The grand finale consisted of Ashok with a ‘happy musical number’. He moodily slouched on to the stage mustering his audience.
“Hello assholes!” he grunted broodily. “I am supposed to play the clown for you. All right then, here we go... one Indian, one Pakistani and one Tibetan are sitting on a plane. Says the Indian... oh, did I mention the plane was about to crash? Well it doe... and the Indian says... hold on... no, the Tibetan says to the Chinese... because it was a Chinese not a Pakistani, anyway in the end he says: No, but its faster without!”
Ashok moodily looked at his quiet audience. “What are you gawping like that, that was funny... fanfare please... tataah! Ok, here’s another one: I once had a girlfriend, called Monika, and because she had a harelip I only called her ‘Haremonika’.”
Silence. Somewhere one could hear the sound of crickets.
Ashok gave out a deep sigh. “Okay, that was a bit over the top for you guys! Well, what do you expect from brainless subordinates with a minority complex, severe neurosis and an alcohol problem? Shut up, all of you, here’s some music for you!”
He snatched his fiddle, and yelled: “Get your rocks off!” He smashed the instrument onto the floor crushed it with his feet and started to sing without the least hint of a melody: “LA-LA-LA-LAAAAA!!!!!”
Under loud catcalls he left the stage, but he somehow felt much better.
5. About 37 miles north-east of Manali / Himalayas, next morning
If the small temple had known what crucial role it was about to play on this very day, it still would not be able to do anything about it. Being the small temple that it was it was not doing much anyway, besides just standing around enriching the scenery.
Actually it was no more than a squat sort of affair, made out of stone with a high pagoda roof perched on top of it. It resided on a small hill, the highest point in the bottom of the valley.
The small temple had been standing there like a lookout and did not even get bored, which was surprising since he was looking at the same scenery for centuries now, hence one could imagine boredom to settle in after a while. All around it nothing but outstretched barren landscape which in the few snow free months of the year, looked more like rock strewn wasteland, whose only patch of greenery was growing along side small rivers winding through the entire valley. On both sides the mountains reached up to dizzying heights, an awesome sight for newcomers, to be sure, but after a stretch of a couple of hundred years, one had somehow gotten used to it and one was longing for an unobstructed view for a change.
The only entertainment hereabouts was offered by afore mentioned glacial river, swelling up or down with the seasons and the changes between either a snowy landscape or a rocky one.
That’s not what you might want to call high-class entertainment, but since the temple was but a building, it did not complain.
That being said, some distraction was to be gained from a group of foreigners who, on this very afternoon, were climbing up the hill coming to a rest in front of the temple.
Bear was rattling at the small wooden door. “Closed!” he commented, pushing back his leather hat.
Gerd, sheltering his eyes with one hand, looked up against the sun. “Well, its only quarter to zenith, isn`t it?”
They sat upon a boulder, gazing down into the valley below. In the distance they could make out several army trucks and some other strange looking vehicles on the mountainside. Some more were positioned further down at the riverbank.
“Quite busy for a remote valley such as this, don’t you think?” Arthur remarked reaching into his knapsack, looking for his Walkman, something he had not done for ages. He put his headphone on, filled his pipe and silently humming to himself, enjoyed the view on these snow-capped heights.
Taking advantage of the shelter of the few trees growing alongside the river, Hermann, his heavily armed troupes, Bábaa, Sherie, Shaki and his men were crossing the valley. Sherie her hands tied behind her back was relentlessly pushed forward by the Jain killer. The fact that Shaki, Rajnesh and the other four had suddenly appeared in the camp this morning had not made the least impression on her. It probably had made her even gloomier and more sombre.
The presence of the Goans and the freelancers was painfully reminding her of her friends and their violent demise. Without giving any resistance, she had let herself being shackled and be pushed about. She neither said anything nor paid attention. It was, as if her soul had been sniffed out.
The group was coming to the most visible spot in the valley, the small temple on the hill.
Even from a distance they could make out people standing in front of it.
