Chapter 14

Once the stability problem had been addressed, it was green lights all the way for tower construction. It has now risen to a staggering height of 100,000 feet above sea level, an unheard of and incredible feat! Gyroscopes have been placed every 25,000 feet to ensure that stability would no longer be an issue. Like the platforms themselves, the gyroscopes were designed to propel themselves up the tower as more platforms and gyroscopes were manufactured and added.

The sheer momentum behind the tower’s construction seemed to assure its ultimate completion. Ironically, this aura of inevitability helped contribute to the overall financial dilemma of the project.

“I don’t care how many times I come up here, Jose, the view is absolutely incredible!” Lattimer says, his voice crackling through the microphone in his space helmet.

Jose nods in agreement. “It really is, isn’t it boss!” He says with unfeigned admiration and wonder.

The two men are sitting on top of the tower, connected to it by 30-foot safety harnesses. Eight workmen, taking a break, have joined Lattimer and Jose. They too, are in awe of the view. After all, they could hardly do anything less and still be human. The sun is beginning to set on the horizon, reflecting a gorgeous radiant light across a wave of cirrus clouds, sixty thousand feet below them and extending for miles into the horizon. Unobstructed by the lower atmosphere, the sun is almost pure white, with an intense incredible hue that is difficult, if not impossible to describe. The earth below, is incredibly radiant, displaying a fantastic array of colors as snow-white meandering glacial valleys, intertwined with rippled terrain, meld into dark-brown foothills and valleys north of Everest leading out to a lighter-brown Tibetan plain. Glacial valleys moving to the south transition abruptly into reddish-brown hills that rapidly converge into the luscious, dark-green valleys of Nepal. The stars and moon are also intensely brilliant against the ink jet blackness of near-outer space. As many beautiful videos and pictures as Lattimer has taken at this height, somehow, they just couldn’t seem to fully capture the breadth, beauty, and majesty of the experience the men were taking in it right at this moment.

“This is as close to heaven as we’ll probably ever get, Jose. If only I were able to do justice to this on film. Just one good film! We wouldn’t have to worry about money problems... ever again!”

One of the workmen interrupts the magic of the moment. “I just wish I could smoke a cigarette right now!”

With that comment, a cacophony of laughter could be heard through the helmets of every man on the deck.

“All right, that does it!” says Lattimer, chuckling as he begins to stand. “Break’s up!” He hears the men groaning through their microphones as they begin to get up, ever so slowly. Lattimer grins at the thought of these otherwise superior physical specimens having difficulty getting up off their backsides. Suddenly, he has a change of heart.

“You know what? You guys have really been working hard up here lately. I think it’s time we all got a break, what do you think?”

One of the workmen interjects his thoughts through the radio waves.

“Does a wild bear pee in the woods?”

Lattimer looks a bit confused. “Is... that a yes?”

The workman responds. “Not only yes, sir, but hell yes!” The remaining men join in with resounding affirmations.

“Then it’s a done deal!” says Lattimer. “Hit the elevator, men! We’re going back to Everest!”

And with that, the men file into the elevator, disconnecting their safety harnesses as they enter.

Randolph, sitting at the control monitor in Tubicle One, notices the elevator alert light coming on the computer screen. He clicks on the icon, which brings up a diagram of the elevator and the location of the car in real time within the shaft. Randolph puts on his headset and clicks on the moving icon of the car.

“Is there a problem up there, Dr. Lattimer?” he asks.

Jose taps Lattimer on the shoulder and points to the blinking green light inside the car. Lattimer turns around, flips on the switch and begins speaking into the car microphone.

“Lattimer here, how can I help you”?

“Is everything ok up there, Dr. Lattimer?” Randolph responds. “Everything’s fine, Mr. Randolph, just fine. I just thought we needed a break, that’s all.”

Randolph looks perplexed. “A break? From what, sir?”

“A break, Craig. You know, like in a goofing-off break?”

“Are you sure that’s wise, Dr. Lattimer?” asks Randolph.

“Probably not, Craig, but you know what? I don’t really care. And I’m sure these men don’t really care either.” All the men on the car nod their heads enthusiastically in agreement.

Randolph shakes his head in disgust. Removing his headset he turns away from the monitor. “At this rate, we’re never gonna get this damn thing built!”

Even when traveling at a top speed of 60 mph, the elevator still requires 13 minutes to complete its descent into Tubicle One; and additional time is required to enter and exit the car and to accelerate and decelerate.

