“My lieutenants on the team are my friends Tom Barlow and Carl Glass, there in the second row.”
Barlow was tall, lanky, and hirsute with thick glasses, while Glass was stocky, clean shaven, and expressionless.
Marquis then introduced three men representing the Americans, who stood and said hello. One of them seemed very young, probably in his early twenties, and looked even younger. Bond had already heard one of the others refer to him as “the kid.”
Three other men were presented as “haulers.” Two were known British mountaineers. The third, introduced as Otto Schrenk, was a last-minute replacement.
Marquis explained. “Apparently Jack Kubrick was involved in a terrible accident the night before our departure from London. We had to scramble for someone else, and Mr. Schrenk here, from Berlin, volunteered to step in.”
This news took Bond by surprise. He had spent quite some time studying the backgrounds of each and every team member. SIS had done a complete security check on all of them. Bond wasn’t comfortable with an unknown. If the Union were going to infiltrate the team, they would do it at the last minute. Bond made a note to put in a call to SIS and have Schrenk scrutinized.
He leaned over to Chandra and whispered, “Keep an eye on that one.”
Chandra nodded imperceptibly.
Marquis then gestured to them. “Over here are representatives from the Foreign Office, Mr. James Bond and Sergeant Chandra Bahadur Gurung, his assistant. The sergeant is on loan to us from the army. He’s with the Royal Gurkha Rifles, isn’t that right?”
Chandra grinned and nodded. His eyes wrinkled when he smiled, giving the impression that every line in his face was smiling.
Bond nodded at the others, then sat down. He caught Hope Kendall’s eye, and lingered there a moment. She was studying him, attempting to figure him out with a spontaneous first impression.
“Last but not least is Paul Baack, our communications officer,” Marquis said, gesturing to a tall, large man with a neat goatee and deep brown eyes. Baack stood up, immediately dispelling the notion that anyone else might be bigger than he.
“Thank you,” he said with a pronounced Dutch accent. “I am happy to be here.” He smiled broadly, then sat down.
In Bond’s opinion, it was Baack who had the most impressive credentials. Not only was the man a top-notch mountaineer, his work in communications was widely respected in intelligence circles. Q Branch routinely consulted the Dutch engineer, but Marquis hadn’t known that. Bond had never met him and looked forward to doing so.
The girl was a big question mark, Bond thought. Was she Marquis’s girlfriend? They certainly flirted with each other a lot in public. She seemed capable, but in Bond’s opinion, bringing a girl along with a team of men was just asking for trouble. She might insist that more effort be expended on providing her with a certain amount of privacy.
On the other hand, she might be a distraction if she simply tried to be “one of the boys.”
“One other thing I need to mention,” Marquis said. “There are three other expeditions climbing Kangch.”
Bond knew that there were two. Another must have appeared in the last day or two.
“Permits for a Chinese expedition were applied for on the same day as ours. A Russian expedition was mounted just a few days later. The Chinese are climbing the north face as well, but slightly south of us. If you ask me, they’re doing it the hard way. The Russians are also coming up the north face, and at this point we don’t know what route they’re taking. Just a few days ago a Belgian team applied for permits. I understand that they were granted today.”
Bond raised his hand and was acknowledged by Marquis.
“What do we know about them?”
“Not much. They’re all experienced climbers. They came up with the money, and that’s all Nepal cares about. They don’t represent any specific groups. As far as we know, they’re in it only for the sport.”
Bond frowned.
“Right,” said Marquis. “Are there any other questions?”
Otto Schrenk, the newcomer, raised his hand.
“Yes, Mr. Schrenk?”
“Why are we climbing the north face? That is very difficult.” He had a thick German accent.
“It happens to be the most direct route to the aircraft. Also, the politics involved with obtaining permission to climb from the Sikkim side were too complicated. The north, west, and southwest sides of the mountain are in Nepalese territory. Of these, the north face is the safest. There have been deaths there over the years, to be sure, but several people have made it to the top.”
That seemed to satisfy Schrenk. He nodded and folded his arms.
