James Rollins - Black Order

Black Order

A Sigma Force Novel

James Rollins

TO DAVID, for all the adventures

CONTENTS

NOTE FROM THE HISTORICAL RECORD

NOTE FROM THE SCIENTIFIC RECORD

EPIGRAPH

1945

FIRST

I ROOF OF THE WORLD

2 DARWIN'S BIBLE

3 UKUFA4 GHOST LIGHTS

5 SOMETHING ROTTEN

6 UGLY DUCKLING

SECOND

7 BLACK MAMBA

8 MIXED BLOOD

9 SABOTEUR

10BLACK CAMELOT

THIRD

11 DEMON IN THE MACHINE

12 UKUFA

13 XERUM 525

14 MENAGERIE

15 HORNS OF THE BULL

15 RIDDLE OF THE RUNES

EPILOGUE

AUTHOR'S NOTE: TRUTH OR FICTION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

OTHER BOOKS BY JAMES ROLLINS

CREDITS

COVER

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

NOTE FROM THE HISTORICAL RECORD

In the last months of World War II, as Germany fell, a new war began among the Allies: to plunder the

technology of Nazi scientists. A race between the Brits, Americans, French, and Russians was every

country for itself. Patents were stolen: for new vacuum tubes, for exotic chemicals and plastics, even for

pasteurizing milk with UV light. But many of the most sensitive patents disappeared into the well of deep

black projects, like Operation Paper Clip, where hundreds of Nazi V-2 rocket scientists were recruited

in secret and brought into the United States.

But the Germans did not give up their technology easily. They also fought to secure their secrets in the

hopes of a rebirth of the Reich. Scientists were murdered, research labs destroyed, and blueprints hidden

in caves, sunk to the bottom of lakes, and buried in crypts. All to keep them from the Allies.

The search became daunting. Nazi research and weapons labs numbered in the hundreds, many

underground, spread across Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. One of the most mysterious

was a converted mine outside the small mountain town of Breslau. The research at this facility was

code-named die Giocke or "the Bell." People in the surrounding countryside reported strange lights and

mysterious illnesses and deaths.

The Russian forces were the first to reach the mine. It was deserted. All sixty-two scientists involved in

the project had been shot. As for the device itself...it had vanished to God knows where.

All that is known for sure: the Bell was real.

NOTE FROM THE SCIENTIFIC RECORD

Life is stranger than any fiction. All the discussions raised in this novel about quantum mechanics,

intelligent design, and evolution are based on facts.

The fact that evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a

science founded on an improved theory—is it then a science or faith?

—CHARLES DARWIN

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

—ALBERT EINSTEIN

Who says I am not under the special protection of God?

—ADOLF HITLER

1945

MAY 4

6:22 A.M.

FORTRESS CITY OF BRESLAU, POLAND

The body floated in the sludge that sluiced through the dank sewers. The corpse of a boy, bloated and

rat gnawed, had been stripped of boots, pants, and shirt. Nothing went to waste in the besieged city.

SS Obergruppenfuhrer Jakob Sporrenberg nudged past the corpse, stirring the filth. Offal and

excrement. Blood and bile. The wet scarf tied around his nose and mouth did little to ward off the stench.

This was what the great war had come to. The mighty reduced to crawling through sewers to escape. But

he had his orders.

Overhead the double crump-wump of Russian artillery pummeled the city. Each explosion bruised his gut

with its concussive shock. The Russians had broken down the gates, bombed the airport, and even now,

tanks ground down the cobbled streets while transport carriers landed on Kaiserstrasse. The main

thoroughfare had been converted into a landing strip by parallelrows of flaming oil barrels, adding their

smoke to the already choked early morning skies, keeping dawn at bay. Fighting waged in every street,

in every home, from attic to basement.

Every house a fortress.

That had been Gaufefter Hanke's final command to the populace. The city had to hold out as long as

possible. The future of the Third Reich depended on it.

And on Jakob Sporrenberg.

"Mach schneff,'he urged the others behind him.

