“How much risk?”
“We think they just left in a hurry and destroyed nothing. You’ve been there, for crissake! Mecca’s stuffed with enough top secret gizmos, listening gear, seeing gear, long-range radar, locked in satellite ciphers and codes and computers to get our unfriendly KGB chief Andropov voted Man of the Year - if he gets them. Can you believe it - those bastards just hightailed it out!”
“Treason?”
“Doubt it. Just plain stupid, dumb - there wasn’t even a contingency plan at Sabalan, for crissake - anywhere else either. Not all their fault, I guess. None of us figured the Shah’d fold so goddamn quick, or that Khomeini’d get Bakhtiar by the balls so fast. We got no warning - not even from SAVAK…” And now we have to pick up the pieces, Vien thought. Or, more correctly, blow them to hell. He glanced at his watch, feeling very tired. He gauged the night and the moon. Better give it another half an hour. His legs ached, and his head. He saw Ross watching him and he smiled inside: I won’t fail, Limey. But will you?
“An hour, then we’ll move out,” Vien said.
“Why wait?”
“The moon’ll be better for us. It’s safe here and we’ve time. You’re clear what we do?”
“Mine everything in Mecca you mark, blow it and the cave entrance simultaneously, and run like the clappers all the way home.” Rosemont smiled and felt better. “Where’s home for you?”
“I don’t know really,” Ross said caught unawares. He had never asked himself the question. After a moment, more for himself than the American, he added, “Perhaps Scotland - perhaps Nepal. My father and mother’re in Katmandu, they’re as Scots as I am but they’ve been living there off and on since ‘51 when he retired. I was even born there though I did almost all my schooling in Scotland.” Both’re home, for me, he thought. “What about you?” “Washington, D.C. - really, Falls Church, Virginia, which is almost part of Washington. I was born there.” Rosemont wanted a cigarette but he knew it might be dangerous. “Pa was CIA. He’s dead now but he was at Langley for the last few years, which’s close by - CIA HQ’s at Langley.” He was happy to be talking. “Ma’s still in Falls Church, haven’t been back in a couple of years. You ever been to the States?”
“No, not yet.” The wind had picked up a little and they both studied the night for a moment.
“It’ll die down after midnight,” Rosemont said confidently. Ross saw the guide shift position again. Is he going to make a run for it? “You’ve worked with the guide before?”
“Sure. I tramped all over the mountains with him last year - I spent a month here. Routine. Lotta the opposition infiltrate through this area and we try to keep tabs on ‘em - like they do us.” Rosemont watched the guide. “Meshgi’s a good joe. Kurds don’t like Iranians, or Iraqis or our friends across the border. But you’re right to ask.”
Ross switched to Gurkhali. “Tenzing, watch everywhere and the pathfinder - you eat later.” At once Tenzing slipped out of his pack and was gone into the night. “I sent him on guard.”
“Good,” Rosemont said. He had watched them all very carefully on the climb up and was very impressed with the way they worked as a team, leapfrogging, always one of them flanking, always seeming to know what to do, no orders, always safety catches off. “Isn’t that kinda dangerous?” he had said early on.
“Yes, Mr. Rosemont - if you don’t know what you’re doing,” the Britisher had said to him with no arrogance that he could detect. “But when every tree or corner or rock could hide hostiles, the difference between safety on and off could mean killing or being killed.”
Vien Rosemont remembered how the other had added guilelessly, “We’ll do everything we can to support you and get you out,” and he wondered again if they would get in, let alone out. It was almost a week since Mecca had been abandoned. No one knew what to expect when they got there - it could be intact, already stripped, or even occupied. “You know this whole op’s crazy?”
“Ours not to reason why.”
“Ours but to do or die? I think that’s the shits!”
“I think that’s the shits too if it’s any help.”
It was the first time they had laughed together. Rosemont felt much better. “Listen, haven’t said it before, but I’m happy you three’re aboard.” “We’re, er, happy to be here.” Ross covered his embarrassment at the open compliment. “Agha,” he called out to the guide, “please join us at food.” “Thank you, Agha, but I am not hungry,” the old man replied without moving from the cave mouth.
