"I suppose so. God, it takes some swallowing, though."
"The most unlikely people can get steamed up over sex, old boy. Your old boss is human after all — I think." Mike roared with laughter again. He was beginning to irritate Shelley; as if the amusement was directed at his evident disloyalty. "I suppose so."
"Any chance of the first hint when they charge him?"
"I — yes, of course." Shelley felt sweat break out along his hairline. He hadn't even thought of it— Charges. They'd be charging the old man any day now. "Yes, yes — I'll be in touch," he added. "See you."
He put down the telephone hurriedly. It was growing dark in the garden. Suddenly, he did not want his wife and daughter outside any longer. He crossed swiftly to the patio doors beside the bay window. The Labrador arranged on the rug in front of the fire opened one hopeful eye. Shelley slid back the glass doors. "Come on, you two," he called with false jollity. Alison immediately studied him.
"Just a moment, Daddy," his daughter called, intent upon the snowball, almost as tall and heavy as herself. She heaved at it and it moved towards the rosebed.
"Careful," he cautioned. Oh, come in, his thoughts pleaded. "Close the doors," Alison instructed. "You'll let all that expensive heat out."
He slid the doors closed. "Oh, shit!" he bellowed. He'd established his alibi. Murdoch in Guernsey had reluctantly answered the telephone, spoken to him, confirmed his claims in the paper. Mike, author of the Insight article, had apparently satisfied his curiosity. To all intents and purposes, Shelley was satisfied with the motive for Castleford's death and the evidence for Aubrey's guilt. He had surrendered, made himself harmless; defused himself as a threat to whoever—
He was miserable in his shame. He had abandoned Aubrey for good.
The main highway between Kabul and Jalalabad lay below them, twisted like rope between tumbled, snow-clad cliffs. It seemed to writhe like a living thing. A snow-plough had passed along it since the most recent fall. On the other side of the road, between its embankment and the grey skein of the river which looked as tarred and gravelled as the road itself, the snow-cloaked remains of a burnt-out personnel carrier had returned to innocence. Dawn slid softly down the face of the opposite cliffs.
The patrol had spent the night in a bombed, deserted village rather than risk an ambush in the dark on the highway. Scouts had reported, almost gleefully, the restlessness and the inability to sleep as well as the numbers, vehicles and arms of the patrol. Mohammed Jan had decided to wait until dawn, until the patrol returned to the highway to make its way back to Kabul. The Pathans were now hidden on both sides of the narrow highway, high up in the cliffs. From his vantage point, Hyde was aware of no more than half a dozen of them, and he felt they were competitors in a race. He did not trust any of them to leave a Russian soldier alive for long enough to be questioned. He needed an officer, preferably. But, anyone—
If he was quick enough. Even then, all he could offer the man in exchange for information was a quick bullet rather than execution by mutilation. Thus his tension as he crouched in the rocks. Miandad beside him was, apparently, more diffident and relaxed. Below them, almost directly below, rocks and larger boulders had spilled across the highway, effectively blocking it to traffic. A similar small landslide had been prepared further back down the highway, to block any retreat.
The dark air was bitterly cold. Hyde felt as if he had never been warm since he had boarded the old military transport in Karachi. The cold sunlight slid further down the cliffs. A mirrored light flashed a signal towards their position. Mohammed Jan stood up and waved in reply.
"Less than half a mile away now," Miandad murmured. Hyde merely nodded. Miandad studied the lightening sky above them. "I wonder whether they will send a helicopter from Kabul?"
"Do they usually?"
"A year ago, every patrol had a helicopter escort. But now — who can say? This part of the country has been quiet for most of the winter. The Russians assume they control this highway. Perhaps there will be no helicopter — until we have finished our business, anyway." Miandad smiled, then unconsciously flicked at his moustache, parodying a British officer.
Hyde returned his attention to the road. Less than three minutes later, a green-painted BTR-40 scout car rounded the nearest bend, moving with what appeared to be exaggerated caution. Its small turret and finger-pointing machine gun swivelled from side to side. The vehicle seemed to possess a jumpy tension of its own. Then two caterpillar-tracked BMP infantry carriers, squat and green and heavily armoured, appeared behind the scout car. Each of them was armed with a missile launcher and a 73mm gun. There would be eight men in each, all capable of firing with the aid of periscopes while the vehicle kept moving. The red stars on the flanks of the vehicles were hardly visible in the slow dawn. A second scout car brought up the rear of the small column.
Hyde shivered with cold and tension. Yet, however much he reminded himself of the armour and armaments of the men and the vehicles that contained them, he could not avoid the impression that this slow-moving patrol was afraid and vulnerable. Four armoured vehicles — two missile launchers and two heavy cannon mounted on the BMPs, two machine guns on the scout cars, sixteen to twenty Kalashnikov AKMs inside the four vehicles, perhaps four or five handguns, grenades, perhaps one or two machine guns like the PK or the RPK…
The catalogue meant nothing. It could not prevent those Russian conscripts from being afraid every moment they crouched behind their armour, jogging and bucking back to Kabul. Thirty Pathans with old rifles and stolen Russian arms and American or British or Czech or Russian grenades posed a far more potent threat. The terrain and the fanaticism both belonged to them.
The leading scout car began to slow, well down the road from the small, deliberate landslide. At that moment, the officer in command of the scout car would be operating on assumptions. In that situation, and with his nerves, he would assume that the landslide was deliberate and that it was intended as part of an ambush. Perhaps less than a minute to decide, to report over the radio—?
The scout car turned awkwardly on the highway and headed back towards the two BMPs. The trailing scout car also turned, making for the bend in the road. Hyde imagined that the patrol had already summoned a helicopter from Kabul, less than thirty miles west of their position; perhaps ten or fifteen minutes flying time for a MiL-24 gunship.
The two BMPs began to turn very slowly, shunting back and forth on their caterpillar tracks, the stationary scout car near them like a sheepdog. Nothing else appeared to move on or near the highway. Hyde heard a distant rumble that might have been thunder or the echoes of a shot. Presumably, the second landslide. His hand involuntarily jumped with nerves as it rested on the chilly plastic stock of his stolen Kalashnikov. The remains of a sticker — he hadn't noticed it before, but it was lighter now — was still affixed to the gun. It was yellow, had been round, and displayed the torn remains of a smiling cartoon face. The Cyrillic command to smile had been partially torn away. The image disturbed Hyde, adding to the spurious but intense nerves he experienced as a spectator of the almost innocent scene below.
A figure moving, crawling in the roadside ditch—? He could not be certain. The second scout car, the one that had headed back down the highway, now seemed to flee back into sight, a spray of slush rising at the side of the road as it cornered at speed. Hyde's hand covered the torn, smiling sticker and he leaned slightly forward, drawn to the opening scene of the drama which was as inevitable as a previously witnessed tragedy. He saw from the corner of his eye that Miandad's body had adopted the same posture. He had no doubts. He's been told the ending of this play.