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  PATHS OF GLORY

  ALSO BY JEFFREY ARCHER

  NOVELS

  Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less

  Shall We Tell the President?

  Kane & Abel

  The Prodigal Daughter

  First Among Equals

  A Matter of Honor

  As the Crow Flies

  Honor Among Thieves

  The Fourth Estate

  The Eleventh Commandment

  Sons of Fortune

  False Impression

  The Gospel According to Judas (with the assistance of Professor Francis J. Moloney)

  A Prisoner of Birth

  SHORT STORIES

  A Quiver Full of Arrows

  A Twist in the Tale

  Twelve Red Herrings

  The Collected Short Stories

  To Cut a Long Story Short

  Cat O’Nine Tales

  PLAYS

  Beyond Reasonable Doubt

  Exclusive

  The Accused

  PRISON DIARIES

  Volume One: Hell

  Volume Two: Purgatory

  Volume Three: Heaven

  SCREENPLAYS

  Mallory: Walking Off the Map

  False Impression

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  PATHS OF GLORY. Copyright © 2009 by Jeffrey Archer. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Archer, Jeffrey, 1940–

  Paths of glory / Jeffrey Archer.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-1-4299-7169-0

  1. Mallory, George, 1886–1924—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6051.R285P38 2009

  823'.914—dc22

  2008054221

  First published in the United Kingdom by Macmillan, an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd.

  In memory of

  CHRIS BRASHER

  who encouraged me to write this book

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My special thanks go to the mountaineer and historian Audrey Salkeld

  for her invaluable help, advice, and expertise.

  My thanks also go to Simon Bainbridge, John Bryant, Rosie de Courcy, Anthony Geffen, Bear Grylls, George Mallory II, Alison Prince, and Mari Roberts.

  Inspired by a true story

  Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

  The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,

  And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,

  Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour:

  The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

  —Thomas Gray (1716–1771)

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  BOOK ONE: No Ordinary Child

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  BOOK TWO: The Other Woman

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  BOOK THREE: No Man’s Land

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  BOOK FOUR: Selecting the Team

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  BOOK FIVE: Walking Off the Map

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  BOOK SIX: Back to Earth

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  BOOK SEVEN: A Woman’s Privilege

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  BOOK EIGHT: Ascension Day

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  1999

  SATURDAY, MAY 1ST, 1999

  “LAST TIME I went bouldering in my hobnails, I fell off,” said Conrad.

  Jochen wanted to cheer, but knew that if he responded to the coded message it might alert a rival group tuned in to their frequency—or even worse, allow an eavesdropping journalist to realize that they’d discovered a body. He left the radio on, hoping for a clue that would reveal which of the two victims the search party had come across, but not another word was spoken. Only a crackling sound confirmed that someone was out there, but unwilling to speak.

  Jochen followed his instructions to the letter, and after sixty seconds of silence he switched off the radio. He only wished he’d been selected as a member of the original climbing party, who were out there searching for the two bodies, but he’d drawn the short straw. Someone had to remain at base camp and man the radio. He stared out of the tent at the falling snow, and tried to imagine what was going on higher up the mountain.

  Conrad Anker stared down at the frozen body, the bleached skin as white as marble. The clothes, or what was left of them, looked as if they had once belonged to a tramp, not a man who had been educated at either Oxford or Cambridge. A thick hemp rope was tied around the dead man’s waist, the frayed ends showing where it must have broken during the fall. The arms were extended over the head, the left leg crossed above the right. The tibia and fibula of the right leg were both broken, so that the foot looked as if it was detached from the rest of the body.

  None of the team spoke as they struggled to fill their lungs with the thin air; words are rationed at 27,000 feet. Anker finally fell to his knees in the snow and offered up a prayer to Chomolungma, Goddess Mother of the Earth. He took his time; after all, historians, alpinists, journalists, and the simply curious had waited over seventy-five years for this moment. He removed one of his thick fleece-lined gloves and placed it on the snow beside him, then leaned forward, each movement slow and exaggerated, and with the index finger of his right hand gently pushed back the stiff collar of the dead man’s jacket. Anker could hear his heart pounding as he read the neat red letters displayed on a Cash’s name tape that had been sewn on the inside of the shirt collar.

  “Oh my God,” said a voice from behind him. “It’s not Irvine. It’s Mallory.”

  Anker didn’t comment. He still needed to confirm the one piece of information they had traveled over five thousand miles to d