Chapter 32
Chitral Valley, Pakistan... the next day
The truck, a battered relic of the Soviet army, jerked to a halt, throwing Derek forward in his seat, then slamming him backwards. "Ohhh... scheisse!...
" he groaned and cursed beneath his breath. The area between his shoulder blades throbbed. Damn... Kincaid, he thought. Last night, after their shopping excursion in the bazaar at Chitral, Ian had pulled a wicked surprise."Derek," the Brit had said. "I'm calling in all my chits from you." The precept had been at the Englishman's mercy; there were too many IOUs between them to count.
In a westernized, tourist motel operated by the Pakistani Tourism Bureau, Derek had lain on the bed, while Carter had inserted two small transponders beneath his skin... one along the edge of his left scapula... the other beneath his right clavicle. "I'm not a dog," he had protested. "I don't need a microchip to return me to my owner."
"Really?... But, it's not for that," Ian had explained. "Well... not exactly.... They're smaller.... The size of a grain of rice. I should have stuck one in you when I wanted to wire you for West. I'll never forgive myself."
"So... spy chips," Derek had stated flatly.
"Yes... since you're going native... and your papers were created to cover some obvious linguistic deficiencies... we can't risk any teckie gear at all," the old man had responded. "Your medical kit is pushing it... but we bought it all here... and it can't be helped. You might need it.... At least your papers will give it plausible coverage.... Just remember you're Rahim's brother... You were returning from working overseas and bringing home all the expected gifts and supplies, but you fell into a fever that went so high you were brain damaged. You've had quite a lot of experience of late, so you should know how to fake it."
Derek had remained silent. Although his "lone wolf" persona rebelled at the thought of being "tracked", the Legacy precept in him fully understood the tiny capsules' advantages. "They have global positioning?" he had finally asked.
"Yes...," Kincaid had confirmed with a nod, "and it tells us if you're dead or alive.... Since I'm trusting you to yourself and the locals, whilst Carter and I flit along the edges and remain alert to 'possibilities', these little beauties will be my only way to keep tabs on you... and it'll help avoid confusion... no chances of getting you mixed up in a crowd."
"Why two?" the precept had asked.
"The one in your back is your 'marker'.... We track you by that. The one under your collarbone is your 'pinger'... so to speak. When you're ready for 'extraction', you'll have to 'extract' that first." Ian had chuckled at his own pun. "Then you activate it by pinching the middle... breaking it. It'll give us a jingle.... Sorry... you have to dig it out, but that's the safest. You can't lose it or accidentally set it off... and all they look like are small skin growths.... Total camouflage.
"If you find Boyle and give us a jingle, we'll know precisely where you are, even if you don't, and we'll have a chance at fetching you out. If you stay in one place too long, we'll figure you've been captured. Hang tight... the cavalry will come. I'm giving you three weeks... Bucko... then come hell or high water... we're hauling your Dutch arse out of there.... Or... if you get yourself killed, we'll know, and Carter won't have to bother risking his arse."
"Dammit!... Ian," Derek had protested, "you can't set a time limit like that.... Three weeks?... That doesn't allow for any mishaps along the road."
"I can and will," the Brit had countered. "You want to find Boyle.... Well, find him.... Now shut up and let Carter finish."
"Why put one where I can't reach it?" the precept had challenged, not yet ready to yield. "Why not in my arm or thigh... someplace where I can get it out if I have to... or some place more hidden... like my armpit or groin. If I get caught...."
"It'll be fine where it is, sir," Carter assured his patient.
"Besides," Ian added, "I know the man we're dealing with. You might say 'yes' now, change your mind ten miles out, and get rid of the damned things... if you could reach them both. Then there'd be no time limit, would there, laddie?"
As the truck rattled down the Pakistani road, Derek smiled at the thought and at the memory of this morning's handshake and stinging slap on the back. "Take care, old boy," Kincaid had said gruffly. "Remember your training... the Major was a good teacher. Don't second-guess yourself when it comes to life and death.... Human evil is sometimes the worst evil.... You should know that well. Kill it first... light a candle and pray later." It made Derek uncomfortable to be read so well... and to realize that this old man cared about him.
Another mighty jolt shook the precept back to the here and now. He glanced over at the driver, who was fighting to rock the truck's wheel from the depths of a pothole. A gap-toothed grin burst from a black, bushy beard. Ian's friend, Rahim, the smuggler, looked every bit the caricature of a "swarthy villain". A small, wiry man, he was dressed in a motley collection of clothing. Like Derek, he wore baggy trousers, called tombon, beneath a long shirt and heavy pullover sweater. His coat was a well-used, Soviet army combat jacket... complete with a bullet hole. What had happened to the original owner, Derek wondered. Atop Rahim's greasy hair was a broad, flat Afghani turban, yet his feet sported new basketball shoes with the familiar Nike swoosh. A vicious dagger was tucked into his sash; bandoliers of ammunition were slung across his chest. His Kalashnikov rested on the floor beside him, within easy reach.
