The Cloud Maker Read online

  The Cloud Maker

  Patrick Woodhead

  To Luca Matthews the dangers of the high mountain peaks are the air upon which he thrives. In the ruthless pursuit of his goals he would sacrifice anything — even another climber's life. His friends and family know and fear it. So when he sights a virgin peak in the Himalayas that exists on no map, no one is surprised when he becomes obsessed with being the first to scale it. Together with his climbing partner, Bill Taylor, they set off into a region of Tibet highly restricted by the Chinese. But a freak accident puts one of their team in mortal danger and it is left to a local Tibetan girl to lead them to Geltang, a monastery that has been hidden from the outside world since the Chinese Cultural Revolution, when most of the monasteries were pillaged and burned. Soon, as the Chinese secret police get wind of them, Luca and Bill find themselves embroiled in an age-old struggle, not for their lives but to protect the precious secret that Geltang hides and the legacy of Tibet itself.

  Patrick Woodhead

  The Cloud Maker

  For Mike,

  Inspiration and friendship in equal measure

  ‘Tides rise. Red waters grow higher. Like islands we vanish one by one, enveloped by the darkness. We must have the courage to evolve, grow stronger. To understand that the losses will be justified, the balance met. Only through fighting for what we believe, can we be truly free.’

  Prologue

  Tibet, March 1956

  Just before the bend, he stopped.

  The noise he’d heard was like an animal crashing through the bamboo thickets and, thinking it might be just that, the young novice monk halted in his tracks. Then he heard sharp voices barking out orders in Mandarin. Veering off the path, he dropped low behind a dense thicket, his face only inches from the frozen ground.

  A few seconds later, four uniformed soldiers burst on to the path, rifles slung over their shoulders. They were talking fast, gesticulating with swift stabbing movements at something higher up the valley.

  Rega could see a pair of battered military boots just in front of him, tiny crystals of snow frosting the muddy laces. A few more steps and they would be on him. He could hear the soldier’s breathing, the sticky sounds of his mouth working as he chewed on tobacco.

  ‘Zai Nar!’ shouted another voice, further away, and the boots paused for a moment and then crunched off in the other direction. Rega let out a ragged breath, his relief mingling with horror as he realised what had just happened.

  One of the soldiers must have looked back across the interlocking valleys and seen — framed through a gap in the trees like a keyhole — what was meant to have stayed hidden in the jungle of the gorge for several more centuries.

  Moments later there were more shouts, and soon dozens of pairs of boots came tramping past where he lay.

  It was over. They had found them.

  All winter, in the icy basin of the Tsangpo gorge, the monks had waited. As the snows began to melt and the rhododendrons pushed their way through the layers of frost, they knew their time had come. Soon the days would lengthen and the Doshong-La would become passable again. The seasons were changing, and with them their fate.

  For months they had heard stories — whispered, terrible stories — filtering through from the outside world. Then, two weeks ago, a pair of snow-covered porters had stumbled into the monastery. Exhausted, they had risked everything to climb through the night and relay the news: on the opposite side of the colossal mountain peaks, they had seen the unmistakable tents of a Chinese patrol.

  It was obvious what they had come for — there was no other reason to be sitting at the bottom of one of the fiercest mountain passes in Tibet. Someone must have tipped them off. Now they were just waiting for the end of the winter snowstorms.

  As the hours passed, the young novice Rega remained perfectly still. The habitually smooth skin across his forehead was furrowed in confusion and his wide, brown eyes stared blankly out across the darkening gorge. He was naturally thin and wiry, having just reached twenty years of age, and even under his thick, winter tunic, he could feel the cold seeping up from the ground. His arms were folded tight across his chest, trying to stave off the chill, and his legs felt numb.

  At first he was unsure what the flicker of light was. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him after the long hours of cold and fear. But it continued, bigger now, a ball of orange which seemed to grow by the minute, shooting high into the night sky.

