'The tracks of one man?' Medev said. 'Tell me of those tracks.'
'They were boot marks. They have been photographed, but I do not yet have the prints. A large boot with a heavy gripping tread.'
'The bandits wear sandals, or shoes, not climbing boots.'
'Not my concern, Major Medev. I merely report the type of boot that was worn at the place where the tube was found.'
'We wear boots, a European wears boots,' the Colonel of Intelligence said. 'We have to be careful not to leap to conclusions, but the Afghan does not generally wear boots.'
'We are dealing with a ground-to-air missile, not a footwear problem,' said the staff officer.
The Colonel of Intelligence said, 'Five days ago, perhaps a week, we received information that a European and a local national and two mules were crossing Nangarhar province coming north towards the Kabul river and Laghman…'
'You acted on that information?' enquired the staff officer.
'We were able to trace the path of these persons for some days. The trail was lost as we were in the process of an airborne interception. I am correct, Major Medev?'
'The interception was aborted. The final directions close to the river did not materialise,' Medev said quietly.
'Unfortunate,' the staff officer said.
'More unfortunate for our comrade who operated the ground radio. He was shot; he was castrated; his testicles were left for his lunch.'
The staff officer said nothing.
The Frontal Aviation commander leaned forward over his desk, his finger pointed at Medev. 'When the helicopters fly in pairs, one should cover the other. Evidently this did not happen?'
'A fire was lit in a cave, possibly the fire was a trap. The pilot paid with his life, and with the life of his gunner, for ignoring his orders.'
'It is important that your pilots fully understand their procedures,' the Frontal Aviation commander stiffly divorced himself from the responsibility.
'Eight Nine Two has two bodies to send home, I think our pilots have been reminded of their procedures.' Medev looked each man in the face. 'If we have a European in area Delta, if we have a man who will lay a trap to kill one helicopter, then I ask what is to be our response?'
'You find the bastard, that's my suggestion,' said the staff officer. 'Find him and kill him.'
The Frontal Aviation commander said, 'I will send a preliminary report to Kabul this evening. Find this man tomorrow, Major Medev, and I can send a further report to Kabul.'
'It will not be straightforward, sir. area Delta is…'
'Aggressive flying will make it straightforward, Major Medev.'
It was the end of the meeting.
As the light failed, they had left the resting place, moved on, gone north. The valley floor was a gentle gradient, but the slightest of slopes over the rough ground was hard on the leg muscles, aching on the lungs.
The sinking sun was behind them. Barney walked into his moving shadow. He felt the tiredness. He felt the dirt on his body. He felt the lice-bite sores chafing under his arms. He felt a weakness, a looseness, in his stomach. And no bed tonight, no shelter from the evening wind. He wondered how long the boy could sustain the route marching and the lack of warm food. Barney stopped.
'Gul Bahdur…'
The shout echoed in the valley, came back to him from the rock faces.
…By first light tomorrow we have to be on top of the valley, where is the place to climb?'
The answering voice, weak and failing in the winds. 'You cannot climb in the dark.'
'Where is the place to climb?'
The boy was staggering closer to Barney, slipping on the rocks, tears nearly suppressed. 'You cannot climb in the dark, in the day you can climb a side valley. You can see the side valley as well as I can, ahead.'
'If I can climb in the dark, so can you.'
'Not in the dark, Barney.'
Barney watched the boy, watched his spirit driving him closer, watched his courage.
He stumbled, he grazed his knee, he squeezed his eyes, he clung to the mules' bridle ropes. Barney set down the Redeye launcher, sat beside it, waited for the boy to reach him. They could only climb to the summits by using the side valleys. He wanted to taunt the boy, to tease more strength into his slight body. He thought he had succeeded. Only by the inventive use of their stamina would they live.
There were no trees here that had survived the last winter. There was a fallen, bark-peeled bough beside the river bed where it had been left by the spring floods.
Barney led a mule to the bough and roped it to the dead wood. He unloaded the two missiles and his backpack from the mule. From the pack he took trousers, the only pair other than the ones that he wore, and a shirt, and without asking he took the turban from the boy's head.
'What are you doing, Barney?' the boy asked, a small tired voice.
'I have to trick them for each firing to succeed. With the fire we tricked them. With this too, perhaps.'
He took small stones and stuffed them into the legs of the trousers and into the waist, filled the trousers. He laid the shirt above the trousers and found more stones for the body of the shirt and for the arms. The trousers and the shirt were half masked by a rock, but would be visible from the air. He took a stone that was the size of a ripened melon and put the boy's turban on it and placed it against the neck of the shirt.
Together they loaded the two missile tubes and the pack onto the other mule's back.
They tramped off into the grey shadow light towards the place where the side valley dropped onto the valley's floor. The boy looked back, he saw the tethered mule and saw the half hidden shape of a man who slept beside the mule.
It had taken Barney and the boy three and a half hours to reach the roof of the valley.
Without the mule it would not have been possible. A dull, stubborn animal but even when blindfolded by darkness the animal uncannily found a secure foothold. They had clung alternately to the rope, to the bridle, to the packs and missile tubes, to the mule's tail. Their shins were raw from the rocks they had blundered against. High over the valley the winds whipped their clothes and chilled them. The last five hundred metres he half-carried the boy, held his arm crooked through his own.
The side valley wavered in no clear course, darting right and left over what in the spring would be torrent courses. No lights shining in the mountains, no sounds other than the scrape of their own feet and the mule's hooves straining for grip, and the stones that were dislodged and tumbled away under them. Higher on the climb there was a murmur of light from the crescent moon, thinly washed, so that Barney could see the shape in front of him of the mule's head, and could see the outline beside him of the boy's body. Hours since they had eaten, more hours since they had slept the sort of sleep he needed.
They came to the summit, they reached an upland plain. The stars were around them. The wind pinioned their clothes against their bodies and there was no respite from it. The mule would go no further.
The mule had taken them to the upper reach of the side valley and would go no further. Barney discovered a shallow gully, discovered it by falling headlong into it, and his momentum carried the boy in after him, and the mule bleated at the sudden dragging on its bridle. He hobbled the mule with difficulty and tied the rope to his ankle. They drew their blankets around them, and lay snuggled in the gully.
'Barney…'
'We have to sleep, Gul Bahdur.'
'When you go home, when you have fired the eight Redeyes, who will you tell of this time?'