“You have to believe it, Jack.”
“It’s the psychology of the sniper. You need complete confidence in yourself That’s the sniper’s ultimate strength, but also a weakness. Confidence breeds over-confidence.”
Costas slid back down the mine tailings into the gully. “I just hope you don’t get the shakes. My teeth are beginning to chatter, and I’m not sure if it’s just the cold. I’m going to take a look in that shaft above us. But I’m going to drop down and see Pradesh first. He needs to know about that cone of probability.”
“Good. The more movement our opponent sees, the longer we have.”
“How much time?”
“Not much. He’s going to want to strike before the light goes. And he’ll have seen we’re not equipped to spend a night up here. He’ll be looking for any sign that we’ve found what we’re seeking.”
“You think he knows we’re onto him?”
“He’ll have seen Katya. He knows she’ll have told us about him. He’s seen us split up. He could guess why.”
“If I’m sticking my head up, I want you to be covering me.”
“Roger that.”
Costas shuddered with the cold, beating his arms around him, then clambered over the tailings and made his way down the slope to where Pradesh was visible in the sangar below. Costas slid awkwardly on the scree, completely exposed. Jack was far more worried than he had let on. If the sniper was half as good as Katya said he was, his first target would be himself or Pradesh. He would want to get rid of the two rifles first, the only threat to him, then pick off the rest at leisure. Jack shut his eyes, and tried to put himself into the mind of the other man, somewhere on the opposite side of the valley, staring at them, his eye darting from Katya and Altamaty, to Pradesh, to him, seeing Costas moving down the slope. Jack opened his eyes and peered out, searching the opposite slope, still seeing nothing. The noise of Costas stumbling down the rock reverberated across the valley. Jack prayed that he had been right, that the rifle was trained on him first, not Pradesh. He took a deep breath and forced himself to stand up, holding the rifle, making himself a clear target for a few moments, then lay back down behind the rocks. His rifle had the scope, Pradesh’s rifle did not. He took off his sheepskin mitts, remembering what Rahid had said. The cold would numb his fingers and make his shooting ineffective. By that simple act he was committing himself mentally to the task ahead. He had to believe that his opponent was also poised for action. He unwrapped the Lee-Enfield from the turban cloth. He tried to shut his mind from everything except his rifle and the target. He began breathing slowly, deeply, stopping every few breaths before inhaling again, trying to slow his pounding heart. He felt the forestock of the rifle, dried linseed oil on walnut, tested the grip. He held the rifle with his left hand and used his right hand to arrange the cloth where his elbows would be, cushioning them against the jagged chips of rock. He wrapped his right arm around the sling, but not too tight, remembering that the throb of arteries might be enough to throw his aim off completely at this distance.
Jack removed the lens covers and the elevation and windage turret caps from the scope, but kept a strip of turban cloth over the front lens to minimize the chance of glare. The slightest reflection, the slightest movement, could give the game away. As soon as his opponent knew that Jack was taking up position the waiting was over, and the others were suddenly targets. The slightest flinch could put all their lives in danger. He flipped off the safety on the rifle, then pulled the bolt handle back. He saw the gleam of the cartridge in the magazine, pushed the bolt forward, saw the cartridge jump up and nose into the chamber, and then felt the resistance as he pushed the bolt home and let the handle drop. He raised the rifle, careful not to let the muzzle show above the rocks. He edged up the slope, bringing the rifle level and then down, wedging the forestock into a rocky cleft, aiming at the path across the opposite slope of the valley. He looked along the side of the scope, trying to gauge the distance with his naked eye. He chose the rock he had spied with Costas. Eight hundred yards. It was downslope, but the air was thin, dry, and the decreased resistance would compensate for the extra gravity. He reached up and dialed in the elevation. There was no vegetation to gauge wind speed, but it was virtually nonexistent, only a tingle on his face from the north. He touched the dial on the windage turret, turning it one notch. He let his right hand fall to the trigger guard, then pulled the butt hard into his shoulder, bringing his cheek to bear against the raised wooden piece on the comb of the stock. Keeping both eyes open, he looked with his right eye down the scope, shifting back slightly to get the best eye relief It was a simple crosshair reticule, and despite the three and a half times magnification the rock still seemed impossibly far away. He remembered what he had been taught. He projected his mind forward until he imagined the dark silhouette of a body in the rocks, then the bullet racing in, becoming smaller as the silhouette became larger. Without moving his head he looked around. The target could still be outside his point of aim visible through the scope. He curled his forefinger around the trigger, pulling it through its first stage, feeling the resistance. He took a deep breath, taking in the sharp, metallic smell of the rock, and exhaled halfway. He stopped breathing. He went still.
