point, chipping out toeholds and hammering in the pitons. He had no idea if he would have been able to do it. He was breathing heavily and appreciated Claudia’s frequent stops to rest. He knew she didn’t need to. She was stopping for him.
The climb was slow going, and the wind tormented the pair with every step, threatening to rip them from the face of the mountain and cast them into the valley far below. Scot was growing more tired and started initiating the breaks himself, and with greater frequency. Claudia never said a word. She waited for him to give her the thumbs-up and only then would continue.
Finally, the sound in his ears of his own heavy breathing was replaced by the sound over his headset of Claudia clicking her tongue twice against her teeth. That was their signal that they were approximately twenty meters away from cresting the top. Claudia froze where she was and waited for Scot to join her. When he did, he rested for ten minutes without saying a word. He was exhausted.
He couldn’t ask Claudia to go straight to the top and put her life in danger by peering over the edge toward the church. What if there was a guard stationed there, or some sort of motion detector? The fact was that because Scot knew what to look for, he needed to be the first one over. When he felt he had sufficiently regained his strength, he began to lead the climb.
Hammering in the pitons and cutting out the toeholds was excruciating. Scot hadn’t realized how much he had demanded of his right arm while he favored the left. He wasn’t a quitter, though, and they were so close now. Just a few more meters. Claudia hung back, monitoring his progress and giving him plenty of space, as he had requested. She was to have her weapon drawn when he went over the top, just in case he was taken by surprise and one of Miner’s men should happen to peer over the edge to see if anyone was behind him. Scot didn’t want Claudia to be easy pickings, unprepared on the face all by herself.
Harvath continued to cut his toeholds and hammer the pitons. Reaching above his head, he readied to hammer another home, and the unthinkable happened. An enormous gust of wind peeled him right off the face and sent him shooting downward. Although he knew he had set his pitons properly, this was the moment in which every climber fears he will discover his safety measures hadn’t been set as well as he thought.
Scot kept falling, his hands flailing, knowing there was nothing to grab on to, but trying nonetheless. Then came the snap of being jerked to a slapping halt, but instead of feeling it in his harness, where he should have, he felt it hard along the left side of his ribs and dangerously across his windpipe. It took a few moments for him to realize what had happened.
He had not been stopped by his rope and safety harness, but rather by the shoulder strap of the assault rifle. Somehow it had gotten caught on a piton and, with the downward weight of his body, was threatening to cut off all of his oxygen and strangle him. Scot clawed at the strap, trying to free himself, but it wouldn’t budge. His legs were completely out of energy, and he couldn’t muster enough strength to even push himself away from the frozen wall of rock behind him. Harvath’s eyes drifted out over the dark valley below, and he wondered if this was how it would end.
76
Claudia scrambled up the icy face to where Scot hung choking. In a flash, she had unsheathed her blade and was preparing to cut away the strap of the assault rifle pinned against his throat. As she brought the blade down toward the strap, what she saw amazed her; Harvath was shaking his head no.
He didn’t want her to do it. Choking was okay, but God forbid the soldier should lose his assault rifle. Men!
Claudia frantically assessed the situation. If Scot didn’t want her to cut away the strap, maybe there was another alternative. She raced up to just about his shoulder level and tried with all her might to lift the strap and untangle him from where he was caught. As strong as she was, Scot was too heavy. It didn’t work. Time was running out.
She thought about trying to wedge herself between Harvath and the face, using her legs push him out and off the piton, but there was too great a danger of them both becoming entangled and then falling with a combined weight that their equipment couldn’t handle. No, there was only one solution. Scot had to be lifted up, and that could only happen with Claudia off the face and anchored on the crest.
After wrapping an extra length of rope around Scot’s chest and under his arms, Claudia shot upward. There was no time to dig proper toeholds or hammer pitons; safety was forgotten as she focused on the man slowly choking to death below her.
The wind continued to buffet her body as she climbed. Twice the gusts threatened to rip her from the face, but she dug in deeper and refused to be beaten. Claudia’s axes swung and cracked into the ice, delivering bone jarring pings through her arms as she scrambled up the mountain. With each swing of the ax came a synchronized kick of the foot; her crampons sending shards of ice and rock flying in all directions, until she was just below the snow-covered crest of the face. From here, it would be two to three more ax holds, and then Claudia could swing herself over the top. This was the spot where Scot had said they would most likely encounter the first signs of danger-an intrusion-detection system or worse…a sentry.
Claudia thought about unholstering her SIG, but realized that her death-defying free climb had left her with no nearby pitons to snag her if she should fall. She would have to go without.
The wind howled with a ferocious intensity. It was so loud that even if someone was standing directly above her, they probably would not be able to hear the sound of her axes digging into the last of the ice. Claudia held her breath and tried to concentrate on what she was about to do. Traversing the last two meters as if it were only two feet, she prepared to hoist herself over the lip. Digging in her crampons, she gave herself a count of three and then swung her body with dangerous abandon over the top.
Unbeknownst to her, the other side of the crest sloped at an extremely steep incline, and Claudia lost control as she began rolling down the slick snow-covered surface. She dug in her heels as hard as she could and was able to stop rolling. The last thing she had expected was that the crest would give way to such a steep hill.
Claudia’s mind raced with more pressing concerns. Had there been any intrusion detectors? There was no way of knowing. The incline took her by such surprise that she didn’t have time to look. Scot could be on his last breath, she reminded herself. I have to get to him. But what about sentries? Claudia took a quick look around and saw nothing. Time to get Scot.
Hammering with a vengeance, she placed two pitons a few feet back from the lip of the crest and anchored herself in. Scot had insisted on total radio silence, but Claudia decided to break it, if only briefly, to let him know she was about to pull on the rope. She didn’t want him to give up.
“On belay,” she said into her microphone.
There was no response.
What if I’m already too late? Once again, Claudia dug in her heels, leaned back into her harness, and began pulling hand over hand with all of her might.
The rope instantly became taut, but wouldn’t move. He’s more tangled than I thought. Claudia leaned farther back and pulled harder. She willed Scot Harvath to live, and to move. Her arms ached, her back and shoulders burned, but she wouldn’t give up. Slowly, she felt herself making progress. He’s free!
She kept pulling, hand over hand, an inch at a time. The pace and strain were excruciating, though Claudia didn’t care. Scot was free. She continued pulling him toward her. The rope piled in a twisted coil as she fed the slack off her waist. Not too much longer…almost there.
“Halt, stehen bleiben!” (Stop, don’t move!)
The voice came from behind her right shoulder and took Claudia completely off guard. She was so frightened by it that she almost let go of the rope.
“Stehen bleiben!” the voice commanded again.
The man was dressed in all white, much like them, and carried an automatic weapon, which was pointed right at her. Claudia stopped pulling on the rope, but held it taut with her left hand.
“Was machen Sie hier?” (What are you doing here?)
“Auf halber Hohe wurden wir von einem Sturm uberrascht. Wir haben auf besseres Wetter gewartet und uns entschlossen, den Absteig nicht mehr zu machen.” (We are climbers. We were stuck by the storm halfway down.
