Snowman (11 page)

Bradford nodded and stood over Carlos's drawing board. He pointed to the trigger.

"If you could make an automatic trigger release, the cable could be held back indefinitely."

"I agree."

"What kind of material could be used for the cable?" he asked as Packard paced the bunker, stopping to examine heavy artillery and occasionally interrupting by calling out, "You fuckers are crazy."

"Aircraft cable," Carlos replied. "I can construct it so that it can be taken apart in three sections, the riser and two limbs. It will have pylons where the limbs and handle join, and there will be two pulleys for the wire aircraft cable. You'd be able to assemble it in five minutes."

"Pack, listen, will you? The compound crossbow we're talking about improves accuracy. The pull is easier, and the arrow strikes faster and with greater power."

"What would the maximum range be?" Packard asked, holding a bazooka.

"A hundred yards, I'd guess," Carlos replied.

"Well, how the hell are we going to hit it without a sight?"

Carlos turned to Bradford and smiled.

"That's easy. I'll mount a sniper's sight using a 100 x 100 Zeiss telescopic sight with a 210mm zoom."

"Sounds terrific," Packard said sarcastically. "And we fire arrows, I guess."

"That's right," Bradford insisted. "Stainless steel with razor-blade-sharp broadheads and fletched in red so that we can follow the flight in the snow."

"What do you want to penetrate?" Carlos asked, looking perplexed.

"Something stronger than a rhino's hide," Bradford answered.

"But then"—Carlos threw up his hands in a gesture of futility—"it's hopeless."

"There has to be a way to solve this," Bradford insisted. "We can't quit now." The bows and arrows of the hunters in the cave painting had been representational, he realized. Symbols of primitive men attempting to defend themselves against a force of nature that was invincible.

Carlos wiped the sweat from his brow with a crisp Irish linen handkerchief and poured another cup of the bitter green tea.

"If sound is the governing factor, you still come back to the basic problem you started with. You can't cause an explosion."

For ten years Bradford had withdrawn from society and its pressures because he regarded himself as an outcast. Now he couldn't be vanquished again, just when the opportunity to redeem himself had presented itself.

Carlos's lips were moving, and he glared at Bradford. "How many times do I have to repeat myself?"

"I'm sorry."

"Does the arrow have to pierce the target?"

"How else can you kill . . . ?"

"Just suppose the arrow doesn't penetrate the target?"

"No good."

"If the arrow stuck to the target?"

"Then what?" Packard asked, yawning.

"If the head of the arrow were made of some nonslip plastic that adhered to ice and instead of causing an explosion on contact it created just the opposite effect. The target would disintegrate and you could still achieve your purpose."

"Total destruction?" Bradford asked, filled with quixotic optimism.

"Yes, I'm talking about an
implosion
. Whatever the arrow hit and penetrated would fragment from within."

"What sort of material would you use?"

Carlos returned to his drawing board and drew a round-headed arrow with what resembled a suction cap.

"Plutonium. I'd make miniature nuclear warheads that would operate on transistors."

"Is it possible?"

"For a price, anything is possible."

"We'll need five crossbows and at least ten arrows per man.

"That's impossible. The plutonium source I have doesn't handle that amount of material."

"How many then?"

"I can't say now."

Bradford broke through the emotional barrier that controlled him and embraced Carlos.

"You make them and we'll pay."

Carlos, for his part, was reluctant to let Bradford leave. After a dinner invitation to his estate in La Hoya had been declined, his attitude became almost paternal.

"You're not going after a man, are you?"

"No. That'd be easy."

"Well, Dan, if you ever decide to go in for conventional assassination, I can put you in touch with a South African group. They're offering a million dollars in any currency for Amin. I think it would be less dangerous than whatever you're going after."

When the party reached Los Angeles, Bradford noticed the enormous changes in the city during the years of his self-banishment. The smog was grittier and thicker, the freeways resembled giant snakes undulating with thousands of cars, and the sprawl of suburbia had manifested itself in cluster developments and high-rises. He had not missed much in the growth of civilization.