  The idea was so inconceivable that it was a while before Rega fully understood what he was seeing. Long tongues of fire, fanned and bolstered by the wind, were spreading out across the great timbers of the monastery roof. Even against the dark night sky, he could make out the smoke twisting upwards, the ashes billowing in the heat.

  Dragging himself upright, Rega staggered forward, mesmerised by the flames. He had to see what was happening. He had to see it with his own eyes.

  Snow scattered from overhanging leaves as he pushed his way through the undergrowth. His breath was coming shorter now from the climb, until at last, he stumbled into a clearing and saw the main façade of the monastery. Raising his arm to shield his face from the sudden wall of heat, he squinted at the devastation. The doors of the great library hung askew from massive hinges, their timbers charred and crumbling. Beyond, at the edge of the vaulted room, a towering mass of books was rapidly being engulfed by a wall of blue flame.

  Rega moved farther on, away from the heat, his felt boots passing soundlessly over the stone paving. So far he hadn’t seen a single person, either soldier or monk.

  Then he began to hear it: a thin, keening sound rising above the crackle of the fire.

  Squatting behind one of the huge wooden columns that surrounded the main courtyard, Rega then saw dim silhouettes moving between the shadows. Most of the monks stood round the edges of the courtyard while in the centre, about thirty of the eldest or most infirm stood together, herded into a tight cluster like cattle.

  Chinese soldiers stood in front of them, their black uniforms melting into the night.

  About ten yards from the main entrance to the courtyard, a young novice monk had been blindfolded. He stood facing a blank section of wall, shoulders hunched. Rega looked more closely and saw a rifle hanging loosely from his hands, the muzzle hovering only an inch or so above the ground.

  Suddenly the soldiers around him started shouting, thrusting their rifles into the air like clenched fists.

  ‘Shoot! Shoot!’

  As the novice took a pace backwards, struggling to raise the barrel of the rifle towards the blank wall with trembling hands, two of the soldiers grabbed one of the older monks from the huddle in the centre and pushed him directly in front of the weapon. Invisible to the novice, the old monk stumbled in front of him, his face only a few feet from the gun barrel.

  A high-pitched wail rose and echoed around the courtyard as the other monks bore witness to the scene.

  ‘Shoot! Shoot!’ shouted the soldiers once again. The novice paused, bewildered by the noise.

  One of the soldiers closed in on him. He moved with the swagger of authority, his sleeves rolled up past his elbows. Epaulettes with gold insignia flashed in the firelight as he went to stand directly behind the novice. Rega could see that he was whispering something. Then the rifle cracked and the novice was sent staggering back, knocking into the officer behind him.

  There was silence. The wail of the monks halted as the body of the old monk slumped on to the courtyard’s flagstones, his legs crumpling beneath him.

  The bewildered silence was suddenly pierced by further shots, but this time it was the other soldiers, firing their rifles into the air and cheering.

  The officer moved round in front of the novice and, taking the rifle from him,
patted his shoulder reassuringly. The boy’s knees sagged and the officer reached forward to support him. For a moment they stood locked together, two figures set apart from the others.

  Then, with practised movements, the officer swivelled the rifle in his hands and slammed the bolt action shut once again. Without turning to look at the huddled group of old monks, he shouted, ‘Next!’

  Rega watched, his mouth dry with horror as another man was shunted forward from the group. Why the old ones? Were they simply too much of a burden to take back over the mountain pass? Or was he witnessing an example of the senseless violence they had all heard was accompanying this so-called ‘Cultural Revolution’?

  In the far corner of the courtyard he suddenly heard the sound of women screaming. It had to be the two nuns that had arrived as emissaries from Namzong nunnery. The temple doors were flung open and, through the gloom, he could see what a small group of soldiers was doing inside. For a moment he watched, revulsion rising like bile in his throat. Then a sudden surge of adrenaline unlocked the paraly-sis in his legs. He must get away from this place, get out, tell others.

