“They could’ve been made by our trucks,” Rosemont said, covering his disquiet. “There’s been no snow for a couple of weeks.” He motioned the others to wait and went forward, then stepped out on the road and ran for the entrance. Tenzing followed, using the ground for cover, moving as rapidly.
Ross saw Rosemont disappear into the darkness. Then Tenzing. His anxiety increased. From where he was he could not see far down the road, for it curled away, falling steeply. The strong moonlight made the crags and the wide valley more ominous, and he felt naked and lonely and hated the waiting. But he was confident. “If you’ve Gurkhas with you, you’ve always a chance, my son,” his father had said. “Guard them - they’ll always guard you. And never forget, with luck, one day you’ll be Sheng’khan.” Ross had smiled to himself, so proud, the title given so rarely: only to one who had brought honor to the regiment, who had scaled a worthy Nepalese peak alone, who had used the kookri and had saved the life of a Ghurkha in the service of the Great Raj. His grandfather, Captain Kirk Ross, MC, killed in 1915 at the Battle of the Somme, had been given it posthumously; his father, Lieutenant Colonel Gavin Ross, DSO, was given it in Burma, in 1943. And me? Well, I’ve scaled a worthy peak - K4 - and that’s all so far but I’ve lots of time….
His fine-tuned senses warned him and he had his kookri out, but it was only Gueng. The little man was standing over him, breathing hard. “Not fast enough, sahib,” he whispered happily in Gurkhali. “I could have taken you moments ago.” He held up the severed head and beamed. “I bring you a gift.” It was the first that Ross had seen. The eyes were open. Terror still contorted the face of the old man. Gueng killed him but I gave the order, he thought, sickened. Was he just an old man who was scared fartless and wanted to get out while the going was good? Or was he a spy or a traitor rushing to betray us to the enemy?
“What is it, sahib?” Gueng whispered, his brow furrowed.
“Nothing. Put the head down.”
Gueng tossed it aside. The head rolled a little down the slope then stopped. “I searched him, sahib, and found this.” He handed him the amulet. “It was around his throat and this” - he gave him the small leather bag - “this hung down around his balls.”
The amulet was just a cheap blue stone worn against the evil eye. Inside the little bag was a small card, wrapped in plastic. Ross squinted at it and his heart skipped a beat. At that moment there was another keening on the wind, the note different. Immediately they picked up their guns and ran for the cave mouth, knowing that Tenzing had given them the all-clear signal and to hurry. Inside the throat of the cavern the darkness seemed deeper and then, as their eyes adjusted, they saw a fleck of light. It was a flashlight, the lens partially covered.
“Over here, Captain.” Though it was softly said, Rosemont’s voice echoed loudly. “This way.” He led them farther into the cave and when he was sure it was safe he shone the light on the rock walls and all around to get his bearings. “It’s okay to use your flashes.” The cave was immense, many tunnels and passages leading off it, some natural, some man-made, the rock dome fifty feet overhead. “This’s the unloading area,” he said. When he found the tunnel he sought he shone the light down it. At the end was a thick steel door, half open. “It should be locked,” he whispered, his voice raw. “I don’t know if it was left like that or what, but that’s where we have to go.”
Ross motioned to Tenzing. At once the kookri came out and the soldier went forward to vanish inside. Automatically Ross and Gueng took up defensive positions. Against whom? Ross asked himself helplessly, feeling trapped. There could be fifty men hidden in any one of those other tunnels. The seconds dragged. Again there was the keening. Ross led the rush through the doorway, then Gueng, then Rosemont. As Rosemont passed the door he saw that Tenzing had taken up a position nearby and was covering them. He pulled the door to and switched on the lights. The suddenness made the others gasp. “Hallelujah!” Rosemont said, openly relieved. “The brass figured if the generators were still working, we’d have a good shot. This door’s lightproof.” He slid heavy bolts into place, hung his flashlight on his belt.