Rosemont put his boots back on. “You got a lot of special units in Iran?” “No. Half a dozen - we’re here training Iranians. You think Bakhtiar will weather it?” He opened his pack and distributed the cans of bully beef. “No. The word in the hills among the tribes is that he’ll be out - probably shot - within the week.”
Ross whistled. “Bad as that?”
“Worse: that Azerbaijan‘11 be a Soviet protectorate within the year.” “Bloody hell!”
“Sure. But you never know” - Vien smiled - “that’s what makes life interesting.”
Casually Ross offered the flask. “Best Iranian rotgut money can buy.” Rosemont grimaced and took a careful sip, then beamed. “Jesus H. Christ, it’s real Scotch!” He prepared to take a real swallow but Ross was ready and he grabbed the flask back.
“Easy does it - it’s all we’ve got, Agha.”
Rosemont grinned. They ate quickly. The cave was snug and safe. “You ever been to Vietnam?” Rosemont asked, wanting to talk, feeling the time right. “No, never have. Almost went there once when my father and I were en route to Hong Kong but we were diverted to Bangkok from Saigon.” “With the Gurkhas?”
“No, this was years ago, though we do have a battalion there now. I was,” Ross thought a moment, “I was seven or eight, my father has some vague Hong Kong relations, Dunross, yes that was their name, and there was some sort of clan gathering. I don’t remember much of Hong Kong except a leper who lay in the dirt by the ferry terminal. I had to pass him every day - almost every day.”
“My dad was in Hong Kong in “63,” Vien said proudly. “He was deputy director of station - CIA.” He picked up a stone, toyed with it. “You know I’m half-Vietnamese?”
“Yes, they told me.”
“What else did they tell you?”
“Just that I could trust you with my life.”
Rosemont smiled wryly. “Let’s hope they’re right.” Thoughtfully he began checking the action of his M16. “I’ve always wanted to visit Vietnam. My pa, my real pa, was Vietnamese, a planter, but he was killed just before I was born - that was when the French owned Indochina. He got clobbered by Viet Cong just outside Dien Bien Phu. Ma…” The sadness dropped off him and he smiled. “Ma’s as American as a Big Mac and when she remarried she picked one of the greatest. No real pa could’ve loved me more…”
Abruptly Gueng cocked his carbine. “Sahib!” Ross and Rosemont grabbed their weapons, then there was a keening on the wind, Ross and Gueng relaxed. “It’s Tenzing.”
The sergeant appeared out of the night as silently as he had left. But now his face was grim. “Sahib, many trucks on the road below - ” “In English, Tenzing.”
“Yes, sahib. Many trucks, I counted eleven, in convoy, on the road at the bottom of the valley…”
Rosemont cursed. “That road leads to Mecca. How far away were they?” The little man shrugged. “At the bottom of the valley. I went the other side of the ridge and there’s a…” He said the Gurkhali word and Ross gave him the English equivalent. “A promontory. The road in the valley twists, then snakes as it climbs. If the tail of the snake is in the valley and the head wherever the road ends, then four trucks were already well past tail.” Rosemont cursed again. “An hour at best. We’d bett - ” At that moment there was a slight scuffle and their attention flashed to the cave mouth. They just had time to see the guide rushing away, Gueng in pursuit. “What the hell…”
“For whatever reason, he’s abandoning ship,” Ross said. “Forget him. Does an hour give us a chance?”
“Sure. Plenty.” Quickly they got into their packs and Rosemont armed his light machine gun. “What about Gueng?”
“He’ll catch us up.”
“We’ll go straight in. I’ll go first - if I run into trouble you abort. Okay?”
The cold was almost a physical barrier they had to fight through but Rosemont led the way well, the snow not bad on the meandering path, the moon helping, their climbing boots giving them good traction. Quickly they topped the ridge and headed down the other side. Here it was more slippery, the mountainside barren, just a few clumps of weeds and plants fighting to get above the snow. Ahead now was the maw of the cave, the road running into it, many vehicle tracks in the snow.
