"what's that?"
"it's a gurkhali title," ross said, hiding his pride. "it means lord of the mountain. doesn't mean much outside the regiment."
"three generations in the same outfit. that's usual?"
of course it's not usual, ross wanted to say, disliking personal questions, though liking vien rosemont personally. the boat had been on time, the voyage up the coast safe and quick, them hidden under sacking. easily ashore at dusk and on their way to the next rendezvous where the guide had been waiting, fast into the foothills, and into the mountains, rosemont never complaining but pressing forward hard, with little conversation and none of the barrage of questions he had expected.
rosemont waited patiently, noticing ross was distracted. then he saw the guide move out of the cave, hesitate, then come back and squat against the cave mouth, rifle cradled on his lap.
"what is it, meshgi?" rosemont asked.
"nothing, agha. there are flocks in the valley, goats and sheep."
"good." rosemont leaned back comfortably. lucky to find the cave, he thought, it's a good place to hole up in. he glanced back at ross, saw him looking at him. after a pause he added, "it's great to be part of a team."
"what's the plan from now on?" ross asked.
"when we get to the entrance of the cave, i'll lead. you and your guys stay back until i make sure, okay?"
"just as you like, but take sergeant tenzing with you. he can protect your tail i'll cover you both with gueng."
after a pause, rosemont nodded. "sure, sounds good. okay, sergeant?"
"yes, sahib. please tell me what you want simply. my english is not good."
"it's just fine," rosemont said, covering his nervousness. he knew ross was weighing him like he was weighing them too much at stake.
"you just blow mecca to hell," his director had told him. "we've a specialist team to help you; we don't know how good they are but they're the goddamn best we can get. leader's a captain, john ross, here's his photo and he'll have a couple of gurkhas with him, don't know if they speak english but they come recommended. he's a career of ricer. listen, as you've never worked close with limeys before, a word of warning. don't get personal or friendly or use first names too fast they're as sensitive as a cat with a feather up its ass about personal questions, so take it easy, okay?"
"sure."
"far as we know you'll find mecca empty. our other posts nearer turkey are still operating. we figure to stay as long as we can by that time the brasstll make a deal with the new jokers, bakhtiar or khomeini. but mecca goddamn those bastards who've put us at so much risk."
"how much risk?"
"we think they just left in a hurry and destroyed nothing. you've been there, for crissake! mecca's stuffed with enough top secret gizmos, listening gear, seeing gear, long-range radar, locked in satellite ciphers and codes and computers to get our unfriendly kgb chief andropov voted man of the year if he gets them. can you believe it those bastards just hightailed it out!"
"treason?"
"doubt it. just plain stupid, dumb there wasn't even a contingency plan at sabalan, for crissake anywhere else either. not all their fault, i guess. none of us figured the shah'd fold so goddamn quick, or that khomeini'd get bakhtiar by the balls so fast. we got no warning not even from savak..."
and now we have to pick up the pieces, vien thought. or, more correctly, blow them to hell. he glanced at his watch, feeling very tired. he gauged the night and the moon. better give it another half an hour. his legs ached, and
his head. he saw ross watching him and he smiled inside: i won't fail, limey. but will you?
"an hour, then we'll move out," vien said.
"why wait?"
"the moontll be better for us. it's safe here and we've time. you're clear what we do?"
"mine everything in mecca you mark, blow it and the cave entrance simultaneously, and run like the clappers all the way home."
rosemont smiled and felt better. "where's home for you?"
"i don't know really," ross said caught unawares. he had never asked himself the question. after a moment, more for himself than the american, he added, "perhaps scotland perhaps nepal. my father and mother're in katmandu, they're as scots as i am but they've been living there off and on since '51 when he retired. i was even born there though i did almost all my schooling in scotland." both're home, for me, he thought. "what about you?"
"washington, d.c. really, falls church, virginia, which is almost part of washington. i was born there." rosemont wanted a cigarette but he knew it might be dangerous. "pa was cia. he's dead now but he was at langley for the last few years, which's close by cia hq's at langley." he was happy to be talking. "ma's still in falls church, haven't been back in a couple of years. you ever been to the states?"
"no, not yet." the wind had picked up a little and they both studied the night for a moment.
"it'll die down after midnight," rosemont said confidently.
ross saw the guide shift position again. is he going to make a run for it? "you've worked with the guide before?"
"sure. i tramped all over the mountains with him last year i spent a month here. routine. lotta the opposition infiltrate through this area and we try to keep tabs on 'em like they do us." rosemont watched the guide. "meshgi's a good joe. kurds don't like iranians, or iraqis or our friends across the border.
but you're right to ask." |
ross switched to gurkhali. "tenzing, watch everywhere and the pathfinder you eat later." at once tenzing slipped out of his pack and was gone into the night. "i sent him on guard."
"good," rosemont said. he had watched them all very carefully on the climb up and was very impressed with the way they worked as a team, leapfrogging, always one of them flanking, always seeming to know what to do, no orders, always safety catches off. "isn't that kinda dangerous?" he had said early on.
"yes, mr. rosemont if you don't know what you're doing," the britisher had said to him with no arrogance that he could detect. "but when every tree
or corner or rock could hide hostiles, the difference between safety on and off could mean killing or being killed."
vien rosemont remembered how the other had added guilelessly, "we'll do everything we can to support you and get you out," and he wondered again if they would get in, let alone out. it was almost a week since mecca had been abandoned. no one knew what to expect when they got there it could be intact, already stripped, or even occupied. "you know this whole ops crazy?"
"ours not to reason why."
"ours but to do or die? i think that's the shits!"
"i think that's the shits too if it's any help."
it was the first time they had laughed together. rosemont felt much better. "listen, haven't said it before, but i'm happy you three're aboard."
"we're, er, happy to be here." ross covered his embarrassment at the open compliment. "agha," he called out to the guide, "please join us at food."
"thank you, agha, but i am not hungry," the old man replied without moving from the cave mouth.
rosemont put his boots back on. "you got a lot of special units in iran?"
"no. half a dozen we're here training iranians. you think bakhtiar will weather it?" he opened his pack and distributed the cans of bully beef.
"no. the word in the hills among the tribes is that he'll be out probably shot within the week."
ross whistled. "bad as that?"
"worse: that azerbaijantll be a soviet protectorate within the year."
"bloody hell!"
"sure. but you never know" vien smiled "that's what makes life interesting."
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 enroute 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?"
"lust 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 mid. "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 bell " 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."
