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  Tenzing kept up the pace but it was a mountaineer’s pace, measured and unhurried and constant and punishing. After an hour Gueng took over the lead then Ross, Rosemont, and then Tenzing again. Three minutes’ rest an hour, then on again.

  The moon sank lower in the sky. They were well away now, the going easier, lower down the mountainside. The path meandered but it led generally eastward towards a curiously shaped cleft in the range. Rosemont had recognised it. ‘Down in that valley’s a side road that goes to Tabriz. It’s little more than a track in winter but you can get through okay. Let’s go on till dawn, then rest up and make a plan. Okay?’

  Now they were down the tree line and into the beginnings of the pine forest, going much slower and feeling the tiredness.

  Tenzing still led. Snow muffled their footsteps and the good clean air pleased him greatly. Abruptly he sensed danger and stopped. Ross was just behind him and he stopped also. Everyone waited motionless. Then Ross went forward carefully. Tenzing was peering into the dark ahead, the moon casting strange shadows. Slowly both men used their peripheral vision. Nothing. No sign or smell. They waited. Some snow fell from one of the trees. No one moved. Then a night bird left a branch ahead and to the right and flew noisily away. Tenzing pointed in that direction, motioned Ross to wait, slid his kukri out and went forward alone, melting into the night.

  After a few yards Tenzing saw a man crouched behind a tree fifty yards ahead and his excitement picked up. Closer he could see that the man was oblivious of him. Closer. Then his peripheral vision saw a shadow move to his left, another to his right and he knew. ‘Ambush!’ he shouted at the top of his lungs and dived for cover.

  The first wave of bullets passed near him but missed. Part of the second punctured his left lung, ripped a hole out of his back, slamming him against a fallen tree. More guns opened up on the opposite side of the pathway, the crossfire racking Ross and the others, who had scrambled behind tree trunks and into gullies.

  For a moment Tenzing lay there helplessly. He could hear the firing but it seemed far away though he knew that it must be near. With a last mighty effort he dragged himself to his feet and charged the guns that had killed him. He saw some of their attackers turn back on him and heard bullets pass him, some tugging at his cowl. One went through his shoulder but he did not feel it, pleased that he was dying as men in the regiment were supposed to die. Going forward. Fearlessly. I am truly without fear. I am Hindu and I go to meet Shiva contentedly, and when I am reborn I pray Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva that I will be born again Gurkha.

  As he reached the ambush, his kukri hacked off someone’s arm, his legs gave out, a monstrous, peerless light went off in his head and he strode into death without pain.

  ‘Hold all fire,’ Ross called out, getting his bearings, pulling the strings of battle back into his hands. He pegged two groups of guns against them, but there was no way that he could get at either. The ambush had been well chosen and the crossfire deadly. He had seen Tenzing hit. It had taken all of his willpower not to go to his aid but first there was this battle to win and the others to protect. The shots were echoing and re-echoing off the mountainside. He had wriggled out of his pack, found the grenades, made sure his carbine was fully automatic, not knowing how to lead the way out of the trap. Then he had seen Tenzing reel to his feet with a battle cry and charge up the slope, creating the diversion Ross needed. At once he ordered Rosemont, ‘Cover me,’ and to Gueng, ‘Go!’ pointing towards the same group Tenzing was attacking.

  Immediately Gueng jumped out of his gully and rushed them, their attention diverted by Tenzing. When he saw his comrade go down, his rage burst, he let the lever on his grenade fly off, hurled it into their midst and hit the snow. The instant the grenade exploded he was up, his carbine spraying the screams, stopping most of them. He saw one man rushing away, another desperately crawling off into the underbrush. One slash of the kukri took off part of the crawler’s head. A short burst cut the other to pieces and again Gueng whirled into cover, not knowing where the next danger would come from. Another grenade exploding took his attention to the other side of the path.

  Ross had crawled forward out of safety. Bullets straddled him but Rosemont opened up with short bursts, drawing fire, giving Ross the help he needed, and he made the next tree safely, found a deep trough in the snow and fell into it. For a second he waited, collecting his breath, then scrambled along the hard, frozen snow towards the firing. Now he was out of sight of the attackers and he made good time. Then he heard the other grenade go off and the screaming, and he prayed that Gueng and Tenzing were all right.

  The enemy firing was getting closer, and when he judged that he was in position, he pulled the pin out of the first grenade and with his carbine in his left hand went over the top. The instant he was in the open he saw the men, but not where he had expected them. There were five, barely twenty yards away. Their rifles turned on him but his reactions were just a little faster and he was on the ground behind a tree, the lever off and counting before the first barrage ripped into it. On the fourth second he reached around the tree and lobbed the grenade at them, buried his head under his arms. The explosion lifted him off the ground, blew the trunk of a nearer tree to pieces, burying him under branches and snow from its limbs.

  Down by the path Rosemont had emptied his magazine into where he thought the attackers would be. Cursing in his anxiety, he slapped in a new magazine and fired another burst.

  Across the path on the other slope, Gueng was huddled behind a rock waiting for someone to move. Then, near the exploded tree, he saw one man running away, bent double. He aimed and the man died, the shot echoing. Now silence.