The day had been reasonably warm in the Chitral Valley. Beads of sweat shone on Rahim's face as he threw the truck into gear once more, bounced the vehicle out, and drove on through the deepening shadows. He expertly navigated the narrow, twisting road with a speed that was horrifying and awe-inspiring.
Derek glanced down at his watch. It was only two in the afternoon, yet the sun had already abandoned all but the peaks, which rose high above. The night's cold was setting in; darkness would come early. "No lights?" Derek asked, knowing full well that lights in this troubled world meant danger.
"No... not even in the wildness." Here, Rahim took both hands from the wheel to gesture at the shadowy emptiness surrounding them. "Eyes watch.... Few roads lead to passes.... You OK.... Yankee.... Good truck... good driver... good 'entrepreneur'," he reassured the precept.
Derek remembered the battered shell of the ancient vehicle... the huge dents and odd bits of rope and wire that tied things, such as his door, closed. He decided not to comment, but braced himself into the depths of his sunken seat. He picked up the brown, wool blanket, called a petou, that all Afghan men wore, and pulled it round his body. He had best try to sleep, while he could.
< < + > >
Later...
"We stop here," Rahim announced, shaking Derek awake. "Soon too dark."
The precept woke in confusion. Glancing around he saw the Afghan's shrewd eyes assessing him, but maintaining their own unreadable expression.
Rahim pointed at a dilapidated, stone building. In the gloom, Derek could barely make out the structure. "Rest... eat," Rahim ordered.
"Was this a house?" Derek asked. The roof had collapsed, as had a wall, but both had been repaired in a makeshift manner.
"No," the driver replied. "Just a... what do you call it?... A place to stop... to cook your food... to rest... to find shelter from the weather."
"A way station?" suggested Derek.
"A good word," Rahim declared with a nod. "A way station.... Come... Yankee.... I make tea.... We rest."
Derek smiled at the man, thankful that the "free market" trader had dealt with all nations and spoke a variety of languages... at least to a certain extent. He hated the thought of delay, but saw little sense in trying to rush his companion. He had overheard Ian's reminders to Rahim that if Derek was harmed, or sold to the highest bidder, then the smuggler and his entire family would face the wrath of both Ian Kincaid and ibn Sikander, but the precept saw no sense in tweaking the tiger's tail... this time. Rahim knew the urgency and Derek understood the dangers of the night. He was relieved to step from the truck, but thankful that it had not been his decision to stop.... Knowing himself as he did... and the fears he felt in the pit of his stomach... he probably would have plowed onward... trusting luck and his "Sight" to avoid potential disaster.
He stood beside the truck for a moment, rubbing his numb legs and buttocks, then stretched and flexed, worked his knees and ankles and eased his back. Verdamme!... His neck ached. Would it ever be right again, he wondered. At last, the precept reached into the back of the truck for his pack and shivered as the wind whistled round him. Somewhere a stream gurgled. Glancing up at the clear, night sky, he tried to pick out the constellations.... It was the perfect winter sky.... There was the "W" of Cassiopeia almost directly above... to the north lay the Little Dipper and Polaris, the North Star, at the tip of its handle... to the south hung the Great Square that joined Andromeda to Pegasus. Derek searched for the Andromeda Nebula, the most distant thing the human eye could see unaided, but he failed to find it. Once upon a time, his sharp eyes had always spotted it. He sighed at the loss that age brings to all, then breathed deeply and enjoyed the taste of the clean, cold air.
As the precept ducked to enter the shelter's low doorway, he noticed the scarred walls. He paused; his finger searched the chipped stone... bullet holes.
"Come!" Rahim called. "It is good.... We are alone." The little man had lit a lantern and a kettle was rapidly heating on a small, single burner stove. Derek wrinkled his nose at the smell of its oily fuel and at the mustiness of the straw-filled mattresses that lay against the walls.
"Sit!" The Afghan gestured towards the sheepskin he had spread on the cold earth beside the stove, then offered Derek a cup of chai tea, thick with sugar. Rahim smiled when it was quickly downed, then turned to the plastic crate that contained his cooking pot and provisions.
"Derek... my name... it's Derek," said the precept, stretching a hand towards the other man. There had been no time for proper introductions until now... better to leave the man's eyes on the road and both his hands on the wheel, but it was now time to put that right.