“Anyone else?”
No one said anything.
“Fine, then,”Marquis said, slapping his stomach. “I’mready to eat!”
The group stood up and stretched, picking up the conversations they had halted a half hour ago.
Bond looked at Hope Kendall, who was gathering her things. Could she really take the next seven or eight weeks being the only woman among such testosterone-heavy human beings as Roland Marquis … and himself?
“Just a second,” Bond said to Chandra. “If I’m not back in sixty seconds, you’ll have to eat without me.”
He walked over to Hope, held out his hand, and said, “Hello, I thought I should come over and introduce myself properly.”
She smiled warmly and shook his hand. “I’m glad to be working with you, Mr. Bond. So far the trip is a beaut, don’t you think? I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t know much about your background.”
“We’ve been here only a day,” Bond said. “The law of inevitable rubbish will descend upon us before we know it. It always happens.”
“You’re not going into this with a bad attitude, are you, Mr. Bond?” she asked flirtatiously.
“Not at all. As you said, we all have to keep our wits about us. Would you care to accompany me to dinner?”
She shook her head. “I’m already promised to Roland. Some other time, maybe, all right?” She smiled, gave a little wave, then turned and walked away.
Chandra, who had observed the scene, was highly amused.
“Chandra, if your smile gets any bigger, your face will split in two,” Bond said.
“I think she’s the wrong girl for you, Commander Bond. Khanu paryo,” he said, meaning that it was time to eat.
Bond replied with what little Nepalese he had learned in the past few days. “Khanu Hos.”
Contrary to popular belief, cuisine in Nepal was quite varied. In Bond’s opinion, Nepalese food in and of itself tended to be rather bland and uninteresting. There was only so much dhal bhat one could eat, and he was going to have plenty of that over the next weeks. In Kathmandu, at least, one could get a variety of international cuisines, and the Chimney in the hotel specialized in some of the finest Russian food he had ever tasted. Founded by Boris Lissanevitch, it is perhaps the oldest western restaurant in Nepal. It took its name fromthe huge copper chimney and open brick fireplace that occupy the center. It was the perfect place for an intimate dinner with live classical guitar music.
Bond sat with Chandra and Paul Baack. For starters, Bond had Ukrainian borscht made from a famous, “original” Boris Lissanevitch recipe. As a main course Bond chose yogurt-marinated chicken, which was lightly spiced and served skewered with buttered rice pilaf. With it he had aubergine and sun-dried tomato Charlotte with solferino potatoes and a black-eyed-pea stew.
“This is very good,” Baack said, pouncing on an oven-roasted tenderloin with an onion relish and port wine jus. “Why can’t we just stay at this hotel for the next six weeks?”
Chandra had smoked beckti, a Bengal fish. “Yes, it is good, but the Sherpa food is better,” he said, grinning.
“Ha!” Baack laughed. “Are you mad?”
Chandra said, “I’m not mad, but I can be very crazy sometimes.”
The Dutchman laughed again. “What’s your story, Mr. Bond? Why are you on this trip?”<
br />
“I was ordered by the men in suits over in Whitehall. They want me to make sure everything is shipshape.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, why do you need a Gurkha to accompany you?”
Bond and Chandra looked at each other. Chandra answered, “Commander Bond is my good friend. We always look after each other.”
“Actually,” Bond said, “the Foreign Office thought it would be helpful for us all to have someone here who knows the territory. Chandra has been on Kangchenjunga before.”
“Really?” Baack asked. He was genuinely interested.
“Only halfway,” Chandra said. “This time I’ll do better. At least to the Great Scree Terrace.”
“Tell me about the equipment our people gave you,” Bond said.
“Ah! Very nice stuff, I can tell you,” Baack said. “Of course, I helped design the satellite linkup. We have an extremely light laptop computer with enough power to last three months. It’s equipped with the linkup, and that will be kept at Base Camp. With the use of cellular phones, every team member can stay in contact with each other and the outside world. We will all use the same channel, although the phones are capable of several private channels. We can even hook up to the Internet from wherever we are. I can send a fax from eight thousand meters if I want.”
