She lay with her back against a rock allowing the sun to warm her face, and he slumped beside her, accepting a bottle of water she retrieved from her rucksack.
He drank deeply before returning it. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he wheezed.
‘Me too.’
‘I’m beginning to regret being quite so clever.’
‘Uhuh,’ she grunted. ‘But it’s a little too late to change your mind, seeing as we’ve signed the contract and all, and unless you happen to have a handy little helicopter in your pocket to get us out of here.’
Gervaise Pearson, the documentary producer and leader of the three-man film team, ambled over to sit down beside them. He was short and plump and looked out of place amongst the hard edges of the mountains, but the appearance was deceptive. Gerry had made his name filming persecuted Kurds in the no-go zone of northern Iran and documenting the massacre of indigenous tribespeople by Muslim extremists in the jungles of Indonesia. He was tougher than he looked.
‘Enjoying our little stroll, are we?’
Jamie smiled through gritted teeth. ‘Every moment, Gerry.’
‘Only I’m wondering what the hell you’re doing here? Not that I’m displeased to have your company.’ He gave Sarah an oily grin that reminded her he’d tried to seduce her on the first night and was still owed.
She waved a slim hand to push the dark hair from her eyes. ‘We’re making a documentary, Gerry,’ she said sweetly, ‘unless that little guy who keeps pointing the camera at me is some kind of pervert.’
‘I’m aware of that, dear heart. But old Gerry likes to be in the know and old Gerry thinks we are going to a hell of a lot of trouble to film what is only going to be a tiny part of it. This documentary is principally about your friend Walter Brohm and the Raphael, the mysterious Tibetan crater will only get two minutes at the start, with a voiceover that could just as easily have gone with a stock picture of the SS and a panning shot across Everest.’
The film-maker produced a schedule, a map and a satellite image from his pack. He opened the map.
‘Instead, we are here.’ He pointed to a spot just inside the Tibetan border. ‘Or so the guide tells me. Personally I haven’t a bloody clue. Our destination is here. Another two days’ march away.’ He placed the satellite image on the map. ‘The crater that Brohm and his SS Ahnenerbe chums explored in nineteen thirty-seven and which our lords and masters are so interested in. When we get there we give the crater the once-over, film you and your piece of tottie with anything of particular interest and then you do your “Once more into the breach” piece to camera. As I say, a great deal of effort for little return in a place that gives me the willies. My bosses were most insistent that we filmed in the crater, and I gather the reason they were most insistent is that Vanderbilt Media whistled, and when Vanderbilt whistles my lords and masters roll over and beg. Not that I’m complaining, I’m getting a rather large fee and enough danger money to make a couple of nights cuddling the bedbugs in a Chinese jail just about bearable. I only thought that, perhaps, you had a little more information on the whys and wherefores that would put my troubled mind to rest?’
Jamie gave him his most reassuring grin. ‘’Fraid, we can’t help you there, Gerry. The only thing they told us was that this would be like taking a stroll down Piccadilly with you in charge, and I must say they’ve been spot on so far.’
Back in London, Simon studied Jamie’s tropical fish with the care of a surgeon about to make his first cut, a cardboard cylinder held steady in his hand above the tank. For the second or third time in a week he wished to God he’d never agreed to feed the bloody things. How much? That was the question. Too much and he’d kill them. Too little and they might starve to death before Jamie came back. A knock on the door saved him from having to make a decision..
The man who filled the frame looked as broad as he was tall and the bruises on his face seemed to suggest he’d been in some kind of accident. Simon wasn’t the kind of person to start at shadows, but he found his presence intimidating.
‘Can I help you?’ he asked.
‘Can you hear anything?’
‘No,’ Jamie yawned, blinking against the brightness barely filtered by the thin material of the tent.
‘That might not be good.’
‘Why?’
‘Because every other morning we’ve woken on this trip the porters have been making breakfast and being darned noisy about it.’
‘Stay here,’ he ordered, struggling out of his sleeping bag and putting on his trousers. He wrapped his scarf around his neck, pulled on his hiking boots and his jacket. He was reaching for the tent flap when something occurred to him. ‘Aren’t you going to argue with me?’