Jane knew she had to be the one to tell him, for she had known him longer. “We bring bad news, my friend Mohammed. The Russians came to Banda. They killed seven men—and a child. . . .” He guessed, then, what she was going to say, and the look of pain on his face made Jane want to cry. “Mousa was the child,” she finished.
Mohammed composed himself rigidly. “How did my son die?”
“Ellis found him,” said Jane.
Ellis, struggling to find the Dari words he needed, said: “He died . . . knife in hand, blood on knife.”
Mohammed’s eyes widened. “Tell me everything.”
Jane took over, because she could speak the language better. “The Russians came at dawn,” she began. “They were looking for Ellis and for me. We were up on the mountainside, so they didn’t find us. They beat Alishan and Shahazai and Abdullah, but they didn’t kill them. Then they found the cave. The seven wounded mujahideen were there, and Mousa was with them, to run to the village if they needed help in the night. When the Russians had gone, Ellis went to the cave. All the men had been killed, and so had Mousa—”
“How?” Mohammed interrupted. “How was he killed?”
Jane looked at Ellis. Ellis said: “Kalashnikov,” using a word that needed no translation. He pointed to his heart to show where the bullet had struck.
Jane added: “He must have tried to defend the wounded men, for there was blood on the point of his knife.”
Mohammed swelled with pride even as the tears came to his eyes. “He attacked them—grown men, armed with guns—he went for them with his knife! The knife his father gave him! The one-handed boy is now surely in the warrior’s heaven.”
To die in a holy war was the greatest possible honor for a Muslim, Jane recalled. Little Mousa would probably become a minor saint. She was glad that Mohammed had that comfort, but she could not help thinking cynically: This is how warlike men assuage their consciences—by talk of glory.
Ellis embraced Mohammed solemnly, saying nothing.
Jane suddenly remembered her photographs. She had several of Mousa. Afghans loved photos, and Mohammed would be overjoyed to have one of his son. She opened one of the bags on Maggie’s back and rummaged through the medical supplies until she found the cardboard box of Polaroids. She located a picture of Mousa, took it out and repacked the bag. Then she handed the picture to Mohammed.
She had never seen an Afghan man so profoundly moved. He was unable to speak. For a moment it seemed that he would weep. He turned away, trying to control himself. When he turned back, his face was composed but wet with tears. “Come with me,” he said.
They followed him through the little village to the edge of the river, where a group of fifteen or twenty guerrillas were squatting around a cooking fire. Mohammed strode into the group and without preamble began to tell the story of Mousa’s death, with tears and gesticulations.
Jane turned away. She had seen too much grief.
She looked around her anxiously. Where will we run to if the Russians come? she wondered. There was nothing but the fields, the river and the few hovels. But Masud seemed to think it was safe. Perhaps the village was just too small to attract the attention of the army.
She did not have the energy to worry anymore. She sat on the ground with her back to a tree, grateful to rest her legs, and began to feed Chantal. Ellis tethered Maggie and unloaded the bags, and the horse began to graze on the rich greenery beside the river. It’s been a long day, Jane thought, and a terrible day. And I didn’t get much sleep last night. She smiled a secret smile as she remembered the night.
Ellis got out Jean-Pierre’s maps and sat beside Jane to study them in the rapidly fading evening light. Jane looked over his shoulder. Their planned route continued up the Valley to a village called Comar, where they would turn southeast into a side valley which led to Nuristan. This valley was also called Comar, and so was the first high pass they would encounter. “Fifteen thousand feet,” said Ellis, pointing to the pass. “This is where it gets cold.”
Jane shivered.
When Chantal had drunk her fill, Jane changed her diaper and washed the old one in the river. She returned to find Ellis deep in conversation with Masud. She squatted beside them.
“You have made the right decision,” Masud was saying. “You must get out of Afghanistan, with our treaty in your pocket. If the Russians catch you, all is lost.”
Ellis nodded agreement. Jane thought: I’ve never seen Ellis like this before—he treats Masud with deference.
Masud went on: “However, it is a journey of extraordinary difficulty. Much of the trail is above the ice line. Sometimes the path is hard to find in the snow, and if you get lost there, you die.”
Jane wondered where all this was leading. It seemed to her ominous that Masud was carefully addressing Ellis, not her.
“I can help you,” Masud went on. “But, like you, I want to make a deal.”
“Go on,” said Ellis.
“I will give you Mohammed as a guide, to take you through Nuristan and into Pakistan.”
Jane’s heart leaped. Mohammed as a guide! It would make a world of difference to the journey.
“What is my part of the bargain?” Ellis asked.
“You go alone. The doctor’s wife and the child stay here.”
It was heartbreakingly clear to Jane that she must agree to this. It was foolhardy for the two of them to try to make it alone—they would probably both die. This way she could at least save Ellis’s life. “You
Ellis smiled at her and looked at Masud. “It’s out of the question,” he said.
Masud stood up, visibly offended, and walked back to the circle of guerrillas.
Jane said: “Oh, Ellis, was that wise?”
“No,” he said. He held her hand. “But I’m not going to let you go that easily.”
She squeezed his hand. “I . . . I’ve made you no promises.”
“I know,” he said. “When we get back to civilization, you’re free to do whatever you like—live with Jean- Pierre, if that’s what you want, and if you can find him. I’ll settle for the next two weeks, if that’s all I can get. Anyway, we may not live that long.”
That was true. Why agonize over the future, she thought, when we probably don’t have a future?
Masud came back, smiling again. “I’m not a good negotiator,” he said. “I’ll give you Mohammed anyway.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They took off half an hour before dawn. One by one, the helicopters lifted from the concrete apron and disappeared into the night sky beyond the range of the floodlights. In turn, the Hind Jean-Pierre and Anatoly were in struggled into the air like an ungainly bird and joined the convoy. Soon the lights of the air base were lost from view, and once again Jean-Pierre and Anatoly were flying over the mountaintops toward the Five Lions Valley.
Anatoly had worked a miracle. In less than twenty-four hours he had mounted what was probably the largest operation in the history of the Afghan war—and he was in command of it.
He had spent most of yesterday on the phone to Moscow. He had had to galvanize the slumbering bureaucracy of the Soviet Army by explaining, first to his superiors in the KGB and then to a series of military bigwigs, just how important it was to catch Ellis Thaler. Jean-Pierre had listened, not understanding the words but admiring the precise combination of authority, calm and urgency in Anatoly’s tone of voice.
Formal permission was given late in the afternoon, and then Anatoly had faced the challenge of putting it into practice. To get the number of helicopters he wanted he had begged favors, called in old debts, and scattered threats and promises from Jalalabad to Moscow. When a general in Kabul had refused to release his machines without a written order, Anatoly had called the KGB in Moscow and persuaded an old friend to sneak a look at the general’s private file, then called the general and threatened to cut off his supply of child pornography from Germany.
