Killer Storm

by Matt Dickinson

  We found some space, huddled in a corner.

  ‘Surrender your phones and walkie-talkies,’ Viking ordered.

  One of her men circulated amongst us, collecting the devices in a basket.

  Then each of us was frisked in case we were hiding an extra phone.

  ‘From now on you will not try to communicate with the outside world. You will stay in here until we give you orders.’

  Viking walked away.

  Tashi found a split in the wall of the tent.

  ‘They’re destroying our phones,’ she whispered.

  I peeked out of the gap and saw three of Viking’s men crushing our devices into shards of plastic and metal.

  Ten minutes later the generator that powered all the internet connections at Base Camp was also smashed to smithereens.

  We were dead quiet for a while but it soon became clear that we could talk quietly without repercussions from the guards.

  Alex huddled our little team together.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered. ‘It’s my fault you’ve all been chosen. If I had just kept my big mouth shut for once …’

  ‘Don’t feel bad,’ Kami told him. ‘You did the right thing challenging her.’

  Dawa came over.

  ‘We’re going to have to work together,’ he said. ‘Strength in numbers.’

  ‘What about Zhanna? Where is she?’ I asked him quietly.

  ‘We had five minutes’ warning that something was up,’ Dawa whispered. ‘A Sherpa friend of mine saw the terrorists coming up the glacier and raised the alarm. Zhanna had time to slip away.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ Alex whispered.

  ‘I don’t know. On her way down the valley, I hope.’

  ‘Or maybe she’s hiding out somewhere up here?’ Tashi suggested.

  ‘They’ll find her if she is,’ Alex said. ‘They’re going through every tent, looking behind every rock.’

  ‘Don’t underestimate Zhanna,’ Dawa said.

  ‘What about her dad? Will he try and organise a rescue if she does get caught?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Dawa replied. ‘But think about the time it would take to get a team acclimatised – it could take days.’

  ‘By which point …’ Alex said.

  His statement hung in the air, reflecting the deep fears we all had.

  ‘OK,’ Kami asked. ‘What’s going to happen next?’

  ‘I’m scared,’ Shreeya whispered, her hands cradling her belly. ‘Scared for my baby.’

  ‘Maybe the government will send in special forces,’ Tashi said. ‘Rescue us.’

  ‘Nice idea,’ Alex said, ‘but there’s no government in Kathmandu to make that happen.’

  ‘How about the Americans?’ Kami asked. ‘They could do it.’

  ‘No Western government is going to risk military action here,’ Alex said. ‘Apart from the obvious problem with the altitude, we’re less than a mile from the Chinese border. Beijing could see it as an act of war.’

  ‘Then we’re going to rot here,’ Dawa said. ‘If Viking doesn’t kill us first.’

  ‘We’ll come up with something,’ I said. ‘Look for an opportunity.’

  The afternoon passed in a shocked state of silence. The guards came into the doorway of the tent from time to time, glowering aggressively at us.

  ‘Watch them closely,’ Alex whispered to me. ‘They don’t look well acclimatised.’

  ‘Hey!’ The leader of the watch waved his weapon at Alex. ‘No talking!’ he snarled.

  I checked out the guards over the next hour and decided Alex was on to something. Three of the four looked ill. Two seemed oddly pale. One had the telltale blue tinge of oxygen deprivation on his lips.

  ‘You’re right,’ I whispered back to Alex when I got a chance. ‘They have come up too fast.’

  ‘It might give us an opening,’ Alex said.

  The conversation fell away. Each of us trying to come up with a way through the problem. Then Dawa spoke.

  ‘I have a gun hidden in my tent,’ he said. ‘After the riots in Lukla, I brought it along for security.’

  ‘Where is it?’ Alex asked.

  ‘At the bottom of my sleeping bag.’

  I wonder if I could sneak over and get the weapon, I thought. It was obvious that Dawa’s leg was still too painful for him to walk far.

  Later, Tashi and I peeked out of the flap in the tent. The guards were out of it, virtually falling asleep on their feet.

  ‘These guys are total amateurs,’ Alex observed.

  We continued talking until midnight, falling into an uneasy sleep.

  At 1 a.m. Tashi shook me awake.

