The headaches, the headaches.
Now he had a ringing in his ears, and his neck felt as stiff as a board. Parker continued to move, placing one foot in front of another, heading up the valley, shivering with the chill of a fever. It was as if he were in the final miles of a marathon, requiring to survive on will more than desire.
Looking back, Parker saw the lights of Yousef’s trucks start moving around the point, about to make the turn up into the second valley.
Parker turned back again, looking up into the valley.
Where are you?
He stood out in the open on what little he could make of a goat path that cut through the rocks. It was important that he stood exposed. He needed Furlong and his team to see the thermal outline of a single man. Parker kept moving uphill, up valley.
The truck’s lights started to follow.
I need to see that tent.
Parker feared that when the tent’s signal flashed, Umarov would see it as well.
He kept moving forward but still no tent. Finally, he turned, looking back downvalley, and fired several rounds from the AK-47 toward the headlights.
He glanced back upvalley into the darkness.
And suddenly he saw it.
They must have seen my rounds.
Furlong, with his heat scope, could have seen the bullets coming from his rifle, then realized where Parker must be on foot.
The tent flashed for one second, but in the darkness it was a clear beacon.
“Did you see that?” Yousef pointed up into the darkness. “There are others.”
Umarov looked toward the flash of light. “More than just one man on the run, eh?” He reached for some extra clips of ammunition for his AK-47, checked his pistol, and chambered a round.
Liaquat Anis, sitting in the back of the truck, leaned forward and spoke to Umarov in the front. “He must have been the man they saw with Knez in London.”
Abu Umarov stared forward through the windshield, in silence, absorbing what was said. This man was the killer of his Knez. It was a pledge of the Crni Labudovi to avenge the death of a Black Swan.
“Why was Knez in London?” Yousef turned to Liaquat.
“I didn’t want to say anything before because I knew how important Zabara was to you, but…”
“Speak!”
“The Bosnians had said that Zabara had changed. They suspected he had become a traitor. The Crni Labudovi had sent Knez to check out the rumors.”
Yousef turned and struck Liaquat with the full force of his hand.
“Why did you not tell me? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I was going to, but when we flew together, when I talked to him, I thought it was a lie. I knew how important this was.” Liaquat slumped down with his head in his hands.
“Anis, can you reach Zulfiqar?”
“I’ll try.”
“Tell him that we may have an American special-operations group in this valley and we need his warriors. Tell him to muster everyone!”
Yousef looked flushed and was sweating in the cold wind. “Are you well, brother?”
Yousef waved off the doctor’s concern. “It must be my son’s sickness. I have a fever. It doesn’t matter. I will hunt this infidel and cut his throat. Now, you go! Tell him where we are!”
“I will get Zulfiqar here.”
“Guide him through this storm!”
They briefly stopped the truck, and Liaquat jumped out.
“We will follow the trail. Hurry!”
The fourth passenger in the truck was the young warrior from Indonesia, Malik Mahmud. Useless now, still in shock from seeing his friends blown into pieces and onto the windshield of the SUV that had followed theirs.
“I go from here on foot.” Abu Umarov opened the door to the truck and also jumped out. “You keep following the trail with your lights on.”
Umarov disappeared into the darkness and blinding wind.
Yousef saw Liaquat running, in the glow of the brake lights of the truck, back toward the cave and help.
“Mahmud, come up front here and make sure you have enough ammunition.”
“Yes, Yousef.”
“We need to find Sadik Zabara — and kill him.”
CHAPTER 68
Parker had been mentally prepared to take a bearing as soon as he saw the light. It was an advantage that he had. He expected the light. They didn’t. The tent was to the west, up the valley, in the face of the rocks, ten degrees to his left. As a pilot, he knew how to take a bearing. More important, it was near a dark chocolate-colored rock that stood above a man’s height. But it was a chocolate-colored rock in a field of rocks in the dark.
Where is it?
And the sky was now gone. The stars had disappeared from sight. The wind had increased, now blowing directly at him.
If I had a star.
Parker’s mouth was dry, his fever relentless. The headaches continued to pound his skull.
If I had Venus.
As a child, Parker’s father would point out to him the brightest star in the early sky. It was called Anahita for over a thousand years. And then the Greeks called it Lucifer.
The plan has changed.
Parker’s original plan was to enter the camp, infect Yousef, and then try to escape. Simple. The disease would hit Yousef and spread to the leadership. Few would survive. And the propaganda would be that Allah had punished these wayward mujahideen. As the children of the local villages became ill, America would bring the antibiotics. America would become the hero. The villagers would turn against the visiting mujahideen, who only brought death.
But now nuclear weapons were involved. The plan needed to change.
I know how to find the second one.
Parker tried to concentrate. It was now critical that he made it to the team. He had to make it to their radio. He looked back at what was once the sky.
Abu Ali Sina.
Parker’s mind started to wander, between the fever and the progression of the disease. He recalled his father telling him of Abu Ali Sina, the astronomer from Afghanistan, within a hundred miles of where he stood, who first discovered the transit of Venus.
The transit of Venus. The planet’s passing across the face of the sun.
As Parker moved through the dark, he knew he’d drift to the right without thinking. It was what a right-handed person did. Only a matter of inches, each step would be slightly to the right. In a hundred yards, he would be ten yards to the right. Unless he corrected for the unconscious step.
He intentionally made every step slightly farther to the left.
If I had Venus.
They could light up the tent again, but if they did it would draw the hounds to him. In the original plan, the team was to stay away. Parker was to disappear in the night. There was a chance that Yousef might not even follow. In the original plan, Yousef wouldn’t have known what path Parker would have taken. And shortly, Yousef would be distracted by the illness, with others becoming sick rapidly. But the plan had changed; his team would now be improvising, just as Parker had been.
He stopped. Nausea took his breath away. It had now been more than twelve hours since he’d chewed the gum. He was close to the point of no return.
He walked another ten paces and stopped. The weight of his gun and the case were becoming impossible burdens. He moved a step to the left and walked another ten paces forward.
God, I can’t find it.
He leaned against a boulder. His thirst was overwhelming. He looked west toward what was once the mountain range. Visibility had reduced further. Suddenly, headlights lit up the rocks behind him. Yousef ’s truck had to be no more than a hundred yards away. He slid in behind the boulder, putting it between himself and Yousef and the wind. Parker put his hand on the rock. It was sharp and pocked with jagged edges across its face.