by James Becker
‘You know how. Because I can supply everything that you need and because I won’t ask you questions that you don’t want to answer. You’re very welcome to try to find somebody else if you think that’s too expensive. And it’s half now, as in right now.’
‘Meaning what, precisely?’
‘Meaning a transfer to my Swiss bank today, or the price goes up ten thousand. I’ll want the second half on completion of the operation.’
Masters knew Rodini had him over a barrel. He didn’t know any other high-ranking military officers in that part of Pakistan, and if he tried to use one of his other possible contacts Rodini might well hear about it and block him. And a junior officer couldn’t just snap his fingers and a helicopter would appear – yet Rodini could, and frequently did. And, Masters reflected, it wasn’t as if it was his money anyway.
‘OK, you blood-sucking bastard, it’s a deal,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell my principal to wire you the money. I can guarantee the instruction will be given within the hour, but I can’t be certain when the funds will arrive in Switzerland. That’s completely out of our hands.’
‘Your credit’s good with me,’ Rodini said. ‘As soon as the first fifty thousand gets to my account I’ll keep my side of the deal. But if it doesn’t arrive, you and your men will have a really long wait for the helicopter.’
49
A Dhruv – the utility helicopter built in India by the HAL company – came to a hover and then settled on to a concrete hardstanding at a small Indian Army base just outside Karu, on the east bank of the Indus and about thirty miles south of Leh.
The howl of the jet engines diminished as the pilot closed the throttles and lowered the collective, the parallel steel skids spreading slightly apart as the weight of the aircraft settled on to them. Safely on the ground, the pilot initiated the shut-down procedure, the engine noise dying away even further. The four-bladed main rotor slowed visibly, and eventually came to a stop, the blades dipping and weaving slightly in the wind blowing across the army base. Only then did the doors of the Dhruv open.
Two men emerged, one climbing out with the ease that came from long familiarity with the aircraft, the other man – a shorter and stockier figure in a set of faded green flying overalls – clearly having some difficulty. The pilot walked round the nose of the helicopter to assist him, then both men walked away towards an adjacent single-storey building, the shorter man carrying a bulky leather carry-on bag.
Just under an hour later, Father Michael Killian sat in a hard wooden chair in the briefing room and wondered yet again why the place wasn’t air conditioned. It wasn’t the clinging, muggy heat that had assaulted him when he’d stepped out of the aircraft at Delhi, but it was still hot enough inside the room to be uncomfortable, even in the relative cool of the early evening.
He had drunk two bottles of ice-cold water and pecked impatiently at a tray of snacks he’d found on the self-service bar on one side of the room while he waited to speak to the officer in charge.
The door finally opened and a smartly dressed Indian Army officer stepped inside. Killian was unfamiliar with American military ranks, and knew virtually nothing about the insignia of foreign armed forces, but simply from the man’s bearing it was clear he was a senior officer.
‘You’re Father Killian?’ the man asked, his English fluent.
Killian nodded.
‘Colonel Mani Tembla,’ the officer said, extending his hand. ‘I’ve been instructed to assist you in any way that I can. But first, I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.’
‘Actually, I do mind, Colonel,’ Killian said. ‘Time is of the essence here, and it’s essential that we find these two people before they begin their search.’
Tembla looked mildly amused by Killian’s tone.
‘We already know where they are, and exactly what they’re doing,’ he said calmly. ‘What happened to your ear?’ he added.
‘I had an accident,’ Killian snapped, reaching up to check the dressing on the left side of his head. His fingers strayed across his cheek, feeling the scratches inflicted by Angela Lewis. They, at least, were healing well. ‘So where are they?’
‘They’re in Leh, in a guest house.’
Killian stood up in frustration. ‘What?’
‘I gave orders earlier today that Bronson and Lewis were to be identified as soon as they arrived in Leh. That wasn’t difficult – there aren’t that many flights up here, and my men spotted the English couple almost immediately. I’d already advised the local police, and they quickly discovered where they were staying and identified the vehicle they’d hired. All perfectly routine stuff, I can assure you. But it did raise one important question.’
‘And what is that?’ Killian demanded.
‘All in good time. Now sit down. Calm yourself,’ Tembla instructed. ‘My orders have been both specific and vague, which is somewhat unusual. I’m aware that tracking these two people has a very high priority for somebody in my government – the fact that you, an American citizen, are sitting here in this base is sufficient proof of that – but what nobody has bothered to tell me is why. The wording of the orders I was given suggested that they might be terrorists, and this is a very sensitive area, because of the borders with Pakistan and China.
‘But this does not explain why you are tracking them. We are perfectly capable of following and intercepting terrorists without any assistance. If we do work with entities based outside India, it’s invariably with the military or intelligence agencies of other countries. You, as I understand it, have no official standing or authority. As far as I can tell, you’re just an American priest. So what, exactly, are they doing here?’
Killian looked appraisingly at Tembla. ‘Are you a Christian, Colonel?’ he asked.
Tembla shook his head. ‘I’m a Hindu, like about eighty per cent of the population of this country.’
‘But there is a Christian community here in India, isn’t there?’
