He detached the used tube from the launcher. He threw it far out into the void beyond the cliff face. He watched it fall, heard it scraping and sliding away beneath him.
The boy untied the legs of the mule and hung to the bridle rope as the animal kicked and lunged and felt its freedom and lifted its head and shouted its call. There seemed a cleanness on the mountain side, a purified and scrubbed down hygiene from the air around Barney's face. He drank it, gulped at its goodness.
He thought they had won. He thought they had won a second time.
'Where do you want to go, Barney?'
'I don't know.'
'You have to tell me, otherwise how can I lead you?'
'Away from here.'
'There is a village at the top of the valley, I think there are people still there.'
'Would they let us sleep in the village?'
'Perhaps they would let us.'
'I have to sleep, Gul Bahdur. Somewhere, I have to sleep.'
The wind was in his face, buffeting his cheeks, watering his eyes. The wind dragged at his clothes as they went north.
Barney walked alone with the missile resting across his shoulder, and the boy and the mule were away behind him.
He had butchered two helicopters, and six more Redeye missiles remained to be fired. And from two butchered helicopters he had retrieved nothing.
'You are not recruits, you are not cadets. You are trained, you are supposed to be the best,' Medev shouted.
They stood their ground. Their eyes beamed back at him. Before the crash of Viktor's helicopter they would have fidgeted in embarrassment at their squadron commander's onslaught. Before the crash of the second helicopter they might have averted their gaze from his. Not now. They stared him out. Their refusal to ride away from his attack fuelled the Major's aggression.
'You were given instructions a child could have followed, and you allow yourselves to be picked off, sniped out, wiped and not one of you can locate the source of a missile firing. There is a fucking great flash, you know. There's flash, there's smoke, there's movement. And you saw nothing. I tell you what I think…I think you're good enough to fly against tribesmen with rifles when you're safe inside an armoured hull, and any shit can do that. I tell you what else I think…I think your attitude to flying against skilful opposition is inadequate.'
Medev had regained control of his voice, an icy quiet. 'What do you think, gentlemen? Do you think you are inadequate?'
'We flew as we were instructed,' said the pilot, Vladdy.
'We were given a formation, we maintained it,' said Sergei.
'When I found the mule…' said Alexei.
'When you found the trap, when you sprung it…' snarled Medev. 'Yesterday the fire was a trap, today the mule was a trap. When Viktor was hit he was flying below the level of the valley top, why?'
'Viktor is not here,' Vladdy said sharply.
'Flying below the level of the valley top, so that his upper fuselage was exposed. So was the hot metal of the engine exhaust vent.'
'A man who is not here to answer for his error, not here because he is dead, should not be criticised in front of his comrades,' said Alexei.
'You want niceties? You want to go home to your parents in bodybags all swaddled in niceties? You want that? You want me to tell you how superior you are? You, who have been tricked, twice by one man?'
'If there is one man, perhaps there are two…' said Vladdy.
'Ah, there might be two?' said Medev. 'I tell you, if there were two, two men with Redeyes, then it would not be one helicopter only each day. Not the way you fly. You want to tell me about air currents, about camouflage cover on the ground, you want to tell me that one man can pick the moment of his attack, I tell you…listen hard to me…I tell you, I knew about air currents and turbulence and about camouflage cover and about surprise advantage when the rest of you still needed your mothers to wipe your arses. The way you fly, if there was more than one man with missiles, the whole patrol would be destroyed. You understand me, there is just one man who is disputing with me the territory of a valley in area Delta. Because of one man there are two of our friends out there on the floor of that bastard valley. You tell me they are dead, and I believe you, you tell me they could not have survived the landing, and I believe you. They will be lying there this afternoon, this evening, this night. Perhaps the bandits will come to these bodies in the evening, in the night. That is why I shout at you. If you think about your friends who lie in that valley tonight then you will understand why I lecture you on the disciplines of formation and procedure.'
'We should go and get them,' blurted the pilot, Sergei.
'We should, and it is forbidden. It is tradition that we get our bodies back, but I have to pay a price for the failure of Viktor to stay in the formation given him. The price is the breaking of tradition. It is something for you to think of, gentlemen.'
Medev turned away from them. Behind his back he heard the door open, he heard the slide of the pilots' boots away into the corridor. The room was refilling. The cypher clerks, the signals men, and Rostov. He gazed up at the map, up at the contour whirls of the mountains and the sharp drawn line of the valley astride area Delta. One man, one bastard man only, and his fist hammered into the palm of his hand.
It was a gamble, it was a chance, he had no option but to play the table. The money, the close furl of bank notes, blurred between Rossiter's fingers and the Night Manager's hand. It was dark in the alleyway at the side of the Dreamland Hotel.
A moment of mind-bending risk, and Rossiter was vaguely surprised that he was not in tears of laughter. He knew how to treat these people, they could always be bought. If the Night Manager was compromised, then the gamble that no report would be filed at the Police Station in Chitral was justified. A necessary hazard, the buying of the bastard. It would probably be a boy who would come, an Afghan boy. And Rossiter would each evening be in the shadow of the alleyway to hear of the boy's arrival. The Night Manager leered in the half-light at Rossiter. Rossiter grimaced at him, shook his hand as if they were equals. There was a bloody laugh…
Rossiter wore slacks and a white shirt that was open at the neck, and a light pullover. He had grown a thin beard at his chin and around his throat. The suit was discarded, and he believed with the touching faith of all fugitives that he had altered his appearance beyond recognition. Rossiter stifled the impulse to wipe his hand on the seat of his trousers. Afterwards, when he was alone.
He had not hurried to make the liaison with the Night Manager. Three nights he had loitered in the darkness outside the old, paint-stripped facade and watched the faces of those working the evening shift behind the front desk. He learned from what he saw through the glass doorway, that was his training, it was the sort of occupation that commended itself to Rossiter. He could judge a man like the Night Manager, he had no doubt of that; he was well practised in judging the type of man that he could buy.
From what he believed to be a successful transaction with the Night Manager, Howard Rossiter went shopping. He moved quickly into an open-fronted store, to scoop up tins and the last of the day's bread, and a packet of imported tea, and a jar of coffee.
He paid smartly, standing impatiently over the man who added the item's costs, and faded into the night.
He walked away from the central street lights of Chitral, off up the side road to the remote bungalow he had made his home. Turbaned and robed men floated past him on the dimly lit road. There were the smells of the chai kana houses where the old men sat with their ankles hidden under their haunches and sipped their sweet green tea. There were the scents of the cooking spices. There was the barking of the dogs. There was the yelp of a cyclotaxi horn. He held the paper bag against his body, thought of the supper he could manufacture from it, pulled a long and droll smile. He had made a judgement.