Madison now turned to Claire. ‘Where are our friends?’ he asked.
‘They started from here, at Ishkashim,’ she replied, pointing out the spot on a map she had spread on the table. ‘The next coordinate shows them moving up the Wakhan Corridor. Their progress is slow. Which, of course, is only to be expected since they’re travelling on foot.’
‘So from here, you’re getting us to that area in the mountains where you have the helicopters hidden and they will fly us to this Shambhala place?’ Madison enquired.
The question was rhetorical; he had already been briefed about the plan.
‘That’s right. I got back yesterday from overseeing the arrangements. The helicopters and the backup team are in place.’ Claire cocked her head to one side. ‘Where did you find this Kurt Stein?’
It was a reference to the leader of their backup team.
‘I know,’ Madison admitted with a shrug. ‘He’s an asshole, but he has his uses. Any problems?’
‘No,’ she replied.
He knew there wouldn’t be any. Claire was collecting the three million they had made on the presentation in New York, but she was worth every cent.
‘Good. Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get going.’
They walked out of the room and found Krakowski waiting outside. They followed him to his car and got in. He drove out of the perimeter to another section of the tarmac where two helicopters with commercial markings were parked.
‘Where are our things?’ Stevens asked the deputy director.
‘Don’t worry, Hal. They’ve already put your bag in the helicopter.’
‘Aren’t you coming?’ Stevens asked, looking surprised.
‘No, I’ll be at the base looking out for you from here,’ he said with a half-smile.
Time for you to walk the talk, my friend
. ‘You carry on. Don’t worry, Claire will look after you.’
‘Sure,’ Stevens said after a moment’s hesitation.
As Madison was about to turn away, he noticed Krakowski standing by him, looking as if he needed to say something urgent.
‘What do you want?’ the deputy director snarled.
‘I’ve been told to go along with the helicopters, sir.’
‘What?’ Madison asked, incredulous, his voice betraying his irritation. ‘By whom?’
‘Admiral Neeson, sir. He called me this morning. Said he was a friend of yours and that you would understand how necessary it was for me to accompany you for this, um, meeting,’ Gregory Krakowski explained, trying hard to keep his voice crisp and matter of fact.
Madison remained silent, his expression giving nothing away.
So somebody’s leaked – something, at least.
‘He said you could speak to him if there was a problem,’ Krakowski blabbered on nervously.
Admiral Neeson was no ‘friend’ of Madison’s. He was the chairman of the Intelligence Oversight Board, a three-member body appointed by the President of the US, which functioned from within the White House and served as a presidential watchdog, the equivalent of ‘Internal Affairs’ for the CIA. When President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166, authorizing stepped-up covert aid in Afghanistan, Neeson had gone into overdrive monitoring their activities in this sector. The admiral was a full-blooded pain in the ass, someone who prided himself on always being able to wangle out the ‘truth’. He and the deputy director had crossed swords more than once and Madison had to admit he had been bested at most such encounters. God only knew how many moles Neeson had planted in his office.
Jim Madison looked at Claire who responded with a barely perceptible nod.
‘Okay, be my guest. Hop on,’ he now said, his tone brusque, giving Krakowski permission to board one of the helicopters.
The deputy director watched as the team boarded the helicopters, Hal Stevens and the two other men in the first, Claire and Krakowski in the second. Claire directed their pilot to wait till the first helicopter had taken off and was out of sight. The man seemed surprised, but complied without a word. Then the second helicopter became airborne. They crossed the line of mountains marking the border and began flying due east, towards the Tora Bora caves. Claire almost felt a sense of déjà vu as she shot Gregory Krakowski and pushed his body off the helicopter, looking out through the side screens to watch it tumble and fall.
She picked up the radio and screamed hoarsely, ‘We’re taking ground fire!’ before abruptly switching off all communications with Islamabad.
Air Traffic Control duly informed Jim Madison about the transmission. There was nothing he could be expected to do; you couldn’t mount a search and rescue, not in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. He knew what was going on; Claire was covering their tracks. Admiral Neeson had just lost a puppy. He knew it would hurt Neeson that he could do nothing about it and Madison permitted himself the luxury of a smile.
