Free Powder Burn (Burn with Sam Blackett #1) by Mark Chisnell Page A

spoke . “No, not clever – conniving, sly, duplicitous, scheming, manipulative, cunning maybe – but definitely not clever.”
    “ Look, Sam, I’m not proud of what I’ve done – but there was no choice. We couldn’t take the chance of you giving away the location of Powder Burn.”
    She shook her head again. “I can’t believe you’ve dragged me into this ludicrous, insane plan, way past the point of no return. I was beginning to think you were my friends ...”
    The two men exchanged a look. “Don’t blame Pete for this, it’s all my fault,” said Lens. “I’m sorry, but there was no other way,” he continued. “I’ll leave you to think about it, I’ll get a cup of coffee with Vegas.”
    When he was gone, Pete looked down and kicked at the snow with the toes of his boots. “I’m sorry too ...”
    “ You’re sorry?” she replied. “Well, now I’m going to tell you a little secret. I’ve only ever had one travel story published, and that was about a climbing hotel in Kashmir, specially written for the 1,251 readers of Altitude . I’ve got about as much chance of getting a story in National Geographic as Lens has of being made Person of the Year by Time .”
    Pete’s head came up. “I don’t care if you can’t get it published in the church magazine. It’s Lens and Vegas that want the publicity.”
    “ Oh, believe me, I want to get an article in that mag ...” She stopped. It didn’t seem necessary to go on: the pile of rejection letters from the New York editors; the failed interviews for the chichi magazine jobs; the aborted, of-the-moment novels whose moment passed before she got to chapter three; the hopeless evenings in her Brooklyn apartment when the only thing that tapped across the keyboard was the cat. 
    “ So why couldn’t you write a separate article about Shibde?’ said Pete, suddenly. “It doesn’t have to mention Powder Burn. That’s all you’ve signed up to, right? It doesn’t say you can’t write about Shibde completely separately, does it?”
    She looked at him, a little chill ran through her. “No, no it doesn’t.”
    “ So, is that worth the risk?”
    She raised her head and shielded her eyes to stare at the rock-strewn slope towering above them. “Yes,” she said, “that’s worth the risk.”
    Pete grinned. “Awesome, I’m so pleased you’re coming, this is going to be amazing, really.”
    “ The other story will be our secret. Lens doesn’t need to know, right?”
    “ Right, and you won’t mention Altitude ? Your journalism?”
    She shook her head. “Don’t worry, that can wait till we get back. Now let’s get something to eat. We’re going to burn a few carbs getting up that mountain in the middle of the night,” she replied, starting towards the hut. There would be plenty of time to reveal that Altitude was the high point of her journalistic career, and that Lens might have brought her along for nothing – revenge was, after all, a dish best served cold.

Chapter 9
     
    The rock still felt cold, even through Sam’s over-trousers and thermal layers, not yet warmed by a sun that had barely peeped into the rim of a cobalt-blue sky. It was perfect weather for the high-altitude passage over the border, but Sam had slept badly. She wasn’t good with early starts, waking up over and over again in a little panic that they’d somehow left her behind after all. And now she sat on the rock, high above the snow line and almost at the top, hauling in fast, rasping lungfuls of air.
    “ How are you doing?” asked Pete, coming to a halt in front of her.
    She nodded, tried for a smile, her head spinning.
    “You’re drinking plenty? You need four liters a day at this altitude, remember.”
    “ So you keep telling me,” she replied.
    “ Sorry. It’s not much further,” he told her. She nodded again, as Pete held out a hand and pulled her to her feet. She dropped in behind him, following the trail that Vegas was breaking up the final few hundred