His unit of the Sicherheitsdienst— designation Special Evacuation Kommando—trailed him, knee-deep

in filthy water. Fourteen men. All armed. All dressed in black. All burdened with heavy packs. In the

middle, four of the largest men, former Nordsee dockmen, bore poles on their shoulders, bearing aloft

massive crates.

There was a reason the Russians were striking this lone city deep in the Sudeten Mountains between

Germany and Poland. The fortifications ofBreslau guarded the gateway to the highlands beyond.

For the past two years, forced labor from the concentration camp of Gross-Rosen had hollowed out a

neighboring mountain peak. A hundred kilometers of tunnels clawed and blasted, all to service one secret

project, one kept buried away from prying Allied eyes.

Die Riese...the Giant.

But word had still spread. Perhaps one of the villagers outside the Wenceslas Mine had whispered of the

illness, the sudden malaise that had afflicted even those well outside the complex.

If only they'd had more time to complete the research...

Still, a part of Jakob Sporrenberg balked. He didn't know all that was involved with the secret project,

mostly just the code name: Chronos. Still, he knew enough. He had seen the bodies used in the

experiments. He had heard the screams.

Abomination.

That was the one word that had come to mind and iced his blood.

He'd had no trouble executing the scientists. The sixty-two men and women had been taken outside and

shot twice in the head. No one must know what had transpired in the depths of the Wenceslas Mine...or

what was found. Only one researcher was allowed to live.

DoktorTola Hirszfeld.

Jakob heard her sloshing behind him, half dragged by one of his men, wrists secured behind her back.

She was tall for a woman, late twenties, small breasted but of ample waist and shapely legs. Her hair

flowed smooth and black, her skin as pale as milk from the months spent underground. She was to have

been killed with the others, but her father, Oberarbeitsleiter Hugo Hirszfeld, overseer of the project, had

finally shown his corrupted blood, his half-Jewish heritage. He had attempted to destroy his research

files, but he had been shot by one of the guards and killed before he could firebomb his subterranean

office. Fortunately for his daughter, someone with full knowledge of die Giocke had to survive, to carry

on the work. She, a genius like her father, knew his research better than any of the other scientists.But

she would need coaxing from here.

Fire burned in her eyes whenever Jakob glanced her way. He could feel her hatred like the heat of an

open furnace. But she would cooperate...like her father had before her. Jakob knew how to deal with

Juden, especially those of mixed blood. Mischlinge. They were the worst. Partial Jews. There were some

hundred thousand Mischlinge in military service to the Reich. Jewish soldiers. Rare exemptions to Nazi

law had allowed such mixed blood to still serve, sparing their lives. It required special dispensation. Such

Mischlinge usually proved to be the fiercest soldiers, needing to show their loyalty to Reich over race.

Still, Jakob had never trusted them. Tola's father proved the validity of his suspicions. The doctor's

attempted sabotage had not surprised Jakob. Juden were never to be trusted, only exterminated.

But Hugo Hirszfeld's exemption papers had been signed by the fuhrer himself, sparing not only the father

and daughter, but also a pair of elderly parents somewhere in the middle of Germany. So while Jakob

had no trust of the Mischlinge, he placed his full faith in his fuhrer. His orders had been letter specific:

evacuate the mine of the necessary resources to continue the workand destroy the rest.

That meant sparing the daughter.

And the baby.

The newborn boy was swaddled and bundled into a pack, a Jewish infant, no more than a month old.

The child had been given a light sedative to keep him silent as they made their escape.

Within the child burned the heart of the abomination, the true source of Jakob's revulsion. All of the

hopes for the Third Reich lay in his tiny hands— the hands of a Jewish infant. Bile rose at such a thought.

Better to impale the child on a bayonet. But he had his orders.

He also saw how Tola watched the boy. Her eyes glowed with a mix of fire and grief. Besides aiding in

her father's research, Tola had served as the boy's foster mother, rocking him asleep, feeding him. The

child was the only reason the woman was cooperating at all. It had been a threat on the boy's life that had

finally made Tola acquiesce to Jakob's demands.A mortar blast exploded overhead, dropping all to their

knees and deafening the world to a sonorous ring. Cement cracked, and dust trickled into the foul water.