The Western Gate
A
UTUMNAL
E
QUINOX 1986
Four days had passed since Ashton and his team left the Kyrgyz village with Nek Bhakt. Peter, who had been diligently keeping track of their progress on the map he had with him, discovered that they were now at the very heart of a large area with no markings for a hundred miles around, apart from the blue hatched lines indicating the presence of glaciers. It was a desolate, stony wasteland, encircled by mountains so high that their summits pierced the clouds and were hidden from view. The last contour interval showed they had reached a height of 15,000 feet.
The wild sedge they had found growing in abundance in the river valleys they had left behind was now conspicuous by its absence. Denied this form of fodder, the team’s animals were reduced to surviving on the provisions they had loaded on their backs at the Kyrgyz village of Kotal. The stocks would last another two days, three, at the most. They had not crossed a water source since the previous day and had to make do by melting ice on their stoves to prepare their tea.
‘How much longer?’ Ashton asked Peter, panting with the exertion of having quickened his pace and urged his mule to do the same, so that they could catch up with the younger man.
‘Smiley here says we should reach it today,’ Peter replied, rubbing his face wearily and gesturing towards Nek Bhakt who was plodding on ahead, head down. ‘You okay, Colonel?’
‘I’m fine. Just wondering about the animals.’
They reached another hill feature and prepared for the slow climb. By noon, they had crested it and were looking forward to catching their breath when Nek Bhakt’s loud exclamation and summons with raised hands drew them. It was cloudy and the wind cut into their faces like a razor as they gathered around him expectantly.
Their guide was pointing to a large open bowl, as desolate as the one they had just left. Beyond, dominating the scene for miles around it, stood a huge pyramid-like mountain. Its summit disappeared into a mass of dark clouds and from the haze below them, it was apparent that it was snowing up there.
‘Rakhel-e-Shaitan!’ their guide exclaimed excitedly.
‘That’s it?’ Peter asked, disbelief apparent in his voice.
‘What were you expecting?’ Duggy enquired with a grin.
‘I don’t know,’ he said uncertainly, rubbing his chin. ‘What guarantee do we have that our guide isn’t gypping us?’
‘None,’ Susan cut in, coming up to where they stood. ‘Have to take his word on that one; it’s not marked on any map.’
Ashton, who had been studying the mountain through his binoculars, said softly, ‘There’s something there all right. I can make out the ruins of what must have been a caravanserai at its base.’
They paid off Nek Bhakt who salaamed vigorously, stuffing the roll of money into his jacket pocket without bothering to count the bills. Then muttering prayers all the while, he turned swiftly and hurried homewards, following the direction from which they had come, almost running down the slope of the feature they had just climbed.
* * *
It had all started on that evening about a month ago, when Major Behruz Amin was called in to his flight commander’s room in the officers’ quarters in Kabul for a ‘post-flight discussion’ – in other words, a binge. It was not common for officers of the Soviet and Afghan armies to fraternize, but Amin had picked up the language and had a head for vodka. Moreover, his flight commander needed a drinking buddy. After they had downed three straight vodkas, Major Igor Upanov had told him about this plan, looked directly into his eyes and asked him if he was in. When Amin accepted the offer without a moment’s hesitation, the flight commander had shaken his hand, but not before putting the Pistolet Makarova, the standard Russian semi-automatic handgun he had been hiding in his lap, back under his pillow. Amin found it immensely reassuring that had he betrayed the slightest hesitation, his flight commander would have had no compunctions about killing him. At least it was in keeping with his impression of Igor.
Actually, Amin didn’t really have an option. With the withdrawal of Russian troops an impending reality, it did not take much imagination or foresight to predict what lay in store for Afghan officers once the mujahideen took over.