He stared through the scope. Show yourself.
Suddenly out of his left eye Jack saw movement on the valley floor. His heart began to pound. He willed it to slow down. Where the pall of dust had floated above the far end of the valley a shape had emerged. It was a horse, riderless, cantering along beside the dry riverbed that ran through the middle of the defile. The horse passed the tent they had seen among the boulders and came to a halt about a hundred yards beyond, tossing its head and pawing the ground. Jack kept stock-still. He saw another figure, walking from the edge of the slope below him toward the horse. Jack took his eye off the sights, and stared in disbelief. It was Katya. He remembered her fascination with the akhal-teke, the heavenly steeds. She walked toward the horse, hands outstretched, completely exposed. It was as if she were in a trance. Then Jack saw something else, a flash, a glint from the opposite slope. That was it. He instantly reacquired his target. The flash had been about twenty yards higher than his point of aim. He shifted the rifle up a fraction. The sniper had been thrown by the horse, by Katya, just as Jack had. He would have instantly known his mistake, and now would make up for it.
And Jack was the first target.
There was a vicious snap overhead, a smack on a rock behind and a ricochet that snarled off into the distance. The report and the echo seemed to come together, rebounding off the valley sides. Then it was gone, leaving Jack stunned. Concentrate. He had seen the muzzle flash in the rocks. He tightened his finger on the trigger again. He took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.
Then there was something else. Katya was not the only figure on the valley floor. Another had emerged, running, stumbling from the direction of the tent. It was the Afghan boy. Katya had reached the horse and was stroking its neck. The boy was closing in on her, out of her view on the other side of the horse, a hundred yards, eighty. Jack had a sudden sick feeling. Something was terribly wrong. The boy had both arms out in front of him, and was wearing something bulky around his chest. He was shouting, screaming hoarsely, in a voice that had not yet fully broken, words that echoed up the valley, words of terrible defiance, of aggression. Allah akbar. Allah akbar
Jack’s mind reeled.
The cry of a suicide bomber.
Jack stared with sudden cold certainty. He had to make a decision. Now. He might be the only chance Katya had.
Another bullet cracked overhead, smiting the rock behind him and spraying him with rock splinters. This time Katya noticed the report, and looked up. She was holding the horse close now, stopping it from bolting. She must have heard the boy, but she had still not seen him. Jack’s mouth was dry, his heart pounding. It was just another target. He angled the rifle down. The sniper knew where he was already. Jack had no choice. He brought the scope to bear. It was a
moving target, almost impossible at this range. Suddenly the boy stumbled and fell, then struggled to his knees. It was a chance. Jack aimed at the torso. Katya leapt on the horse, and it reared upward. There was a sharp crack of a rifle shot from below. Jack remembered. Pradesh. Jack could see him out of his left eye, lying prone beside Costas in the sangar below, rifle aimed at the boy. Then Jack heard another snap, a ricochet that whined past him, and a report from the other side of the valley. He saw Pradesh thrown back in the sangar like a rag doll, his rifle clattering down the slope. Jack looked back at the valley floor. The boy was crumpled on the ground. Katya had begun to ride hard, and Jack saw Altamaty run out from the slope alongside, leaping up behind her. Suddenly there was a flash of dust and fire from where the boy had been, and a second later a dull boom. The dust cloud from the explosion seemed to chase the horse as it thundered down the valley. And then Jack saw the muzzle flash again from the opposite slope. The sniper had exposed his head, and was shooting at the horse. Jack’s rifle was still on target. He was rock-steady. He squeezed the trigger. The rifle kicked hard, and there was a sucking sensation, as if the vortex of the bullet were taking all the sound with it, bringing all possible energy to bear on the target. Eight hundred meters. One and a half seconds. Jack’s ears were ringing. He could hear nothing. And then there was another flash across the valley, and movement. Something went up in the air. Jack whipped out his binoculars. The movement had been a rifle, falling against the rocks. He looked hard into the shadows, and then he saw it. A human figure, sprawled back, motionless, a spatter of darkness on the rock behind the head. Jack closed his eyes, and forced the air out of his lungs. He began to shake uncontrollably. All he felt was cold, icy cold. He pulled on the mitts again, and crossed his arms tight against his chest, his hands stuffed under his armpits, lying on the scree, shaking.