Hermann raised his binoculars and smiled. “Gentlemen!” he said turning to Shaki and the others. “I hef wisual contact wiz ze enemy!” He passed the binoculars around. Bear, Arthur and Gerd were clearly in sight. The gangsters smiled at each other in silence. Nobody said a word, but one could read their faces. The thrill of the chase was on. Taking cover wherever possible, they sneaked up towards their prey, soon enough they were close enough to recognise their individual faces. Only Sherie, never having raised her head once, during the whole day was mentally absent.
The sudden sound of a key turning in its lock had Gerd and Bear jump round. Behind them stood the old monk, framed by the low opening of the door, he bowed before them, his hands folded on his chest. “I am glad you could make it on time!”
Gerd and Bear jumped down from the boulder. “Where did you come from all of a sudden?” Bear wondered.
“From inside the temple. I have come here before sunrise, to prepare myself through meditation for the things that are going to come to pass! It is the day of the prophecy becoming true!”
Gerd frowned. “What kind of prophecy? We want to buy dope, that’s all!”
“PERISH I SHALL, ONLY TO LIVE FOREEEEVER!!!!!!!” Arthur, still listening to his furious music through his headphones, had somehow lost touch with the world surrounding him and was singing along a hymn by Gustav-Mahler. All of them shrank in horror. Only the monk continued to smile impermeably.
“You have to excuse him!” Gerd tried, quite unnecessarily, to calm down the monk. “He is listening to music, you know. He has a little cassette player, with music coming out, and you can listen to it through little plugs, that you put into your ears. Those are called headphones. That is technology from the West”
The monk furrowed his brow. “Cassettes? Apart from being totally out-dated technology, he won’t be able to enjoy it for much longer in this climate. I for once bought myself an iPod. You can transfer files from your PC!”
Gerd stared at the man in the red robe. “Oh, in that case...” he mumbled, feeling slightly embarrassed.
Arthur’s smattering outbreak of musical exuberance was still echoing from the mountain walls and it gave Sherie something equal to an electric shock. Within split seconds she was wide-awake and jerked her head up. There they stood! Arthur, Bear and Gerd. It was no delusion; they were alive! All of a sudden, she realised, what Shaki and the others were doing here. Those three had escaped them again and now Shaki and his men wanted to bring to an end, what they had not achieved in Delhi.
“Don’t shoot yet!” Bábaa whispered! “I don’t want to scare off the Golden Biker!”
But Babu had already pulled his gun from its holster. “I don’t give a fuck about your agenda, grandpa. I’ll finish my job, and than its home sweet home for me!”
He cocked the gun and took aim.
Sherie’s brain went into overdrive, thoughts shot through her head: If she would remain quiet now, let the gangsters do their job, Bábaa would set her free later. She had his word on that. Wasn’t that the golden rule of survival on the streets: Always look out for yourself? Hadn’t she survived all that time just because she had adhered to that rule? On the other hand, if she would warn those three foreigners, whom she had only
met a couple of days ago anyhow, her fate would be sealed within an instant. The gangsters would kill her immediately. Just keep quiet, Sherie, don’t you dare to make a move... a voice whispered inside her head.
... just don’t look, let it pass...
... main thing is, you survive...
... even if you could never face yourself in a mirror again, you will live, and that’s the important thing. Even if you have to live with the fact, that you have betrayed the only man, who has ever meant anything…
“GEEERD! WATCH OUT!!!” she yelled out, as loud as she could, throwing herself against Babu with all her body weight, just at the very instant he had pulled the trigger. The ear splitting shot rang around the mountainside, missing Gerd’s head by hair’s breadth, hitting the heavy wooden door of the temple. Bear and Gerd flew to the ground at once. Only the monk remained, standing still like a statue. As did Arthur, who, thanks to his private entertainment system was oblivious to all of this. He was sitting on a nearby boulder humming to himself. Only when Bear, creeping up from behind, grabbed him by the neck and pulled him to the ground did Arthur realise, that something was not right at all.
