Armageddon - By James Patterson Page 0,48

our two armies had grown to two, maybe three miles.

I’m growing weary, I heard my father say telepathically.

I never think of my dad as old, but right then he sounded ancient. Feeble.

Suddenly the cramped passageway we were shuffling through opened up, and we moved into an alpine valley beneath towering, snowcapped mountains—all of it eerily illuminated by glowing patches embedded in the earth, forty thousand feet above our heads.

“Incredible,” said Dana. “It’s like we’re outdoors, underground.”

“Only the sky is pitch black,” said Willy. “And it looks like there’s a couple hundred moons.”

“Because that isn’t the sky, and those aren’t moons,” said Emma. “Those are phosphorescent mineral deposits. We’re looking up, at the Earth’s crust.”

“According to my readings, we’re nine miles underground,” Joe said, consulting his super-intelligent smartphone, which was loaded up with apps they don’t sell in any store on Earth.

I used my 128:1 zoom vision to track Abbadon’s black-hooded throngs.

“They’re heading up into the mountains,” I reported.

Then, son, said my father, you better head up into the mountains, too.

Chapter 66

JOE DID SOME reflected laser readings and simple triangulation geometry and confirmed what I already suspected: Number 2’s minions were leading us up a mountain taller than Everest, the highest peak on the face of the Earth.

“The ascent, however,” said Willy, “is more similar to K2, the second-highest summit.”

That was not good news. K2 is a much more difficult and dangerous climb than Everest, with hanging glaciers clinging to the ridges near the summit and a narrow mountain gulley filled with ice and snow that rises at an eighty-degree angle. For every four people who reach K2’s summit, one dies trying.

“We don’t have time to acclimate to the altitude,” Dana said, adding another problem to our growing pile.

I turned to Agent Judge. “It’d be suicide to march the entire strike force up the face of that mountain.”

“What do you suggest?”

“That my friends and I go forward with two dozen of your top mountain climbers.”

“We’ve got some airborne guys from the Tenth Mountain Division. And some of the Special Ops guys did time up in the Hindu Kush range of Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

“Excellent. They’re with us. You lead the others out of here. Backtrack the way we came in.”

Agent Judge shook his head. “I’m not turning back, Daniel. Mel is my daughter.”

“Yes, sir. But she’s already lost her mother, and I refuse to allow this mountain to turn her into an orphan. With all due respect, sir, there is no way you can make the climb. And if you tried? We’re all tied together on the safety line. You slip and fall to your death, you’re taking people with you.”

“I’m coming,” said Lieutenant Russell. “We’re trained to survive in extreme environments. Plus, I’m particularly good in low-oxygen situations. I can hold my breath underwater for three full minutes.”

I grinned. I had to admire the guy’s guts.

The thirty of us moving forward started our ascent up the craggy face of the mountain in the frigid air. Wispy clouds shrouded us in total darkness, taking visibility down to zero. Of course, I don’t need to “see” to see, so I led the way. I had materialized crampons (spiked climbing shoes), carabiners, and climbing ropes—not to mention helmets, gloves, goggles, and tons of North Face thermal wear. We had left all the alien weapons with Agent Judge and the guys heading home.

So far, Abbadon’s forces hadn’t attacked us with overwhelming firepower. In fact, they hadn’t attacked us at all. If things changed, I’d quickly create all the alien-frying heavy artillery we needed.

Snug in our webbed harnesses, tethered to a safety line, we were making slow but steady progress up the frozen face of the mountain. The strike force members were fit but fatiguing, fast. At high altitudes, starved for oxygen, muscles chill. Brains tend to turn to mush.

“Blue ice!” Willy shouted as he probed the ground with his ice ax, looking to secure another anchor. “We need to change course. Rappel under that overhanging glacier.” He pointed to a three-hundred-foot-high hanging ice cliff, chunks of which could break off at any moment. “When we get to the other side, we scale the final four hundred feet up that steep ridge to reach the summit.”

“Let’s do it.”

Dana and I were the first ones to swing from a dead snag over the jagged ravine that plummeted beneath the projecting prow of ice. With lines belayed, we brought the rest of the team across in their slings, one by one.

Until the giant block of ice broke and