Jakob gained his feet, swearing under his breath.

His second in command, Oskar Henricks, drew abreast of him and pointed forward to a side branch of

the sewer.

"We take that tunnel, Obergruppenfuhrer. An old storm drain. According to the municipal map, the main

trunk empties into the river, not far from Cathedral Island."

Jakob nodded. Hidden near the island, a pair of camouflaged gunboats should be waiting, manned by

another Kommando unit. It was not much farther.

He led the way at a more hurried pace as the Russian bombardment intensified overhead. The renewed

assault plainly heralded their final push into the city. The surrender of its citizenry was inevitable.

As Jakob reached the side tunnel, he climbed out of the sluicing filth andonto the cement apron of the

branching passageway. His boots squelched with each step. The gangrenous reek of bowel and slime

swelled momentarily worse, as if the sewer sought to chase him from its depths.

The rest of his unit followed.

Jakob shone his hand-torch down the cement drain. Did the air smell a touch fresher? He followed the

beam with renewed vigor. With escape so near, the mission was almost over. His unit would be halfway

across Silesia before the Russians ever reached the subterranean warren of rat runs that constituted

Wenceslas Mine. As a warm welcome, Jakob had planted booby traps throughout the laboratory

passages. The Russians and their allies would find nothing but death among the highlands.

With this satisfying thought, Jakob fled toward the promise of fresh air. The cement tunnel descended in a

gradual slope. The team's pace increased, hastened by the sudden silence between artillery bursts. The

Russians were coming in full force.

It would be close. The river would only remain open for so long.As if sensing the urgency, the infant

began a soft cry, a thready whine as the sedative wore off. Jakob had warned the team's medic to keep

the drugs light. They dared not risk the child's life. Perhaps that had been a mistake...

The timbre of the cries grew more strident.

A single mortar shell blasted somewhere to the north.

Cries became wails. The noise echoed down the tunnel's stone throat.

"Quiet the child!" he ordered the soldier who bore the baby.

The man, reed thin and ashen, bobbled the pack from his shoulder, losing his black cap in the process.

He struggled to free the boy but only earned more distressed screeches.

"L-let me," Tola pleaded. She fought the man holding her elbow. "He needs me."

The child bearer glanced to Jakob. Silence had fallen over the world above. The screaming continued

below. Grimacing, Jakob nodded his head.

Tola's bonds were cut from her wrists. Rubbing circulation into her fingers, she reached for the child. The

soldier gladly relinquished his burden. She cradled the baby in the crook of her arm, supporting his head

and rocking him gently. She leaned over him, drawing him close. Soothing sounds, wordless and full of

comfort, whispered through his wails. Her whole being melted around the child.

Slowly the screeching ebbed to quieter cries.

Satisfied, Jakob nodded to her guard. The man raised his Luger and kept it pressed to Tola's back. In

silence now, they continued their trek through the subterranean warren beneath Breslau.

In short order, the smell of smoke overtook the reek of the sewers. His hand-torch illuminated a smoky

pall that marked the exit of the storm drain. The artillery guns remained quiet, but an almost continuous

pop and rattle of gunfire continued—mostly to the east. Closer at hand, the distinct lap of water could be

heard.Jakob gestured to his men to hold their position back in the tunnel and waved his radioman to the

exit. "Signal the boats."

The soldier nodded crisply and hurried forward, disappearing into the smoky gloom. In moments, a few

flashes of light passed a coded message to the neighboring island. It would only take a minute for the

boats to cross the channel to their location.

Jakob turned to Tola. She still carried the child. The boy had quieted again, his eyes closed.

Tola met Jakob's gaze, unflinching. "You know my father was right," she said with quiet certainty. Her

gaze flicked to the sealed crates, then back to him. "I can see it in your face. What we did...we went too

far."

"Such decisions are not for either of us to decide," Jakob answered.

"Then who?"