“Man down!”
Costas was yelling from the sangar below. Jack leapt over the rocks and stumbled down the slope, reaching them in seconds. Costas had opened Pradesh’s bag and was ripping a large shell dressing out of its package. Pradesh was conscious, and looked at Jack, grinning weakly. Jack saw blood seeping out under his back, and knelt over him, panting. “How is it?”
“Not too bad.” Pradesh’s teeth were chattering, and he grimaced as Costas used a pair of scissors from the pack to cut away the fabric from his coat, revealing a neat hole the size of a quarter just below his right shoulder. Costas patted out coagulant powder from a plastic bottle and pressed on the dressing, then carefully eased Pradesh over and repeated the process on his back. “It’s a clean exit wound,” he exclaimed. “You were lucky. I think it was 7.62 millimeters, if he was using the Mosin-Nagant, ball rather than explosive. At this range, there’s less cavitation and tissue damage. It doesn’t look as if any major blood vessels were hit. What you’ve got is a nasty flesh wound. A few inches lower, and it’d have been a different story.”
Pradesh looked at Jack. “The sniper?”
“A head shot.”
Pradesh shut his eyes. “Congratulations.” He opened them again and looked down at his wound, suddenly convulsed with pain. “And the boy,” he said, grimacing. “That was my shot.”
“The explosion came a few seconds after your bullet hit. He may have panicked and detonated the bomb himself when he saw Katya beginning to ride away.”
“I was responsible,” Pradesh said. “Either I shot him, or my round spooked him into killing himself.”
“My rifle was trained on him too. It was just chance that you pulled the trigger first. He was going down either way. And you saved Katya’s life.”
“It meant you could take out the sniper.”
“We did the job.”
Pradesh gave Jack a fathomless look, then winced. “There’s a radio in my pack. You can call in a chopper for a medevac. I think this counts as a Taliban incident. ISAF are going to want to send a recce team up here now. I expect they’ll already be monitoring Rahid’s attack on the Taliban at that village, so there will probably be a couple of helicopters on standby at Feyzabad.”
Costas stared down the valley, his face whitened with dust. “What drives a child to do that,” he murmured. Through the pall of dust they could see the man from the tent wandering about aimlessly, arms gesticulating, as if he were looking for something, where the boy had gone.
“It’s not what drives the child,” Jack said, shivering, holding his arms tight to his chest. “It’s what drives the father. That man down there strapped those bombs to his son and sent him to his death.”
“He looks distraught.”
“That’s what the jihadists don’t prepare you for.”
“I just hope ISAF sends what’s needed to take out all the Taliban in this area, those who led that poor man down the road to hell.”
“I think Rahid can probably manage,” Pradesh said weakly. “They’ve had enough outside interference here already. Where are Katya and Altamaty?”
“They rode off down the valley, the way we came in,” Costas said. “We’ll get the chopper to pick them up after you’re safely out of here.”
“Roger that,” Pradesh said. “It’ll take at least half an hour, which gives you time to see if there’s anything to find up here.”
“Anything more we can do for you?” Jack said.
“I could use a little morphine.”
Costas took an ampoule out of the bag, tapped it, then slapped it on Pradesh’s thigh. “That should do it.” He pulled out an emergency blanket and tucked it around Pradesh, and Jack slipped off his coat and put it on top.