They were in another cave, much smaller, that had been adapted, the floor leveled and carpeted roughly, the walls made more flat. It was a form of anteroom with desks and phones and litter everywhere. “The guys sure didn’t waste any time getting the hell out, did they?” he said bitterly, hurrying across the room to another tunnel, down it and into another cave room with more desks, a few radar screens, and more phones, gray and green. “The grays’re internal, greens go to the tower and masts on the crest, from there by satellite to Tehran, our HQ switchboard in the embassy, and various top secret places - they’ve built-in scramblers.” Rosemont picked one up. It was dead. “Maybe the communications guys did their job after all.” At the far end of the room was a tunnel. “That goes down to the generator room for this section which has all the gear we’ve to blow. Living quarters, kitchens, mess halls, repair shops, are in other caves off the unloading area. About eighty guys worked here around the clock.”
“Is there any other way out of here?” Ross asked. His feeling of being closed in was greater than ever.
“Sure, topside, where we’re going.”
Rough steps led upward through the domed roof. Rosemont started climbing them. On the landing was a door: TOP SECURITY AREA - NO ADMITTANCE WITHOUT SPECIAL AUTHORITY. It too was open. “Shit,” he muttered. This cave was well-appointed, floor flatter, walls whitewashed. Dozens of computers and radar screens, and banked electronic equipment. More desks and chairs and phones, gray and green. And two red on a central desk.
“What’re those for?”
“Direct to Langley by military satellite.” Rosemont picked one up. It was dead. So was the other. He pulled out a piece of paper and checked it, then went over to a bank of switches and turned some on. Another obscenity as a soft hum began, computers started chattering, warming up, and three of the radar screens came to life, the central white trace-line turning, leaving a scatter pattern in its wake. “Bastards! Bastards to leave everything like this.” His finger stabbed at four comer computers. “Blow those mothers - they’re the core.”
“Gueng!”
“Yes, sahib.” The Gurkha took off his pack and began to lay out the plastic explosives and detonators.
“Half-hour fuses?” Rosemont said.
“Half-hour fuses it is.” Ross was staring at one of the screens, fascinated. Northward he could see most of the Caucasus, all of the Caspian, eastward even part of the Black Sea, all with extraordinary clarity.“That’s a lot of space to peer into.”
Rosemont went over to its keyboard and turned a switch.
For a moment Ross was dumbfounded. He tore his eyes off the screen. “Now I understand why we’re here.”
“That’s only part.”
“Christ! Then we’d better get cracking. What about the cave mouth?” “We’ve no time to do a decent job - and the other side of our door’s routine junk they’ve stolen anyways. We’ll blow our tunnels after us and use the escapeway.”
“Where’s that?”
The American went over to a door. This one was locked. He took out a bunch of tagged keys and found the one he wanted. The door swung open. Behind the door a narrow flight of stairs spiraled upward steeply. “It leads out onto the mountain.”
“Tenzing, make sure the way’s clear.” Tenzing went up the stairs two at a time. “Next?”
“Code room and the safes, we’ll mine those. Then communications. Generator room last, okay?”
“Yes.” Ross liked the incisive strength more and more. “Before we do you’d better look at this.” He took out the small, plastic-covered card. “Gueng caught up with our guide. This was on him.”
All color left Rosemont’s face. On the card was a thumbprint, some writing in Russian script, and a signature. “An ID!” he burst out. “A Commie ID!” Behind them Gueng paused momentarily.
“That’s what I thought. What’s it say exactly?”
“I don’t know, I can’t read Russian either but I’ll bet my life it’s a safe-conduct pass.” A wave of sickness came up from his stomach as he remembered all the days and nights he had spent in the old man’s company, wandering the mountains, sleeping alongside him in the open, feeling very safe. And all the time he’d been pegged. Numbly he shook his head. “Meshgi was with us for years - he was one of Ali bin Hassan Karakose’s band - Ali’s an underground leader and one of our best contacts in the mountains. Great guy who even operates as far north as Baku. Jesus, maybe he’s been betrayed.” He looked at the card again. “Just doesn’t figure.”
“I think it figures we could have been deliberately set up, sitting ducks,” Ross said. “Perhaps the convoy’s