Jakob shook his head and began to turn away. Heinrich Himmler had personally given him his orders. It

was not his place to question. Still, he felt

the woman's attention on him.

"It defies God and nature," she whispered.

A call saved him from responding. "The boats come," the radioman announced, returning from the mouth

of the storm drain.

Jakob barked final orders and got his men into position. He led them to the end of the tunnel, which

opened onto the steep bank of the River Oder. They were losing the cover of darkness. Sunrise glowed

to the east, but here a continuous cloud of black smoke hung low over the water, drawn thick by the

river draft. The pall would help shelter them.

But for how long?

Gunfire continued its oddly merry chatter, firecrackers to celebrate the destruction of Breslau.

Free of the sewer's stink, Jakob pulled away his wet mask and took a deep clean breath. He searched

the lead gray waters. A pair of twenty-foot low boats knifed across the river, engines burbling a steady

drone. At each bow,barely concealed under green tarps, a pair of MG-42 machine guns had been

mounted.

Beyond the boats, a dark mass of island was just visible. Cathedral Island was not truly an island, as it

had accumulated enough silt back in the nineteenth century to fuse to the far bank. A cast-iron emerald

green bridge dating back to the same century crossed to this side. Beneath the bridge, the two gunboats

skirted its stone piers and approached.

Jakob's eyes were drawn upward as a piercing ray of sunlight struck the tips of the two towering spires

of the cathedral that gave the former island its name. It was one of a half-dozen churches crowded on the

island.

Jakob's ears still rang with Tola Hirszfeld's words.

It defies God and nature.

The morning chill penetrated his sodden clothes, leaving his skin prickling and cold. He would be glad

when he was well away from here, able to shut out all memory of these past days.

The first of the boats reached the shoreline. Glad for the distraction, even happier to be moving, he

hurried his men to load the two boats.

Tola stood off to the side, babe in her arms, flanked by the one guard. Her eyes had also discovered the

glowing spires in the smoky skies. Gunfire continued, moving closer now. Tanks could be heard grinding

in low gears. Cries and screams punctuated it all.

Where was this God she feared defying?

Certainly not here.

With the boats loaded, Jakob moved to Tola's side. "Get on the boat." He had meant to be stern, but

something in her face softened his words.

She obeyed, her attention still on the cathedral, her thoughts even further skyward.

In that moment, Jakob saw the beauty she could be...even though she was a Mischlinge. But then the toe

of her boot stubbed, she stumbled and caught herself, careful of the babe. Her eyes returned to the gray

waters and smokypall. Her face hardened again, gone stony. Even her eyes turned flinty as she cast

about for a seat for her and the baby.

She settled on a starboard bench, her guard moving in step with her.

Jakob sat across from them and waved to the boat's pilot to set out. "We must not be late." He searched

down the river. They were headed west, away from the eastern front, away from the rising sun.

He checked his watch. By now, a German Junker Ju 52 transport plane should be waiting for them in an

abandoned airfield ten kilometers away. It had been painted with a German Red Cross, camouflaging it

as a medical transport, an added bit of insurance against assault.

The boats circled out into the deeper channel, engines trebling up. The Russians could not stop them

now. It was over.

Motion drew his attention back to the far side of the boat.

Tola leaned over the baby and delivered a soft kiss atop the boy's wispy-haired pate. She lifted her face,

meeting Jakob's gaze. He saw no defiance oranger. Only determination.

Jakob knew what she was about to do. "Don't—"

Too late.

Shifting up, Tola leaned back over the low rail behind her and kicked off with her feet. With the baby

clutched to her bosom, she flipped backward into the cold water.

Her guard, startled by the sudden action, twisted and fired blindly into the water.

Jakob lunged to his side and knocked his arm up. "You could hit the child."

Jakob leaned over the boat's edge and searched the waters. The other men were on their feet. The boat

rocked. All Jakob saw in the leaden waters was his own reflection. He motioned for the pilot to circle.

Nothing.He watched for any telltale bubbles, but the laden boat's wake churned the waters to obscurity.

He pounded a fist on the rail.