“Better. Much better.” Pradesh closed his eyes, then waved his hand. “You can go now. I think it’s time you had a look in that mine shaft.”
Twenty minutes later Jack and Costas stood in front of the central shaft entrance, looking into the dark hole above a large pile of mine tailing that partly blocked the way in. Costas had Jack’s copy of Wood’s Source of the River Oxus in his hands, and quickly read out the passage on the lapis lazuli mines:
“The shaft by which you descend to the gallery is about ten feet square, and is not so perpendicular as to prevent your walking down. The gallery is eighty paces long, with a gentle descent; but it terminates abruptly in a hole twenty feet in diameter and as many deep. The width and height of the gallery, though irregular, may be estimated at about twelve feet; but at some places where the roof has fallen in, its section is so contracted that the visitor is forced to advance upon his hands and knees. Accidents would appear to have been frequent and one place in the mine is named after some unhappy sufferers who were crushed by the falling roof No precaution has been taken to support by means of pillars the top of the mine, which, formed of detached blocks wedged together, requires only a little more lateral expansion to drop into the cavity. Any further operations can only be carried out at the most imminent risk to the miners”
He shut the book carefully and handed it to Jack, who slipped it into his khaki bag. Costas began to trudge up the pile of rock chippings, slipping back down with each step. “Well, it doesn’t sound less safe than anything else we’ve done today,” he muttered. “You say no one else comes up here?”
“That’s what Rahid told me. They think it’s haunted.” Jack followed Costas. He felt heavy, suddenly tired. Each step seemed a monumental effort, as if he were walking in deep snow. His feet slipped back on the rock chippings, and halfway up the mound it seemed as if he was going nowhere. He felt as if he were constantly striving for an objective that was just beyond his grasp, like in a dream. Finally he stood at the top of the mound of tailings, the roof of the cavern entrance within arm’s reach above him. Costas was ten meters or so ahead, inside the shaft below Jack, crouching down. Jack watched him take out a Mini Maglite and pan the light over the walls. The rock was dark, almost black. Jack remembered the description, the thick layer of carbon from the fires used over thousands of years by miners to crack open the veins of lazurite. He looked back at the entrance. He was not sure, but the light
seemed to reflect a haze of blue off the walls, a blue like the azure of the sky. He turned back. Costas had advanced a few more steps down and was stooped over, close to the base of the mound where it sloped down into the cavern. He was motionless, staring hard at the chips of rock, shining the torch on one spot directly in front of him. He straightened, then looked back up. “Jack,” he said quietly.
“I’m here.”
There was silence for a moment. Costas cleared his throat. “That old Colt revolver of John Howard’s. The other one of the pair, the one you said his father had used in the Indian Mutiny.”
“Yes?” Jack’s voice felt disembodied, as if he were hearing himself speak from a long distance away.
“Do you know where it was made?”
Jack’s mind was a blank. He struggled to think. “It would have been Colt’s London factory. The address would have been stamped on the barrel.”
Costas got up, switched off the Maglite and made his way back to where Jack was standing. He looked him full in the face. “I know what Rahid found. I know why they never let anyone near this place.”
Jack put his hand on Costas’ shoulder. Costas offered him the Maglite, but Jack shook his head and reached deep into his bag, holding something tight. He left Costas, stumbling down, sliding on the rock chips, feeling where it was frozen underneath. He reached the spot where Costas had been, and dropped down on his knees. He let his eyes grow accustomed to the gloom. Then he saw what Costas had seen. It was half-buried in the tailings, but unmistakable. The revolver had been well-oiled so was not rusted, but had turned a deep plum color. He could see the address on the barrel. Col. Colt, London. The grip and the trigger guard were surrounded by rags, a coarse cloth, tightly wound. The fabric extended back under the rock chippings, then rose again in a mound, and then extended up again, a few feet away. The shape was symmetrical. Jack felt himself swaying. Two arms, outstretched. He looked at the other side. There was no pistol there, but a hollow where something had been, something that had once been grasped.
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