"I want you to try and get to the entrance while I keep the helicopter busy," Rodgers said. "It's not going to be easy getting past the soldiers but it may be your only hope."
"How do we know they'll kill us?" she asked.
"We don't," Rodgers admitted. "But let's find out by trying to escape instead of by surrendering."
"I like that," Nanda replied.
Rodgers could hear the smile in her voice.
"Start making your way around the wall behind me," he said. "With luck, the chopper will cause an avalanche on their side."
"I hope not," she replied. "They're my people."
Touche, Rodgers thought.
"But thank you," she added. "Thank you for making this fight your fight. Good luck."
The general patted her cheek and she left. He continued to watch as the chopper descended. Suddenly, the Russian bird stopped moving. It hovered above the center of the clearing, equidistant to Rodgers and the Indians. Maybe twenty seconds passed and then the chopper suddenly swept upward and to the south. It disappeared behind one of the peaks near the entrance. The glow of its lights poured through the narrow cavern.
Rodgers peeked over the slab. The chopper had landed. Maybe they were worried about causing an avalanche and had decided to deploy ground troops. That would make getting through the entrance virtually impossible. He immediately got up and ran after Nanda. He would have to pull her back, think of another strategy. Maybe negotiate something with these people to get her out. As she had said, they were her people.
But as Rodgers ran he saw something that surprised him. Up ahead. Three of the Indian soldiers were rushing from the clearing. They were not going to attack. They were being evacuated.
What happened next surprised him even more.
"General Rodgers!" someone shouted.
Rodgers looked to the west of the entrance. Someone was standing there, half-hidden by an ice formation.
All right, Rodgers thought. He'd bite. "Yes?" the general shouted back.
"Your message got through!" said the Indian. "We must leave this place at once!"
Everything from Rodgers's legs to his spirit to his brain felt as though they had been given a shot of adrenaline. He kept running, leaping cracks and dodging mounds of ice. Either Ron Friday had gotten to him with a hell of a sell job or the man was telling the truth. Whichever it was, Rodgers was going with it. There did not seem to be another option.
Looking ahead, Rodgers watched as Nanda reached the entrance. She continued on toward the light. Rodgers arrived several moments later. The Indian soldier, a sergeant, got there at the same time he did. His rifle was slung over his back. There were no weapons in his gloved hands.
"We must hurry," the Indian said as they ran into the entrance. "This area is a Pakistani time bomb. An arsenal of some kind. You triggered the defenses somehow."
Possibly by tinkering with the uplink, Rodgers thought. Or more likely, the Pakistani military wanted to destroy them all to keep the secret of their nuclear missile silo.
"I can't believe there were just two of you," the sergeant said as they raced through the narrow tunnel. "We thought there were more."
"There were," Rodgers said. He looked at the chopper ahead. He watched as soldiers helped Nanda inside and he realized Friday had deserted them. "They're dead now."
The men left the entrance and ran the last twenty-five yards to the chopper. Rodgers and the sergeant jumped into the open door of the Mi-35. The aircraft rose quickly, simultaneously angling from the hot Pakistani base.
As the helicopter door was slid shut behind him, Rodgers staggered toward the side of the crowded cargo compartment. There were no seats, just the outlines of cold, tired bodies. The general felt the adrenaline kick leave as his legs gave out and he dropped to the floor. He was not surprised to find Nanda already there, slumped against an ammunition crate. Rodgers slid toward her as the helicopter leveled out and sped to the north. He took her hand and snuggled beside her, the two of them propping each other up. The Indians sat around them, lighting cigarettes and blowing warmth on their hands.
The cabin temperature inside the helicopter was little higher than freezing, but the relative warmth felt blissful. Rodgers's skin crackled warmly. His eyelids shut. He could not help it. His mind started to shut down as well.
Before it did, the American felt a flash of satisfaction that Samouel had died on something that was nominally his homeland. Silo, arsenal, whatever Islamabad called it, at least it was built by Pakistanis.
As for Friday, Rodgers was also glad. Glad that the man was about to die on the opposite side of the world from the country he had betrayed.
Joy for a terrorist. Hate for an American.
Rodgers was happy to leave those thoughts for another time.
SIXTY-EIGHT
Ron Friday had been confused, at first, when he saw the chopper leave the clearing.
His plan had been simple. If Eagle Scout Rodgers had managed to come out on top of this, Friday would have told him that he had gone off to the side to watch for an Indian assault. If the Indians had won, as Friday expected, he would have said he had been trying to reach them to help end the standoff.
Friday had not expected both sides to reach some kind of sudden detente and leave together. He did not expect to be stranded on the far side of the clearing where the drumming of the chopper drowned out his shouts to the men. He did not expect to be stranded here.
But as Ron Friday watched the chopper depart he did not feel cheated or angry. He felt alone, but that was nothing new. His immediate concern was getting rest and surviving what remained of the cold night. Having done both, he could make his way back to the line of control the next day.
Where he had wanted to go in the first place.
Accomplishing that, Friday would find a way to work this to his advantage. He had still been a key participant in an operation that had prevented a nuclear incident over Kashmir. Along the way he had learned things that would be valuable to both sides.
Friday was slightly northeast of the center of the clearing when the light of the rising chopper disappeared behind the peaks. He had only seen two people join the Indians. That meant one of them, probably Samouel, was dead near the entrance to the silo. The Pakistani would no longer need his clothing. If Friday could find a little niche somewhere, he could use the clothes to set up a flap to keep out the cold. And he still had the matches. Maybe he could find something to make a little campfire. As long as life remained, there was always hope.
A moment later, in a chaotic upheaval of ice and fire, hope ended for Ron Friday.
SIXTY-NINE
Crouched against the boulders on the edge of the plateau, Brett August and William Musicant were able to see and then hear a distant explosion. It shook the ledge and threw a deep red flush against the peaks and sky to the northeast. The light reminded August of the kind of glow that emerged from a barbecue pit when you stirred the dying coals with a stick. It was a wispy, blood-colored light that was the same intensity on all sides.
August watched to see if a contrail rose from the fires. He did not see one. That meant it was not a missile being launched. The blast came from the direction in which Mike Rodgers had been headed. August hoped his old friend was behind whatever it was rather than a victim of it.
The inferno remained for a few moments and then rapidly subsided. August did not imagine that there was a great deal of combustible material out there on the glacier. He turned his stinging, tired eyes back to the valley below. Down there were the men who had killed his soldiers. Shot them from the sky without their even drawing their weapons. As much as the colonel did not want the situation to escalate, part of him wanted the Indians to charge up the peak. He ached for the chance to avenge his team.