Like father...like daughter...

Only a Mischlinge would take such a drastic action. He had seen it before: Judische mothers smothering

their own children to spare them greater suffering. He had thought Tola was stronger than that. But in the

end, perhaps she had no choice.

He circled long enough to make sure. His men searched the banks on each side. She was gone. The

whistling passage of a mortar overhead discouraged tarrying any longer.

Jakob waved his men back into their seats. He pointed west, toward the waiting plane. They still had the

crates and all the files. It was a setback, but one that could be overcome. Where there was one child,

there could be another.

"Go," he ordered.

The pair of boats set out again, engines winding up to a full throttle. Within moments, they had vanished

into the smoky pall as Breslau burned.

Tola heard the boats fade into the distance.

She treaded water behind one of the thick stone pylons that supported the ancient cast-iron Cathedral

Bridge. She kept one hand clenched over the baby's mouth, suffocating him to silence, praying he gained

enough air through his nose. But the child was weak.

As was she.

The bullet had pierced the side of her neck. Blood flowed thickly, staining the water crimson. Her vision

narrowed. Still she fought to hold the baby above the water.

Moments before, as she tumbled into the river, she had intended to drown herself and the baby. But as

the cold struck her and her neck burned with fire, something tore through her resolve. She remembered

the light glowing on the steeples. It was not her religion, not her heritage. But it was a reminder that there

was light beyond the current darkness. Somewhere men did not savage their brothers. Mothers did not

drown their babies.

She had kicked deeper into the channel, allowing the current to push her toward the bridge. Underwater,

she used her own air to keep the child alive, pinching his nose and exhaling her breath through his lips.

Though she had planned for death, once the fight for life had ignited, it grew more fierce, a fire in her

chest.

The boy never had a name.

No one should die without a name.

She breathed into the child, shallow breaths, in and out as she kicked with the current, blind in the water.

Only dumb luck brought her up against one of the stone pilings and offered a place to shelter.

But now with the boats leaving, she could wait no longer. Blood pumped from her. She sensed it was

only the cold keeping her alive. But the same cold was chilling the life from the frail child.

She kicked for shore, a frantic thrashing, uncoordinated by weakness and numbness. She sank under the

water, dragging the infant down with her.

No.

She struggled up, but the water was suddenly heavier, harder to fight.

She refused to succumb.

Then under her toes, slick rocks bumped against her boots. She cried out, forgetting she was still

underwater, and gagged on the mouthful of river. She sank a bit more, then kicked one last time off the

muddy rocks. Her head breeched, and her body flung itself toward shore.

The bank rose steeply underfoot.

On hand and knee, she scrabbled out of the water, clutching the baby to her throat. She reached the

shoreline and fell facedown onto the rocky bank. Shehad no strength to move another limb. Her own

blood bathed over the child. It took her last effort to focus on the baby.

He was not moving. Not breathing.

She closed her eyes and prayed as an eternal blackness swallowed her.

Cry, damn you, cry...

Father Varick was the first to hear the mewling.

He and his brothers were sheltered in the wine cellar beneath Saints Peter and Paul Church. They had

fled when the bombing of Breslau began last night. On their knees, they had prayed for their island to be

spared. The church, built in the fifteenth century, had survived the ever-changing masters of the border

city. They sought heavenly protection to survive once more.

It was in such silent piety that the plaintive cries echoed to the monks.

Father Varick stood, which took much effort for his old legs.

"Where are you going?" Franz asked.

"I hear my flock calling for me," the father said. For the past two decades, he had fed scraps to the river

cats and the occasional cur that frequented the riverside church.

"Now is not the time," another brother warned, fear ripe in his voice.

Father Varick had lived too long to fear death with such youthful fervor. He crossed the cellar and bent

to enter the short passage that ended at the river door. Coal used to be carted up the same passage and

stored where now fine green bottles nestled in dust and oak.

He reached the old coal door, lifted the bar, and undid the latch.

Using a shoulder, he creaked it open.