  ‘No one is watching the back of the tent,’ she whispered. ‘There’s only one guy awake and he’s out the front.’

  My heart began to thump hard in my chest.

  ‘There’s just enough moonlight to see by,’ she said. ‘Let’s try and get that weapon.’

  I had to smile at her.

  ‘Since when have you been a part of this?’

  ‘Try and stop me,’ she replied.

  We pulled up the canvas, crawling on our bellies out on to the glacier, our entire bodies pumped up with adrenaline. We moved as stealthily as we could, hyperaware that even the smallest sound of rocks clunking against each other could alert a guard. Luckily the night was so cold the stones were iced together.

  Twenty paces from the tent, we stood up. Using the protection of a wall of ice, we moved soundlessly and quickly away from our prison.

  Dawa’s tent was less than ten minutes away. We quickly entered and found the gun. I held it in my hand for a couple of seconds, astonished at its weight. Then I tucked it into my anorak pocket.

  ‘Let’s try some scavenging,’ Tashi said, pointing to a huge tent nearby. ‘We might find some warm clothing.’

  We walked over and Tashi kept watch, checking for any guards that might be on patrol.

  Stepping inside, I had to let my eyes adjust to the interior. A chink of moonlight was all I had to work with. Finally I saw that six equipment barrels were stacked there. Luckily for us, the terrorists hadn’t looted them although they had opened them to see what was inside. It was the work of a few moments to find one containing the kit we needed, pulling out warm blankets and sleeping bags.

  Tashi slipped in to join me. We put the gear in two rucksacks from the tent.

  ‘See if you can find another sleeping bag,’ Tashi whispered.

  I reached into a final barrel, situated in the darkest shadows at the back of the tent.

  And got the shock of my life.

  Something moved inside.

  ‘Don’t shoot me!’ said a familiar voice.

  Zhanna rose like a jack-in-the-box from the barrel, her hands in the air.

  ‘Zhanna!’ Tashi gasped.

  We helped her out of the barrel and she flung her arms around Tashi with a whispered squeal of delight.

  ‘We should have known you’d be smart enough to hide away!’ Tashi said.

  ‘I’ve been so scared,’ Zhanna said, her voice trembling. ‘I could hear that woman shouting my name. Is she going to kill me? Tell me the truth!’

  ‘How did they miss you?’ I asked.

  ‘I was curled up at the bottom of the barrel, a blanket on top of me,’ Zhanna said. ‘One of the men reached in but not deep enough. I guess he didn’t think anyone would be small enough to hide there.’

  ‘Clever move,’ I said.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘Scavenging gear.’

  We found some energy bars in a box, breaking them open to eat.

  ‘Who is that woman? What will she do with me if she catches me?’ Zhanna asked. Her eyes were wide with terror.

  Tashi and I shared a look.

  ‘Better not to think about that,’ Tashi said.

  ‘Maybe my father will do something,’ she said urgently. She showed us the chunky watch on her wrist. ‘I activated the emergency beacon on my watch. He will know m
y location to the nearest ten metres.’

  ‘It’s not just your father. The world will know about Killer Storm,’ I told her. ‘The terrorists have released hundreds of climbers and they’ll be spreading the news.’

  We talked for a while about possible escape routes for Zhanna but nothing seemed very certain and both Tashi and I felt that her safest option, at least for the next twenty-four hours, was to stay in her hiding spot.

  ‘It’s too lonely,’ she protested. ‘I’ve been going crazy on my own in here. Can’t I go back with you? Maybe I can hide in your tent?’

  ‘It’s not going to work,’ Tashi told her. ‘Apart from anything else, there’s no barrel to hide in.’

  Zhanna’s face crumpled. Tashi reached her arms around her and gave her the biggest hug ever.

  I checked my watch.

  ‘I’ll go and see if the coast is clear.’

  I sneaked back to the camp, dodging from boulder to boulder, only to find two guards had been positioned at the back of our tent. They were chatting quietly to each other, smoking cigarettes.

  I swore beneath my breath. We had to get back into the tent by daybreak but these men would certainly see anyone trying to slip in.

  Tashi and I would just have to wait until they moved.