At Kelty's the men were fitted with Loewa double boots, thermal underwear, down parkas, sweaters, gloves, rain pants. Bradford selected mummy sleeping bags with ensolite pads because they were lighter than air mattresses. He and Pemba had always used Fritsch Himalaya ice axes and Mannut Swiss parallel 11mm nylon-strand-sheathed rope, the latter easy to follow or spot from the air because it was bright orange. Because the other men were not as experienced as they were, Bradford insisted, over Pemba's objections, on sixty-foot lengths, since they kinked less than the one twenty.

The tents and the rest of the heavy equipment were loaded on Monte's Lear jet. In late afternoon, when Bradford finally stepped aboard the plane, he was seized by a dizzying fit of anxiety. He was troubled by the possibility of what might happen to these men whom he liked; more than anything, he wanted them to be able to enjoy the money they were being paid.

There was still a good deal of grumbling about the weapon he and Carlos had devised. Would it actually work? When he explained why he had selected a bow, only Packard supported him. The others gave the impression that they might hold out until the last night

before abandoning him. Even Pemba and he were becoming tense and antagonistic toward each other; he wondered whether the Sherpa who had once saved his life had now become snow-shy.

He told himself it didn't matter. If it came to it, he would go alone.

The plane banked steeply through a web of dense clouds. Bradford was transfixed. The snow . . . he had thought he would never see it again. Glistening and forbidding, it possessed a mystery for him as inscrutable as the sea's. The attraction was so profound that he was shaken. He was a man who had been in exile. Now he had come home.

From the air he saw frozen alkali lakes. The mountain was made up of minarets and volcanic domes. Cirques, mosaiclike amphitheater-shaped bowls, formed giant pocks in the range.

The landing seemed to take forever. When he finally left the plane and felt the chill wind gust over the tarmac into his face, he embraced it like a lover. He felt the snow with his bare hands. The sense of complete peace that had eluded him during his wandering slowly returned. He was back in his element.

Intoxicated by the air, Bradford drove the large equipment-loaded truck with the window open. The men in the rear grumbled, but Pemba's good spirits had returned, and he was shouting, "
Sherpas Zindabad!
" Long live the Sherpas! Even the crunch of the tire chains grating on the slick, icy road excited him.

As they approached the lodge the traffic increased, and they saw groups of colorfully dressed people carrying their skis along the steep embankment. Surrounding them were the high Sierras, their summit obscured by a haze of swirling frosted air.

Where would the Snowman be? Bradford visualized the giant form climbing over a layer of snow, bridging a crevasse as it scoured the mountain for prey.

He turned the truck into the driveway, and cinders splayed against the rear axle.

"It's not going to be an easy climb," Pemba said, his eyes narrowing, focusing on the terrain. But then he smiled and clasped Bradford's arm, moved by the challenge. They were climbers, and they had been away too long.

The team was staying in the ski instructors' building. To explain their presence, Bradford told them all to say they were engineers carrying out a survey for additional ski lifts. He asked the men to avoid getting involved with the guests while he and Pemba set out with maps and binoculars for a preliminary reconnaissance of the mountain.

From her office Cathy watched him fixing the bindings on his two-meter Rossignol skis. He crouched low and pushed off in fluid thrusts, moving like a powerful engine. For the first time since she had met him, Bradford seemed truly happy. He and Pemba got on the ski lift and were soon out of sight. She returned to her work, thinking of him, unable to still the strange excitement he aroused in her.

From the lift, Bradford and Pemba scanned the mountain for signs of tracks. Neither of them knew at what altitude the Snowman would descend. They had encountered him at twenty-eight thousand feet, but the attack on the girl had occurred at roughly half that altitude. The slopes were filled with skiers of all ages; they'd be defenseless if the Snowman attacked.

At the experts' slope they skied off the lift and went into the hut, where the man awaiting them showed them where to store their skis and change to their boots and crampons. Pemba was wearing his old parka with the Tiger badge awarded him by the Himalayan Club for climbing proficiency. The man in the hut stared at Pemba with a mixture of curiosity and respect. It was obvious to Bradford that he had never seen a Sherpa. But when the man asked where they were from, Bradford simply ignored the question and set out with Pemba for the first climb.

