Luca knew that he had to compartmentalise his feelings and trust that something of his old self remained, but his mind kept circling back to the fact that it had been three years since he had last stood on the side of a mountain. Three years.
Unclipping his rucksack, he began checking through the quickdraws and carabiners, counting them out as he clipped them on to the back of his climbing harness. As he opened the screw-gate of the second one, the carabiner suddenly slipped from his grasp, spinning down into the metal footwell of the tractor. It clattered so loudly that even the drunken Russian sitting opposite was roused from his stupor.
Luca looked up, straight into the man’s eyes. It felt as if the Russian could see right through him; see the fear inside. But just as Luca went to blurt out an apology, the man’s head lolled backwards, cracking against the side glass of the window. He was so drunk that he didn’t even notice.
Luca exhaled slowly, trying to blank out what had just happened. But the fact remained that he had clipped and unclipped thousands of carabiners before and couldn’t remember the last time he had dropped one. What had once been instinctual was now clumsy and unfamiliar. He knew that the incident itself could easily be brushed aside, yet deep down it sharpened everything into focus. The truth was obvious: he was in no shape to take on this job.
His thoughts turned to Bear and for the briefest moment he allowed himself the fantasy that he could confide in her and that she would make it all go away. But deep down he knew that she would have done nothing but admonish him for being so pathetic. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand, more that she just didn’t tolerate any sort of procrastination and would always delve straight to the core of the problem. Bear did what needed to be done. It was just how she was wired.
God, he missed that about her; missed the strength of her convictions and the way it always seemed to rub off on him.
Luca heard a shout and then the sound of the tractor’s gearing grinding down. With a final lurch, the convoy drew to a standstill directly under the jagged peaks of the mountain range. Long shadows stretched down from the highest summits as if beckoning them closer, but to Luca, they only reinforced his own sense of foreboding.
Stepping out into the deep snow, he stared up at the nearest cliff face. It rose like a monolith from an open desert and would definitely require some technical climbing. Why the hell had Dedov chosen this place? In the long range of mountains, surely there was an easier route than this across to the lake. Luca wondered if this wasn’t some part of a deliberate plan to test his climbing prowess.
Turning back the way they had come, he looked across the snow and ice, endlessly shimmering under a low sun. The landscape was inert, desolate.
‘English!’
He turned to see Dedov’s bulbous head hanging out of the window of a tractor just in front.
‘Take this,’ he shouted, handing across a small parcel wrapped in fleece cloth. ‘It’s a satellite phone.’
‘Already have one,’ Luca replied, patting his rucksack.
‘Then have two.’
Luca nodded, staring along the line of tractors as the other Englishmen began to pile their rucksacks and equipment on the snow. None of the Russians were helping. Instead, they glowered from behind closed windows, the previous bonhomie at the base drained by the hours of travel and the endless rumbling road.
‘We have dropped you on eastern side and now you follow the route I marked,’ Dedov said, his watery gaze fixed on Luca. ‘And report
everything
you see.’
The driver next to him stabbed a finger towards the high peaks. A new wind was blowing across the summits, dusting off the snow and causing a trail to reach out across the sky like the wash of a plane’s jet engine. The weather was already starting to turn.
‘Dedov,’ Luca called up. ‘You make sure the tractors are here in time.’
The Russian smiled. ‘They’ll be here. And if you make it back safe, you get to call me Poet!’ He then slapped his driver on the shoulder, signalling for them to leave.
Luca only nodded as he watched the snow kick up behind the massive tracks of the vehicles as the convoy pulled off. Thirty yards behind him the other Englishmen instinctively grouped together as the landscape seemed to expand around them. No one spoke; all eyes watched the vehicles gradually recede, until finally they dipped out of sight behind a low rise.
Everyone was waiting, desperate for someone to break the silence of the mountains.
‘Luca!’
He turned in response and saw Joel approach, followed by two other men. As they drew closer, Luca pulled his sunglasses down to conceal the hesitancy in his own eyes.
‘This is Andy McBride,’ Joel said, gesturing towards the heavy-set man standing closest to him. He was wearing reflective orange goggles and a thick fur hat that wrapped right across his chin so that the only visible part of his face was a pair of rouged lips, blistered by the sun.