The sting of smoke struck him first—then the mewling drew his eyes down. "Mein Gott im Himmel..."A

woman had collapsed steps from the door in the buttress wall that supported the channel church. She

was not moving. He hurried to her side, dropping again to his knees, a new prayer on his lips.

He reached to her neck and checked for a sign of life, but found only blood and ruin. She was soaked

head to foot and as cold as the stones.

Dead.

Then the cry again...coming from her far side.

He shifted to find a babe, half-buried under the woman, also bloody.

Though blue from the cold and just as wet, the child still lived. He freed the infant from the body. His wet

swaddling shed from him with their waterlogged weight.

A boy.

He quickly ran his hands over the tiny body and saw the blood was not the child's.Only his mother's.

He glanced sadly down at the woman. So much death. He searched the far side of the river. The city

burned, roiling smoke into the dawning sky. Gunfire continued. Had she swum across the channel? All to

save her child?

"Rest," he whispered to the woman. "You have earned it."

Father Varick retreated to the coal door. He wiped the blood and water from the baby. The child's hair

was soft and thin, but plainly snowy white. He could be no more than a month old.

With Varick's ministrations, the boy's cries grew stronger, his face pinched with the effort, but he

remained weak, limp limbed, and cold.

"You cry, little one."

Responding to his voice, the boy opened his swollen eyes. Blue eyes greeted Varick. Brilliant and pure.

Then again, most newborns had blue eyes. Still, Varick sensed that these eyes would keep their sky blue

richness.He drew the boy closer for warmth. A bit of color caught his eye. Was ist das? He turned the

boy's foot. Upon the heel, someone had drawn a symbol.

No, not drawn. He rubbed to be sure.

Tattooed in crimson ink.

He studied it. It looked like a crow's foot.

Y

But Father Varick had spent a good portion of his youth in Finland. He recognized the symbol

for what it truly was: one of the Norse runes. He hadno idea which rune or what it meant. He shook his

head. Who had done such foolishness?

He glanced at the mother with a frown.

No matter. The sins of the father were not the son's to bear.

He wiped away the last of the blood from the crown of the boy's head and snugged the boy into his

warm robe.

"Poor Junge...such a hard welcome to this world."

FIRST

ROOF OF THE WORLD

PRESENT DAY

MAY 16, 6:34 a.m.

HIMALAYAS

EVEREST BASE CAMP, 17,600 FEET

Death rode the winds.

Taski, the lead Sherpa, pronounced this verdict with all the solemnity and certainty of his profession. The

squat man barely reached five feet, even with his battered cowboy hat. But he carried himself as if he

were taller than anyone on the mountain. His eyes, buried within squinted lids, studied the flapping line of

prayer flags.

Dr. Lisa Cummings centered the man in the frame of her Nikon D-100 and snapped a picture. While

Taski served as the group's guide, he was also Lisa's psychometric test subject. A perfect candidate for

her research.

She had come to Nepal under a grant to study the physiologic effects of anoxygen-free ascent of Everest.

Until 1978, no one had summited Everest without the aid of supplemental oxygen. The air was too thin.

Even veteran mountaineers, aided by bottled oxygen, experienced extreme fatigue, impaired

coordination, double vision, hallucinations. It was considered impossible to reach the summit of an

eight-thousand-meter peak without a source of canned air.

Then in 1978, two Tyrolean mountaineers achieved the impossible and reached the summit, relying solely

on their own gasping lungs. In subsequent years, some sixty men and women followed in their footsteps,

heralding a new goal of the climbing elite.

She couldn't ask for a better stress test for low-pressure atmospheres.

Prior to coming here, Dr. Lisa Cummings had just completed a five-year grant on the effect of

/r/gr/r-pressure systems on human physiological processes. To accomplish this, she had studied deep-sea

divers while aboard a research ship, the Deep Fathom. Afterward, circumstances required her to move

on...both with her professional life and personal. So she had accepted an NSF grant to perform

antithetical research: to study the physiologic effects of /oiv-pressure systems.Hence, this trip to the Roof

of the World.

Lisa repositioned for another shot of Taski Sherpa. Like many of his people, Taski had taken his ethnic

group as his surname.