The thin, rarefied air slowed them as they kickstepped above the hut. Their boots were stiff, and the prongs of the crampons slashed into the icy slope. When they had advanced some four hundred feet, they stopped and noted a col, a depression in the mountain chain that they could use as a mark when the full party made the ascent. Just above them a snout appeared, the lower terminus of the glacier. It was the bluish-green color that came from melting during the summer months before the freeze with the first snows.

"It will go," Bradford said, indicating that the terrain was passable.

"The south ridge might be the best way of attack if we have to go up to the summit," Pemba said, speaking slowly to conserve his energy. In the past a climb at this altitude would have been simple for him, but now he was out of condition.

"Cornices below it . . . to the west it looks tricky. Could be snow bridges, so we better avoid it," Bradford replied, even though the alternative was a treacherous climb into the prevailing wind. At this altitude wind was the constant, relentless enemy.

The glacier was large, magnificently angled, and so steep that the force of gravity which created it allowed the snow to move downhill. To Bradford each new glacier was an uncharted river which he, the explorer, must study, learning its drops in elevation, its rises, the speed at which it moved. Where the change was precipitous, the glacier always contained a mass of fissures which were as dangerous as the rapids in an unnavigable river. Fortunately, they were not now near water. Once, in a climb on the Humboldt Glacier in Greenland, he had almost been killed when a section of it had shattered,
calved
, and a great mountain had joined the other monolithic icebergs floating in the sea around it.

They climbed another two hundred feet and were confronted by a gigantic icefall. The frozen cascade of ice was not on their map. It had been formed when the glacier had changed direction in the slope of the ground beneath it.

"It's a fucker," Bradford said.

"We'll have to make base camp below it," Pemba agreed. This would increase their hardship if they had to reach the summit, since their camp would be thousands of feet below it. They would have to cross the icefall horizontally, perhaps even diagonally higher up; this traverse would use up vital time and deplete their energy.

On the climb back down to the hut they carefully followed the platforms made by their kick-steps earlier. The afternoon light was still good. When they changed back to skis, Bradford led Pemba down to the place where Janice had been found. He still skied magnificently, but he knew that time had warped his skills; the driving power required for a giant slalom, whipping past the gates at fifty miles an hour, was now beyond him. The fluid grace was still present, but that inner rhythm had been lost. The two men threaded their way through a cordoned path of whitebark pines off the main ski run; the slopes had thinned out considerably since they had gone up. Occasionally Bradford caught a blurred glimpse of a solitary figure getting in a final run for the day.

The snow along the path was mixed with gray spikes of frozen rock. They continued to search for tracks, even though they were losing the light. As they skied along the cross-country trail, loose snow constantly blew in a spatter from the tree branches. When they reached a clearing in the woods, they saw a trail of frozen blood and beyond it huge triangular indentations pocking the ice. Pemba said, "
Husiar
"—be careful. Then he fell silent, mesmerized by the sight. The soft cast of his face seemed as lifeless as a mask.

Bradford's past flight flooded back, and he trembled. Somehow he had to overcome his fear. He had spent years dreaming about the Yeti, but now, faced with the possibility that an encounter might occur at any time, he began to lose his resolve. Panic would be contagious. He forced himself to examine the tracks. He took off his gloves and touched the blackened ground formed by the tracks.

"It's petrified," he said. "The heat he gives off must burn right through the ice . . . down to the rock layer. When the tracks are new they're rainbow-colored."

He managed to gain control of himself, and realized that his fears stemmed from the fact that he was un-armed. Pemba shied away down the side of the trail and signaled him to move. Yet Bradford stood his ground. The ecstacy of mindless blood lust overwhelmed him. For now, at least, he too was a savage.

Monte's office was expensively paneled in tongue-and-groove cedar, but one wall was made entirely of glass with sliding doors; it commanded a magnificent view of the slopes, now illuminated in the full moon. Bradford stood watching the mountain. He had a Scotch in his hand, which he sipped almost absentmindedly. He anticipated some movement, but all he was able to see were the long shroudlike shadows cast by the cliff line. The sky was candescently clear, and outside the window lovers kissed under the stars, unaware of the dangers thousands of feet above.