‘All right, mate?’ Andy offered with a quick wave of his hand.
‘And this is Katz.’
Jonathan Katz walked around the pile of rucksacks, taking off his right glove before shaking Luca’s hand.
‘So you’re the new guide,’ he said, tilting his head forward and peering over the top of his sunglasses as if inspecting the fine print of a book. ‘Hope you do a better job than the last one we had.’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Andy muttered.
‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ Katz snapped over his shoulder. He was a big man in his early-fifties with receding blond hair that accentuated an already high forehead. His eyes were pale blue and lacked any trace of empathy. Instead they seemed to shimmer with untapped annoyance. ‘Idiot led them straight over a crevasse field. What did he expect?’
‘That could’ve happened to any one of us,’ Andy retorted, clearly happy to rekindle an old argument.
‘Well, you can be damn sure of one thing – it’s not going to happen to me. Isn’t that right, Matthews? We heard a lot about you on the drive over. Apparently, you’re the “real deal”.’ He said the last words with a faux-American accent, drawing them out.
Luca looked from one man to the next, quickly realising that he was somehow going to have to stop their incessant bickering and unite them as a team.
‘Save your energy,’ he said, keeping his voice low to bring them in close. ‘We have seventy-two hours, maybe less if the weather hits early. So I’m going to make this really simple – you do exactly as I say on the mountain. And I mean exactly.’ He then turned specifically to Katz. ‘From now on, the past is exactly that. Antarctica won’t give a shit about your petty crap. Give her the chance and she’ll swallow us whole. All of us.’
Turning back towards the pile of kit, he pulled his rucksack on to his shoulders. ‘Get ready. We’re going to move fast and get the job done. Together.’
Luca led through the snowfield. The four men were roped together, moving with the same lurching gait as convicts in a chain gang. Every few minutes, the rope would tug at Luca’s harness as Katz, positioned directly behind, struggled to keep pace through the deep snow. He had already taken off his hat and unzipped his Gore-Tex jacket all the way down to his waist in an effort to cool himself down, but sweat still beaded across his forehead. Luca could see it glistening in the sun, plastering his thinning hair to the brow of his head.
The rope pulled tight again, bringing them to a standstill. Katz took off his sunglasses, mopping at the sweat welling into his eyes. He began to tuck them into his jacket pocket when Luca called out: ‘Put them back on. You’ll go snow blind.’
‘But they steam up!’ Katz protested, squinting in the glare. Luca didn’t respond, waiting for him to comply. Katz made a show of cleaning the lenses, holding the smeary glass up to the light.
‘Put ’em on, Katz!’ Andy shouted from twenty feet further down the snow slope. He was doubled over, hands resting on his knees, but obviously keen to keep moving.
Katz’s body visibly flinched at the command, his exhaustion quickly turning to anger at being given an order by anyone other than their guide. Luca could see him muttering a string of invective as he jammed the glasses back on and the lenses immediately fogged up once again. He fussed some more with his clothing, deliberately keeping everyone waiting.
Luca stared down at his watch. Even pushing them like this, the pace was slow. He didn’t want them to sweat like they were doing because he knew the moisture would be trapped in their thermal layers and make them cold. But, by the same token, they had to keep ahead of the storm. The problem wasn’t with Joel or Andy, they were moving relatively well, but Katz was seriously out of shape. Luca could hear the rasping in his lungs, the sick wheeze of a body working beyond its limit. He must have been a smoker at some stage in the past, or, more likely, still was.
Luca turned back towards the mountain. They were nearing the top of the saddle. From here, a wall of rock thrust up from the ground, rising maybe a hundred feet in the air before it tapered back into the main body of the mountain. There was no other option – they were going to have to climb up the main face before they could look for an easier route across to the other side. Given what he had already seen of the team on a simple snow slope, he was going to have to keep them on a tight leash.
Luca reached the base of the cliff and, throwing down his rucksack, waited for the others to arrive. He unfurled a hundred-metre rope and pulled out the rest of the climbing hardware before craning his neck back towards the summit. The rock loomed over him like the buttress of an immense castle. Already he could feel the pads of his hands dampen in anticipation.