‘Yes, of course. Sikhs and Christians form about five per cent of the population, and the Syrian Church here in India is the second oldest Christian Church in the world, after Palestine. One of the earliest of all the saints – St Thomas – is believed to have landed at Kerala, down in the south-western tip of the country in AD fifty-four. So Christianity is a very old religion here, and a very important one, at least for a small part of our population. What’s your point?’
‘My point is very simple, Colonel. The man who signed your orders is a major-general, but he’s also a Christian. He issued those orders after he received a telephone call from a man sitting in an office in the world’s smallest state.’
‘You work for the Vatican?’ Tembla demanded.
Killian shook his head. ‘Who I work for is irrelevant. All you need to know is that a short time ago some information came into my possession that had the potential to cause irreparable damage to the Catholic Church, and I brought it to the attention of a senior Vatican official.’
‘What information?’
‘I was forbidden to reveal that to anyone.’
Tembla looked at him levelly. ‘If you’re expecting to use the equipment and personnel of this base, which I command, you’re going to have to do a lot better than that. I need to know exactly what you’re looking for, so I can commit the appropriate resources to the task.’
‘You have your orders, Colonel,’ Killian said. He was still standing and was conscious that he had the upper hand. ‘Very clear orders, I believe. Why can’t you obey them?’
‘Without knowing exactly what you’re looking for, I’m not prepared to commit any of my troops or equipment,’ Tembla said harshly. ‘And that’s what my report to my superior in Delhi will say when I file it.’
Killian looked at him for a few moments, then shook his head. ‘Very well. What I’m about to tell you must not leave this room, Colonel. Do I have your word on that?’
Tembla inclined his head. ‘Of course.’
Killian leaned forward and began to spe
ak in a low voice.
Two minutes later, he sat down in his seat and waited for Tembla’s response.
Tembla nodded a couple of times as if he couldn’t quite take in the implications of what he’d just been told, and sat down heavily. ‘I see your problem,’ he said at last. ‘And I do appreciate the crisis your religion will face if this relic is recovered.’ He sighed. ‘You’ve got what you need.’
‘Thank you. You said you had another question for me?’
‘Yes. I ordered one of my men to conceal a tracker on the jeep Bronson has rented. But when he attempted to position the device, he found that there was already one fitted, lashed securely to one of the chassis members. Somebody else is following this man as well. Do you know who that is?’
Killian nodded. ‘A man named Donovan. I know something about him, and he’s even more dangerous than Bronson. So what did your man do? Remove the other tracking device?’
Tembla shook his head. ‘I told him to leave it in place, to use a hand-held scanner to identify the frequency the device was using. This will allow us to track the vehicle from a helicopter. And I also ordered him to use a tin of red spray paint to mark a small circle on the roof of the jeep. That will make it even easier to follow from the air.’
Tembla got to his feet. ‘I’ll be told the moment Bronson or Lewis leave the guest house. I have a team of men watching the property. Now I suggest you get some sleep. Tomorrow could be a very long day.’
50
Bronson and Angela woke early the next morning and got on the road that led north-east out of the town, and which started climbing almost immediately.
Behind them a dusty grey Land Rover appeared from a side street, and turned in the same north-easterly direction.
Two men were sitting in the driving compartment of the Land Rover, and the equipment stored in the back of the vehicle almost exactly mirrored what Bronson and Angela had obtained in Leh, except that there was a lot more of it. The rear compartment held four tents, not one, and far more food and water than they’d bought, and also a number of planks of wood and a small carpenter’s toolkit.
In front of the passenger on the dashboard was a topographical map of Ladakh, but he hadn’t bothered to open it. Instead, all his attention was focused on an electronic device attached to the windscreen with a sucker. It looked something like a satnav unit, and comprised a five-inch screen with controls positioned around its rim. But unlike a normal satnav, as well as the symbol for the vehicle in which the unit was mounted, there was an additional moving dot showing on the electronic map. It was this symbol that was holding the passenger’s attention.
Although the road out of Leh towards the north-east was reasonably straight, albeit with a rough and potholed surface, in reality it was little more than a metalled track, defined only by its slightly flatter surface. On both sides, rocks and boulders marked the limits far more starkly and positively than any crash barriers could. The ride in the big Nissan jeep Bronson had rented was jarringly firm, so it wasn’t the most comfortable of drives, but Bronson would trade reliability over comfort any day, and especially in the kind of terrain that he knew they’d be encountering later.
‘Are you happy about the route?’ he asked, after they were well clear of the town itself.
‘More or less,’ Angela replied. ‘We carry on climbing along this road until we cross the top of the Khardüng La pass – which until recently was considered to be the highest pass in the world accessible by road – and then keep going straight to the bottom of the valley. Then we should swing left and follow the river that runs along the valley floor until we get to Thirit. There must be a way we can cross the river there. The trouble is, I have no idea how big the river is and we’ve no way of knowing until we see it. According to the map it’s fed by tributaries from both sides of the valley, so my guess is that it’s quite substantial, and driving through it, even in this truck, might not be such a sharp idea.’
‘Makes sense to me.’
