Moreover, the collar was wired with small condenser microphones that allowed Honda to communicate subvocally. He could whisper and his voice would be transferred clearly to whoever was on the other end.
But Striker was more than just a group of military elite drawn from different services. It. Colonel Squires had done an extraordinary job turning them into a smart, disciplined fighting unit. They were certainly the most impressive team August had ever served with.
The plane banked to the south and August's old leather portfolio slid from under his seat. He kicked it back with his heel. The bag contained maps and white papers about Kashmir.
The colonel had already reviewed them with his team.
He would look at them again in a few minutes. Right now August wanted to do what he did before beginning every mission. He wanted to try and figure out why he was here, why he was going. That was something he had done every day since he was first a prisoner of war: take stock of his motivations for doing what he was doing. That was true whether August was in a Vietcong stockade, getting up in the morning to go to the Striker base, or leaving on a mission.
It was not enough to say he was serving his country or pursuing his chosen career. He needed something that would allow him to push himself to do better than he did the day before. Otherwise the quality of his work and his life would suffer.
What he had discovered was that he could not find another reason. When he was optimistic, pride and patriotism had been his biggest motivators. On darker days he decided that humans were all territorial carnivores and prisoners of their nature. Combat and survival were a genetic imperative. Yet these could not be the only things that drove us. There had to be something unique to everyone, something that transcended political or professional boundaries.
So what he searched for in these quiet times was the other missing motivation. The key that would make him a better soldier, a better leader, a stronger and better man.
Along the way, of course, he discovered many things, thought many interesting thoughts. And he began to wonder if the journey itself might be the answer. Given that he was heading to one of the birthplaces of Eastern religion, that would be a fitting revelation.
Maybe that was all he would find. Unlike the mission, there were no maps to show him the terrain, no aircraft to take him there.
But for now he would keep looking.
CHAPTER SIX.
Srinagar, India Wednesday, 4:22 p. m.
There was a two-and-one-half-hour time difference between Baku and Kashmir. Still on Azerbaijan time, Ron Friday bought several lamb skewers from one of the food merchants. Then he went to a crowded outdoor cafe and ordered tea to go with his dinner. He would have to eat quickly.
There was a dusk-to-dawn curfew for foreigners. It was strictly enforced by soldiers who patrolled the streets wearing body armor and carrying automatic rifles.
Though the rain had stopped, the large umbrellas were still open over the tables. Friday had to duck to make his way through. He shared his table with a pair of Hindu pilgrims who were reading while they drank their tea. The two men were dressed in very long white cotton robes that were tied at the center with a brown belt. It was the wardrobe of holy men from the United Provinces near Nepal, at the foot of the Himalayas. There were heavy-looking satchels at their sides.
The men were probably on their way to a religious shrine at Pahalgam, which was located fifty-five miles south of Srinagar.
The presence of the satchels suggested that they were planning to spend some time at the shrine. The men did not acknowledge Friday as he sat, though they were not being rude. They did not want to interrupt his tranquillity. One of the men was looking over a copy of the International Herald Tribune. That struck Friday as odd, though he did not know why it should. Even holy men needed to keep up with world events. The other man, who was sitting right beside Friday, was reading a volume of poems in both Sanskrit and English.
Friday glanced over the man's forearm.
' Vishayairindriyuraamo na thrupthamcidhigwhathi ajasrain pooryamuanoopi samudraha salilairiva,' it said in Sanskrit.
The English translation read, 'The senses can never be satisfied even after the continuous supply of sensory objects, as the ocean can never be filled with a continuous supply of water.'
Friday did not dispute that. People who were alive had to drink in everything around them. They consumed experiences and things and turned that fuel into something else.
Into something that had their fingerprints on it. If you weren't doing that you were living, but not alive.
While the pilgrims sat at the table they were approached by a Muslim.
The man offered low-price shelter at his home if they wished to stay the night. Often, pilgrims had neither the time nor the money to stay at an inn. The men graciously declined, saying they were going to try and catch the next bus and would rest when they reached the shrine. The Muslim said that if they missed this bus or one of the later ones he could arrange for his brother-in-law to drive them to the shrine the next day. He gave them a card with his address handwritten on it. They thanked him for his offer. The man bowed and excused himself. It was all very civil. Contact between the Muslims and Hindus usually was cordial. It was the generals and the politicians who provoked the wars.
Behind Friday two men had stopped for tea. From their conversation he gathered that they were heading to the night shift at a nearby brick factory. To Friday's left three men in the khaki uniforms of the Kashmir police force were standing and watching the crowd. Unlike in the Middle East, bazaars were not typically the scene of terrorist attacks in Kashmir.
That was because as many Muslims as Hindus frequently mingled in marketplaces. Hindu-specific sites were usually targeted. Places such as homes of local officials, businesses, police stations, financial institutions, and military bases. Even militaristic, aggressive groups like the Hezb-ul Mujahedeen guerrillas did not typically attack civilian locales, especially during business hours. They did not want to turn the people against them. Their war was with the Hindu leaders and those who supported them.
