Still, Jean-Pierre felt no doubts, no hesitation; just a kind of anxious apprehension, like the hour before an important exam.
He took his medical bag off the horse, gave the reins to the boy, and went into the courtyard of the farmhouse.
Twenty or more guerrillas were scattered around, squatting on their haunches and staring into space, waiting with aboriginal patience. Masud was not there, Jean-Pierre noticed on looking around, but two of his closest aides were. Ellis was in a shady corner, lying on a blanket.
Jean-Pierre knelt down beside him. Ellis was evidently in some pain from the bullet. He was lying on his front. His face was taut, his teeth gritted. His skin was pale, and there was perspiration on his forehead. His breathing sounded harsh.
"It hurts, eh?" said Jean-Pierre in English.
"Fuckin'-A well told," said Ellis through his teeth.
Jean-Pierre pulled the sheet off him. The guerrillas had cut away his clothes and had put a makeshift dressing on the wound. Jean-Pierre removed the dressing. He could see immediately that the injury was not grave. Ellis had bled a lot, and the bullet still lodged in his muscle obviously hurt like hell, but it was well away from any bones or major blood vessels—it would heal fast.
No, it won't, Jean-Pierre reminded himself. It won't heal at all.
"First I'll give you something to ease the pain," he said.
"I'd appreciate that," Ellis said fervently.
Jean-Pierre pulled the blanket up. Ellis had a huge scar, shaped like a cross, on his back. Jean-Pierre wondered how he had got it.
I'll never know, he thought.
He opened his medical bag. Now I'm going to kill Ellis, he thought. I've never killed anyone, not even by accident. What is it like to be a murderer? People do it every day, all over the world: men kill their wives, women kill their children, assassins kill politicians, burglars kill householders, public executioners kill murderers. He took a large syringe and began to fill it with digitoxin: the drug came in small vials and he had to empty four of them to get a lethal dose.
What would it be like to watch Ellis die? The first effect of the drug would be to increase Ellis's heart rate. He would feel this, and it would make him anxious and uncomfortable. Then, as the poison affected the timing mechanism of his heart, he would get extra heartbeats, one small one after each normal beat. Now he would feel terribly sick. Finally the heartbeats would become totally irregular, the upper and lower chambers of the heart would beat independently, and Ellis would die in agony and terror. What will I do, Jean-Pierre thought, when he cries out in pain, asking me, the doctor, to help him? Will I let him know that I want him to die? Will he guess that I have poisoned him? Will I speak soothing words, in my best bedside manner, and try to ease his passing? Just relax, this is a normal side effect of the pain-killer, everything is going to be all right.
The injection was ready.
I can do it, Jean-Pierre realized. I can kill him. I just don't know what will happen to me afterward.
He bared Ellis's upper arm and, from sheer force of habit, swabbed a patch with alcohol.
At that moment Masud arrived.
Jean-Pierre had not heard him approach, so he seemed to come from nowhere, making Jean-Pierre jump. Masud put a hand on his arm. "I startled you, Monsieur le docteur" he said. He knelt down at Ellis's head. "I have considered the proposal of the American government," he said in French to Ellis.
Jean-Pierre knelt there, frozen in position with the syringe in his right hand. What proposal? What the hell was this? Masud was talking openly, as if Jean-Pierre was just another of his comrades—which he was, in a way—but Ellis . . . Ellis might suggest they talk in private.
Ellis raised himself on to one elbow with an effort. Jean-Pierre held his breath. But all Ellis said was: "Go on."
He's too exhausted, thought Jean-Pierre, and he's in too much pain to think of elaborate security precautions; and besides, he has no more reason to suspect me than does Masud.
"It is good," Masud was saying. "But I have been asking myself how I am going to fulfill my part of the bargain."
Of course! thought Jean-Pierre. The Americans have not sent a top CIA agent here just to teach a few guerrillas how to blow up bridges and tunnels. Ellis is here to make a deal!
Masud went on: "This plan to train cadres from other zones must be explained to the other commanders. This will be difficult. They will be suspicious—especially if I present the proposal. I think you must put it to them, and tell them what your government is offering them."
Jean-Pierre was riveted. A plan to train cadres from other zones! What the hell was the idea?
Ellis spoke with some difficulty. "I'd be glad to do that. You would have to bring them all together.''
"Yes." Masud smiled. "I shall call a conference of all the Resistance leaders, to be held here in the Five Lions Valley, in the village of Darg, in eight days' time. I will send runners today, with the message that a representative of the United States government is here to discuss arms supplies."
A conference! Arms supplies! The shape of the deal was becoming clear to Jean-Pierre. But what should he do about it?
"Will they come?" Ellis asked.
"Many will," Masud replied. "Our comrades from the western deserts will not—it's too far, and they don't know us."
"What about the two we particularly want—Kamil and Azizi?"
Masud shrugged. "It is in God's hands."
Jean-Pierre was trembling with excitement. This would be the most important event in the history of the Afghan Resistance.
Ellis was fumbling in his kitbag, which was on the floor near his head. "I may be able to help you persuade Kamil and Azizi," he was saying. He drew from the bag two small packages and opened one. It contained a flat, rectangular piece of yellow metal. "Gold," said Ellis. "Each of these is worth about five thousand dollars."
It was a fortune: five thousand dollars was more than two years' income for the average Afghan.
Masud took the piece of gold and hefted it in his hand. "What's mat?" he said, pointing to an indented figure in the middle of the rectangle.
"The seal of the President of the United States," said Ellis.
Clever, thought Jean-Pierre. Just the thing to impress tribal leaders and at the same time make them irresistibly curious to meet Ellis.
"Will that help to persuade Kamil and Azizi?" said Ellis.
Masud nodded. "I think they will come."
You bet your life they'll come, thought Jean-Pierre.
And suddenly he knew exactly what he had to do. Masud, Kamil and Azizi, the three great leaders of the Resistance, would be together in the village of Darg in eight days' time.
He had to tell Anatoly.
Then Anatoly could kill them all.
This is it, thought Jean-Pierre; this is the moment I've been waiting for ever since I came to the Valley. I've got Masud where I want him—and two other rebel leaders, too.
But how can I tell Anatoly?
There must be a way.
"A summit meeting," Masud was saying. He smiled rather proudly. "It will be a good start to the new unity of the Resistance, will it not?"
Either that, Jean-Pierre thought, or the beginning of the end. He lowered his hand, pointing the needle at the ground, and depressed the plunger, emptying the syringe. He watched the poison soak into the dusty earth. A new start, or the beginning of the end.
Jean-Pierre gave Ellis an anesthetic, took out the bullet, cleaned the wound, put a new dressing on it, and injected him with antibiotics to prevent infection. He then dealt with two guerrillas who also had minor wounds from the skirmish. By that time word had got around the village that the doctor was here, and a little cluster of patients gathered in the courtyard of the farmhouse. Jean-Pierre treated a bronchitic baby, three minor infections and a mullah with worms. Then he had lunch. Around midafternoon he packed his bag and climbed onto Maggie for the journey home.