‘Anyway, somehow we’ll cross the river at or near Thirit, and then take the northern fork in the road and head up towards Pänämik, which lies near the southern end of the Nubra Valley. The word “Nubra” means “green” in the local dialect, because it’s supposed to have the best climate in the whole of Ladakh – its own microclimate, I suppose. And “Ladakh”, as a matter of interest, means the “land of the high passes”.’ She gestured at the hills and valleys visible all around them.
Bronson nodded, concentrating on the road, which had now started to climb quite steeply. ‘Now we’re on the last lap, can you just explain to me why you’re so sure the Nubra Valley is where we should be looking?’
‘Because it all fits so well with the Persian text. The first verse specifically refers to Mohalla, and the second states that they buried the treasure in the “valley of flowers”.’
‘I thought you told me a few minutes ago that “Nubra” meant “green”.’
‘I did, and it does. But the old name for the Nubra Valley was Ldumra, which means the “valley of flowers”. Some people think that “Nubra” means flowers, but it doesn’t – that’s just a linguistic echo from the old name in the local dialect. And a small caravan would probably be able to reach the Nubra Valley from Mohalla in about ten days, which again matches the Persian text.’
‘OK,’ Bronson agreed. ‘And I assume there’s no other location that you’ve identified in this area which matches the description so well. But I’ve looked at the map, too, and the Nubra Valley is shaped like a triangle about forty miles long with a base around twenty-five miles wide. That means it covers an area of roughly five hundred square miles, and the northern end of it is in territory that’s controlled by Pakistan, not India, which adds a whole new level of complication. So the question I’m asking,’ he finished, ‘is where do you suggest we start looking?’
‘Your calculation is right, and trying to locate a cave in an area that size would be a complete waste of time and effort without some kind of directions. But, it so happens that we do have some directions,’ Angela said, smiling across at him. ‘Because of the third verse of the Persian script.’
51
Killian woke before dawn and paced his small room as he waited anxiously for some word from Tembla’s watchers a few miles up the road in Leh. Finally, when he could take the strain no longer, he walked down to the briefing room he’d been in the previous evening and helped himself to coffee.
Tembla strolled in about thirty minutes later, nodded to Killian and poured himself a mug.
‘Well?’ Killian asked.
‘They’re on the road already,’ Tembla said.
‘What?’ Killian jumped to his feet. ‘I need to get up there.’
‘Patience, Father. We launched a Searcher at dawn. That’s a UAV – an unmanned aerial vehicle – and it was programmed to loiter overhead Leh. It picked up Bronson and Lewis as soon as they left the guest house, and it’s been following their vehicle ever since. It’s tracking them visually using a high-definition camera, and it’s receiving the electronic signal from the tracker, so we know exactly where they are. I got the last update just before I came here, and at the moment they’re climbing up the road towards the Khardüng La pass.’
Tembla unfolded a map of the area and spread it out on one of the desks.
‘We’re here,’ he said, pointing at the settlement marked ‘Karu’ on the map. ‘Leh is just here, and Khardüng La is almost due north of the town. At the other end of the pass is the River Shyok and the towns of Khalsar and Diskit. This area, the Nubra Valley, was originally called “Ldumra” and that’s the best match for the “Valley of Flowers”, as you called it. Now I know this valley, and there’s nothing much there, just a handful of old buildings at one end of it, so how sure are you that your information is correct?’
‘As sure as I can be; and in any case I need to get there as soon as possible. Can you arrange a jeep or something for me?’
Tembla shook his head. ‘There’s no
point in leaving until Bronson and Lewis stop, and they’ve still got a long way to go before they even reach Khalsar. At best they’ll be making perhaps fifty kilometres an hour. When they stop, we’ll use helicopters which can reach them in a matter of minutes.’
‘What about weapons? Donovan will be following them too, you know, and he will be armed.’
Tembla smiled thinly. ‘That won’t be a problem. You can fly to the Nubra Valley in the Dhruv, but I have a couple of Hinds as well, and I’ll send one of those up with you.’
‘Hind?’
‘A Russian-built helicopter gunship. It can take on a main battle tank, so no matter how many mercenaries or what type of weapons Donovan might have assembled, I can promise you that he’ll be outgunned by the Hind.’
52
‘Are you sure you’ve deciphered the paragraph?’ Bronson asked.
The faintest shadow of uncertainty clouded Angela’s face, and just as quickly vanished. ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘I tried to analyse what the writer was describing, and then match his description with the geographical features that I know still exist in the Nubra Valley.’
‘And it worked?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ she repeated. ‘Let’s see if you agree.’ She pulled a sheet of paper out of her bag and unfolded it. ‘Right. The first line is, “With their shadows ever before them”. Any idea what that might mean?’
Bronson thought for a few moments. ‘I suppose it means they were walking north, with the sun behind them, because that would cast their shadows forward, so they would always be visible to them.’
‘Very good.’ Angela applauded silently. ‘That was exactly what I thought as well. The second line is slightly easier, I think. It reads, “from the rising to the setting”.’
‘That has to mean the rising and setting of the sun, so what the writer is saying in those two lines is that they walked north for a full day, which means they probably covered about twenty or thirty miles, no more. But to make any sense of that, you obviously need to know the starting point – the place they set out from.’
