"How?" Jane said.
"Shot by the Russians, each one."
"Oh, my God." Only last night she had said None of them will die—of their wounds, she had meant, but nonetheless she had foreseen each of them getting better, quickly or slowly, and returning to full health and strength under her care. Now—all dead. "But why did they kill the child?" she cried.
"I think he annoyed them."
Jane frowned, puzzled.
Ellis shifted his burden slightly so that Mousa's hand came into view. The small fingers were rigidly grasping the handle of the knife his father had given him. There was blood on the blade.
Suddenly a great wail was heard, and Halima pushed through the crowd. She took the body of her son from Ellis and sank to the ground with the dead child in her arms, screaming his name. The women gathered around her. Jane turned away.
Beckoning Fara to follow her with Chantal, Jane left the mosque and walked slowly home. Just a few minutes ago she had been thinking that the village had had a lucky escape. Now seven men and a boy were dead. Jane had no tears left, for she had cried too much: she just felt weak with grief.
She went into the house and sat down to feed Chantal. "How patient you have been, little one," she said as she put the baby to her breast.
A minute or two later Ellis came in. He leaned over her and kissed her. He looked at her for a moment, then said: "You seem angry with me."
Jane realized that she was. "Men are so bloody," she said bitterly. "That child obviously tried to attack armed Russian troops with his hunting knife—who taught him to be foolhardy? Who told him it was his role in life to kill Russians? When he threw himself at the man with the Kalashnikov, who was his role model? Not his mother. It's
his father; it's Mohammed's fault that he died; Mohammed's fault and yours.'"
Ellis looked astonished. "Why mine?"
She knew she was being harsh, but she could not stop. "They beat Abdullah, Alishan and Shahazai in an attempt to make them tell where you were," she said. "They were looking for you. That was the object of the exercise."
"I know. Does that make it my fault that they shot the little boy?"
"It happened because you're here, where you don't belong."
"Perhaps. Anyway, I have the solution to that problem. I'm leaving. My presence brings violence and bloodshed, as you are so quick to point out. If I stay, not only am I liable to get caught—for we were very lucky last night— but my fragile little scheme to start these tribes working together against their common enemy will fall apart. It's worse than that, in fact. The Russians would put me on public trial for the maximum propaganda. 'See how the CIA attempts to exploit the internal problems of a Third World country.' That sort of thing."
"You really are a big cheese, aren't you." It seemed odd that what happened here in the Valley, among this small group of people, should have such great global consequences. "But you can't go. The route to the Khyber Pass is blocked.'
"There's another way: the Butter Trail."
"Oh, Ellis . . . it's very hard—and dangerous." She thought of him climbing those high passes in the bitter winds. He might lose his way and freeze to death in the snow, or be robbed and murdered by the bandits. "Please don't do that."
"If I had another choice I'd take it."
So she would lose him again, and she would be alone. The thought made her miserable. That was surprising. She had only spent one night with him. What had she expected? She was not sure. More, anyway, than this abrupt parting. "I didn't think I'd lose you again so soon," she said. She moved Chantal to the other breast.
He knelt in front of her and took her hand. "You haven't thought this situation through," he said. "Think about Jean-Pierre. Don't you know he wants you back?"
Jane considered that. Ellis was right, she realized. Jean-Pierre would now be feeling humiliated and emasculated: the only thing that would heal his wounds would be to have her back, in his bed and in his power. "But what would he do with me?" she said.
"He will want you and Chantal to live out the rest of your lives in some mining town in Siberia, while he spies in Europe and visits you every two or three years for a holiday between assignments."
"What could he do if I were to refuse?"
"He could make you. Or he could kill you."
Jane remembered Jean-Pierre punching her. She felt nauseous. "Will the Russians help him to find me?" she said.
"Yes."
"But why? Why should they care about me?"
"First because they owe him. Second because they figure you will keep him happy. Third because you know too much. You know Jean-Pierre intimately and you've seen Anatoly: you could provide good descriptions of both of them for the CIA's computer, if you were able to get back to Europe."
So there would be more bloodshed, Jane thought; the Russians would raid villages, interrogate people, and beat and torture them to find out where she was. "That Russian officer . . . Anatoly, his name is. He saw Chantal." Jane hugged her baby tighter for a moment as she remembered those dreadful seconds. "I thought he was going to pick her up. Didn't he realize that, if he had taken her, I would have given myself up just to be with her?"
Ellis nodded. "That puzzled me at the time. But I'm more important to them than you are; and I think he decided that, while he wants eventually to capture you, in the meantime he has another use for you."
"What use? What could they want me to do?"
"Slow me down."
"By making you stay here?"
"No, by coming with me."
As soon as he said it she realized he was right, and a sense of doom settled over her like a shroud. She had to go with him, she and her baby; there was no alternative. If we die, we die, she thought fatalistically. So be it. "I suppose I have a better chance of escaping from here with you than of escaping from Siberia alone," she said.
Ellis nodded. "That's about it."
"I'll start packing," said Jane. There was no time to lose. "We'd better leave first thing tomorrow morning."
Ellis shook his head. "I want to be out of here in an hour."
Jane panicked. She had been planning to leave, of course, but not so suddenly; and now she felt she did not have time to think. She began to rush around the little house, throwing clothes and food and medical supplies indiscriminately into an assortment of bags, terrified that she would forget something crucial but too rushed to pack sensibly.
Ellis understood her mood and stopped her. He held her shoulders, kissed her forehead and spoke calmly to her. "Tell me something," he said. "Do you happen to know what the highest mountain in Britain is?"
She wondered if he was crazy. "Ben Nevis," she said. "It's in Scotland."
"How high is it?"
"Over four thousand feet."
"Some of the passes we're going to climb are sixteen and seventeen thousand feet high—that's four times as high as the highest mountain in Britain. Although the distance is only a hundred and fifty miles, it's going to take us at least two weeks. So stop; think; and plan. If you take a little more than an hour to pack, too bad—it's better than going without the antibiotics."
She nodded, took a deep breath and started again.
She had two saddlebags that could double as backpacks. Into one she put clothes: Chantal's diapers, a change of underwear for all of them, Ellis's quilted down coat from
New York, and the fur-lined raincoat, complete with hood, that she had brought from Paris. She used the other bag for medical supplies and food—iron rations for emergencies. There was no Kendal Mint Cake, of course, but Jane had found a local substitute, a cake made of dried mulberries and walnuts, almost indigestible but packed