The last two months in the mountain caves had been hard. Amin understood quite clearly that had it not been for the stern command of the Pashtun chief to his men, he, along with the other members of the crew, would have been destined for a certain, tortuous death. Igor had betrayed him when he had flown out with the white woman, but Amin hadn’t begrudged the flight commander his decision. He realized that while the Pashtun chief could prevent Tajik blood from being spilt, saving the Russian’s life might not have been so easy where his men were concerned. And so, from the day they had landed in this place until just a week ago, Major Behruz Amin and his crew had learnt to silently endure the hostile glances directed their way and the curses and insults hurled at them by the Pashtuns around them. All the while, they had prayed fervently to Allah that the Americans they were to fly out would arrive, even as they worked with feverish zeal on the maintenance of their aircraft; after all, these birds were their only means of getting out from here.
In September, the weather had started deteriorating and the major was beginning to have suspicions about the Americans having called off their plan, when the white woman arrived, accompanied by the other men. Amin experienced an immense surge of relief – until they briefed him on the real nature of their mission. That was when terror set in.
‘You cannot be serious? What you ask is impossible! It cannot be done!’ he shouted in Russian, his voice breaking with emotion as he gesticulated at the maps they had placed on the small stool in front of him.
The woman gave him a long, considering look before translating his words for the benefit of the man she had earlier addressed as Kurt Stein. Amin knew that Stein was the leader of these strange South Americans who had made their way here. He heard Stein say something in English and saw him gesture towards the handgun tucked into a holster on his hip. The woman turned back to Amin.
‘What is the problem?’ she asked, her voice calm. ‘Perhaps we can sort it out?’
‘Firstly, we have never flown on this route before. For all we know, no one ever has,’ the Afghan told her.
‘But is it not possible to reach this area with the help of a map?’
‘We would, indeed, be
ahmaq
, foolish, to rely on these,’ he answered, picking up one of the map sheets and waving it in the air. ‘We cannot accurately plot a route; the datums are different.’
The point he had made was indisputable. They were consulting three sets of maps; first, the Tactical Pilots Charts, a topographic map for pilots published by the US Defense Mapping Agency, which was on a scale of 1:500,000; second, a Russian military map, of scale 1:100,000, which was marked in Russian; and finally, a photocopy of a sketch map plotted by an Austrian expedition that had explored the area in 1976. With the spheroid and datum information on the maps being different or, in the case of the Austrian map, not there at all, similar landmarks on the ground would have different coordinates.
‘What if we were to follow this ridgeline? It is very prominent and leads almost directly to the area we have in mind,’ the woman said, tracing a line on the Russian map with her finger.
‘Even if that were accurate – which I very much doubt – problems relating to bad weather would obscure identification and disorient the pilot, causing navigation errors. Moreover, the landing zone is at the far end of the radius of action.’
The woman turned to Stein, translating the Afghan’s words for his benefit. The two engaged in a serious discussion. At the end of it, Amin read from Stein’s expression that he was unmoved.
Kurt Stein now looked at him directly. ‘Listen,’ he said in English, ‘we can either double the amount we promised you,’ here, he paused to cup his hands together and mime a gesture of giving by pouring out their imaginary contents, then said, ‘or…’ He tapped his holstered handgun.
The message was not lost on Behruz Amin, who looked back at him and wrinkled his nose. Turning to the woman, the Afghan said brusquely in Russian, ‘There is little need of all the money in the world in
jahannum
.’
‘Listen, you filthy bastard,’ Kurt Stein snarled, apparently getting the general drift of what Amin was saying. ‘You can’t fool me with your stories; I have been in the mountains and I know what helicopters can do. So you better do as the lady says or I put a bullet in your head.
Comprende
?’
Amin’s response was to spit on the ground, the spittle landing very close to Stein’s boots. Stein almost lunged at him, but a sharp word from the woman in a language the Afghan did not understand restrained him. Stein began to protest, then changed his mind and stomped off, glaring at Amin as he went. Not that it mattered to the major. In Afghanistan, teenage boys would cow down half-shits like him.
‘I apologize for that,’ Claire said evenly, watching Stein leave, ‘but maybe there is a way of accommodating your perspective to the extent we can.’
As Major Behruz Amin looked at her, she could see the tightness leave his body; suddenly, he looked much older, almost tired.