When the elevator door finally opens, the men shuffle out of the airlock, sit down on a long bench and begin removing their helmets. Randolph is waiting for them, poker faced, arms folded. When Lattimer removes his helmet and gets his bearings, Randolph motions for him to come over.

“Dr. Lattimer, there’s a message for you on the console.” Lattimer looks up at Randolph, a slight hint of disdain in his eyes.

“Let me guess, Treinwood, right?”

Randolph nods. Lattimer puts his helmet down on the floor and ambles over to the console. He clicks on the message icon and listens to the recording.

“Dr. Lattimer, Richard Treinwood here. It has come to my attention that you are intentionally falling behind schedule. As you know, our window of opportunity for completing this project is rapidly coming to a close. It is imperative that you do everything in your power to see to it that this tower is finished before we run completely out of money and the good will of the Chinese and Nepalese governments. This is no time for sophomoric games, sir. If there are any questions, please forward them to Mr. Randolph. Thank you.” Lattimer clicks the delete button, then, turns to Randolph. Lattimer’s face is stern, and his eyes are growing angry.

“So you and Richard think I’m playing sophomoric games up here, do you?” Randolph stares back, stone-faced, arms still folded. Some of the men on the bench, sensing trouble brewing, elbow the others to quit chortling among themselves and soon are paying close attention to the unfolding drama. “Do you have any idea just how hard these men have been working up there, lately?”

“Of course I do, Dr. Lattimer,” replies Randolph. “I’ve been up there myself, right along side them!”

“Well, don’t you think they deserve a break?”

“That’s not the point, Dr. Lattimer!”

“Well then, what is the point, Mr. Randolph?” Lattimer demands angrily. Randolph unfolds his arms as he continues his confrontation with the engineer. “The point is, sir, that we have a job to do up here. We can’t just go around taking breaks whenever we damn well feel like it! That’s the way battles, wars, and projects are lost!”

“Endure to the end, is that it, Randolph?” Lattimer replies icily. “Something like that, yes,”

The two men eye each other silently for a moment. Lattimer, still angry, begins nodding his head slightly.

“So you and Richard think this is some kind of a war, huh?”

“Don’t you?” replies Randolph. “Don’t you realize what we’re up against here, Dr. Lattimer?” A look of disgust suddenly comes over Randolph’s face. ‘No, I don’t suppose you do, do you? That’s Richard’s job isn’t it? You’re just supposed to build the frickin’ tower, right? Don’t bother you with petty details, right?” Randolph turns away from Lattimer, his anger rising.

“You have no idea what’s going on in the real world do you, Jeff? Not a clue! Richard has done his job too well, I’m afraid.” He turns to face Lattimer, pinching his thumb and forefinger together. “We are this close, my friend, this close to losing this project. FOREVER!” He turns away and begins pacing, his hands behind his back. He rubs his nose briefly with his forefinger. “There’s going to be a vote by the Chinese government sometime this month on whether or not to revoke our license to continue with this project! The Nepalese are not far behind them! To be blunt about it, they think they made a mistake letting us even start this project!”

Lattimer’s anger quickly changes to alarm, then, confusion. “Why would they think something like that at this late stage of the game?” he asks softly.

Randolph turns to observe Lattimer, shaking his head. “You are so naive, Dr. Lattimer. You live in your own little world way up here on top of this mountain where you think you’re protected from the entire world! I admit it must be nice to have gotten away with it for as long as you have. I do envy you that.”

Lattimer is aghast by Randolph’s comments. He shakes his head, as if searching for clues where none really exist.

“You really don’t get it do, you sir?” Randolph says in amazing disbelief. He waves his head back and forth in a mocking manner. “Ok. I’ll spell it out for you! S, N, Y, D, E, R!”

“Snyder?” asks Lattimer, his voice timid and quivering.

“Yes, Snyder!” responds, Randolph. He squints as he eyes Lattimer again. “Apparently, Mr. Snyder is quite angry with you. Something to do with a change in plans in the project.”

Lattimer’s mind begins fast forwarding back in time, trying to determine just what kind of event may have precipitated this crisis. Suddenly, a “light bulb” goes on inside his head...

“The elevator shaft!” He exclaims. Randolph looks at him curiously. “He had a damn heart attack over it!”

“What are you talking about?” Randolph asks.

“The plans for the elevator shaft at the top of Mount Everest,” Lattimer continues. “The original plans called for a third set of outside gondolas, beginning at Upper New Everest. I decided very late in the project that this whole idea should be scrapped in favor of an internal elevator shaft. I was so wrapped up in the changes, I neglected to inform anyone else what I was doing!”