  I scrutinised them carefully. The guards were poorly dressed, obviously freezing. They were stamping their feet and flapping their arms about in an attempt to keep warm.

  I reckoned they wouldn’t resist long before they would seek some warmth. Meanwhile, I sneaked back to the supply tent and rejoined Zhanna and Tashi.

  We scavenged some thick fleece blankets from a barrel and built ourselves a snug little nest. Locked inside the fleeces we were warm as toast and we could talk quite safely as long as we whispered.

  ‘How come you ended up here in Nepal?’ Tashi asked Zhanna.

  Zhanna took a deep breath.

  – CHAPTER 6 –

  Zhanna’s Story: Three weeks earlier

  Warm rain had been falling through the tropical night. The cicadas serenaded one another as Zhanna awoke. It was 5 a.m. and the young Russian girl felt her skin was sticky from the humid air. She yawned and stretched, listening for a while to the booming call of a night heron down by the pond. The sound was melodic but mournful, two notes repeated over and over.

  Night in South East Asia. Raw nature, clustered on the other side of the shutters.

  Zhanna liked that part of living in Singapore. Her favourite hobby was photographing wildlife. It was the shopping malls and twenty-four-hour traffic jams that let the place down.

  She heard a soft knock at the door. Anisa, the Indonesian maid, turned on the light and entered with a cup of tea, her kindly face wreathed in the perpetual smile that Zhanna had come to love.

  ‘Time to get up,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to keep the monkeys waiting.’

  The monkeys. Long-tailed macaques. A teacher at Zhanna’s school had told her about a place in the rainforest where they might be seen at daybreak. Zhanna was so excited by the idea she had her camera ready on the bedside table.

  She had waited two months for a weekend when her father, Anatoly, was at home.

  ‘Monkeys?’ he had grumbled. ‘Why don’t you watch them on the television?’

  Zhanna dressed and hurried to the cosy warmth of the kitchen. Dawa, the Nepali driver and bodyguard to her father, was in there, a mug of coffee in his powerful hands. Zhanna loved to spend time with Dawa and Anisa; they were affectionate people, both from poor backgrounds, but in many ways happier in themselves than the rich people with whom Zhanna’s father liked to socialise.

  Anatoly came down late, his mobile phone ringing as he stuffed some toast into his mouth. Zhanna always thought her father had a hawkish look with his rather hooked nose, his narrow-set eyes misty blue, the colour of a distant mountain range.

  ‘Idiot!’ he exclaimed when he saw the identity of the caller on the screen.

  Zhanna smiled weakly at Dawa as they waited in the hallway. She watched geckos dart for flies high on the walls, while Anatoly took his call in the office. He was yelling at whoever was on the line and Zhanna got a nauseous feeling in her belly as she heard the fury in his voice.

  Dawa gave her a look, his eyebrows raised. They both knew how poisonous things could get when Anatoly was in a sour mood.

  Finally Zhanna’s father blundered out of the office.

  ‘Right!’ he exclaimed. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

  Zhanna gave him her most winning smile. ‘Can Anisa come?’

  Anatoly scowled. ‘I don’t think so,’ he snapped. ‘There’s work to do around the house.’

  ‘Please, Papa.’ Zhanna reached out for her father’s hand. ‘She hasn’t had a day off in ages.’

  Anatoly rolled his eyes. ‘If you insist.’

  Anisa clapped her hands together with delight when Zhanna told her to get her raincoat.

  Three minutes later they were climbing into Anatoly’s bombproofed Mercedes 4x4, Dawa at the wheel and her father in the passenger seat.

  Zhanna looked back at the fine old colonial mansion as they drove off into the early morning; the whitewashed walls illuminated by floodlights, the elegant black timber frame bristling with security cameras.

  Was it her home? Zhanna wasn’t really sure she even knew what a home was.

  There had been a dozen houses like this. Dubai, Tokyo, San Francisco, Cairo. Her father never stopped moving, travelling the world ceaselessly in the quest for the next big business deal. Zhanna had tagged along in his private jet, often feeling like excess baggage, dumped into one international school after another, making friends for a term or two then forced to say goodbye and start all over again somewhere else.

  They sped out of the city, heading for the East Region where rainforest could still be found. Zhanna was watching the route finder on her smartphone, following the directions the teacher had given her and calling them out to Dawa.

