Lie Down with Lions (1985)

“You’ll become a nobody,” said Anatoly. “You won’t work for us anymore. They might let you stay in Moscow, but most likely they would send you back.”

“If Ellis gets away, I can never go back to France—they would kill me.”

“You have committed no crime in France.”

“Nor had my father, but they killed him.”

“Maybe you could go to some neutral country—Nicaragua, say, or Egypt.”

“Shit.”

“But let us not give up hope,” Anatoly said a little more brightly. “People cannot vanish into thin air. Our fugitives are somewhere.”

“If we can’t find them with a thousand men, I don’t suppose we can find them with ten thousand,” said Jean-Pierre gloomily.

“We shan’t have a thousand, let alone ten thousand,” said Anatoly. “From now on we have to use our brains, and minimal resources. All our credit is spent. Let’s try a different approach. Think: somebody must have helped them hide. That means that somebody knows where they are.”

Jean-Pierre considered. “If they had help it was probably from the guerrillas—the people least likely to tell.”

“Others may know about it.”

“Perhaps. But will they tell?”

“Our fugitives must have some enemies,” Anatoly persisted.

Jean-Pierre shook his head. “Ellis hasn’t been here long enough to make enemies, and Jane is a heroine— they treat her like Joan of Arc. Nobody dislikes her—oh!” Even as he was speaking, he realized it was not true.

“Well?”

“The mullah.”

“Aaah.”

“Somehow she irritated him beyond reason. It was partly that her cures were more effective than his, but not only that, for mine were, too, but he never disliked me particularly.”

“He probably called her a Western whore.”

“How did you guess?”

“They always do. Where does this mullah live?”

“Abdullah lives in Banda, in a house about half a kilometer outside the village.”

“Will he talk?”

“He probably hates Jane enough to give her away to us,” said Jean-Pierre reflectively. “But he couldn’t be seen to do it. We can’t just land in the village and pick him up—everyone would know what had happened and he would clam up. I’d have to meet him in secret somehow. . . .” Jean-Pierre wondered what kind of danger he might put himself in if he continued thinking along this line. Then he thought of the humiliation he had suffered: revenge was worth any risk. “If you drop me near the village I can make my way to the path between the village and his house and hide there until he comes along.”

“What if he doesn’t ‘come along’ all day?”

“Yes . . .”

“We’ll just have to make sure he does.” Anatoly frowned. “We’ll round up all the villagers in the mosque, as we did before—then just let them go. Abdullah will almost certainly go back to his house.”

“But will he be alone?”

“Hmmm. Suppose we let the women go first, and order them to return to their homes. Then, when the men are released they will all want to check on their wives. Does anyone else live near Abdullah?”

“No.”

“Then he should hurry along that footpath all alone. You step out from behind a bush—”

“And he slits my throat from ear to ear.”

“He carries a knife?”

“Did you ever meet an Afghan who didn’t?”

Anatoly shrugged. “You can take my pistol.”

Jean-Pierre was pleased, and a little surprised, to be trusted that much, even though he did not know how to use a gun. “I suppose it may serve as a threat,” he said anxiously. “I’ll need some native clothes, just in case I’m seen by someone other than Abdullah. What if I meet someone who knows me? I’ll have to cover my face with a scarf or something. . . .”

“That’s easy,” said Anatoly. He shouted something in Russian, and three of the soldiers jumped to their feet. They disappeared into the houses and emerged a few seconds later with the old horse dealer. “You can take his clothes,” said Anatoly.

“Good,” said Jean-Pierre. “The hood will hide my face.” He switched to Dari and shouted at the old man: “Take off your clothes.”

The man began to protest: nakedness was terribly shameful to Afghans. Anatoly shouted an abrupt command in Russian, and the soldiers threw the man on the ground and pulled off his shirt. They all laughed uproariously to see his stick-thin legs poking out of his ragged shorts. They let him go and he scuttled away with his hands over his genitals, which made them laugh all the more.

Jean-Pierre was too nervous to find it funny. He took off his European-style shirt and trousers and donned the old man’s hooded shirt.

“You smell of horse piss,” said Anatoly.

“It’s even worse from inside,” Jean-Pierre replied.

They climbed into their helicopter. Anatoly took the pilot’s headset and spoke into the radio microphone at length in Russian. Jean-Pierre was very uneasy about what he was about to do. Suppose three guerrillas were to come over the mountain and catch him threatening Abdullah with the gun? He was known by literally everyone in the Valley. The news that he had visited Banda with the Russians would have spread rapidly. Without doubt most people now knew that he had been a spy. He must be Public Enemy Number One. They would tear him apart.

Perhaps we’re being too clever, he thought. Maybe we should just land and pull Abdullah in and beat the truth out of him.

No, we tried that yesterday and it didn’t work. This is the only way.

Anatoly gave the headset back to the pilot, who took his seat and began to warm up the helicopter. While they were waiting, Anatoly took out his gun and showed it to Jean-Pierre. “This is a nine-millimeter Makarov,” he said over the noise of the rotors. He flipped a catch in the heel of the grip and drew out the magazine. It contained eight rounds. He pushed the magazine back in. He pointed to another catch on the left-hand side of the pistol. “This is the safety catch. When the red dot is covered, the catch is in the ‘safe’ position.” Holding the gun in his left hand, he used his right hand to pull back the slide above the grip. “This is how the pistol is cocked.” He released it and it sprang back into position. “When you fire, give a long pull on the trigger to recock the gun.” He handed the weapon to Jean-Pierre.

He really trusts me, Jean-Pierre thought, and for a moment a glow of pleasure took the chill off his fear.

The helicopters took off. They followed the Five Lions River southwest, going down the Valley. Jean-Pierre was thinking that he and Anatoly made a good team. Anatoly reminded him of his father: a clever, determined, brave man with an unshakable commitment to world communism. If we succeed here, Jean-Pierre thought, we will probably be able to work together again, on some other battlefield. The thought pleased him inordinately.

At Dasht-i-Rewat, where the lower Valley began, the helicopter turned southeast, following the tributary Rewat upstream into the hills, in order to approach Banda from behind the mountain.

Anatoly used the pilot’s headset again, then came over to shout in Jean-Pierre’s ear. “They are all in the mosque already. How long will it take the wife to reach the mullah’s house?”

“Five or ten minutes,” Jean-Pierre yelled back.

“Where do you want to be dropped off?”

Jean-Pierre considered. “All the villagers are in the mosque, right?”

“Yes.”

“Did they check the caves?”

Anatoly went back to the radio and asked. He returned and said: “They checked the caves.”