Randolph looks at Lattimer the way a father would look at a wayward teenage son, shaking his head slowly. He looks away, eyebrows raised, lips tight and begins to nod his head up and down in understanding.

“So that’s it,” he says. He begins rubbing his chin. The room becomes suddenly very silent. Minutes seem like hours, everyone seemly frozen in place.

Jose is first to speak. The words seem to hang awkwardly in space, “So what are we gonna do now, Mr. Randolph?”

Randolph’s mind has been far away. The words seem to draw him back into the current reality. He draws a deep breath and sighs heavily.

“Well, Mr. Martin, what we are gonna do right now is contact Mr. Treinwood and update him about this newest revelation from Dr. Lattimer. After that, who knows?”

It has been three days since Dr. Lattimer’s revelation about his run-in with his ex-mentor, Sam Snyder. Of course, Treinwood had long known about Lattimer’s “falling out” with Snyder since it first happened, but until recently, he had been unaware of the full extent of the damage. A gallows mentality surrounds the project, now.

Lattimer’s men continue their work on the tower in silent, stoic determination, awaiting, who-knows-what? The vista from the tower becomes increasingly more beautiful as it continues its inexorable climb toward the heavens. But its beauty is overshadowed by the grim sense of reality only a condemned man can fully understand.

Lattimer has become reclusive while adopting the habits of smoking and drinking. He has not shaved since he last confrontation with Craig Randolph. Randolph has taken over Lattimer’s duties as chief engineer and is busily engaged with his men on the site.

“Dr. Lattimer, Dr. Lattimer!” Jose yells as he raps on the engineer’s private office door. As he waits for a response, he hears a muffled, hoarse gravelly voice.

“Go away! Leave me alone!”

“Dr. Lattimer! You need to come out of there! It’s been three days now!” Lattimer responds again, “Go away, Jose. Just leave me alone, ok?”

Jose tries to open the door but finds it locked. He rattles the knob and begins pounding the door again, this time with more urgency.

“If you don’t open the door right now, I’ll have to break it down!” There is no response. Jose hears Lattimer rise up and shuffle towards the door. The knob rattles a bit and then the door opens. The smell from the room hits Jose like a brick wall. He reels back from the acrid odor of three-day old tobacco smoke, stale beer, and body odor. Jose gags, squints and waves away the air in front of him like it was a swarm of angry hornets.

“Carumba amigo, what have you done to yourself now!” he asks.

Lattimer, half clothed, drunk, dehydrated, and emaciated, braces himself against the doorjamb like some common street derelict.

“I couldn’t let you hurt yourself, Jose,” he says, almost in a whisper. “This door is made of alloy composite, it would have been the end of yo...” his voice trails off as he collapses in the doorway.

Shocked, Jose tries to break Lattimer’s fall. “Muchachos, amigos, andale, por favor, en seguida!” He yells. In his initial panic, Jose reverts to his native language, then, realizes the men do not understand Spanish. “Please, somebody help me, Dr. Lattimer is very sick!” Suddenly he realizes he is alone. All of the men are working on site because time is at a premium. Jose swallows hard, trying not to panic. He realizes it would take too long to get anybody down here and chances are they wouldn’t be too sympathetic anyway. He puts his head under Lattimer’s shoulder, gagging from the smell.

“Please Señor Lattimer, you must help me, please get up!”

Somehow, Lattimer finds the strength to help Jose, and both men stagger to their feet.

“We need to get you something to eat and drink, Señor,” Jose gasps under the weight of the much larger man. “You are starving to death!”

Lattimer mutters something unintelligible as Jose shuffles him over to a wheeled office chair and plops him into it. He holds Lattimer’s chest to keep him from falling out and wheels him awkwardly into the kitchen area, shoving the chair up against a table. Lattimer’s head pitches slowly forward like a tree that’s been felled in a forest, finally coming to rest on the tabletop. Jose rushes around the kitchen, looking for coffee and food. He opens a cabinet, and fumbling around, drops the coffee canister on the floor, spilling it. He curses to himself, and wipes up as much coffee as he needs to make a full pot. Lattimer begins mumbling something about the tower. Jose, still scurrying about the kitchen, ignores him as he looks for bread to toast and juice to drink.

Lattimer begins to yell more adamantly this time, “The tower, Jose, the tower!”

Jose hurries over to him, like a mother hen gathering her brood.

