Valley of Death

by Scott Mariani

  Nobody came out. There were no shouts of alarm. No gunfire splitting the silence of the night. So far, so good.

  He let the truck roll another fifteen yards, to where it was swallowed up by the shadow of a big rock. He braked gently to a halt. Slipped the gearbox into first and tugged the handbrake tight, taking care not to let the ratchet mechanism make any sound. He got back out of the truck, taking his bag with him but leaving the rifle behind. He’d return to it later. With a Browning and a Colt nestling in his waistband and a whole collection of other hardware in his bag, he didn’t feel too badly unarmed as he stalked back up the slope towards the other two trucks. He crouched in the shadows next to them.

  Phase one of the plan was complete.

  He checked his watch once more. There was no practical way to verify that his timing was right. He was a little more dependent on intuition and luck than he’d have liked, but it wouldn’t be the first such situation he’d been in, and he was still alive.

  In the darkness he opened up his bag and took out the grenades he’d scavenged from the bodies of the dead dacoits earlier that day. There were seven of them, generic devices manufactured by the Indian Ordnance Board but pretty much identical to any made anywhere, with the classic pineapple shell made of brittle cast iron and packed with enough TNT explosive to rip a powerful destructive swathe some twenty-seven metres in diameter, killing or maiming any enemy within the circle. The combined effect of seven of them would be enough to get anyone’s attention, that was for sure.

  Ben piled six of the grenades in a little mound under the truck, keeping the seventh one by as the detonator. He’d only have to pull that one pin, because its blast would instantly set off the others. The standard fuse delay time was four seconds, just long enough for him to get the hell out of there and scramble under cover. Few things could make you run faster than the imminent prospect of a shrapnel shower hot on your heels.

  He hesitated, nervous about kicking things off prematurely. But if the timing of this whole plan was wrong, then it was wrong, and it couldn’t be helped. Fuck it, he thought, and grasped the pin of the seventh grenade and went to yank it out.

  And then stopped. Because the shape of a man’s figure had appeared in the mouth of the cave entrance. Coming this way.

  Ben shrank back into the shadows and watched him. The guy walked over to the trucks and stopped, just a body’s length away from where Ben was crouching. The toe of his boot maybe eleven inches from the mound of grenades. Ben heard the zip of his flies being yanked open, followed a moment later by the splash and patter of his urine against the truck tyre. Men, like dogs, seemed inclined to piss on tyres. A male territorial thing, Ben had always thought. Some primal remnant of human evolutionary psychology. Or maybe they were just dirty bastards.

  The guy was too busy to notice the dark shape that rose up out of the shadows behind him. Not that he’d have been able to do anything about it, if he had.

  Ben grabbed him from behind and cupped a palm over his mouth and jammed him hard against the side of the truck to stop him from crying out or struggling. Then twisted his head up and sideways, and felt the resistance in there, and twisted harder and felt it give, and heard the muted crunch as the guy’s neck broke. Brain death wouldn’t be quite instant, but near enough as dammit. He kept a grip on the guy until he felt the tension go out of him, then let the body slump to the ground. Now he could get on with his business.

  Or maybe he couldn’t just yet. Because almost exactly thirty seconds after the guy had stepped out of the cave, another figure emerged.

  Ben gritted his teeth and thought, Oh, for Pete’s sake. Watched as the second guy walked from the cave. He seemed to be searching for the first guy. Ben heard him softly call out, ‘Neeraj?’

  Ben’s initial intention was that second guy would quickly meet the same fate as his friend. Maybe, he mused, all thirteen of the others would take turns stepping outside for a toilet break, at convenient intervals, allowing themselves to be disposed of one by one until there were none left and Ben could just walk in there and get Amal. An interesting possibility, but unlikely.

  Then a new idea came to him. Because his plan was all about creating a diversion. And the best diversions were the ones that spooked the enemy to the maximum.

