Iced!: The 2007 Journal of Nick Fitzmorgan (15 page)

I WAS SO HAPPY DAD WAS OKAY!

I united my dad, grabbed the oxygen
mask, and handed it to him.

Grinning all the while, he breathed in oxygen, and his color started to return to normal.

He held out his arms to me, and we hugged for a long time.

My eyes filled with tears, and when I pulled away, I saw Dad’s eyes were shiny with tears, as well.

“Where’s Benny?” he asked me.

Quickly, I told him about how I’d come up the mountain with Maura and Jiban. And about my struggle with Benny, and that he
was tied up on the other side of the rock.

His eyes had widened with fear as I recounted my story. But now they were filled with pride. “Outstanding job, Nick,” he said
as he squeezed my gloved hand in his. “You’ve done incredible work.”

Even though he’d been breathing in the oxygen and was now sitting up, Dad still looked exhausted and beat up. But I couldn’t
resist starting in with a question. “Okay, here’s what I’ve been wanting to ask for days: What. Is. Going. On?”

Dad chuckled. “Sounds like you’ve worked it out already. Here’s the short version: I was working on that screenplay with Benny.
I couldn’t let go of the idea that Mallory might have been the first to climb to the summit. I started to hunt for his camera.
When Benny realized my research could destroy his movie, he warned me to back off, but …” He shrugged with a sheepish smile.

“But you couldn’t let it go,” I finished for him.

Nodding, Dad said, “Benny came to the house, kidnapped me at gunpoint, and forced me to come to Everest with him. Once we
left the house, he told me he’d come after you if I didn’t do exactly as he said. Benny wanted me to use my knowledge of Mallory
to find the camera. Then he would destroy it, and his movie would be safe.”

The thought of Benny pulling a gun on my dad made my stomach clench. “It’s still hard to believe Uncle Benny would do all
this!”

“I know,” said my dad. “He used to be such a good guy. I guess the pressure of possibly losing everything finally got to him.”

“But what about the timing?” A voice said behind me. I turned, and Maura was there.

MAURA FOUND US.

“Maura!” I cried, and got to my feet.

She came over to me and put her arm around my shoulders. “I’m so glad to see you, Nick.”

“Me, too,” I agreed And turned to my dad. “This is Maura.”

“I know.” Dad smiled at her. “We met last time I was at PDA.”

“Where’s Jiban?” I asked Maura.

“After you unclipped, we got separated looking for you,” she replied. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. The worst of the storm has
passed, and the skies are already clearing.” She looked at my dad. “You have no idea how hard your son worked to find you,
sir.”

Blushing, I said, “Maura’s right, Dad. I mean, about the timing. How did you have time to set up all the clues for me in Los
Angeles?”

DAD SMILED AT MAURA.

Dad nodded, as If he had expected this question. “Ever since I told Benny I wanted to find Mallory’s camera, my detective
radar had been telling me that things weren’t quite right. I could feel that something sinister was going on. For one thing,
someone was tampering with my mail. I was worried. I planted the clues in our office and told Jiban what to do if he didn’t
hear from me at the regular time we set.”

“How did you know to tell me to come to Everest?” I wondered. “How could you be sure that you’d be kidnapped and brought here?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t know. At that point, I wasn’t even completely sure Benny was a bad guy—or at least I didn’t want
to believe it. The clues were supposed to show you that if I had an ‘accident’ or disappeared, it probably had something to
do with Mallory’s camera. I didn’t think you’d follow them all the way to Everest!”

Now I was starting to understand. “So you had the clues all ready when Uncle Benny nabbed you?”

“That’s right,” Dad said. “I’d set them up two weeks ago. Then the day of the kidnapping, I spotted Benny lurking outside
our office window. He was activating a cell-phone jammer to block any calls for help I might have made.”

That’s why I hadn’t been able to reach him from the plane after I left PDA, I thought.

Dad continued, “Benny was heading inside the house and I knew I had limited time to act.”

Maura asked, “Why didn’t you just write a note?”

