The Edge (16 page)

“Sorry to disappoint,” Ethan said with a grin. “Just a common climber. Heat stroke is bad news. I had it once. Not as bad as your dose, but bad enough. It was disorienting. When I snapped out of it, I had no idea what had happened. Didn't know where I was for a while. I got it the same way you did. Exhausted, stressed, dehydrated . . . pushed my body too hard, and my body pushed me over the edge.” He handed me a bottle of water.

I took a sip. “Where are we?”

“Still heading northeast.”

“How long was I out?”

Ethan looked at his watch. “A little over four hours.”

I clambered off the camel on shaky legs. Ethan grabbed my arm to steady me. We were still on scree, but the rocks were bigger than the rocks we'd been traversing earlier. To the north of us was a towering hill covered in trees, shrubs, and boulders the size of cars.

Ethan handed me a white cotton cloth the size of a pillowcase.

“Make yourself a keffiyeh like mine,” he said. “No arguments. Secure it with your headlamp. You gotta keep the sun off.”

I draped it over my head and immediately felt cooler. Ethan pulled my headlamp out of my pack. I slipped it over the cloth, certain I looked as ridiculous as he did, but I didn't care. It was perfect for the conditions. If I'd had it on earlier, I might not have
conked out,
as he put it.

I pointed. “What's on the other side of the hill?”

Ethan grinned. “A valley.”

“Very funny. All hills have valleys. I'm serious. Did you look at the map?”

“Yeah. There's a valley and, beyond that, a plateau. When you checked out on me, I thought about taking you back to the river, but that wouldn't have gotten us any closer to the perps. With nine captives, they have to be heading someplace that has food, water, and shelter, and it has to be close, because they're on foot. My guess is they're hiding out in the valley.”

“How's your ankle?”

“Not bad. I wrapped it, and I've been using the trekking poles.”

“Sorry I passed out. If you hadn't—”

“No problem,” Ethan interrupted. “You're still going to have to take it easy. Heat stroke can kill you.”

“Well, thanks for taking care of me.”

I should have thanked him for
saving
me. If Ethan hadn't been there, I might have died on the blistering scree. I looked up at the hill again.

“Looks pretty lush compared to the scree.”

Ethan followed my gaze. “Definitely water on the other side. A stream or two running down to the river. And we need water. I used all but a pint putting out your heat stroke.”

“Are you sure they came this way?”

Ethan reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of cigarette butts. “Hansel and Gretel have a bad nicotine habit. Gauloises and Marlboros. Unless one of them is smoking two different brands, at least two of them are smokers.”

I looked at my watch. We had about five hours of daylight left. Plenty of time to reach the valley on the other side of the steep hill. The GPS was still working. “Let's look at the map.”

The valley had a blue river or stream line snaking down the center of it. I followed the blue with my finger. By the elevation markings, it looked like it ran through a deep gorge and emptied into the river where our base camp had been.

“Looks pretty rugged,” Ethan said.

“Which is why they didn't take the easy path along the river.”

Ethan nodded. “Which means they know a lot more about this terrain than we do.”

“They have to be locals,” I said.

Ethan shook his head. “Maybe one or two of them. I've been thinking about that. Aside from Plank, the only people who knew where we were climbing were Phillip and Zopa, and I don't think they told anybody.”

“How about the helicopter pilot?”

“Maybe. But I didn't get the kidnapper-terrorist vibe from him. Did you?”

“To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to him at all,” I admitted. “The only impression I got was that he was in a hurry to dump us and get back to Kabul.” I folded the map. “We better get moving if we want to get to the first valley before dark.”

Ethan shaded his eyes and looked at the hill.

“A bit of a hike,” he said.

It's more than a bit of a hike. The first thing we discover is that kurtas and baggy pants are not designed for clambering up incredibly steep hills, sometimes on all fours. They tear easily and get tangled. We change back into our pants but keep the keffiyehs on our heads. The second thing we discover is that camels are not designed for steep rocky inclines. A third of the way up, our camel balks, becoming as immovable as the boulders we are winding our way around. No amount of shouting, tugging, or prodding will make her take another step. The donkey becomes so incensed by our efforts, it bites Ethan in the butt . . .

