25

Search the body.

The coat pockets are empty. You fumble with the fastenings of the outer layers and feel inside. In an inner pocket, you find a folded clutch of papers. Military identification documents.

"Wolfgang Weber," you say, reading the key information aloud. "A Scharfuhrer—squad leader—in the SS. One of the Operation Lyngvi boys, no less."

The soldier has nothing else of value on him.

You nod to Zhu. You're done here. You've learned all you can from this man.

You press on farther into the white.

A couple of hours after the boot, another unexpected sight looms out of the storm.

There's a shallow indentation in the right-hand valley wall, sheltered from the worst of the wind and snow by an overhanging rock. A battered little tent is pitched under the overhang.

There are no immediate signs of life, but you do spot some details that catch your interest. A firepit surrounded by stones is set up under the overhang, sheltered from the snowfall. And the corpse of a young man is sat up against a rock near the tent.

The corpse's legs are buried under fallen snow, but his frozen blue torso and head lay clear of it. Two things are immediately noticeable about the corpse. The first is that the upper layers of clothing have been removed; his belly and chest are naked and exposed to the biting Himalayan wind. The second is that his right arm has been hacked off entirely at the shoulder.