“Benny might have found it and destroyed it. I had to leave a message that only a detective could find. I pricked my own finger
and left a drop of blood on the MP3 player, and then quickly set up the clock on the floor. Everything else was already set
up in case of just such an emergency.” My dad looked at me. “I knew you would unravel the clues and solve the mystery!”

Dad was smiling, but he shuddered. He was getting too cold. It was time to get him off this mountain. Together, Maura and
I helped him to his feet.

As he was brushing the snow off his down parka, I said, “Too bad you couldn’t find the camera.”

Dad smiled. And there was something about that smile …

I gazed at him. “No!” I cried in disbelief.

“What?” Maura asked, looking at me and then my dad. “What’s going on?”

As if to answer her, my dad took off one glove and reached into the pocket of his jacket very carefully. When he removed his
hand again, he was holding something up for us to see.

It was a camera. Mallory’s camera, to be specific.

My dad explained that the camera was actually about 750 feet uphill from where Mallory’s body was discovered. A few years
earlier, there were rumors that a Sherpa had found a pen near that spot with the date 1923 and the inscription “To my darling
George” on it. Why might a lost pen indicate that a camera was nearby? This Vest Pocket B had a special feature. It allowed
someone to write an inscription directly onto the film through a little window in the back of camera. Dad determined that
the pen was out because Mallory was writing something either in a notebook … or on the camera itself. Since no notebook was
discovered, my dad decided there was a fifty-fifty chance that the camera was near where the pen was discovered.

DAD HAD MALLORY’S CAMERA!

“I always wanted to see if my hunch was correct,” Dad said. “And Benny kidnapping me gave me a chance to find out. When we
were on a ridGe above the spot where the pen had been found, I acted like I had a cramp. I faked a collapse and rolled down
the slope. By the time Benny got down to me, I had found the camera and tucked it into my coat without him noticing. Then
I pretended to help him look for the camera. After a few hours, Benny gave up, and we headed back down the mountain. When
the blizzard started, he decided he didn’t need me anymore. He tied me up and left me here. He never knew I’d found the camera.”

Dad had it—the camera that could answer one of the world’s greatest mysteries.

“Why, Henry Fitzmorgan!” Jiban called out. He had just come around the rock outcropping.

“Jiban, my friend!” Dad cried. He gently handed me the camera and rushed to Jiban. My dad threw his arms around him.

The Sherpa looked embarrassed for a second but then returned the hug wholeheartedly.

DAD HUGGED JIBAN.

“I can’t believe we found You,” Jiban said.

“I can,” Dad said, pulling back from Jiban so he could look him in the eye. “Thank you for everything.”

Jiban appeared embarrassed again and looked down.

I told Jiban and Maura about what had happened with Uncle Benny. When I was finished, Dad turned to me. “Nick,” he said, “what
are you thinking of doing with the camera?”

I gazed down at the incredible object in my hands. This camera had been up on this mountain for more than eighty years, and
yet it looked as good as new.

I thought about what Jiban had said about leaving things on the mountain. That to take a dead person’s property off the mountain
was like robbing his or her grave.

“We have to do what we can to protect George Mallory’s final resting place,” I finally said. “The camera should stay up here.”

Dad’s face broke out into a new grin. “Bully for you, as Judge would say.” He clapped me on the back. “I agree with you a
hundred percent. I guess we’ve solved enough cases to know that some mysteries are best left unsolved. To honor the memory
of Mallory, we’ll put the camera bade where I found it.”

“But you’re way too beat up, Dad,” I said. “You can’t make that climb again.”

“I’ll do it,” Jiban volunteered. He was smiling. “I’m happy to return the camera. After that, I’ll continue on to the summit
and fulfill my lifelong dream of climbing this mountain goddess.”

Before he left, Jiban helped himself to supplies from the sled that Uncle Benny had left near my dad. When he was loaded up
with extra oxygen tanks and water, we all gathered around him.

I handed him Mallory’s camera, which he carefully put into his pack.