“What was that?” Wu’s head flew around. Intensely, he scanned the valley below.
“By the sound of it, a Magnum 45, full-mantle projectile, filed into a dum-dum by hand! The bullet must have hit some wooden structure, quite discernible, because of its hollow echo.
Probably a door or something similar!” Apu answered in matter of fact voice. “Ah well, and the weapon must have been cleaned recently!”
Wu raised his eyebrows, impressed. “My god, you do have a sharp ear!”
Apu shrugged it of. “Oh well, comes with the job!”
Wu became serious again. There was no time for any exchange of courtesies, though. The Indian agent had arrived at camp this very morning, trying to de-escalate the situation through the course of negotiations. Since Wu also was very keen on not letting this get out of hand, he had immediately received him.
“The shot, does it mean, the manoeuvre has already started?” Wu demanded to know. Apu shook his head thoughtfully. “No, we will try to avoid any act of aggression, as long as we are certain of your cooperation. Anyway, we don’t use 45s in our manoeuvres!”
At this moment a general came running to where they were standing.
“I just love the smell of Napalm in the morning!” he greeted Wu shouting.
“Yes, but Charlie, don’t surf!” Wu answered with the parole words that they had agreed to use from now on, after the embarrassing affair with the spy. Having identified Wu this way, Li Xao’s gaze wandered over to Apu.
“Who is that man? He looks Indian to me, does he not?”
Apu bowed politely. “Indeed, I am. My government has sent me. We would like to know the reason for your manoeuvre. Maybe we can have a few clarifying words about this, to ease the tension a bit, what do you say?”
Solomon yanked the headphones off his head. “Someone fired a shot, just now!” he yelled over the numbing sounds of chill-out music to Moshe and Ephraim, who were lounging in the comfy helicopter seats and were just filling out a the questions in the latest issue of Cosmopolitan, a survey called ‘What’s your sex type’. Since the cabin was sound proofed, they had not heard the shot. Only Solomon, who feverishly was watching each and every step that was happening down in the valley, had registered every detail. A computer-aided audio analyser, which he had also rented for a small surcharge, made sure he could hear everything that was going on down there. “Get ready! Go signal for the combat unit! Red alert!”
With a demonstrable moan Moshe put the magazine down and got the Israel command post on the radio, which had already arrived very early in the morning and whose troupes were now lying well hidden down there in the valley somewhere.
The commander of the Indian army put down his binoculars and looked at the group of officers gathered around him. “Gentlemen! I don’t know, who fired that shot just now. Either the Chinese or those dubious types down there in the valley, who knows what the devil they really are! To be quite frank, I don’t really care! I tell you one thing though: If only one of the Chinese over there so much as pops open a Coke bottle and the cap rolls onto our side... I SHALL CONSIDER THIS AS A DECLARATION OF WAR, IS THAT CLEAR???”
The officers, quite taken aback by this outburst, flinched in surprise.
“So, I want everything to be made ready for combat within the next five minutes!” he barked at them. “We are conducting only a harmless manoeuvre here. Let the slant eyes watch. But beware, if only one of them dares to make a move...”
What would happen then, he left unsaid, but everybody had a pretty good idea.
“Ehm, sorry chief, and what are we supposed to do in the meantime? Perhaps dress up in funny costumes, or something?” Ashok, who had stood at the side-lines, demanded to know.
The commander jerked around, darting him a poisonous look. “Honestly, I don’t give a flying fart! Crawl under a rock and hold hands, for all I care, or go pluck some daisies or practice juggling or something... But stay out of my way, all right??? Would like to know, who had the daft idea to bring you lot along...”
“But it was you, who asked us!” protested Ashok
“Yes, maybe...” the commander shouted back at him, “but we had taken you for a bunch of merry jugglers. However, after watching your sort of entertainment one is in dire need of anti depressive drugs! I succumbed to cases of gastro-enteritis that were giving me more fun. And now go play, the grown-ups have go to work!”