  As Rega went to turn away, he felt a sudden push from behind. The blow sent him sprawling forward on to the flagstones and Rega twisted round in time to see the grinning face of a soldier stepping out from the shadows.

  He was a big man, with a jowly face and dark, gleeful eyes. He grabbed the neck of Rega’s tunic and pulled him up with one arm so that their faces were almost touching. The stink of stale tobacco was sharp on his breath.

  ‘You like watching?’ The fillings in his teeth gleamed in the dark. ‘We can fix that.’

  Spinning Rega’s wiry body round, he slammed his knee into his back and pinned him to the floor, pressing the side of his face against the flagstones. Rega felt his mind empty. He didn’t say a word, but just stared past the columns of the courtyard at the flames leaping up to swallow the roof of the library. The blue and orange tongues of fire were iridescent against the black sky.

  Above him, the soldier had untied the sling from his rifle and was quickly looping it into two knots, a few inches apart. He drew the sling in front of Rega’s face so that there was a knot in front of each eye socket. There was a pause, then Rega screamed as his whole head was yanked backwards with a violent jerk. The soldier twisted the sling round like a tourniquet, tightening the pressure with each turn.

  Rega clawed behind him with useless hands, the scream dying on his lips. His cheeks tightened, trying to resist the immense pressure as the knots burrowed deeper and deeper into his skull. With another half-turn, the knots sank further still until his eyeballs imploded, a viscous, cloudy liquid streaming down his cheeks.

  Rega let out a gurgling sound as he went limp on the floor.

  Those beautiful, burning rooftops were the last thing he’d ever see.

  Chapter 1

  20 April 2005

  It was six in the morning and dawn had just broken over the roof of the world. Tawny fingers of light filtered down past the jagged peaks of the Himalayas, lending a luminous glow to the orange tents staked down on the dark scree.

  Luca Matthews unzipped his tent and, still in his thermal underwear, stepped out into the freezing mountain air. He was tall with a powerful back that stretched the fabric of his thermals as he unfolded himself from the tent. Scruffy, dark-blond hair fell across a face that was deeply tanned by the intense mountain sun. Only his eyes were ringed with paler patches from where he had been wearing his glacier goggles.

  For a few moments he stood there, sipping coffee from a tin mug and savouring the feeling of being the first up. He only ever needed a few hours’ sleep each night and often found the morning’s silence one of the rare moments in the day when he felt truly calm. As he breathed in the tingling air, the heat from his mug eased the swelling in his knuckles. Peeling some dead skin off the pads of his left hand, he ran his finger gingerly over a cut that stretched all the way back to his wrist, and shook his head. Bloody climbing injuries. They just never seemed to heal in the dry mountain air.

  Grabbing a sheepskin coat that he had bought for a few hundred rupees from one of the market stalls in Kathmandu, he weaved past the smouldering remains of the campfire, balanced his mug carefully on a rock, and urinated. When he was younger, his father had impressed upon him the importance of having a good view when taking a piss. Little did Luca know then it would turn out to be one of the only things that he and the old bastard would agree on.

  Crooking his neck to one side, Luca yawned and massaged a shoulder blade. After five days of lugging provisions up to base camp, the straps of his rucksack had bitten deep into his back. No doubt about it, this was the most thankless part of the climb: effort without technique or reward, encouraged only by the sight of an occasional peak piercing the blanket of cloud overhead.

  Hopping on to another boulder, he sat down and wrapped his arms round his legs, drawing his knees up under his chin in his habitual pose. His eyes followed the incline of the mountain as it curved up for two or three miles before hitting the first glacier, a snub nose of pitted ice gleaming brilliantly in the morning light. Beyond it, range after range of mountains extended back to the horizon, their pinnacles reaching high enough to be whipped by the ferocious winds of the earth’s Gulf Stream.

  Two and a half thousand metres above him, the summit ridge finally came into view; the last stretch of ground between him and the top of Makalu, the fifth highest mountain on earth and Luca’s second eight-thousand-metre peak.

