Within ten minutes they were both sitting cross-legged, panting, on the wind-swept crest of the Parrot glacier. They had pulled up one of the ropes and freed it from its piton, and now it lay coiled beside Hale. It was an unwieldy pile. He had unslung his Kalashnikov and fitted a fresh magazine into the receiver in case the helicopter might reappear, but the racing wind had not abated since he had shot the djinn by the Black Ark, and he didn't think the aircraft would dare approach the mountain now.
Philby swung his frosted, blood-blackened face toward Hale, and his eyes were invisible behind the sky glare on the goggle lenses. "Shoot the other rope," he said, loudly to be heard over the wind.
Hale thought of Hakob Mammalian, conceivably still alive down there on the northern face, making his wounded way to the ledge and finding both the static lines gone. "No," he called back to Philby, wearily standing up and slinging his gun. He bent down to pick up the coil of rope, then straightened with it and began plodding up the crest, toward the windward side of the glacier. "Come on, the sun's past noon."
From behind him he heard Philby say, "D-damn you! Then I'll d-do it."
Hale spun clumsily around, his crampons grating on the ice as he dropped the coiled rope, and Philby was standing, and had already unslung his own Kalashnikov and was lifting it to his shoulder.
The derringer felt extraordinarily heavy in Hale's right hand as he drew it and raised it to point it at Philby's back, and cocking the hammer against its tight spring seemed to take all of his remaining strength.
Am I my brother's keeper?
Philby was aiming, and had not fired yet.
Hale touched the derringer's trigger with his forefinger, and the little gun flared and hammered back hard into his palm.
Then his knees hit the snow, and Hale was simply too exhausted to try to re-cock the derringer or raise the barrel of his machine gun.
Through watering eyes he peered past the retinal glare at the silhouette of Philby.
The man had fallen to one knee, and his head was down, and he was making a noise, a flat monotone wail. The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground, thought Hale, fearful that he might have been standing too close to him. How wide would the shot pattern have spread in twelve feet?
"Are you dying?" Hale croaked. He blinked around at the infinity of snow. He could melt some between his palms. "I can baptize you."
Then with a shout of pain Philby had straightened up and turned, and Hale saw that the muzzle of Philby's Kalashnikov, though wobbling, was pointed straight at him.
"If," grated Philby, "I t-try again to shoot the r-rope, will you-" He inhaled with a near shriek. "Will you sh-shoot me, again?"
Hale stared through a red haze of exhaustion into the ring of the wavering muzzle. He took a deep breath, wondering if Elena might have been aboard the French helicopter. "Yes," he said.
Philby's answering howl was lost in the battering roar of the machine gun, but Hale could see that the muzzle flare was slanted away to the left side of him; and after three deafening seconds the gun stuttered to a ringing halt, its thirty-round magazine emptied.
Then Philby was on his knees in front of Hale, shaking him weakly by the shoulders, and the mouth opened in the frosted black face and Philby was screaming, "I would n-not shoot my own f-family!" The wind was strengthening, flinging clouds of obscuring snow over them and down the slope behind them. Philby fell back, his hands clasped across his chest in evident pain. "C-can we!" he said loudly. "Get down off th-this, to the Cehennem Dere?"
Hale nodded. He recalled that the Spetsnaz had left the piton in the edge of this glacier, between the cornices over the level where the tents had been. He would find the little iron ring, if he had to crawl the whole length of the glacier edge.
The south sides of the tents were nearly buried in fresh snowdrifts, and Hale and Philby had blundered a dozen yards past them in the flying white haze before Hale happened to look back and see the rectangular shapes. He waved to catch Philby's attention, and pointed back.
Philby had to walk stiffly around in a circle to look back; and then he didn't nod, but waved his left hand weakly, and began trudging heavily in that direction, leaning into the snowy wind.
Hale tugged his machine gun forward, into the Bedu position-God knew what the response of the two Turks would be to the return of only two of the thirteen men who had gone up the mountain. Ahead of him, Philby laboriously unslung his own machine gun and limped forward carrying it.
Hale peered through nearly blinded eyes at Philby's back; he thought he could see a couple of the tiny pin-holes where the birdshot had penetrated, but of course there was no blood visible on this outermost layer of clothing.
"Fuad!" roared Philby as he stepped up to the tent entrance. "Umit! Open up in the n-name of the KGB!"
The wall of the tent fluttered, and then snow was being punched away from the tent entrance from the inside; at last Hale saw yellow lamplight through a vertical slit between rubberized canvas flaps, and a gun muzzle pointed out.
"You m-mad sod," shouted Philby, "p-put that down. Who d-do you sup-suppose it is out h-here that knows your n-names?"
Enough snow had been shoved away so that the flap could be pulled open, and Philby was a shaggy silhouette against the lamplight as he blundered inside. Hale pulled his numb feet quickly through the snowdrifts to enter right behind him.
The still air of the tent burned on Hale's face as he let himself collapse into a sitting position. One of the Turks was at the tent opening, but the other seemed to be closer. Philby fell heavily to his knees and demanded the bottle of arak, and Hale rocked his head in an emphatic nod. Philby had brought his flasks with him onto the mountain, but of course there was the risk that the liquor in them might by now be far below the freezing temperature of water, though still liquid, so that one mouthful would freeze teeth and tongue and throat.
Through his watering, ice-crusted eyes Hale could see only blurry silhouettes and a yellow glow that was the paraffin lamp, but he could make out the shape of one of the Turks standing over him.
"Where are the others?" the Turk asked, his voice ringing in Hale's ears.