  Ben reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his notebook and pen. He silently ripped a page free, wrote his brief note and folded it in two and placed it on the dead man’s chest before retreating back into the shadows. In retrospect the words coming to get you were ambiguous, depending on whether they were addressed to Amal, in which case they carried a promise of help – or to Takshak and his crew, which offered the threat of much darker things to come. But they were true either way. Ben watched the second guy hunt about in the dark, still looking for his friend. For a moment it looked like he might walk right by without noticing the body on the ground. But then the second guy stumbled right into it. Moments later, he was running back to the cave, clutching Ben’s note and roaring and braying at the top of his voice.

  Perfect.

  This was it. Ben counted off as many more seconds as he dared to wait, picturing the scenario taking place inside the cave. Then he pulled the pin on the seventh grenade, tossed it under the truck, saw it roll and come to a rest next to the mound of its six companions.

  And he bounded away from the trucks and ran like hell for the safety of the rocks.

  Four seconds to showtime.

  Chapter 59

  Several things happened in those four seconds. First, Ben could hear a lot of commotion going on from inside the cave, just as he’d intended. Then, right on cue, more figures appeared in its dimly-lit mouth. Two of them hurried outside with weapons in their hands. They paused for a fraction of a second at the cave entrance, peering out into the darkness with a mixture of anxiety and anger in their body language. Then they split up and charged out into the night. One of them skirted around the side of the trucks while the other ran down the narrow aisle between them, obviously in the hope that he might find the prowler lurking there.

  He found something else, though he’d never know what.

  The explosion of the grenades happened in a ripple effect as the initial detonation set off a chain reaction lasting maybe a quarter of a second longer than a single bomb blast. But the difference was academic. The erupting fireball lit up the night, blinding white at its core and spreading out into a fiery orange halo. The massive combined pressure wave lifted both trucks off their wheels and sent them spinning in opposite directions like children’s toys. The unfortunate guy caught between them had stepped right into the heart of the blast. If a forensic team had later tried to examine what was left of him, they’d have found nothing but fine paste mixed up with pulverised bone fragments, and maybe a boot with a foot still in it two hundred yards away. Meanwhile his friend hadn’t been quite so close to the epicentre of the explosion, but not so far away as to escape the deadly shrapnel wave that simultaneously blew him off his feet and sliced him into pieces, dashing what was left of him against the base of the hillside.

  The blast was over as suddenly as it had gone off. It was followed by a long moment of stunned silence. TNT high explosive makes for a sooty, smoky detonation. Its aftermath blotted the dim moonlight to total blackness. It took several seconds for the smoke to dissipate. One of the shattered trucks had turned a triple somersault in the air and was lying belly-up several yards away, burning brightly, one wheel spinning. The other had been blasted clean in two, little remaining but a twisted chassis and a few bodywork panels crumpled like tin foil. Smaller patches of fire were burning all over the place. The thorn bushes behind which Ben had been hiding earlier were ablaze.

  Then after the silence came the inevitable mayhem as the smoky darkness suddenly came alive with running shapes of men bursting out of the cave entrance, yellow-white muzzle flash spurting from their guns as they fired in all directions against the invisible enemy that had launched the attack on them.

  Bu
t by then the invisible enemy was already on the move, making his way up the hillside. Crackling gunfire filled the air. Yelling and chaos all around. The essence of a perfect diversion. Phase two of Ben’s plan was complete.

  Now for the hard part. He reached the fissure at the top of the cave and crouched low beside it. A wisp of campfire smoke was still trickling up out of the crack. The men down below were all far too busy milling around the scene of devastation, shooting at shadows and yelling their heads off in fury to have noticed him. He unslung the rope coil from around his body and quickly secured one end to a jutting rock. Then fed the loose end down through the smoky hole and scrambled in after it.

