two figures set apart from the others.
Then, with practised movements, the officer swivelled the rifle in his hands and slammed the bolt action shut once again. Without turning to look at the huddled group of old monks, he shouted, ‘
Rega watched, his mouth dry with horror as another man was shunted forward from the group. Why the old ones? Were they simply too much of a burden to take back over the mountain pass? Or was he witnessing an example of the senseless violence they had all heard was accompanying this so-called ‘Cultural Revolution’?
In the far corner of the courtyard he suddenly heard the sound of women screaming. It had to be the two nuns that had arrived as emissaries from Namzong nunnery. The temple doors were flung open and, through the gloom, he could see what a small group of soldiers was doing inside. For a moment he watched, revulsion rising like bile in his throat. Then a sudden surge of adrenaline unlocked the paraly-sis in his legs. He must get away from this place, get out, tell others.
As Rega went to turn away, he felt a sudden push from behind. The blow sent him sprawling forward on to the flagstones and Rega twisted round in time to see the grinning face of a soldier stepping out from the shadows.
He was a big man, with a jowly face and dark, gleeful eyes. He grabbed the neck of Rega’s tunic and pulled him up with one arm so that their faces were almost touching. The stink of stale tobacco was sharp on his breath.
‘You like watching?’ The fillings in his teeth gleamed in the dark. ‘We can fix that.’
Spinning Rega’s wiry body round, he slammed his knee into his back and pinned him to the floor, pressing the side of his face against the flagstones. Rega felt his mind empty. He didn’t say a word, but just stared past the columns of the courtyard at the flames leaping up to swallow the roof of the library. The blue and orange tongues of fire were iridescent against the black sky.
Above him, the soldier had untied the sling from his rifle and was quickly looping it into two knots, a few inches apart. He drew the sling in front of Rega’s face so that there was a knot in front of each eye socket. There was a pause, then Rega screamed as his whole head was yanked backwards with a violent jerk. The soldier twisted the sling round like a tourniquet, tightening the pressure with each turn.
Rega clawed behind him with useless hands, the scream dying on his lips. His cheeks tightened, trying to resist the immense pressure as the knots burrowed deeper and deeper into his skull. With another half-turn, the knots sank further still until his eyeballs imploded, a viscous, cloudy liquid streaming down his cheeks.
Rega let out a gurgling sound as he went limp on the floor.
Those beautiful, burning rooftops were the last thing he’d ever see.
Chapter 1
It was six in the morning and dawn had just broken over the roof of the world. Tawny fingers of light filtered down past the jagged peaks of the Himalayas, lending a luminous glow to the orange tents staked down on the dark scree.
Luca Matthews unzipped his tent and, still in his thermal underwear, stepped out into the freezing mountain air. He was tall with a powerful back that stretched the fabric of his thermals as he unfolded himself from the tent. Scruffy, dark-blond hair fell across a face that was deeply tanned by the intense mountain sun. Only his eyes were ringed with paler patches from where he had been wearing his glacier goggles.
For a few moments he stood there, sipping coffee from a tin mug and savouring the feeling of being the first up. He only ever needed a few hours’ sleep each night and often found the morning’s silence one of the rare moments in the day when he felt truly calm. As he breathed in the tingling air, the heat from his mug eased the swelling in his knuckles. Peeling some dead skin off the pads of his left hand, he ran his finger gingerly over a cut that stretched all the way back to his wrist, and shook his head. Bloody climbing injuries. They just never seemed to heal in the dry mountain air.
Grabbing a sheepskin coat that he had bought for a few hundred rupees from one of the market stalls in Kathmandu, he weaved past the smouldering remains of the campfire, balanced his mug carefully on a rock, and urinated. When he was younger, his father had impressed upon him the importance of having a good view when taking a piss. Little did Luca know then it would turn out to be one of the only things that he and the old bastard would agree on.
Crooking his neck to one side, Luca yawned and massaged a shoulder blade. After five days of lugging provisions up to base camp, the straps of his rucksack had bitten deep into his back. No doubt about it, this was the most thankless part of the climb: effort without technique or reward, encouraged only by the sight of an occasional peak piercing the blanket of cloud overhead.
Hopping on to another boulder, he sat down and wrapped his arms round his legs, drawing his knees up under his chin in his habitual pose. His eyes followed the incline of the mountain as it curved up for two or three miles before hitting the first glacier, a snub nose of pitted ice gleaming brilliantly in the morning light. Beyond it, range after range of mountains extended back to the horizon, their pinnacles reaching high enough to be whipped by the ferocious winds of the earth’s Gulf Stream.
Two and a half thousand metres above him, the summit ridge finally came into view; the last stretch of ground between him and the top of Makalu, the fifth highest mountain on earth and Luca’s second eight-thousand- metre peak.
Normally the sight would have given him a jolt of pure excitement but this morning Luca felt distinctly unsettled, a jittery unease that seemed to seep from his stomach into his bones. Flicking the rest of his coffee on to the ground, he watched it steam for a moment before striding back to the tents.
Getting to that ridge was going to be the most dangerous part of the climb.
‘You planning on sleeping the whole day, princess?’ Luca called, banging on the frame of one of the tents.
The snoring inside stopped and there was a shuffling noise, then the sound of a throat being cleared.
‘Christ, that has to be one of the worst sleeps I’ve ever had. My damn’ Therma-rest deflated halfway through the night.’
Luca grinned. ‘How about some coffee to celebrate your good mood?’
More shuffling, then the tent’s zip peeled open to reveal the square-jawed face of Bill Taylor. A few days’ worth of stubble darkened his chin, and his normally amused-looking pale blue eyes were puffy from lack of sleep. Above his sunburned forehead, thinning hair stuck straight up from his head as if he’d just received some kind of electrical shock.
‘I’ll stick to tea, thanks, mate,’ he said, the words swallowed up by another cavernous yawn. ‘It beats me how you mainline that filthy stuff.’
Luca leaned down to put the saucepan of water on the tiny portable stove and turned the nozzle. A gentle roaring sound filled the campsite. He watched Bill slowly unfurl his large frame from inside his sleeping bag.
‘You look like shit,’ Luca said softly. ‘You sure you’re up to starting the climb today?’
‘Are you kidding? I’ll be fine.’
Bill stretched his arms high above his head before lumbering over to the same rock as Luca had done to relieve himself. ‘But I’m relying on you to have found us the perfect route up.’
Luca’s eyes shifted back to the mountain face, his jaw clenching.
‘It’s quite simple on the first section, pretty much all the way up to where we’ll set up camp two. After that, there’s the long stretch through that vertical ice field. Of course, that’s going to be more hairy. But once we make it on to the summit ridge, it’s no more than two hours to the top.’
Bill had wandered back and now crouched down beside him, his gaze also fixed on the mountain. Luca handed him a mug and poured in some boiling water. As Bill took the steaming tea their eyes met for a second and, before he had even opened his mouth, Luca knew what he was going to say.
‘Piece of piss.’
Luca grinned.