“Si, Señor, the tower, I know, you are worried about it. It’s all right, here, drink this!”

He pushes a cup of orange juice under Lattimer’s nose, then, rushes off to get some toast.

Without looking, Lattimer inadvertently knocks the glass away with his hand, turning it over as it rolls off the table, smashing against the floor. “You don’ understand, Jose! I have an answer to our problem here!”

Jose looks at Lattimer, distraught, “Please, Dr. Lattimer, you must have something to eat and drink! Then we can talk about the tower, ok?”

Lattimer raise up his head and nods it slowly in agreement. With that, Jose begins the long, arduous process of nurturing his wayward friend back to life.

Lattimer and Jose said nothing to the men that evening. They both felt Lattimer’s credibility would be eroded even further if any of them saw him in his present condition. So Lattimer continued his reclusive lifestyle, buying enough time to regain as much of his strength and demeanor as possible before tomorrow morning. In the meantime, Jose continued dining with the men and, as usual, covering for Lattimer.

“So, when is the big man coming out to eat with us again?” asks one of the workmen to Jose.

Jose has just taken a big bite out of a ham sandwich. The tone the man uses has a slight tinge of sarcasm to it. Jose nods in understanding, then, begins munching as fast as he can to get the chunk of sandwich down so he can speak.

“He’s been kind of under the weather lately...”

“I’ll bet he has!” interrupts the workman.

Jose hesitates, then, begins again, “He’s going to have a regular conference session tomorrow morning at 8:00 A.M. on the dot!”

The man looks at Jose, incredulously, “You’ve got to be kidding! What’s he gonna talk about? Pink slips?”

“You’ll see,” Jose says, still eating his sandwich. “Just be sure and be there, because it’s gonna be important.” With that, Jose finishes his meal and gets up from the table. Just before leaving the room he turns around and speaks again. “And it won’t be about pink slips!”

The next day at 7:30 A.M., Jose gingerly knocks on Lattimer’s office door, almost afraid of what he might find on the other side. “Boss, boss!” he whispers. “It’s Jose! It’s 7:30, it’s time to get...” before Jose can say another word the door swings wide open and there stands Lattimer in all his glory. Jose can hardly believe his eyes! Is this really the same man he had to literally drag into the kitchen yesterday?

“Come on in Jose,” he says. “I’ll be ready to go in just a few minutes. Just getting my tie straight. How do I look?”

Jose is at a loss for words, “Boss.... yo, you look fabulous, man! Fantastic! You never cease to amaze me!”

“Kind of like the phoenix, huh?” says Lattimer.

“Huh?” says Jose.

“You know, the phoenix. The mythical bird that burns itself up every 500 years or so to renew itself.”

“Whatever, boss.”

“Never mind,” says Lattimer. “Let’s get a shot of coffee before we get started.” Lattimer has indeed made an amazing recovery. At 8:00 A.M. on the dot, he begins his video conference to the complete amazement of everyone else at the complex, including Craig Randolph.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he begins. “Thank you for your patience and dedication to this project. I know it has been a really difficult road for you to travel because I’ve been on that road right along side you. Now, I know what’s going through everybody’s mind, right now. Well, let me be the first to tell you. It ain’t gonna happen folks! This project will continue as scheduled.” Before he can continue, a spontaneous round of applause comes from several viewers, followed by a rapid cascade of applause from all of them. Craig Randolph reluctantly joins in as well.

“Thanks for that,” Lattimer says, his voice thick with emotion. “I really needed that right now.” He hesitates for a moment to collect himself, then, continues, “Ladies and gentlemen, I have a plan. A plan that I truly believe will be the salvation of this project. I will be leaving for Snyderville as soon as possible to discuss it with Richard Treinwood personally. All I ask is that you please place your trust in me just a little while longer. In due time, you will understand exactly what this plan is. Unfortunately, that is all I can say about if for the time being. Please keep me in your prayers, as I do you. And again, thanks for all your hard work, dedication, and above all, your trust and patience. Believe me, it will all pay off handsomely in the end. I need to leave right away, so Jose will try to answer any questions you might have. Have a good day.” With that, Lattimer leaves the console, which is now full of highlighted flashing red pictures of members eager to ask him questions. Jose takes over immediately and begins addressing the questions as best as he can.

Lattimer puts on a spacesuit and helmet, enters the main elevator shaft and silently descends all the way to Upper New Everest, thus avoiding the passenger elevators at Everest Heights. He plans to stay there incognito until a meeting can be arranged with Treinwood in Snyderville.