The man stepped away from the flapping line of prayer flags, firmly nodded his head, and pointed a

cigarette pinched between two fingers at the towering peak. "Bad day. Death ride deese winds," he

repeated, then replaced his cigarette and turned away. The matter settled.

But not for the others in their group.

Sounds of disappointment flowed through the climbing party. Faces stared at the cloudless blue skies

overhead. The ten-man climbing team had been waiting nine days for a weather window to open. Before

now, no one had argued against the good sense of not climbing during the past week's storm. The

weather had been stirred up by a cyclone spinning off the Bay of Bengal. Savage winds had pummeled

the camp, reaching over a hundred miles per hour, kiting away one of the cook tents, knocking people

over bodily, and been followed by spats of snowfall that abraded any exposed skin like coarse

sandpaper.Then the morning had dawned as bright as their hopes. Sunlight glinted off the Khumbu glacier

and icefall. Snowcapped Everest floated above them, surrounded by its serene sister peaks, a wedding

party in white.

Lisa had snapped a hundred shots, catching the changing light in all its shifting beauty. She now

understood the local names for Everest: Chomolungma, or Goddess Mother of the World, in Chinese,

and Sagarmatha, the Goddess of the Sky, in Nepalese.

Floating among the clouds, the mountain was indeed a goddess of ice and cliff. And they had all come to

worship her, to prove themselves worthy to kiss the sky. And it hadn't come cheap. Sixty-five thousand

dollars a head. At least that included camping equipment, porters, Sherpas, and of course all the yaks

you could want. The lowing of a female yak echoed over the valley, one of the two dozen servicing their

climbing team. The blisters of their red and yellow tents decorated the camp. Five other camps shared

this rocky escarpment, all waiting for the storm gods to turn their back.

But according to their lead Sherpa, that would not be today.

"This is so much bull," declared the manager of a Boston sporting goods company. Dressed in the latest

down-duvet one-piece, he stood with his arms crossed beside his loaded pack. "Over six hundred

dollars a day to sit on our asses. They're bilking us. There's not a cloud in the damn sky!"

He spoke under his breath, as though trying to incite an uprising that he had no intention of leading

himself.

Lisa had seen the type before. Type A personality...j4 as in asshole. Upon hindsight, perhaps she

shouldn't have slept with him. She cringed at the memory. The rendezvous had been back in the States,

after an organizational meeting at the Hyatt in Seattle, after one too many whiskey sours. Boston Bob had

been just another port in a storm...not the first, probably not the last. But one thing was certain: this was

one port she would not be dropping anchor in again.

She suspected this reason more than any other for his continued belligerence.

She turned away, willing her younger brother the strength to quell the unrest. Josh was a mountaineer

with a decade of experience and had coordinated her inclusion in one of his escorted Everest ascents. He

led mountaineering trips around the world at least twice a year.

Josh Cummings held up a hand. Blond and lean like herself, he wore black jeans, tucked into the gaiters

of his Millet One Sport boots, and a gray expedition-weight thermal shirt.

He cleared his throat. "Taski has scaled Everest twelve times. He knows the mountain and its moods. If

he says the weather is too unpredictable to move forward, then we spend another day acclimating and

practicing skills. If anyone would like, I can also have a pair of guides lead a day trip to the

rhododendron forest in the lower Khumbu valley."

A hand rose from the group. "What about a day trip to the Everest View Hotel? We've been camping in

these damn tents for the past six days. I wouldn't mind a hot bath."

Murmurs of agreement met this request.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," Josh warned. "The hotel is a full day's trek away, and the rooms

at the hotel have oxygen pumped into them, to stave off altitude sickness. It could weaken your current

acclimation and delay any ascent."

"Like we're not delayed enough already!" Boston Bob pressed.

Josh ignored him. Lisa knew her younger brother would not be pressured to do something as stupid as

risk an ascent against inclement weather. Though the skies were blue, she knew that could change in a

matter of minutes. She had grown up on the sea, off the Catalina coast. As had Josh. One learned to

read signs beyond the lack of clouds. Josh might not have developed a Sherpa's eye to read the weather

up at these heights, but he certainly knew to respect those who did.

