- and the 206 - but all over the base were armed men. Dayati, the base manager, had moved into Azadeh and Erikki’s cabins - he, his wife and children. “Sons and daughters of dogs,” Azadeh hissed, seeing the wife wearing a pair of her boots. “Perhaps we could sneak into the mechanics’ huts. They’ll hide us.”
“They’re escorted everywhere; I’ll bet they’ve even guards at night. But who are the guards, Green Bands, the Khan’s men, or who?”
“I don’t recognize any of them, Johnny.”
“They’re after us,” he said, feeling very low, the death of Gueng preying on him. Both Gueng and Tenzing had been with him since the beginning. And there was Rosemont. And now Azadeh. “Another night in the open and you’ll have had it, we’ll have had it.”
“Our village, Johnny. Abu Mard. It’s been in our family for more than a century. They’re loyal, I know they are. We’d be safe there for a day or two.”
“With a price on my head? And you? They’d send word to your father.” “I’d ask them not to. I’d say Soviets were trying to kidnap me and you were helping me. That’s true. I’d say that we need to hide until my husband comes back - he’s always been very popular, Johnny, his CASEVACs saved many lives over the years.”
He looked at her, a dozen reasons against. “The village’s on the road, almost right on the road an - ”
“Yes, of course you’re quite right and we’ll do whatever you say, but it sprawls away into the forest. We could hide there - no one’d expect that.” He saw her tiredness. “How do you feel? How strong do you feel?” “Not strong, but fine.”
“We could hike out, go down the road a few miles - we’d have to skirt the roadblock, it’s a lot less dangerous than the village. Eh?” “I’d…I’d rather not. I could try.” She hesitated, then said, “I’d rather not, not today. You go on. I’ll wait. Erikki may come back today.” “And if he doesn’t?” “I don’t know. You go on.”
He looked back at the base. A nest of vipers. Suicide to go there. From where they were on a rise, he could see as far as the main road. Men still manned the roadblock - he presumed Green Bands and police - a line of traffic backed up and waiting to leave the area. No one’ll give us a ride now, he thought, not unless it’s for the reward. “You go to the village. I’ll wait in the forest.”
“Without you they’ll just return me to my father - I know them, Johnny.” “Perhaps they’ll betray you anyway.”
“As God wants. But we could get some food and warmth, perhaps even a night’s rest. In the dawn we could sneak away. Perhaps we could get a car or truck from them - the kalandar has an old Ford.” She stifled a sneeze. Armed men were not far away. More than likely there were patrols out in the forest - coming here they had had to detour to avoid one. The village’s madness, he thought. To get around the roadblock’ll take hours in daylight, and by night - we can’t stay outside another night. “Let’s go to the village,” he said. So they had gone yesterday and Mostafa, the kalandar, had listened to her story and kept his eyes away from Ross. News of their arrival had gone from mouth to mouth and in moments all the village knew and mis news was added to the other, about the reward for the saboteur and kidnapper of the Khan’s daughter. The kalandar had given Ross a one-room hut with dirt floor and old mildewed carpets. The hut was well away from the road, on the far edge of the village, and he noticed the steel-hard eyes and matted hair and stubbled beard - his carbine and kookri and ammunition-heavy knapsack. Azadeh he invited into his home. It was a two-room hovel. No electricity or running water. The joub was the toilet.
At dusk last night, hot food and a bottle of water had been brought to Ross by an old woman.
“Thank you,” he said, his head aching and the fever already with him. “Where is Her Highness?” The woman shrugged. She was heavily lined, pockmarked, with brown stubs of teeth. “Please ask her to receive me.” Later he was sent for. In the headman’s room, watched by the headman, his wife, some of his brood, and a few elders, he greeted Azadeh carefully - as a stranger might a highborn. She wore chador of course and knelt on carpets facing the door. Her face had a yellowish, unhealthy pallor, but he thought it might be from the light of the sputtering oil lamp. “Salaam, Highness, your health is good?”
“Salaam, Agha, yes, thank you, and yours?” “There is a little fever I think.” He saw her eyes flick up from the carpet momentarily. “I have medicine. Do you need any?” “No. No, thank you.”
