She said: “My body’s stronger than ever. My mind is still sharp. And I’m still hungry. Very hungry. I’m not ready to slow down yet. Too many mountains and too little time.”
“I hear you.”
“More mountains to conquer, more hearts to break.”
Even in her forties, she still projected the aura of a femme fatale. A leaner, much tougher Kathleen Turner from Body Heat. Knowing Edyta, it was probably one of her favorite movies.
She whispered to Crocker, brandy on her breath: “I’m going to eat with the Italians after I help them clear up some garbage. You want to come?”
“You’re doing what?”
“These Italian environmentalists, they’re cleaning all the camps from Askole on. Empty gas canisters, beer tins, Coke cans, packaged food wrappers, batteries. Drop by my tent later. We can catch up.”
Crocker knew what she wanted. Edyta made no bones about the fact that she’d slept with practically every attractive climber she’d met.
“I’d like to, but I’m married.”
The glint in her eyes was wicked. “That didn’t stop you before.”
She was right. But that was during his first marriage, when he’d spent over three hundred days of the year away from home. He had returned after a three-week deployment to find the lawn unmowed and no furniture, lightbulbs, or even toilet paper in the house. Had no idea where his wife and three-year-old daughter had gone.
That hurt real bad. Now he limited his days away from home base to two hundred. Crocker wanted this marriage to last.
“Not this time,” he said.
“You’ll change your mind.”
“I doubt it.”
Edyta had a voice that sounded like honey mixed with gravel. “You know, a warm body is a luxury in a place like this. And mine gets hot.”
Crocker’s teammate stood to his right, vibrating with eagerness to take his place.
“Edyta, I want you to meet a good friend of mine. His name’s Akil.”
She checked him out from head to toe. “You look strong.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“You like Italian food, Akil? You want to come with me and get dirty picking up some garbage?”
Akil winked in the direction of his boss. “Why not?” he answered.
Edyta grabbed his hand and led him out.
Chapter Seven
I just don’t want to die without a few scars.
– Chuck Palahniuk
Snow and ice everywhere they looked, interrupted by sheets of gray granite. A buzzing blue sky. Thin air. His mind reaching into euphoria. Lungs and muscles burning.
They climbed four steps, then stopped to catch their breath. Climbed three more, then stopped again-Crocker, Davis, Akil, Edyta, and two of the Germans linked to one another by an eighty-foot rope.
After they had climbed eight hours, the sun continued to beam intensely and brilliantly as they ascended steep snow slopes weighed down by fifty-pound packs. The porters had stayed behind in the Concordia.
And as they passed between rocky towers, wiggled through ice gullies, and stepped carefully across knife-sharp ridges, Crocker replayed a nightmare from the night before. It had occurred in an unusual yellow light. He and Akil were accompanying some U.S. Army Special Forces somewhere in the Middle East. They stopped and were resting with their backs against a berm. The ground felt warm. The sun bore down on them, hot and heavy. Crocker, who wanted to keep moving, didn’t like the fact that they were exposed on three sides.
He sat admiring the way the sunlight turned the dust-filled sky a mustard color, thinking that he should point out their vulnerability to the SF leader, when a convoy of three white pickups sped toward them and opened fire. He saw little white splashes of light from the trucks.
Bullets splattered around them, kicking up dirt and shards of rock.
The closest cover: their Humvees, parked thirty feet away along the two-lane asphalt road.
Seemed like the best option.
“Let’s go!” Crocker shouted, getting into a crouch.
He grabbed Akil by the shoulder and started to run. His feet pushed down into the soles of his boots as they gripped the ground. Adrenaline surged through his veins, making him stronger, braver, smarter.
Hot air brushed past his bare arms and face. Then he was hit. His flight interrupted. One-two-three-four times.
Crocker somersaulted forward and landed on his side. Bam!
His heart reached up into his throat until it was strangling him. Somewhere below his navel, just under the body armor, life was draining out of him. He knew he was going to die.
Not now! He had things to do. People to take care of.
He couldn’t even remember the name of the country he was in as his blood seeped into the thirsty ground.
What will they tell my wife? My daughter? Like it mattered.
He had awakened in his sleeping bag in a cold sweat, thinking about his family and the risks he took daily.
Now, picking his way through the snow and ice, he thought back to some of the real nightmares he’d been through. Like the time in Panama, humping through the jungle on a Special Forces Reserve-led mission in the San Blas Islands. Birds calling, howler monkeys screeching from the canopy of trees, on their way to capture a General Oliverios, who had worked for the drug-dealing dictator General Noriega.
General Oliverios, who in addition to running drugs and illegal guns, and forcing young girls into prostitution, had recently decapitated one of his maids.
Nice guy.
Leading the mission was an out-of-shape, cigar-chomping SF major named Malone. A loudmouthed asshole.
Crocker pointed out that they needed to establish a loss-of-communications plan. The smart-ass major replied: “In the army we have comms that work,” because Crocker was in the navy.
A day later, during the hump over the mountains, the horse carrying all their comms fell off a cliff to his death. Which meant no comms for the remainder of the mission.
At the time, Crocker was hugely pissed off at the incompetent SF major. But now, for some reason, he was thinking about the horse. Remembering the horrible brays and thumping as it fell down, then the cries of pain and helplessness as it took its last breaths.
The result of one act of stupidity and one false step.
The sun had started sinking past his shoulder, which turned the sky a deeper, stiller blue and the snow-covered bank in front of him various shades of gold.
The others were lagging farther behind in the increasingly thinner air. Crocker sensed that they were ready to set up camp, but he didn’t want to stop. There was another campsite just 800 feet higher.
He’d wanted to push himself more, until he felt completely spent.
They had reached 23,300 feet.
“Boss! Boss!” He turned to see Akil pulling on the rope behind him, trying to catch up.
During training, Crocker often told his men: “Blood from any orifice.” In other words: Push yourself to your limits, and every now and then go past them. Otherwise, how will you know your full potential?
For years, Crocker would regularly take twenty-mile midnight runs. Then wake up the next morning at 0430 hours and ride his bike another forty miles before going to work.
Sometimes after a long run, when he stepped off the trail to urinate, he’d piss a steady stream of red. The first time he saw blood coming out, he went to see the SEAL doctor, who explained that constant trauma to the urethra had caused the bleeding.
People called him an obsessed maniac.
Truth is, he admired maniacs. Maniacs were prepared to face the shit. Like his SEAL buddy Joe M., who on a mission to Iraq saw a car full of insurgents pull alongside the vehicle he was riding in and start firing AK-47s. Most people would have panicked, but Joe kept his cool. Realized he had to protect his driver if he wanted to get out of there alive.