He turned around and again surveyed the valley through his binoculars.
Ashok could somehow understand the tension against him and his men. After last nights catastrophic events he himself had come to he conclusion that maybe the time had come to wipe the slate clean, forget about the stolen bus...
“Boss!” suddenly one of his gypsies, standing on a rock looking down into the valley, exclaimed.
“What is it?”
“That’s our bus, down there!”
Babu, taken by surprise by the attack cried out and stumbled into the bushes. “You godforsaken whore!” he yelled at Sherie. But she did not take any notice of him, running up the hill as fast as her bound together hands allowed her.
“Dammit!” Bábaa shouted, “I said, no shooting! Now they’ve been warned off!” He waved to the Jain to come over nodding his head towards the fleeing Sherie. “Quick, go and kill her!” he hissed.
A malicious grin came over the Jain’s face. Quick as lightning he reached into his quiver containing the poisoned darts put one into his blowtorch and aimed at Sherie’s back.
Just in that instant, as he was taking a deep breath of air, a figure was blocking his view, grabbed the other end of the blowtorch and blew into it very hard.
“Rajnesh!!!” Shaki and Bábaa cried out simultaneously. Making gurgling sounds, the Jain put his hands around his throat. The poisoned dart had bored down his throat in the opposite direction. Eyes open wide with horror he stared at Rajnesh, trying to utter croaking sounds, but the paralysis had already begun, so all that came from his mouth was blood-filled foam.
He made one last step towards Rajnesh, then his legs gave in, he fell over and was dead.
“Sherie?” Gerd could hardly believe it, but it really was Sherie, running up the hill over there. Bear and Arthur, who had thrown themselves to the ground, looked at her as if she were a ghost. Gasping for air, she finally reached the temple and flung her arms around the quite astonished Gerd.
“Don’t stare at me like that, happy to see you too!” she panted, “And now, how about ducking for cover again. They are still down there, mind you!”
“Who? Why aren’t you...”? Gerd stammered having lost all his composure.
She fell down on her knees. “I’ll explain everything later! Take off my sh
ackles!”
With shaking hands Gerd unwound the straps of her wrists. On all fours they crawled over to where Bear and Arthur had taken cover behind a rock.
Sherie gave them her brightest smile “Nice to see you all again!”
Bear lifted his head. “The pleasure is all ours!”
“Good show!” Arthur said admiringly.
“What’s gotten into you??? That was my best man!!!” Bábaa shouted at Rajnesh, who stood petrified. Shaki took a quick step forward to clap his nephew over the ears, but in a flash Rajnesh seized the hand in mid-air holding it tight.
Stupefied, Shaki looked at him.
“Now you listen to me, uncle!” Rajnesh hissed at him in a dangerously hushed tone, “I am so sick and tired of this bullshit. Is there nothing you assholes can do, except pissing people off making their lives miserable?”
“But I am... I can only... I have to... ” stammered the totally perplexed Shaki, who faced with this quite disturbing change of his nephew’s character had lost all countenance.
“Kill him, snub him, finish him off... that’s all you ever think off. It’s so pathetic, I could barf!”
“What impudence! You cannot talk to your uncle like that?” Bábaa was seriously outraged.
Rajnesh looked at him despairingly. “Talk to him like to an imbecile, you mean? That’s exactly how I’m going to talk to you as well. Your parents weren’t siblings by any chance, shit for brains the both of you!”
Bábaa, who never had been addressed like that before, let his jaw drop a couple of times.
Riling with anger, he eventually pulled out his gun. “I’ll blow your lights out!!!” he screamed at Rajnesh.
“Sure you do,” snarled Rajnesh, who, by now did not give a shit about anything anymore, “like I said, that’s the only thing you can ever do. Bu-hu-hu… have I insulted your puny ego, yes? Is that why you always try to be the bully? Has your mommy not loved you enough? Or did you have to wear dresses as a child?”
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