“
OUCH!
”

“Now you can say you've been bitten in the ass by an ass.”

“That's not funny,” Ethan said, rubbing his gluteus maximus.

“Yeah, it is. What do you want to do?”

“Cut this cantankerous camel loose.”

We unloaded everything, took off the saddle and halter, and sorted through the gear. I suggested we take only what we needed.

“You never know what you'll need,” he said. “I think I'll take everything I own.”

I dumped half my stuff to make room for extra climbing gear.

During all of this, the camel didn't move and was still glued in place as we put on our packs and continued up the hill. I looked back after a few yards and was happy to see that she and the donkey were slowly making their way back down the hill.

Carrying the packs made the climb more difficult, but on the bright side, it was cooler with the trees and shrubs, maybe 100 degrees instead of 110 degrees, and we were on the right track. Every few feet, we spotted a perfectly clear footprint in the dust, almost as if someone was leaving it there for us to follow.

“Zopa,” I said.

“How do you know? It could be anyone's. Do you know Zopa's boot pattern?”

“No, but I know Zopa's personality pattern, and I bet you a dollar this is his boot.”

“You're on. Of course, I won't be able to collect if we don't find water on the other side of this hill.”

With that grim thought, we continued on. Halfway up the hill, we stopped and shared the last pint of water, which did nothing to slake our thirst. Ethan was right. If we didn't find water on the other side, there was a good chance we wouldn't be leaving Afghanistan alive.

Two-thirds of the way up, my prediction that we would reach the valley on the other side before dark was shattered. The sun went down.

“At least the moon is full,” Ethan said.

The moon was bright, but not bright enough to light our way. We would have to use our headlamps.

Ethan sat down on a boulder. “I don't know about you,” he said, “but I'm bushed.”

I was too, and he was carrying at least twenty more pounds than I was. I joined him on the boulder. We sat there for several minutes, catching our breath.

“I'm tempted to camp right here,” Ethan said.

“How's your ankle?”

“I can barely feel it among my other aches.”

“It'll be cooler with the sun down.”

“I'm not serious about staying here,” Ethan said. “We have to find water. I just need to rest for a bit.”

I needed to sleep for a week.

“I don't think I thanked you for coming along with me,” I said.

“Forget it.”

“Why did you come?” I knew why I was following them. My mom, Zopa, and now Alessia. I had a feeling that Zopa wanted me to follow him. That somehow he knew I would follow. But why had Ethan come? He barely knew any of us, including the film crew.

“To be honest, I don't know,” he answered. “And to be even more honest, I've been having second thoughts with each step I've taken up this miserable hill, which I think we should start calling a mountain, because that's what it feels like to me. But getting back to your question, I guess I tagged along because it seemed like the right thing to do. Call it a sense of duty. My alternatives were to stay at camp, head downstream with Rafe and Cindy, or go after the bad guys with you. The bad guys won out. Most people run away from bad guys. It's kind of fun running toward them.”

“You know I don't have a plan,” I said. “I mean, other than to catch up with them.”

Ethan grinned. “You mean we're not going to bust in on them like a couple of action heroes, take the dirtbags out, and free the hostages?”

I laughed. “Nah. What's probably going to happen is that we're going to become hostages ourselves.”

“We'll see.” Ethan stood up and stretched. “Remind me to tell you what I did for a living before I became an adrenaline-addicted climbing junkie.”

“Why don't you tell me now?”

“Because we have to top this mountain and find water before we die.”

WE TOPPED THE HILL
, which did feel like a mountain, a little before midnight. After a brief discussion about staying where we were until morning, we started down the other side, which in a way was worse than going up because we had to spend most of it sliding on our butts. Midway down, Ethan found a crumpled cigarette package.
Gauloises.