Lisa stared up at the plume of snow blowing off the tip of Everest's peak. It marked the jet stream,

known to gust over two hundred miles an hour across the summit. The plume stretched impossibly long.

Though the storm had blown itself out, the pressure pattern still wreaked havoc above eight thousand

meters. The jet stream could blow a storm back over them at any moment.

"We could at least make for Camp One," Boston Bob persisted. "Bivouac there and see what the

weather brings."An irritating whine had entered the sports-store manager's voice, trying to wheedle some

concession. His face had reddened with frustration.

Lisa could not fathom her prior attraction to the man.

Before her brother could respond to the lout, a new noise intruded. A thump-thump like drums. All eyes

swung to the east. Out of the glare of the rising sun, a black helicopter appeared. A hornet-shaped B-2

Squirrel A-Star Ecuriel. The rescue chopper had been designed to climb to these heights.

A silence settled over the group.

A week ago, just before the recent storm broke, an expedition had gone up on the Nepal side. Radio

communication had put them up at Camp Two. Over twenty-one thousand feet in elevation.

Lisa shaded her eyes. Had something gone wrong?

She had visited the Himalayan Rescue Association's health clinic down in Pheriche. It was the point of

triage for all manner of illnesses that rolled down the mountainside to their doorstep: broken bones,

pulmonary and cerebral edema, frostbite, heart conditions, dysentery, snow blindness, and all sorts of

infections, including STDs. It seemed even chlamydia and gonorrhea were determined to summit Everest.

But what had gone wrong now? There had been no Mayday on the radio's emergency band. A

helicopter could only reach a little above Base Camp due to the thin air up here. That meant rescues from

air often required trekking down from the most severe heights. Above twenty-five thousand feet, the

dead were simply left where they fell, turning the upper slopes of Everest into an icy graveyard of

abandoned gear, empty oxygen containers, and frost-mummified corpses.

The beat of the rotors changed pitch.

"They're coming this way," Josh said and waved everyone back to the nests of four-season storm tents,

clearing the flat expanse that served as the camp's helipad.

The black helicopter dropped over them. Rotor wash swirled sand and bits of rock. A Snickers wrapper

blew past Lisa's nose. Prayer flags danced and twisted, and yaks scattered. After so many days of quiet

in the mountains, the noise was deafening.

The B-2 settled to its skids with a grace that belied its size. Doors swung open. Two men stepped out.

One wore a green camouflage uniform and shouldered an automatic weapon, a soldier of the Royal

Nepalese Army. The other stood taller, in a red robe and cloak sashed at the waist, head shaved bald. A

Buddhist monk.

The pair approached and spoke rapidly in a Nepalese dialect to a pair of Sherpas. There was a short

bout of gesturing, then an arm pointed.

At Lisa.

The monk led the way to her, flanked by the soldier. From the suncrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the

monk appeared to be in his midforties, skin the color of latte, eyes caramel brown.

The soldier's skin was darker, his eyes pinched closer together. His gaze was fixed below her neckline.

She had left her jacket unzipped, and the sports bra she was wearing beneath her fleece vest seemed to

have captured his attention. The Buddhist monk, on the other hand, kept his eyes respectful, even bowing

his head slightly. He spoke precise English touched by a British accent. "Dr. Cummings, I apologize for

the intrusion, but there has been an emergency. I was informed by the HRA clinic that you are a medical

doctor."

Lisa frowned, her brow furrowing. "Yes."

"A nearby monastery has been struck by a mysterious ailment, affecting almost all the inhabitants. A sole

messenger, a man from a neighboring village, had been dispatched on foot, traveling three days to reach

the hospital in Khunde. Once alerted, we'd hoped to ferry one of the HRA doctors up to the monastery,

but an avalanche has the clinic already shorthanded. Dr. Sorenson told us of your presence here at Base

Camp."

James Rollins - Black Order

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: