24

"Shut up now, Stevo. I'm trying to sleep."

Ten-four, mate," says Stevo. "After today, we could all use some shut-eye."

Within minutes, he is snoring obliviously, and you yourself are falling inexorably into a deep and dreamless sleep.

The storm has let up fractionally the following morning, but the weather in the pass is still unbearably savage. And the bad news doesn't stop there. Stevo wakes running a burning fever; he is so weak that his legs tremble when he stands. His wound must be infected.

"Tie him on a yak," says Zhu. "He cannot walk. We must press on."

After a few hours of fruitless searching in the dim morning light, something catches your eye. Roughly in the middle of the pass, something is poking up out of the snow, brown and solid amid the endless white. You get closer and realize what it is: a boot, sturdy and military looking.

"Here!" you yell out to your companions. "I think it's a body."

Zhu follows your gaze and ponders for a few moments. "You want to dig him out? Find out what happened?"

You and the guides set to work with shovels, working fast in the freezing snow. After about fifteen minutes, you have freed the corpse from its icy prison, and it lies stretched out before you. Its skin is blue and frozen, the hairs on its fur wrapping standing rigid and brittle. A swastika armband is wrapped around the right bicep.