“French brand,” Ethan said, reading the package.

“I don't think Alessia smokes.”

“Yeah, but it's interesting that someone smokes French cigarettes. I'm not sure how easy French cigarettes are to get in Afghanistan.”

“Rafe said they were Afghans.”

“You look like an Afghan with that keffiyeh.”

I'd forgotten that I was wearing it. “Are you saying they're French?”

“Nope. I'm saying we have no idea who these guys are, or what they want, and we need to keep our minds open.”

“So, what did you do before you were an adrenaline-addicted climbing junkie?”

“I was an MP.”

“Member of Parliament?”

Ethan laughed. “Just as unlikely. Military policeman. Marine Corps.”

“No way!”

“Six years.” He saluted. “Got into a little jam when I was seventeen. It was either serve time in the military or serve time in jail. I chose to join the marines.”

I had gotten into a little jam myself earlier in the year. It was either leave the country for a while or be locked in juvenile detention until I was eighteen.

“Your nickname,” I said.

Ethan nodded. “Yep, I was a sergeant.”

“Were you in Afghanistan?”

Ethan shook his head. “I was in Iraq a couple of times, but only briefly. I worked mostly stateside.”

“Doing what?”

“Busting military criminals and killers trained by the U.S. government. It was interesting work.”

“Why did you leave?”

“I wasn't exactly a model soldier. I was terrible at following orders and keeping my mouth shut when something needed to be said. Despite this, they would have kept me on because I was a pretty effective cop, but I opted out. There were mountains to climb. To make money, I work for a buddy of mine from the corps who hires me as a security consultant.”

“What's that?”

“Basically a highly paid bodyguard for government dignitaries and rich people. The money's good, but I don't like the work. That's why I hooked up with JR's crew as a climbing consultant. They're only paying expenses, but I figured that I could learn the documentary business from them. I'm tired of others making money off my exploits. I'd like to do my own documentaries.”

“So you know what to do about the kidnappers?”

“I wouldn't go that far,” he answered. “But I do have some experience in handling smart killers. What I don't have are weapons, and of course the Marine Corps backing me up. We're at a distinct disadvantage, but it's not totally hopeless.”

“Unless we don't find water at the bottom of this hill.”

“Right. If we don't find water . . .”

He didn't have to finish the question. We continued our downhill slide.

THEY SAY WATER IS ODORLESS
, but I'm not sure this is true. I swear I could smell it from fifty yards away. Ethan could too by the way he half walked, half stumbled toward the source at the bottom of the hill.

We were going to live a while longer. There was a good-size stream, ten feet across, with a good flow. It was the sweetest and coldest water I had ever tasted.

“Take it slow,” Ethan warned, but neither of us did.

I must have scooped half a gallon of water into my mouth without ill effect. When I paused to look over at Ethan, he was still scooping water into his mouth as fast as he could.

“We should eat something,” I said.

Ethan looked at me through dull, tired eyes. “Yeah, I guess we should.”

But we didn't. Somewhere between unzipping my pack and pulling out my camp stove, I fell asleep, passed out, keeled over, or a combination of all three.

I open my eyes. I can hear the stream bubbling past a few feet away. It's still dark. The full moon shines through the tree branches above me, casting the forest in pale blue light. There's a fine mist in the air. I'm cold, but unable to do anything about it. With great effort, I twist my head toward the stream with a vague feeling that something, or someone, is watching me. I see Ethan lying on his back, his arms spread out above his head, his legs splayed as if he's dead. But he isn't. I can hear him gently snoring. He must have fallen straight back from where he'd been kneeling next to the stream. I catch a flicker of movement just beyond him on the other side of the stream. I squint my eyes, trying to focus in the dark. The movement comes again—a thick, smoke-colored tail. The
shen
is crouched down, staring at me. I want to tell Ethan, but my throat doesn't seem to work. The only thing that comes out of my mouth is my breath on the cold air. The tail flicks twice more, then the cat reels around and disappears into the forest without a sound, like a ghost . . .