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Jason Singer Smith struggles to find a grip with his right hand as he scrambles up the cliffside.

Singer is a professional rock climber and normally climbing up a rock face like this would be a piece of cake,

but it's the middle of the night and it's his turn to carry the group's only sleeping bag.

It's not heavy, but it's unwieldy.

It's been six days since he and three fellow rock climbers were kidnapped by Kyrgyz rebels.

Since then, they've been forced to traverse the endless Pamir Alive Mountain range in the dark to

avoid detection from the Kyrgyzstan army. It's been almost a full week with barely any food or water.

Singer is flagging.

The group of rock climbers were originally held captive by three men, but the ringleader Abdul

has split off to look for food. Now, the four Americans are under the supervision of only one man,

Sue, or little dog, as Singer calls him in a code language that the climbers have made up.

Sue is armed, but he's young and inexperienced. Not a very good climber at all.

He constantly looks at Singer, trying to decide on a route up the sloping cliff face.

Alpinista is Sue's nickname for Singer. The group has come to understand that it means

climber and Kyrgyz. Sue waves up toward the peak, asking Singer's advice on which route to take.

For the last six days, Singer has been biting his time, trying to get Sue to trust him,

and as of now, it seems to have worked. He listens without question when Singer suggests the best

climbing route to take. The terrain here has begun to steepen from a hillside to a dangerous layered

cake of cliffs and ledges. He and his fellow climber, John Dickie, have been waiting for the perfect

moment to attack their captors and escape. He quickly looks at John, then glances over the edge

of a cliff. Would this be a good spot to push Sue? No, he wouldn't fall very far, not yet.

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