Bringing his fingertips up to his mouth, he slowly blew on the ends. In the old days, he wouldn’t even have thought twice about a route like this. It was a simple pitch, following a long running crack with good handholds. All he had to do was remember how to do it.
After a moment more he heard the laboured breathing of Katz approaching. Then, one by one, the others coalesced into a group.
‘I’m going to anchor this line along the route,’ Luca said, slow and clear. ‘It’s static – meaning it doesn’t stretch. So you can hold on to it, just like you’re going up a flight of stairs.’
He then paid out a long stretch of slack from the original climbing rope they had been using.
‘I’ll shout down for you to start,’ he said. ‘Move slowly and help each other.’
As he turned back towards the cliff, Andy reached across to him, taking hold of his shoulder.
‘Wait,’ he whispered, wrenching the goggles from his face. As the mirrored lens lifted, Luca saw that he had a chubby face, ringed by stubble. Sweat prickled under his eyes and, as Luca looked more closely, he noticed there was something wrong with Andy’s left eye. The iris looked duller somehow, while the eye itself didn’t quite keep pace with the other.
Andy hesitated, having been trying to tell Luca something since they had first left the tractors.
‘I’m not that good with this kind of thing . . .’ he began.
‘You’ll be fine,’ Luca reassured him. ‘I’ll have you on the rope the whole time.’
‘No, you don’t get it. I can’t judge perspective so well, which gets worse with heights.’
Luca stared at him, the words jarring in his mind. Before he could respond there was a slow clap from behind them. The noise echoed across the rock as Katz stepped closer.
‘We’re climbing a mountain and you didn’t think to tell anyone that you suffer from vertigo,’ he said, an unpleasant smile forming on his lips. ‘Now that’s what I call teamwork.’
‘It ain’t vertigo!’ Andy protested. ‘It’s all about the perspective. It’s not easy on cliffs and that.’
‘How precious,’ Katz taunted. ‘Did you expect anything different, seeing as we’re crossing a mountain?’
Andy squared off his shoulders. With a jerk of his wrists, he threw down his gloves. Although shorter, he was younger and stockier, with the assurance of someone who’d spent a large part of their early childhood brawling in the streets of east London.
‘Back off, Katz. I’m warning you.’
Katz paused for a second, but then couldn’t help himself.
‘Fucking deadweight,’ he whispered.
Andy’s body listed forward as he suddenly charged. From somewhere deep within him the frustration of weeks of confinement exploded. He rushed through the deep snow with his arms flailing widely. There was the sound of Joel shouting for him to stop, but Andy was deaf to the warning. Katz’s taunts had finally proved too much.
At first Luca watched Andy clamber past, assuming this was little more than bravado. But as the man’s hands instinctively clenched into fists, Luca realised the anger was real. And a fight was the last thing they needed on the mountain. Quickly reaching forward with his left hand, Luca grabbed on to the webbing straps of Andy’s rucksack, sending him spinning round to one side. Andy tripped, losing his balance, and crashed headlong into the base of the cliff. As his forehead cracked against the cold granite, he staggered back a pace with his legs threatening to give way. He stood like that for several seconds, before raising his hand to his forehead and feeling for the inevitable swelling.
He didn’t speak. Instead, he just glowered at Luca.
‘I always knew . . .’ Katz began, but Luca snapped round to face him.
‘And you,’ he hissed, ‘say another word and I’ll do the same fucking thing to you.’
Katz stared back defiantly, but there was something unnerving about the way Luca was staring at him. It was entirely removed from the easily taunted McBride, who ran hot and cold with equal measure. This was different. There was a coldness to Luca’s stare that was unsettling even to someone as self-absorbed as Katz. Luca looked as if he would follow through with his threat, and more.
There was a moment’s silence before Luca broke the deadlock. Reaching down to the ground, he picked up the dropped gloves and shoved them against Andy’s chest.
‘We don’t have time for this bullshit,’ he said. ‘Any more arguments and I swear I will cut you both off the rope. We clear?’
Neither man moved.
‘Joel, you’re going to be second on the rope,’ Luca ordered, trying to get back to the job in hand. ‘Andy – you’re in the middle. Stay close to the man in front and keep your hands working up the static line. That’s all you have to do.’ He then pointed a finger towards Katz. ‘You bring up the rear. And I don’t want to hear a single word.’