Casually Ross offered the flask. “Best Iranian rotgut money can buy.” Rosemont grimaced and took a careful sip, then beamed. “Jesus H. Christ, it’s real Scotch!” He prepared to take a real swallow but Ross was ready and he grabbed the flask back.
“Easy does it - it’s all we’ve got, Agha.”
Rosemont grinned. They ate quickly. The cave was snug and safe. “You ever been to Vietnam?” Rosemont asked, wanting to talk, feeling the time right. “No, never have. Almost went there once when my father and I were en route to Hong Kong but we were diverted to Bangkok from Saigon.” “With the Gurkhas?”
“No, this was years ago, though we do have a battalion there now. I was,” Ross thought a moment, “I was seven or eight, my father has some vague Hong Kong relations, Dunross, yes that was their name, and there was some sort of clan gathering. I don’t remember much of Hong Kong except a leper who lay in the dirt by the ferry terminal. I had to pass him every day - almost every day.”
“My dad was in Hong Kong in “63,” Vien said proudly. “He was deputy director of station - CIA.” He picked up a stone, toyed with it. “You know I’m half-Vietnamese?”
“Yes, they told me.”
“What else did they tell you?”
“Just that I could trust you with my life.”
Rosemont smiled wryly. “Let’s hope they’re right.” Thoughtfully he began checking the action of his M16. “I’ve always wanted to visit Vietnam. My pa, my real pa, was Vietnamese, a planter, but he was killed just before I was born - that was when the French owned Indochina. He got clobbered by Viet Cong just outside Dien Bien Phu. Ma…” The sadness dropped off him and he smiled. “Ma’s as American as a Big Mac and when she remarried she picked one of the greatest. No real pa could’ve loved me more…”
Abruptly Gueng cocked his carbine. “Sahib!” Ross and Rosemont grabbed their weapons, then there was a keening on the wind, Ross and Gueng relaxed. “It’s Tenzing.”
The sergeant appeared out of the night as silently as he had left. But now his face was grim. “Sahib, many trucks on the road below - ” “In English, Tenzing.”
“Yes, sahib. Many trucks, I counted eleven, in convoy, on the road at the bottom of the valley…”
Rosemont cursed. “That road leads to Mecca. How far away were they?” The little man shrugged. “At the bottom of the valley. I went the other side of the ridge and there’s a…” He said the Gurkhali word and Ross gave him the English equivalent. “A promontory. The road in the valley twists, then snakes as it climbs. If the tail of the snake is in the valley and the head wherever the road ends, then four trucks were already well past tail.” Rosemont cursed again. “An hour at best. We’d bett - ” At that moment there was a slight scuffle and their attention flashed to the cave mouth. They just had time to see the guide rushing away, Gueng in pursuit. “What the hell…”
“For whatever reason, he’s abandoning ship,” Ross said. “Forget him. Does an hour give us a chance?”
“Sure. Plenty.” Quickly they got into their packs and Rosemont armed his light machine gun. “What about Gueng?”
“He’ll catch us up.”
“We’ll go straight in. I’ll go first - if I run into trouble you abort. Okay?”
The cold was almost a physical barrier they had to fight through but Rosemont led the way well, the snow not bad on the meandering path, the moon helping, their climbing boots giving them good traction. Quickly they topped the ridge and headed down the other side. Here it was more slippery, the mountainside barren, just a few clumps of weeds and plants fighting to get above the snow. Ahead now was the maw of the cave, the road running into it, many vehicle tracks in the snow.
“They could’ve been made by our trucks,” Rosemont said, covering his disquiet. “There’s been no snow for a couple of weeks.” He motioned the others to wait and went forward, then stepped out on the road and ran for the entrance. Tenzing followed, using the ground for cover, moving as rapidly.
Ross saw Rosemont disappear into the darkness. Then Tenzing. His anxiety increased. From where he was he could not see far down the road, for it curled away, falling steeply. The strong moonlight made the crags and the wide valley more ominous, and he felt naked and lonely and hated the waiting. But he was confident. “If you’ve Gurkhas with you, you’ve always a chance, my son,” his father had said. “Guard them - they’ll always guard you. And never forget, with luck, one day you’ll be Sheng’khan.” Ross had smiled to himself, so proud, the title given so rarely: only to one who had brought honor to the regiment, who had scaled a worthy Nepalese peak alone, who had used the kookri and had saved the life of a Ghurkha in the service of the Great Raj. His grandfather, Captain Kirk Ross, MC, killed in 1915 at the Battle of the Somme, had been given it posthumously; his father, Lieutenant Colonel Gavin Ross, DSO, was given it in Burma, in 1943. And me? Well, I’ve scaled a worthy peak - K4 - and that’s all so far but I’ve lots of time….
His fine-tuned senses warned him and he had his kookri out, but it was only Gueng. The little man was standing over him, breathing hard. “Not fast enough, sahib,” he whispered happily in Gurkhali. “I could have taken you moments ago.” He held up the severed head and beamed. “I bring you a gift.” It was the first that Ross had seen. The eyes were open. Terror still contorted the face of the old man. Gueng killed him but I gave the order, he thought, sickened. Was he just an old man who was scared fartless and wanted to get out while the going was good? Or was he a spy or a traitor rushing to betray us to the enemy?
“What is it, sahib?” Gueng whispered, his brow furrowed.
“Nothing. Put the head down.”
Gueng tossed it aside. The head rolled a little down the slope then stopped. “I searched him, sahib, and found this.” He handed him the amulet. “It was around his throat and this” - he gave him the small leather bag - “this hung down around his balls.”
The amulet was just a cheap blue stone worn against the evil eye. Inside the little bag was a small card, wrapped in plastic. Ross squinted at it and his heart skipped a beat. At that moment there was another keening on the wind, the note different. Immediately they picked up their guns and ran for the cave mouth, knowing that Tenzing had given them the all-clear signal and to hurry. Inside the throat of the cavern the darkness seemed deeper and then, as their eyes adjusted, they saw a fleck of light. It was a flashlight, the lens partially covered.
“Over here, Captain.” Though it was softly said, Rosemont’s voice echoed loudly. “This way.” He led them farther into the cave and when he was sure it was safe he shone the light on the rock walls and all around to get his bearings. “It’s okay to use your flashes.” The cave was immense, many tunnels and passages leading off it, some natural, some man-made, the rock dome fifty feet overhead. “This’s the unloading area,” he said. When he found the tunnel he sought he shone the light down it. At the end was a thick steel door, half open. “It should be locked,” he whispered, his voice raw. “I don’t know if it was left like that or what, but that’s where we have to go.”
Ross motioned to Tenzing. At once the kookri came out and the soldier went forward to vanish inside. Automatically Ross and Gueng took up defensive positions. Against whom? Ross asked himself helplessly, feeling trapped. There could be fifty men hidden in any one of those other tunnels. The seconds dragged. Again there was the keening. Ross led the rush through the doorway, then Gueng, then Rosemont. As Rosemont passed the door he saw that Tenzing had taken up a position nearby and was covering them. He pulled the door to and switched on the lights. The suddenness made the others gasp. “Hallelujah!” Rosemont said, openly relieved. “The brass figured if the generators were still working, we’d have a good shot. This door’s lightproof.” He slid heavy bolts into place, hung his flashlight on his belt.