  Normally the sight would have given him a jolt of pure excitement but this morning Luca felt distinctly unsettled, a jittery unease that seemed to seep from his stomach into his bones. Flicking the rest of his coffee on to the ground, he watched it steam for a moment before striding back to the tents.

  Getting to that ridge was going to be the most dangerous part of the climb.

  ‘You planning on sleeping the whole day, princess?’ Luca called, banging on the frame of one of the tents.

  The snoring inside stopped and there was a shuffling noise, then the sound of a throat being cleared.

  ‘Christ, that has to be one of the worst sleeps I’ve ever had. My damn’ Therma-rest deflated halfway through the night.’

  Luca grinned. ‘How about some coffee to celebrate your good mood?’

  More shuffling, then the tent’s zip peeled open to reveal the square-jawed face of Bill Taylor. A few days’ worth of stubble darkened his chin, and his normally amused-looking pale blue eyes were puffy from lack of sleep. Above his sunburned forehead, thinning hair stuck straight up from his head as if he’d just received some kind of electrical shock.

  ‘I’ll stick to tea, thanks, mate,’ he said, the words swallowed up by another cavernous yawn. ‘It beats me how you mainline that filthy stuff.’

  Luca leaned down to put the saucepan of water on the tiny portable stove and turned the nozzle. A gentle roaring sound filled the campsite. He watched Bill slowly unfurl his large frame from inside his sleeping bag.

  ‘You look like shit,’ Luca said softly. ‘You sure you’re up to starting the climb today?’

  ‘Are you kidding? I’ll be fine.’

  Bill stretched his arms high above his head before lumbering over to the same rock as Luca had done to relieve himself. ‘But I’m relying on you to have found us the perfect route up.’

  Luca’s eyes shifted back to the mountain face, his jaw clenching.

  ‘It’s quite simple on the first section, pretty much all the way up to where we’ll set up camp two. After that, there’s the long stretch through that vertical ice field. Of course, that’s going to be more hairy. But once we make it on to the summit ridge, it’s no more than two hours to the top.’

  Bill had wandered back and now crouched down beside him, his gaze also fixed on the mountain. Luca handed him a mug and poured in some boiling water. As Bill took the steaming tea their eyes met for a second and, before he had even opened his mouth, Luca knew what he was going to say.
<
br />   ‘Piece of piss.’

  Luca grinned.

  An hour and forty-five minutes later, they were on their way.

  Chapter 2

  They had been climbing for nine hours with barely a word exchanged. The dull ache of exhausted muscles made their movements clumsy and uncoordinated.

  Luca led up a long, curving arête, plodding through the deep snow and breaking trail. From his waist harness, two eight-millimetre climbing ropes trailed down, snaking over the snow and outcrops of ice to where Bill was climbing, fifty feet below. They had been taking it in turns to lead, but as the hours passed the sinking snow had sapped every ounce of their strength. Both moved at the same unrelenting pace, an ice axe held loosely in their leading hand.

  Trying to steady his breathing, Luca forced himself to slow his movements as he kicked down in the snow: once… twice… Only on the third attempt did he manage to stamp down enough powder to step forward. But every few minutes he would puncture through the crust, sinking down past his thighs. At the sudden jarring, his heavy rucksack would wrench him off-balance, jerking his body round painfully and Bill would simply wait, unable to help, while Luca wasted yet more energy trying to right himself again.

  The morning’s clear skies had been replaced by a thick belt of dark cloud that loomed over the higher reaches of the mountain. With this came a strong wind that funnelled up the ridge and both climbers were forced to crook their necks to one side, sheltering under their hooded Gore-Tex jackets.

  Just up ahead, the ridge hit the main vertical wall of ice that they had seen from base camp. They needed to camp further back from the wall, far enough away from falling rocks and ice. Checking his watch, Luca swung off his rucksack and began untying the shovel strapped to the back. As he began digging, Bill slowly closed up the remaining distance, arriving out of breath and leaning his hands on his knees, while he recovered.