With so many eyes and ears what he wanted to say was impossible. “Perhaps I may greet you tomorrow,” he said. “Peace be upon you, Highness.” “And upon you.”
It had taken him a long time to sleep. And her. With the dawn the village awoke, fires were stoked, goats milked, vegetable horisht set to stew - little to nourish it but a morsel of chicken, in some huts a piece of goat or sheep, the meat old, tough, and rancid. Bowls of rice but never enough. Food twice a day in good times, morning and before last light. Azadeh had money and she paid for their food. This did not go unnoticed. She asked that a whole chicken be put into tonight’s horisht to be shared by the whole household, and she paid for it. This, too, did not go unnoticed. Before last light she had said, “Now I will take food to him.” “But, Highness, it’s not right for you to serve him,” the kalandar’s wife said. “I’ll carry the bowls. We can go together if you wish.” “No, it’s better if I go alone beca - ”
“God protect us, Highness. Alone? To a man not your husband? Oh no, that would be unseemly, that would be very unseemly. Come, I will take it.” “Good, thank you. As God wants. Thank you. Last night he mentioned fever. It might be plague. I know how Infidels carry vile diseases that we are not used to. I only wished to save you probable agony. Thank you for sparing me.”
Last night everyone in the room had seen the sheen of sweat on the Infidel’s face. Everyone knew how vile Infidels were, most of them Satan worshipers and sorcerers. Almost everyone secretly believed that Azadeh had been bewitched, first by the Giant of the Knife, and now again by the saboteur. Silently the headman’s wife had handed Azadeh the bowls and she had walked across the snow.
Now she watched him in the semidarkness of the room that had as window a hole in the adobe wall, no glass, just sacking covering most of it. The air was heavy with the smell of urine and waste from the joub outside. “Eat, eat while it’s hot. I can’t stay long.”
“You okay?” He had been lying under the single blanket, fully dressed, dozing, but now he sat cross-legged and alert. The fever had abated somewhat with the help of drugs from his survival kit but his stomach was upset. “You don’t look so good.”
She smiled. “Neither do you. I’m fine. Eat.”
He was very hungry. The soup was thin but he knew that was better for his stomach. Another spasm started building but he held on and it went away. “You think we could sneak off?” he said between mouthfuls, trying to eat slowly.
“You could, I can’t.”
While he had been dozing all day gathering his strength, he had tried to make a plan. Once he had started to walk out of the village. A hundred eyes were on him, everyone watching. He went to the edge of the village then came back. But he had seen the old truck. “What about the truck?” “I asked the headman. He said it was out of order. Whether he was lying or not I don’t know.”
“We can’t stay here much longer. A patrol’s bound to come here. Or your father will hear about us or be told. Our only hope is to run.” “Or to hijack the 206 with Nogger.” He looked at her. “With all those men there?” “One of the children told me that they went back to Tabriz today.” “You’re sure?”
“Not sure, Johnny.” A wave of anxiety went over her. “But there’s no reason for the child to lie. I, I used to teach here before I was married - I was the only teacher they had ever had and I know they liked me. The child said there’s only one or two left there.” Another chill swirled up and made her weak. So many lies, so many problems the last few weeks, she thought. Is it only weeks? So much terror since Rakoczy and the mullah burst in on Erikki and me after our sauna. Everything so hopeless now. Erikki, where are you? she wanted to scream, where are you?
He finished the soup and the rice and picked at the last grain, weighing the odds, trying to plan. She was kneeling opposite him and she saw his matted hair and filth, his exhaustion and gravity. “Poor Johnny,” she murmured and touched him. “I haven’t brought you much luck, have I?”
“Don’t be silly. Not your fault - none of this is.” He shook his head. “None of it. Listen, this’s what we’ll do: we’ll stay here tonight, tomorrow after first light we’ll walk out. We’ll try the base - if that doesn’t work then we’ll hike out. You try to get the headman to help us by keeping his mouth shut, his wife too. The rest of the villagers should behave if he orders it, at least to give us a start. Promise them a big reward when things are normal again, and here…” He reached into his pack into the secret place, found the gold rupees, ten of them. “Give him five, keep the other five for emergency.”
