Charlie wound down his window and lobbed Hari’s wallet out into the night. Kunzru’s soon followed before we got stuck into the brew, trying not to spill any as the Lada rattled down the road.
‘You see that battery, lad?’
‘Yep.’ I didn’t want to think about it too much.
‘Wouldn’t want those wires attached to your bollocks, would you?’
‘No.’
‘They wouldn’t have managed mine, of course. Those clips were way too small.’
I smiled at him. ‘Makes you think though, doesn’t it? These guys weren’t fucking around. If they had their way, you’d never see Hazel and the grandkids again.’
‘It’s not ideal, lad.’ He shrugged. ‘But I’m dead anyway, remember? It’s different for you.’ He paused. ‘Don’t waste any time fantasizing about that little box-head of yours, though — you should be working out how to get us across the border. It’s your big chance to show the world what you picked up from the master.’
‘That’s the thing…’ I hesitated. ‘I have been worrying. I have been thinking about her. It’s the first time something like that has ever worried me. You’ve had it your whole life, haven’t you?’
He shifted about in his seat. ‘Fucking hell, don’t tell me you’re finally thinking of joining the human race?’
‘How did you mix it? You know, “What the fuck am I doing here? I’d rather be at home doing I don’t know what, mowing the grass or finding the cat, or something”?’
‘It was all about trying to hang on to the balance. And that meant finding somebody like Hazel, somebody who understood what was going on in this thick head of mine, and was prepared to live with it. But it’s a partnership, lad, which is one of the reasons she’s going to be pissed off with me at the moment. After all those years, she thought she’d served her time, just like me.’
He had another look at his bleeding hand. ‘But it’s that fucking stallion in the paddock, Nick; that’s what got to me. And with these fucking things starting to behave as if they’ve got a mind of their own — well, I just had to do it without her this time. If you know they understand what’s going on, even if they disagree, you don’t have to worry about the Hazels of this world when you’re in the shit. You know they’ll be counting on you to use what brain you have to get out of the shit and get back home…’ He tailed off. ‘Make any sense?’
I nodded. ‘Suppose so.’
‘Good. Remember to write it down, lad. Something else you’ve learned from the expert.’
We must have been travelling for about twenty minutes along the valley floor when the Lada’s engine started to groan and we headed uphill. As we approached the crest, I killed the headlamps and edged forward, hoping not to see a VCP looming out of the darkness below us.
It was worse than that. Less than a K away was a large cluster of American lights illuminating the rows of twenty-man tents and Portakabins. A few Ks beyond that, on the higher ground, was another light cluster. But these belonged to the Russians.
‘Vasiani,’ I muttered. ‘I suppose at least we know where we are.’
Charlie looked up from his first aid. ‘We’ll have to bin Turkey for a while, lad. We need that gear back.’ He nodded down at the lights. ‘Listen, it’ll be suicide trying to get in there and find the duty wagon. I say we go for it in the morning. At least we know where it’ll be. Let the fucking thing come to us.’
‘You think that wagon’s going to be back on the road?’
‘Course — that thing’s gonna last longer than me, lad. Whoever’s running the transport pool down there would already have slapped on new tyres and done a jet spray under the arches. Come on, it’s a fucking army, isn’t it? What they holding it back for, forensics?’
He was right. It was the duty wagon and that was that. Every vehicle was allocated to something or other, and if this one had done a bit of cross-country, so what? That was what they did.
Charlie kept his eyes down. ‘He tell you he was leaving tomorrow?’
‘Yeah — more of the futility stuff, I thought.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. But I know I’d want to get the fuck out of town if I didn’t have control of whatever we got in the back of that 110 — wouldn’t you?’
He turned to me and I could make out just a little of his face in the ambient light from the valley. ‘It’ll be a fucker, but all the more reason to go to the airport, no?’
Two or three sets of headlights fired up and moved around inside the camp. Then one of them broke away and headed towards the main gate.
‘We’d better assume the twins had phones, Charlie boy. We got the Russians or that VCP to get past. Or — you want to get out and leg it? Even you’d be better cross-country than this thing.’
Charlie reached for the dash, smearing blood onto the plastic as he started rocking backwards and forwards in a not terribly serious attempt to make the Lada go faster.
He caught my expression. ‘Russians. Got to be done. I’m not hopping over these hills all fucking night or risking bumping into that squaddie I ripped apart.’
I put my foot down. The acceleration was so feeble that his rocking actually seemed to help.
‘That’s it, lad — to boldly go where no Lada has gone before.’
I changed down into third, trying to get a burst on. The engine whined, but that was about all it did. I rammed the gearstick back into fourth.
My eyes strained to pick out the holes in the road. I didn’t get much joy from the Lada’s headlights — even on full beam they only lit up about two feet in front of us. The junction right was coming up. The other set of headlights was coming fast down the track towards it.
If we didn’t get past first, the other wagon would block us off.
‘Come on! Keep it going!’ Charlie rocked as if he was having a fit.
There was nothing I could do but keep the car pointed in the right direction and ram my foot down.
By the time we reached the junction the engine was not too far short of cardiac arrest. The other wagon’s headlights were immediately to our right, about four hundred metres away.
Flecks of saliva sprayed me as Charlie urged us on. ‘Keep going, lad, come on.’
The engine groaned again as we started to head uphill. It wasn’t steep, but it was clearly steep enough.
The whole vehicle shook as we rumbled over the rough tarmac and I threw the wheel left and right to swerve around the potholes.
‘That’s it, lad. Keep going…’
The other headlights came to the junction and turned to follow. It didn’t take long for them to start closing in.
The lights of the Federation camp were less than a K away. I changed down to try to get a few more revs out of this fucking thing, my face almost against the windscreen as I tried to read the road.
Charlie checked behind. ‘It’ll soon be in spitting distance, lad. Keep that foot down.’
As if I needed telling.
Into fourth. The engine squealed.
The Russians’ floodlights were getting closer, but the hill was getting steeper.
Our speed dropped. Into third. A burst, then slowing.
Into second. We both jerked as the gear kicked in and the engine screamed.
‘It’s a Pajero, Nick! Got to be Bastard!’
Even as he said it, the 4x4’s lights flooded the inside of the Lada and we got the first nudge. It actually speeded us on our way.
‘Is it Bastard? You sure?’
Charlie was still twisted in his seat. ‘Who gives a shit? Just keep your foot down!’
Another slam into the back. Another jolt forwards. If it was Bastard, maybe they’d do without the helis. That had been all about the duty wagon, not his shit.
Not far to the Russians now, maybe four hundred.
The next collision was to the rear nearside. The back of the Lada slewed to the right. All I could do was keep the front wheels facing forwards and my foot on the floor.
The back fishtailed and I spun the wheel like a lunatic.
‘He’s backing off, Nick, he’s backing off. Well done, lad, just keep those fucking wheels straight.’