“Speaking of faxes, I need to send something to London. You have something handy?” Bond asked.
“Certainly. It’s right here,” he said, indicating a portable computer case at his side. “Would you like to do it now?”
Bond opened his own file folder containing information on the expedition and team members. He found the recently added photo of Otto Schrenk, scribbled a message on a Post-It note, stuck it to the bottom of the photo, then handed it to Baack. The Dutchman opened the case, turned on the computer, noted the phone number that Bond had written, then fed the photo into the machine.
“That should do it,” he said, handing it back to Bond. “I’m in constant contact with London, Mr. Bond, so anytime you want to talk to the Foreign Office, just say so.”
“Thanks. Let me know when you get a reply. And call me James.”
He had a good feeling about Baack, and was pleased that he was on the team and looked forward to getting to know him better.
Roland Marquis and Hope Kendall entered the room. She had gone to the trouble to change clothes before coming in to dinner. Instead of the trousers she was wearing at the meeting, she now had on an attractive red evening gown. Marquis had put on a sleek dinner jacket but was still wearing the civilian clothes underneath.
She laughed as she walked by Bond’s table. “I figured that this was my last chance to be a lady before six weeks of hell.”
“Doesn’t she look marvelous?” Marquis asked.
The three men muttered appreciative comments, then the couple sat at a table isolated from the others.
After a few glances in their direction, Bond decided that the two of them were indeed having some kind of love affair.
Although there was no rational reason for it, this notion gave Bond a twinge of jealousy.
SIXTEEN
THE TREK BEGINS
THE REST OF THE STAY IN KATHMANDU WAS UNREMARKABLE, AND LOCAL police never connected the deaths of Zakir Bedi and the Nepalese assassin, who might or might not have been Union, to the group of mountaineers staying at the Yak and Yeti. The remaining days were spent exercising and gathering supplies for the trek across eastern Nepal.
One of the more interesting events for Bond occurred the morning after the team meeting. Every member of the expedition had to submit to a physical examination performed by Dr. Hope Kendall. Bond reported to her in one of the hotel suites at the appointed time and found her to be cool, clinical, and objective, as a physician should be. At the same time, though, she seemed overly intrigued by his body and took her time feeling his muscles, testing reflexes, and looking into orifices. In fact, she was somewhat rough with him, pinching him here, jabbing him there. Perhaps, Bond thought, she was merely a very physical person.
“You sure have a lot of scars,” she said, examining the faint mementos of Bond’s illustrious career that adorned various parts of his naked body. “You’re in the Foreign Office?”
“That’s right.”
“How does someone in the Foreign Office get so many scars?”
“I do a number of outdoor activities for sport. Sometimes you get injured,” he said.
“Hmm, and I think you’re lying,” she said. “You’re some kind of policeman, aren’t you? Sorry, you don’t have to answer that.” He didn’t. She turned to her table and put on a rubber glove. “Okay, Mr. Bond, let’s see how your prostate feels.”
She wasn’t very gentle with that exam, either.
The expedition members flew in two Twin Otters to the Suketar airstrip near a small village called Taplejung in east Nepal. The stretch of dirt runway, located on a high ridge at 2,000 meters, is at a significantly higher altitude than Kathmandu, at 1,300 meters. The plan was to stay in crude lodges that had been erected in the village specifically for trekkers, then take a steep drop down to the Tamur Khola valley the following day. It was amore direct route to go down and north through the valley rather than east, over the alternate route to Khunjari.
The view was spectacular, and this was only the first day. The Himalayas could be seen from Kathmandu, but there they were so far in the distance that one felt they couldn’t possibly be part of the same country. Here, however, it seemed as if the mountains were just over the next hill. The white-covered peaks spread over the northern and eastern sky, some disappearing into white clouds.
Their immediate surroundings were rich with the colors of spring. The hills were terraced so that farming could be accomplished on a steep surface. Bond thought it was a marvel that anyone could live their lives cultivating this difficult land. Yet, nearly everyone in Nepal did, and they did it well.