  Anatoly was on his mobile all the way, barking instructions to business associates in Sydney and Hong Kong, Tokyo and Manila. He barely glanced out of the window.

  ‘Here!’ Zhanna told Dawa half an hour later.

  He turned off the highway on to a slender track. The trail was overgrown, spiky fronds clunked heavily against the windscreen as the vehicle bucked through the potholes. A light rain began, speckling the windows.

  Zhanna felt a tremor of excitement; she loved the idea of going on a jungle trek, photographing wildlife, the tropical trees. Soon it would be daybreak and they would be able to start.

  ‘I’m so happy,’ Anisa whispered to her. ‘Thank you for bringing me along.’

  Zhanna squeezed her hand.

  The vehicle arrived at a small clearing; the sandy red floor littered with tamarind seedpods and discarded junk.

  Zhanna bit her lip when she saw the rubbish scattered about. She had wanted to feel like a jungle explorer. Litter hadn’t come into that scenario.

  ‘My teacher said we’d have to trek for half an hour to find them,’ Zhanna said.

  They could see a footpath disappearing into the forest.

  Dawa turned off the engine. He left the sidelights on. Raindrops drummed hard on the roof. Wet white noise. The passengers unclipped their seatbelts.

  Anatoly checked his watch.

  ‘It’s still twenty minutes to daybreak,’ he said, tapping his fingers against the dashboard. ‘Let’s have a cup of tea while we wait.’

  Dawa brought out a flask and the car filled with the sharp aroma of tannin.

  ‘Wait.’ Dawa put his fingers to his lips. He pointed into the forest.

  ‘What?’ Zhanna strained to see.

  ‘Over there,’ he whispered. ‘You see the eyes?’

  The wipers swept in a languid pass across the screen.

  ‘No.’

  Then Zhanna saw them. Glittering pinpoints, crystal bright.

  Her father stared into the darkness.

  ‘I see one of your precious monkey
s,’ he said. ‘There’s another.’

  ‘Oh.’ Zhanna couldn’t keep the disappointment out of her voice. ‘They’re here in the car park? I thought we’d have to go deep into the jungle to find them.’

  Zhanna squinted into the forest. Rain smeared the view. The trees were dancing, every leaf alive with the rhythm of a tropical wind. Creepers swayed. Shapes swung from branch to branch with liquid grace, velvet dark, barely discernible from the night that surrounded them.

  Anatoly pressed a button. His window hummed open. Just a crack. The electric buzz of night creatures punched through the saturated air.

  ‘Come to daddy!’ he called gently.

  He reached into the glove box and pulled out a bag of crisps.

  The hairs on the back of Zhanna’s neck spiked uncomfortably as her father popped open the packet.

  ‘I don’t think we should feed them …’ she said.

  Anatoly threw a handful of crisps out of the window.

  ‘Papa!’

  ‘Shhh!’ he whispered sharply. ‘Don’t scare them.’

  Something heavy thudded on to the bonnet. A flash of fur, the sweep of a tail. Anisa’s arm jerked in surprise. A splash of scalding tea spilled on to Zhanna’s thigh.

  ‘Ow!’

  Anisa dabbed a tissue on Zhanna’s leg.

  ‘I can see them getting closer,’ Anatoly pulled out more crisps. ‘They’ve smelt breakfast.’

  ‘We shouldn’t!’ Zhanna cried.

  Anatoly laughed, holding a crisp up to the crack.

  A monkey jumped up. A leathery claw gripped the top edge of the glass.

  ‘Hey, little one,’ Anatoly said.

  Restless eyes stared through the window, swimming in the distortion of the rain.

  ‘Not much more than a baby.’

  The paw came in, snatched at the crisp; pulled it out into the night. Sharp white teeth flashed. A furious squeal announced a rival had arrived.

  Anatoly held up another crisp. The fingers came back in. Anatoly hit the button and the window zoomed back up.

  ‘Got him!’

  The monkey was trapped by its paw.

  Zhanna gave a cry. She heard Anisa gasp.

  Feet smashed against the window. The monkey screamed in terror. The paw bunched up tight, the fingers rigid.