Seal Team Six Hunt the Wolf(32)
Ten feet closer to the edge of the mountain, they saw the heel of a boot poking through the snow. Pouncing on the spot, they dug frantically. One leg, to his butt, to another leg, then his torso. They found Akil sitting upside down under five feet of snow.
Crocker figured he’d been there two or three minutes at the most as he dug around Akil’s head and found a pulse on his icy cold neck. “He’s barely breathing and is probably hypothermic.”
Working together, they grabbed him around the legs and torso and carefully slid him free. They had him seated on the ground, and were brushing snow off his beard and head when the big Egyptian American opened his eyes.
“What the fuck…”
“Easy, Akil.”
“Where the hell am I?” Blinking, grabbing his right shoulder.
Davis gave him a drink of Jack Daniel’s from a small metal flask.
Crocker warned, “Just a sip.” He knew that any attempt to warm a victim of even moderate hypothermia too quickly could result in metabolic acidosis, which could cause a stroke or heart failure. “We need to get him off the ground and warm him up slowly.”
They sat him on Davis’s backpack, then wrapped Akil in a lightweight Tyvek blanket, making sure his head was covered. Within minutes his breathing and color returned to normal.
Akil looked up into the faces of his two colleagues and asked, “What’d you do with Edyta?”
“We haven’t found her yet.”
“What?” Akil tried to pull himself up. He got as far as his knees and fell back.
“You stay with Davis,” Crocker instructed. “I’ll look for her.”
“Hurry up!”
The team leader worked his way to the edge, zigzagging every three or four feet to dig, but found no sign of her. He thought of circling back, but since he was within six feet of the drop-off he decided to get on his belly, slide forward, and steal a look.
Akil shouted behind him. “Boss. Boss! What the hell are you doing?”
The distance down was even worse than Crocker had thought. A two-hundred-foot drop-off at least. The huge mass of snow had hit the gray granite face at an angle and dispersed. Most of it had ended up hundreds of yards lower, on another slope.
He was thinking No living thing could survive that when on his left periphery he noticed a bright yellow spot about 250 feet down. His heart sank.
Removing a small pair of binoculars from his pack, he focused on the yellow mitten with the palm facing upward.
Edyta!
He watched and waited for her hand to move. It didn’t.
Together the two men helped Akil over the ridge. He was still groggy and having trouble putting weight on his right ankle. They stopped to rest.
“You saw her? You one hundred percent sure about that?” Akil asked for the third time.
“It was her, yes. I ID’d her by her mitten. Yellow. Her hand wasn’t moving.”
“How can we be sure she’s not alive?”
“I can’t be absolutely positive. But there’s no way anyone could survive that fall.”
“Edyta’s tougher than shit.”
“I know that.”
The SEAL team leader tried to be patient. He understood his colleague’s distress. “It’s at least two hundred feet onto a solid granite face. Like I said before, I watched and waited, but her hand wasn’t moving.”
“That’s all you saw? Her hand?”
“Her gloved hand, part of her wrist.”
Hurt and anger burned in Akil’s dark eyes. “I think we should go back and try throwing her a line.”
Crocker had considered that option and come to the conclusion that it was impossible and too dangerous to attempt. He said, “The ledge won’t hold our weight for one thing. Number two, it’s impossible to descend from there. Three, if we throw down a line, we’re gonna need something like four hundred feet of it, which we don’t have. And finally, if by some miracle she’s alive and able to grab it, there’s no way we’ll be able to pull her up without the whole ridge giving way.”
“I’m going to try!”
“No you’re not.”
Akil tried to push past.
Crocker grabbed the front of his parka. “Look, the only way to reach her is from below. That would mean climbing down way past last night’s camp and making an ascent from there. We’re talking two days at least.”
“Two days? Bullshit.”
Crocker understood Akil’s desire to reach her. He said, “When we get to camp, we’ll radio for a rescue party. It’s the best, fastest option by far.”
“Maybe we do have enough line if we tie everything together. We can try that at least!”
“How is she going to grab onto it if her hand isn’t moving?”