Rahim nodded and his wide smile broke from his beard. "It is good for men to name themselves." He took the offered hand. "I am called Rahim Haroun... entrepreneur... of the K'om people.... More tea?" he asked, pouring a mound of sugar in the bottom of his own cup.
Derek extended his cup for more sweet, hot liquid, then wrapped his cold hands around the warmth. His stomach grumbled with hunger as he watched Rahim pour rice into the pot of boiling water and give it a swift stir.
"You are one of the Ahl e Ketab... the people of the Book?" the Afghan suddenly asked, once more watching the precept's face, even as his hands quickly sliced a small piece of dried meat.
Derek nodded.... It was the term by which Moslems distinguished Christians and Jews from kafirs... unbelievers. "I am a believer," he replied quietly.
"That I could see." Rahim handed him a steaming plate of food. "It was in your face... as you studied the sky.... Perhaps you see more than others. Bekhor!...Eat!... Then we sleep.... Tomorrow we leave... early."
< < + > >
the Next Morning...
A soft rustling woke the precept. He searched the gloom and saw Rahim at prayer, kneeling on his small prayer rug... facing west, facing Mecca.
Derek threw back his petou and the sheepskin cover. Shivering, he snatched up his leather jacket and snuggled into its wooly depths, then pulled on his boots.
A minute later, he stepped into the chilled morning to deal with life's necessities. It was his first real look at his surroundings. The rising sun penetrated the grove of bare walnut trees and colored the shelter's stone walls with a warm, amber hue. Derek blew steamy warmth into his hands as he walked toward the stream that he had heard the night before. It bubbled from a cleft in the rocks behind the building, then rushed southeastward, towards the sun's weak rays. He knelt to wash his hands and to splash the icy water on his face. He ran his hand across his stubbled cheeks and for once wished his beard would grow more quickly. Again he shivered and wrinkled his nose at the smell of himself and of the cold, damp earth. Snuggling more deeply into the fleece of his jacket, he returned to the structure and saw Rahim, still deep in prayer.
The precept knelt by the stove and pulled his pack over beside him. Searching its depths, he found his handgun, a common Chinese model, purchased in the rear of a barber's stall at the bazaar in Chitral. He set it aside along with its boxes of ammunition, then shook his head at the weight they added to his pack. If his journey reached the point where the terrain became too treacherous even for a pack animal, how was he going to manage with this much weight on his back? He harbored no illusions.... He wasn't fit.... He knew it, and it haunted him that Nick's life and the lives of any companions might depend upon his own strength and endurance... and he wasn't up to the task. "Failure's never an option," he counseled himself. "I'll do what I have to do."
Finally, he found his small sack of rice and began to prepare breakfast. Unfortunately, cooking on a camp stove was not an art the precept had ever mastered. His rice stuck together in a massive lump. In despair, he found a packet with some dried fruit that Ian had included, sliced up one small piece, tossed it in, and decided that was the best he could do. He offered a surprised Rahim a bowl, which good manners prevented him from refusing. Both men drank frequent cups of tea to wash down the thick, sticky concoction.
"That will keep the hunger away," Rahim pronounced with a straight face, which a moment later broke into a broad, gap-toothed grin when his gaze fell over the contents of Derek's pack. "And how will you explain those, if we are stopped and searched?" he asked, pointing to a balled up pair of panty hose, several tampons, and a packet of five condoms.
"I intended them as gifts for you, my brother... for yourself and your wife," Derek said without cracking a smile. He then laughed at the tribesman's perplexed face. "You want to know why I have them?... I always have them in my gear... little things you learn with experience. The panty hose... a good filter for water, gasoline.... They stretch like rubber.... Many uses... warmth... as elastic bandages for sprains. The tampons make good tender with which to start a fire.... The condoms... excellent bags for carrying water and the like.... All small, yet they could save your life."
Rahim rubbed his chin and nodded sagely. His eye then caught the pistol lying beside Derek's knee. "It is a good weapon... and it is good that it is not an unusual one for these mountains. It, at least, will attract no notice....You are a good shot?" he asked.
"Adequate," Derek replied. "I'm better with pointed weapons... swords... crossbows... daggers... and such."
The Afghan picked up Derek's knife and ran his thumb along the sharp, curving blade, then hefted it, and admired the fine quality of its manufacture, the elegance of its ivory handle. It was not knife intended for cooking. "Ahhhh...," he sighed in understanding. "You like the close kill. You like to smell your enemy's fear and taste his death." He nodded his approval. "That, my friend, is the mark of a warrior." Suddenly, he rose, flipped the knife over, and handed it back. "We must go now... Yan... Derek," he stated, as he began to roll up his sheepskins.
