the boy’s short, titanium ice axe from the pack’s side compression straps. He unwound the small white nylon flag that was attached to it before planting the shaft of the axe into the ice in front of the boy. Dawa reached his free hand forward to pull the flag’s one-foot-by-two-foot rectangle taut. Extended, the little flag showed a line drawing of seven ascending triangles across the top with “7 @ 16” written in bold numbers beneath. Below that it read, “Mount Everest, 2009” and, lower still, “www.TatePrivateEquity.com.”

  Pulling a small digital camera from within the innermost layers of his clothing, Quinn stepped back and took photo after photo until the camera’s battery, depleted by the cold, finally gave up the ghost. It was Neil Quinn’s ninth time on the summit of Mount Everest, Dawa Sherpa’s sixteenth.

  4

  The Paznaun Valley, Southwest Austria

  October 1, 1938

  8:53 p.m. (Mitteleuropäische Zeit)

  Fat raindrops started to fall, each landing with a slap on the rough-hewn stone tiles of the cowshed. Pulling up the hood of his army mountain jacket, Josef Becker quickly turned for shelter as the wet splashes accelerated to a continuous drumroll, rods of water stabbing the back of his jacket until he could push himself into the low building’s entrance. The young German squatted inside, leaning back against the old door, its iron bolt heads pushing against his spine as he looked out.

  The rain is finally arriving. Gunter told us to expect it.

  The raindrops splashed and ricocheted, the cowshed’s paddock briefly emitting the wet, sour smell of cow dung and straw before all scent was lost to the cold, metallic wash of the downpour. Beyond, the grey opening that notched the black tree line, the entrance to the track from the valley road he had been watching, disappeared, pushed into the darkness behind black sheets of rain. The only things now visible to Josef were the puddles growing in front of him, pooling and merging until they released urgent, bubbling streams of rainwater to race away down the slope of the hill. He knew they would instinctively seek the two wheel grooves of the unpaved track that led up through the woods.

  Would the truck even be able to make it up the hill?

  It was suddenly colder too. Josef cupped his hands together. Blowing into them, a tattered cloud of warm breath puffed out from between his fingers only to instantly dissolve in the saturated air.

  What must be happening higher up?

  Snow above fifteen hundred meters was the forecast. Josef shivered at the thought of it—or was it nerves?

  Looking at his watch, he saw there were still five minutes to go. Shielding a match in his wet hands, he lit another Stürm cigarette. Inhaling deeply, he savored the bone-dry paper of the cigarette on his lips and the heat of its smoke, even if he disliked the harsh taste. The party leadership claimed to want to stop smoking, yet the SA now monopolized the sale of all cigarettes to the Wehrmacht—more nonsense from Berlin. Trommler, Neue Front, Stürm, they were all the same, cheap and bitter like the people that promoted them. It was no wonder the demand for contraband foreign cigarettes was so strong.

  Josef watched his cigarette’s orange burn defy the cold logic of the rain. It told him to do the same.

  Gunter always said that any man who went into the mountains without being nervous was as good as dead anyway.

  A sudden braying from behind the door made him jump.

  Too nervous, perhaps?

  Settle down, it’s only the rattle of the rain disturbing the mules.

  Again, Josef looked down at his watch f
or reassurance.

  Maybe they’re going to be late.

  Perhaps they’ve already been caught.

  It had happened once before. That night, the truck simply never arrived. The three of them had waited for two extra hours, hiding in bushes to the side of the rendezvous building in case their cover was blown. When no one appeared, they still made the trip over the hills to bring the return goods back before dawn. They had really flown that night to make up for the time lost waiting. Josef enjoyed how fast they could go when they were alone. It reminded him of the days when they were boys living in Elmau, and nothing or no one could stop them in the hills above.

  The body of the cigarette, absorbing the moisture from his wet fingertips, disintegrated. Josef flicked it away to fizz and die in a puddle still vibrating from the rain. Its companionship lost, Josef let the doorway’s small shelter give him a faint sense of security instead, as if he were hidden behind a waterfall, invisible within a place that no one else even knew existed. The sensation settled him and he began to think again about that climb of the Waxenstein he had made the month before, replaying that small patch of unyielding, crystalline rock that had unfolded its upward story centimeters from the tip of his nose.

  Even there, crouched in that cramped doorway, looking out on that slippery, wet night, he could feel his fingers tightly pinching the smallest bumps and folds of the cliff’s dry granite, his toes scratching for purchase on the tiniest edges below. No rope, no climbing partner, no possibility for second thoughts, no deciding to simply stop and descend. One way only: up. Just remembering it made Josef’s breathing instinctively slow and his mind relax.

  He smiled to himself at the memory of the celebrations when he’d returned to the barracks that evening. The men of the 99th Gebirgsjäger, his regiment, had huddled around, congratulating him as he parked his pride and joy, his new BMW motorcycle, and unloaded his small climbing pack from its rear rack. They had immediately walked him into Garmisch to buy tall steins of cloudy weissbier and toast him as they recounted how they had followed his every move through their binoculars. They shouted, one over the other, of how it was the most incredible feat of climbing they had ever seen, of how every second they thought he must surely fall, of how, alone, Josef Becker had conquered the one mountain face that everyone had thought impossible. Oberjäger Hubel said that even Generalmajor Ganzler himself had called for a telescope to follow Josef’s progress.