  The fissure offered all kinds of handholds and footholds for him to climb down. He had to scrape and wriggle his way through about ten feet of rock before he’d reach the inside. For a moment he felt a jolt of fear as he thought he’d get stuck; then he gave a twist and was free again. He felt his legs dangle in mid-air as they emerged from the cave ceiling. This was the moment of maximum exposure and greatest vulnerability, but it lasted only a second as he let go and dropped the last eight feet to the cave floor like a parachutist. His boots crunched down into the middle of the dying campfire, scattering sticks of blackened wood and snuffing out the last of the flames. He let his knees flex and his body roll over to break the fall, and came back up on his feet with the Colt Delta Elite drawn and ready. Saw the shape of the man he’d caught unawares with his surprise entry. Saw the gleam of frightened eyes catching the lantern light as the guy spun around to face him, just ten paces away. Saw the glitter of the man’s weapon swivelling his way.

  Ben fired twice. Double tap, centre of mass, pure instinct with no conscious aim. Saw the shape of the man crumple up and fall, heard the thud of his weapon hitting the floor and his muted grunt as he died.

  Ben kept the gun pointed long enough to make sure the guy wasn’t getting up again. He wasn’t. There was still enough wild firing going on outside to have disguised the sound of the shots from within the cave, but they’d sounded pretty damn loud up close. Ben’s ears rang as he glanced around him. The cave walls were rough and craggy in places, smoothed in others as though by the passage of a thousand years’ worth of fast-flowing water. To his front was the sliver of the entrance, some ten feet high and just wide enough to squeeze a truck through. To his back was the shape of Takshak’s Jeep, reversed into the deep shadows at the rear of the cave.

  The guy he’d shot must have been left behind to guard the prisoner. Which had to mean the prisoner was still alive. Or so Ben could only hope. He hurried over to the Jeep. Whispered hoarsely, ‘Amal?’ There was no reply. He could make out the dull glint of the chain lying like a snake across the ground. He picked it up and tugged on it. One end was attached to the Jeep’s rear bumper. The other end to a dark, slumped shape that had crawled into a recess at the very back of the cave and wasn’t moving.

  Ben whispered again, ‘Amal?’

  Still no response. Ben’s heart froze in terror that he was too late. He ducked into the recess and reached out to the silent huddled shape on the ground. He dreaded the touch of cold, stiff, dead flesh.

  Then the relief spilled through him all over again as he heard the groan and felt the stirring as Amal woke up and raised his head from the ground. He appeared frightened at first, unable to recognise Ben’s face in the darkness. Ben took the torch from his bag and shone it over himself.

  ‘Ben? BEN!?’

  ‘You’re okay,’ Ben said. ‘You’re safe now.’

  Chapter 60

  Though that statement was far from true. Takshak’s men would soon return, and when that happened the cave wouldn’t be a good place to be. Ben ran the torch beam over Amal’s face. Up close, he looked worse. The splits in his lips needed stitching and his bad eye was puffed up to the size of a pomegranate, which were bad enough. But the fresh bruising all over his face was plenty enough evidence of a more recent beating. The bastards had been laying into him that evening.

  ‘How are we doing?’ Ben asked him.

  ‘Arm’s broken,’ Amal croaked, and his one open eye rolled sideways to glance at his right arm. Speaking made the cuts reopen and ooze blood from his lips. ‘Takshak did it. As punishment for what happened today.’

  Ben swallowed back the hot surge of anger. No time for sentiment. Outside the shooting was still going on, but beginning to quieten down and become more sporadic as it gradually dawned on the defenders that nobody was shooting back.

  ‘I thought no one was ever coming for me.’

  ‘Then you thought wrong.’

  ‘Brooke—?’ Like Amal was almost too afraid to ask.

  ‘She’s the one who sent me, Amal. She’s fine. You’re going to see her again soon. But first we have to get out of here, and fast. Can you walk?’

  ‘Got no shoes.’

  Ben said, ‘Turn your face away and cover your ear.’

  Amal stared at him, then understood and did what he’d been told, clamping his usable hand to the side of his head. Ben held the torch between his teeth and pulled the chain taut from Amal’s ankle. A pair of bolt croppers would have been useful. He’d just have to do it the noisy way. Taking out the Colt he pressed its muzzle against the chain links. Too close to Amal’s foot, the gases from the blast would cut and sear his flesh. Too far away and Amal would be trailing a length of chain until Ben managed to get the cuff off. Ben compromised on six inches.

