Over the edge

Description

"Before dawn on August 12, 2000, four of America's best young rock climbers, the oldest of them only twenty-five, were sleeping in their portaledges high on the Yellow Wall, in the Pamir-Alai mountain range of Kyrgyzstan, in central Asia. By daybreak, they would be taken at gunpoint by fanatical militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which operates out of secret bases in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and which is linked to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. The desperadoes - themselves barely out of their teens - intended to use their hostages as human shields and for ransom as they moved across Kyrgyzstan. They hid the climbers by day and marched them by night through freezing, treacherous mountains, with little food, no clean water, and the constant threat of execution. The four would see a fellow hostage, a Kyrgyz soldier, executed before their eyes. And in a remarkable life-and-death crucible over six terrifying days, they would be forced to choose between saving their own lives and committing an act none of them thought they ever could."--BOOK JACKET.

First Sentence

The first shot hits the wall at 6:15 A.M.

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Other Editions

• Over the edge: the true story of four American climbers' kidnap and escape in the mountains of Central AsiaVillard Books2002-01-01
• Over The EdgePaperbackRandom House2002-01-01
• Over the EdgeHardcoverPiatkus Books2002-08-29
• Over the EdgePaperbackPiatkus Books2003-03-27