The wind was brisker here and Bond could immediately feel the thinness of the air, even at this relatively low altitude. He glanced at his Avocet Vertech Alpin watch that Q Branch had given him. It showed altitude, time, barometric pressure, and cumulative vertical ascent rates. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, but it felt later. The change in altitude made it seem as if he had already spent an entire day exerting himself. One of the Americans, Bill Scott, complained of a headache shortly after arriving. Hope Kendall examined him and told him to get plenty of sleep that night.
“I want everyone to go to bed immediately after dinner,” Marquis ordered as they gathered at the small building that served as an air terminal. “We’re to have dinner with the respective families who are putting us up. Remember—eat with your right hand, don’t even gesture with the left, and leave your shoes at the door. Don’t enter a Hindu kitchen unless invited. Let your hosts direct you to a seat. Don’t touch any food unless you intend to eat it. Utensils or food is jutho, or impure, once it has touched your lips or tongue. Everyone eats from their own plate and drinks from their own glass. These people know that all food must be cooked, but just in case, don’t eat anything that has to be washed or that isn’t cooked immediately before it’s served. Remember to offer a good hearty belch at the end of the meal, for that’s a sign of contentment in this country.”
Bond and Chandra helped the others unload the equipment. Bond carried most of his gear in a Lowe Alpine Attack 50 backpack, which was designed primarily as a functional, lightweight summit pack. A lot of the tools for climbing would be carried by the Sherpas until it was time to use them.
Perhaps the best known and most widely respected of all Nepal’s ethnic groups, the Sherpas resemble Tibetans more than other Nepalese. Hundreds of years of living in east Nepal have suitably adapted them to living and working in the mountains. Ever since mountaineers discovered them to be excellent companions and workers, the Sherpas came into a hitherto unforeseen popularity and prosperity. For an expedition the size of Bond’s, nearly sixty porters would need to be hired.
&nb
sp; Chandra, Bond, Paul Baack, and the French climber, Philippe Léaud, had been assigned to a family that consisted of a toothless, smiling old couple. Bond noticed that Marquis and Hope Kendall went into a lodge together. Nepalese were generally intolerant of openly displayed affection or sexuality, and he wondered how they would get around that.
Chandra, reading his mind, said, “Marquis claimed that he and Dr. Kendall were man and wife.”
Léaud made a vulgar comment in French that went over the Gurkha’s head, but he got the drift when the others laughed.
Sunset came and dinner was served on a low table inside the lodge. The food was a traditional dhal bhat, a lentil soup over rice. A few vegetables, or sabji, were served with cumin, garlic, and ginger. Hot tea accompanied the meal. By the time they had finished, Bond and Chandra were ready to turn in, the altitude and food having had a soporific effect on them. Bond unrolled his Marmot Col sleeping bag, which wasn’t as warm as the more popular Cwm, but was lighter and more versatile at altitude. The wooden floor was hard, but at least there was the luxury of having a roof over their heads.
“Good night, Commander Bond,” Chandra said as he slipped into his own bag. “Don’t let the kichkinni get you.”
“What?”
“The kichkinni. That’s the spirit of a woman who died in childbirth and reappears as a beautiful and insatiable young woman intent on seduction.”
“Sounds quite pleasant to me,” Bond quipped.
“Ah, but her unlucky lover withers away as she saps his vital energies. The only way you can tell if she is a kichkinni is if you happen to notice that her feet are turned backward!”
“Just her feet?” Bond asked, struggling to get comfortable in the confines of the bedroll.
Chandra laughed loudly. It never ceased to amaze Bond that the Gurkha was always in a good humor. He enjoyed talking, sometimes to Bond’s chagrin, but he had already become an entertaining and intelligent companion. He had started to tell stories of his life in the foothills of Lamjung and Annapurna Himal, a region that the Gurungs have farmed and covered with a network of trails paved with precisely cut and fitted stone blocks.
High Time To Kill Page 18