  He pressed the trigger and the loud gunshot kicked up dust and stone chips from the cave floor. The broken chain fell loose like a shot snake. A nine-millimetre might not have been effective against tempered steel, but its big brother did the job just fine. Ben made the weapon safe and thrust it in his waistband. He quickly took off his belt, refastened the buckle and looped it around Amal’s neck. Amal gritted his teeth as Ben gently lifted the limp broken arm and inserted it through the improvised leather sling. One glance close-up at the rock-lacerated soles of Amal’s bare feet was enough to tell him there was no way he could walk.

  Ben darted over to the dead body on the cave floor. It took him a few moments to rip off the dead guy’s boots. Two sizes too large for Amal, but they’d do fine. Amal winced as Ben jammed the boots onto his feet. Then Ben gripped his good arm and helped him to stand. Amal was unsteady and weak, his face contorted with pain. ‘How are we getting out of here?’ he gasped.

  That was a good question, to which there’d never been an easy answer. Ben had begun the rescue knowing that his exfiltration plan left a lot to be desired. In an ideal world, if Amal had been in a fit state to do so, they’d have made their exit the way Ben had come in, get away unseen and make it to the truck that Ben had purposely separated off from the others to use as an escape vehicle. But this was anything but an ideal world, and getting a weakened, half-blind man with a broken arm back up through a narrow crevice in the roof eight feet off the ground with just a thin rope to shinny up was not an option. And as slender and light as Amal was, Ben couldn’t make the climb for both of them.

  So he threw that part of his strategy out of the window without a second’s hesitation, along with any hope of getting out of here undetected. Plan B was going to be just a little bit less subtle.

  ‘We’re going to drive straight out the front door,’ he replied.

  ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘And you’re going to have to hold on tight. Think you can manage?’

  ‘You just watch me.’

  ‘It’s going to hurt.’

  ‘Better than being dead,’ Amal replied, and Ben couldn’t argue with that. He helped Amal into the passenger seat. The Jeep was a dedicated off-roader, with a utilitarian instrument panel, a full roll cage and oversized tyres as knobbly as a tractor’s. At some point in its life it had been fitted with five-point harness safety belts, like a rally car. He strapped Amal as tightly to the seat as he could, then piled in behind the wheel.

  The firing outside had stopped. Any moment now, Takshak’s crew were going to come runn
ing back into the cave, and there was little doubt in Ben’s mind that they’d still have plenty of rounds left in their guns. This rescue mission could come to a bad end as quickly as it had begun.

  But not if Ben could help it. He twisted the ignition and the Jeep’s engine rasped into life, loud and echoey in the confines of the cave. He flipped on the lights, slammed the transmission into gear and stamped the accelerator to the floor. The big knobbled tyres bit down hard and the Jeep went surging towards the cave mouth, lighting it up brightly in its headlamps.

  Not a moment too late. A pair of Takshak’s men suddenly appeared in the entrance and froze blinking in the dazzling light, momentarily too confused to raise their weapons and shoot. Ben had no intention of giving them that opportunity. He kept his foot down and piled right into them.

  The Jeep’s right-side wing caught one guy in the hip and spun him violently sideways into the jagged rocks of the cave entrance with a crunch that Ben heard over the roar of the engine. The other one folded in half across the Jeep’s bonnet and his head cannoned off the windscreen, and his body flipped right over them as they stormed out of the cave and into the night. Two for one. By Ben’s count that made Takshak seven men down, including the guy he’d done for himself.

  But the fight wasn’t over yet, with a lot of heavily armed and very angry opponents left to deal with. The scene outside the cave looked like a war zone. The blown-up trucks and the bushes around them were still on fire. The Jeep’s headlights sliced into the billowing smoke and picked out flitting figures of the enemy running everywhere in disarray. Ben aimed the nose of the Jeep at one of them, who threw himself out of the way and went tumbling into a pile of wreckage. A near miss. Ben veered off and kept going.