Contracts, Matt Rogers [phonics reading books TXT] 📗

push to Gokyo, and beyond to Everest, so it was no wonder the village was made up entirely of teahouses, supply shops, and, at the edge of the village, a small doctor’s office.

Neither Slater nor King needed a doctor.

They had no desire to be loaded with pain pills — not when the culmination of their trip was likely to require all their fine motor skills and then some.

So they sat and recuperated in mutual silence, and popped a couple more altitude sickness tablets in the meantime.

Not that the Diamox was helping Slater in the slightest.

He didn’t have headaches, and he didn’t have nausea, but the full force of his aching muscles hit him as soon as he stopped moving and killed the momentum. The breath rattled in his throat as he desperately fought to move oxygen to his cramping musculature. It didn’t work. When the Nepali woman returned with the usual momos, fried rice and eggs, Slater could barely lift his fork to shovel the steaming food into his mouth.

King noticed. ‘What’s wrong?’

Slater shook his head — he could barely manage the gesture. ‘Nothing — I’m fine.’

‘No, you’re really not.’

‘I don’t think I’m getting enough oxygen.’

‘You going to vomit?’

‘It’s not that. It’s … my muscles.’

‘They’re cramping?’

‘I feel a hundred pounds heavier.’

‘Can you make it to Gokyo?’

‘How far?’

‘Four hours, probably.’

He clamped his jaw and clenched his teeth and said, ‘Yeah. Should be fine.’

‘You need to tell me if you’re going to collapse.’

‘I’m not. Not yet. I’ve been through worse.’

‘I need you on your A game,’ King said. ‘If you want the truth, we’re probably going to run into them en route to Gokyo. Violetta’s been sending intel dumps. Calculating average speeds, based on the sightings. We’re either going to reach Gokyo just after them, or at the same time.’

Slater chewed slowly on a mouthful of rice. It took all the effort in his system to simply open and close his mouth.

Then he nodded.

‘Sounds good.’

He could feel King’s eyes on him.

Slater mumbled, ‘How’s your ankle?’

‘Better.’

‘Great. At least one of us is managing.’

King slapped him on the back. ‘You’ll be fine. Finish your food, and let’s go.’

56

As soon as King stepped outside he bore the brunt of the weather.

It’s hard to tell whether the temperature’s plummeting or not when your body’s permanently warm and your heart rate’s constantly elevated. Now they’d had the time to cool down, they ventured out into the Machhermo air and King started shivering immediately.

Slater trudged behind him.

King couldn’t deny he was concerned.

‘How are you planning to get through this?’ he said. ‘We have close to another thousand feet of elevation to go. You sure you don’t want to stay here?’

Slater stared at him through half-closed eyes. ‘I’m not letting you do this alone.’

‘You’re no use like this. You have to admit that.’

Slater said, ‘All I need is to see them. Then adrenaline will take over. You know that just as well as I do.’

‘Sure, but that will only prop you up for so long.’

‘Then we’ll have to get it done quickly.’

Refusing to listen to another word, Slater brushed past King and began the trek up the hillside.

King bristled, but didn’t protest.

The truth was…

…he needed Will Slater.

He was far from a hundred percent, and he knew he couldn’t get it done alone. Not in this sort of compromised position. Sure, they’d decimated everyone they’d come into contact with, but exhaustion was creeping up on them. The silent killer. The more fatigued they became, the faster their reaction speed would plummet, and they’d lose the main advantage they carried over their competition.

Against trained insurgents, they’d fail spectacularly if they were doing it solo.

No, they needed each other, as much as their tender egos might hate to admit it.

King admitted it to himself. That was good enough.

They climbed out of Machhermo, weaving their way up sharp ascents until the rising elevation gave way to flat plains covered in snow and riddled with boulders. King likened it to a fantasy landscape — it was hard to believe the sweeping scenery was even real. He chalked half of it up to the terrain’s beauty, and half to his own delirium. Then it became a mad game of concentration as he struggled to balance the trekking itself with the constant need to watch for enemies.

He could see Slater struggling with it, too.

They passed handfuls of trekkers with recurring frequency, and each time King’s hand imperceptibly wandered to the Sig Sauer tucked under his jacket. He wouldn’t put it past the insurgents to disguise themselves amongst ordinary civilians, and each group they passed found themselves at the receiving end of paranoid stares from King and Slater. Frankly, they didn’t have the energy to be subtle.

They made it past all three of the Gokyo Lakes without so much as a glance of confirmation that they were on the insurgents’ heels.

It was somewhat demoralising.

And Slater clearly wasn’t happy with the nature of the terrain.

‘They could have one sniper out here and that’d be that,’ he said. ‘I don’t like this at all.’

‘Have you seen their arms?’ King said. ‘It’s all the same shit. P320s and AK-47s. Nothing else. I think they got a couple of shipments — one with the AKs, and one with the Sigs that fell off the back of one of our military’s trucks — and they’re working with that.’

‘It wouldn’t be hard to get a long-range rifle.’

‘Even so, they don’t know what we look like. We’ve got buffs covering our faces, glasses on our eyes — they’re not going to kill every pair of men walking together until they hit us. They’re not going to risk that kind of collateral — it’d kill their tourism industry and ruin the economy.’

He could almost see the gears turning over in Slater’s head, using what little brainpower he had left to compute the possibilities. Then he said, ‘Fair enough.’

‘We’re not far now.’

King watched Slater’s hand instinctively go to the gun at his waist. Just for reassurances sake. Slater said, ‘Then there’ll be a fight.’

‘Yes, there