< < + > >
Once more on the road, Derek made himself as comfortable as possible in the cramped cab of the truck. He pulled a map from his pack and laid it across his knees. The road they were on was marked, as a "provincial road," meaning that somewhere along its path, it had once been paved. Using his finger he followed the route Rahim was taking. He glanced out the grimy, cracked windshield at the mountains rising up before them. He knew that those peaks... some towering to near twenty thousand feet... were a spur of the Hindu Kush called the Shandur, the shear barrier between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Somewhere up there, the border rode the ridges and glaciers.
"We follow the river?" he asked the Afghan.
"Yes... south to Arnawai, where we cross into the part of Afghanistan called Nuristan... into the Kunar Valley. After that we go north again into the land of the K'om.... There we meet with my people.... You will be my guest.... Then we must continue into the territory of the Eastern Kata, which surrounds the valley of the people you seek."
Gradually the road left the flatter lands and entered the mountain gorges. The going became even slower as the route turned and twisted, clinging to the fringes of the now swiftly moving river. Landslides had to be passed, washouts circumvented. Often the track seemed to disappear completely as it crossed and recrossed the cold, fast waters, without the benefit of bridges.
Towards noon, they approached a small village. As they drew, near Derek saw ruined buildings, homes, stables ripped apart, mud and stone structures unable to withstand modern weaponry.
"Surely not the Russians?" he asked. That war had been over for years and this was still Pakistan.
Rahim shook his head, hawked noisily, and spat through his open window. "Who knows... the Russians... the Taliban... Pakistani secret police... a hundred years ago... the British... before that the Mongols.... Maybe they were infidels... thieves who charged tolls and gouged travelers... maybe they were good people with bad enemies.... We know war.... We are good at it."
An old man, hearing their engine, hobbled from the ruins and waved for them to stop. Rahim glanced at Derek... his question unspoken.... Derek nodded and pulled a piece of his petou across his lower face to conceal his lack of a full-grown beard.
The smuggler pulled up beside the old man and stopped. There was an outburst of chatter in Pashtu. Derek and Rahim watched in amazement as the old man was quickly joined by two young boys, a little girl, and several goats.
Rahim shrugged, leapt out, opened the back of the truck, and helped his passengers on board. When he returned to the cab, he handed Derek a small kid, which struggled and bleated anxiously, unhappy to be separated from its mother.
"The border is near.... Good camouflage," Rahim informed the precept as he restarted his engine. "Keep low.... They do not know you are foreign."
The precept glanced in the mirror. The small group of humans and animals had settled down, probably counting their blessings at having been saved a long walk. He heard the excited giggles of the children, the bleating of the goats. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the kid that had now abandoned its struggles and was settling down on his lap. He unconsciously stroked the animal's long ears. "You're not in Kansas anymore, Rayne," he told himself.
< < + > >
The shadows were growing long as they entered the outskirts of Arnawai, driving past dilapidated, wooden buildings and mud brick shanties. With the help of their "camouflage", they had made an uneventful border crossing. "Wear this," Rahim had said, handing Derek a karakuli, the felt cap, akin to a Scottish tam with a rolled brim, that was a uniquely Afghan headgear. "Sink into your coat.... You are asleep. Remember, you are my brother. You returned from Australia, where you worked. You fell ill in Peshawar... a very high fever... and I came to fetch you.... It has affected your mind and health.... You cannot hear or speak. You cannot remember.... Kincaid's papers say this. They are good papers."
Derek had done as instructed, and all had gone smoothly, even when Rahim had stopped to refill the truck's fuel tank. Now they were deep into the town. There were more people. Women, encased head to toe in long, blue burkhas, hurried along under the watchful eye of men, whom Derek guessed to be the religious police. A child dragged on a donkey's halter. Bundles of wood were precariously balanced on the small beast's heavily laden back. A young man, with his beard flowing in the wind, a neat, black turban on his head, and a rifle slung across his back, sped by on a scooter, its engine spluttering. They watched as he overtook men on bicycles, wove around the potholes, and through other travelers. Everyone ignored the truck and its occupants.
"Time to lose our passengers." Rahim pulled over and reached for the now placid kid.
The precept watched in the mirror as the old man clambered down, his movements slow and arthritic. With his cane, he quickly marshaled his stock, while the children helped where they could. The kid was now happily suckling from its mother. Derek smiled. Despite the goat aroma and the small animal's "devilish" eyes, he would miss the creature's warm body.
Rahim shouted a Pashtu farewell.... "Khoda hafiz!"... God protect you!... and
rejoined Derek in the truck. They drove on. The concealing shadows deepened and
grew, stretching to hide people and dwellings. Darkness would fall quickly, but tonight
they would sleep in comfortable safety.
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