'Ahh, Muhammed?'
'What is it, John Thomas?' Muhammed said.
Making a sharp, downward stab with his right thumb toward the Pakistani side of the pass, directly below them now, Rourke almost whispered, 'Well, remember, I was talking about some of the reasons to study survivalism. I left out one-probably the most likely one as it looks from here.'
The Pakistani officer edged forward in his seat, his face inches from Rourke's right shoulder. The smile which he usually wore degenerated into a blank stare, then froze into a grimace of fear. 'Climb. Get us out of here'' Muhammed shouted.
Bending forward to light his cigar again, staring down as he did at the endless column of Soviet trucks, tanks, and armored personnel carriers rolling across the Khyber Pass below him, Rourke said, half to himself, 'Yeah, Muhammed-one of the surefire best reasons for survivalism might be World War Three.'
Chapter Two
Corporal Ahmed Mahmude Shindi, his voice low, his speech clipped, rasped, 'We cannot risk the radio. They may have all our communications channels monitored. You two,' he whispered, gesturing to another corporal and a private, 'must go back, back to the road. Follow it until you reach an outpost, and report what we have seen. Stop for nothing. Do whatever you must. But it is imperative that you get through.'
The clouds which, throughout the day had been dark gray at the lower elevation, were now a black shroud through which the setting sun winked orange. Heavy snow, each flake the size of a large coin, began to fall.
Ahmed brushed the snow from his field glasses and hunched lower toward the barren wet ground as he edged up toward the rim of the gorge. A quick glance back over his left shoulder confirmed that his men were already setting out to alert military headquarters. Looking down into the dry rock bed several hundred yards beneath him, he saw Soviet troops half covered by the canvas shrouds of their stake trucks. And Soviet tanks, armored personnel carriers-all moving along the road below in a rapid single column. He refocused his binoculars back along the way from which the Soviets had come. He could see no end to the convoy.
The wind was gusting. The snow whirled around him like dust devils. Crawling back toward the small cave in the shelter of overhanging rocks under which his seven remaining men huddled, Ahmed's mind raced. Rourke who had taught him more than he had ever learned from anyone else about fighting and survival, had always repeated one admonition-to keep his head; regardless of the task, to do what you knew was the right thing in the right way.
'What,' Ahmed asked himself, 'is the right way of this?' Against the thousands of troops pouring along the road, down from Afghanistan, what could eight men hope to accomplish? He found himself shaking his head as, shivering with the cold and dampness now, he crawled under the lip of the low rock outcropping and into the small cave beside his men. 'What do we do, Corporal?'
It hardly mattered to Ahmed which of his men had asked the question-they all had the question in their minds. He said nothing for a moment-Rourke had been like that. The American had never talked just to talk. He had said little, in fact. But what the American had said when he did speak was always worth remembering.
Slowly, Ahmed formulated the possible actions he could take. 'There are thousands of Soviet troops coming down from the Khyber Pass-you have all seen this. We are eight men only. We cannot stop them. But if we withdraw and simply let them proceed, we will be failing our responsibilities as Pakistanis-as men. If we can do something that delays their invasion of our country by even so much as a single moment, we will have done something to help our people. We will have struck a blow. If we stay here, my friends, we will be safe, at least for the moment. If we fight-and we may achieve nothing-we will most surely die. I cannot make the decision for you. But I...I will fight.'
Ahmed leaned back against the cold rock of the cave wall and took a cigarette from his tunic. His wife had been telling him that smoking so was bad for him, and he had promised her to try to stop. Now, he had passed a sentence of death on himself. The smoking could no longer hurt him. It almost made him laugh. As he sucked the smoke deep into his lungs, he took a photograph, plastic covered, from his wallet. It almost made him cry.
He stared at the face of his wife, the smile in the eyes of the baby girl she had given him less than a year before. He stared at the photo as if somehow by looking at the picture he was communicating his thoughts to them. 'I love you,' he shouted but in silence. Not caring what his men saw, he touched his lips to the photo, then replaced it in his wallet.
The cigarette, burnt down to a tiny, glowing butt, became the focus of his attention. Staring at it, he said to his men, his voice cold like his feet, his hands, his back, 'Who goes with me to fight?'
Ahmed stared into their faces. One by one, each nodded or gestured with a hand. Already, some of them were looking to their weapons.
'Come then,' he said.
'Wait!' It was the young private who had spoken when Ahmed had first returned to the cave. 'We should pray before we die.'
Ahmed nodded, and the young private began. Ahmed's eyes flickered from one face to the other as each made his own peace. And then the prayer was over. Saying nothing, Ahmed started from the cave. The others followed him back into the swirling snow, the darkness, the wind and the cold.
They moved along the rim of the gorge. In less than an hour of numbing temperature and chill wind, exhaustion and total silence, they cut the road and reached a low rock ledge. Following it down, toward the roadside, Ahmed guessed that they were ten minutes ahead of the lead Soviet truck and the motorcycles just in front of it.
As they reached the road surface, Ahmed smiled-there were no tracks in the snow. The snow-he looked above him toward the clouded sky, watching the swirling mass of white coming downwas a blessing from Allah. The Russians could not use their helicopters or fighter planes this night.
He stopped by the side of the road and called his men to a halt. 'We must go down the road along the side here. In that way, they will not see our tracks. Come.' In single file, at some times climbing back up into the rocks, they walked along the roadside, going for perhaps a mile, before they halted once more.
'You four,' he said, gesturing with his numbing left hand, 'will stay here. The rest of us will move further down, then cross the road and retrace our steps along the opposite side. When the Russians come, open fire on the motorcycles with your submachine guns. Each grenadier will open fire on the nearest truck. The grenadier with me will use his last rounds on the outcroppings of rock above us here. If we can block the road with a rock slide, we will