  Rosemont felt his heart racing. He could wait no longer. ‘Cover me, Gueng,’ he shouted and leaped to his feet and rushed for the tree. A flicker of firing to his right, bullets hissed past, then Gueng opened up from the other slope. A bubbling scream and the firing ceased. Rosemont ran onward until he was straddling the ambush point, his carbine levelled. Three men were in pieces, the last barely alive, their rifles bent and twisted. All wore rough tribal clothes. As he watched, the last man choked and died. He turned away and rushed for the other tree, pulling branches away, fighting his way through the snow to Ross.

  On the other slope Gueng waited and watched to kill anything that moved. There was a slight stir amid the carnage behind the rocks where his grenade had ripped the three men apart. He waited, hardly breathing, but it was only a rodent feeding. Soon they will clean the ground and make it whole again, he thought, awed by the cycle of the gods. His eyes ranged slowly. He saw Tenzing crumpled to one side of the rock, his kukri still locked in his grasp. Before I leave I will take it, Gueng thought; his family will cherish it and his son will wear it with equal honour. Tenzing Sheng’khan lived and died like a man and will be reborn as the gods decide. Karma.

  Another movement. Ahead in the forest. He concentrated.

  The other side of the path Rosemont was pulling at the branches, fighting them away, his arms aching. At last he reached Ross and his heart almost stopped. Ross was crumpled on the ground, his arms over his head, his carbine nearby. Blood stained the snow and the back of the white coveralls. Rosemont knelt and turned him over and almost cried out with relief that Ross was still breathing. For a moment his eyes were blank, then they focused. He sat up and winced. ‘Tenzing? And Gueng?’

  ‘Tenzing got clobbered, Gueng’s the other side covering us. He’s okay.’

  ‘Thank God. Poor Tenzing.’

  ‘Test your arms and legs.’

  Gingerly Ross moved his limbs. Everything worked. ‘My head hurts like hell, but I’m okay.’ He looked around and saw the crumpled attackers. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Tribesmen. Bandits maybe.’ Rosemont studied the way ahead. Nothing moved. The night was fine. ‘We’d better get the hell out of here before more of the bastards jump us. You think you can go on?’

  ‘Yes. Give me a cou
ple of seconds.’ Ross wiped some snow over his face. The cold helped. ‘Thanks, eh? You know. Thanks.’

  Rosemont smiled back. ‘All part of the service,’ he said wryly. His eyes went to the tribesmen. Keeping well down he went over to them and searched where he could. He found nothing. ‘Probably locals—or just bandits. These bastards can be real cruel if they catch you alive.’

  Ross nodded and another spasm of pain soared. ‘I’m okay now, I think. We’d better move—the firing must have been heard for miles and this’s no place to hang around.’

  Rosemont had seen the pain. ‘Wait some more.’

  ‘No. I’ll feel better moving.’ Ross gathered his strength, then called out in Gurkhali, ‘Gueng, we’ll go on.’ He started to get up, stopped as an abrupt keening for danger answered him. ‘Get down!’ he gasped and pulled Rosemont with him.

  A single rifle bullet came out of the night and chose Rosemont and buried itself in his chest, mortally wounding him. Then there was firing from the other slope and a scream and silence once more.

  In time, Gueng joined Ross. ‘Sahib, I think that was the last. For the moment.’

  ‘Yes.’ They waited with Vien Rosemont until he died, then did what they had to do for him and for Tenzing. And then they went on.

  Chapter 6

  Tehran: At Sharazad’s Apartment: 7:30 P.M. Sharazad was lying in a foam bath, her head propped on a waterproof pillow, eyes closed, her hair tied up in a towel. ‘Oh, Azadeh, darling,’ she said drowsily, perspiration beading her forehead, ‘I’m so happy.’

  Azadeh was also in the bath and she lay with her head at the other end, enjoying the heat and the intimacy and the sweet perfumed water and the luxury—her long hair also up in a pure white towel—the bath large and deep and comfortable for two. But there were still dark rings under her eyes, and she could not shake off the terrors of yesterday at the roadblock or in the helicopter. Outside the curtains, night had come. Gunfire echoed in the distance. Neither paid it any attention.

  ‘I wish Erikki would come back,’ Azadeh said.

  ‘He won’t be long, there’s lots of time, darling. Mac has much to talk over with him. Dinner’s not till nine, so we’ve almost two hours to get ready.’ Sharazad opened her eyes and put her hand on Azadeh’s slender thighs, enjoying the touch of her. ‘Don’t worry, darling Azadeh, he’ll be back soon, your redheaded giant! And don’t forget I’m spending the night with my parents so you two can run naked together all night long! Enjoy our bath, be happy, and swoon when he returns.’ They laughed together. ‘Everything’s wonderful now, you’re safe, we’re all safe, Iran’s safe—with the Help of God the Imam has conquered and Iran’s safe and free.’

  ‘I wish I could believe it, I wish I could believe it as you do,’ Azadeh said. ‘I can’t explain how terrible those people near the roadblock were—it was as though I was being choked by their hate. Why should they hate us—hate me and Erikki? What had we done to them? Nothing at all and yet they hated us.’

  ‘Don’t think about them, my dear one.’ Sharazad stifled a yawn. ‘Leftists are all mad, claiming to be Muslim and at the same time Marxist. They’re anti-God and therefore cursed. The villagers? Villagers are uneducated as you know too well, and most of them simple. Don’t worry—that’s past, now everything is going to be better, you’ll see.’

  ‘I hope, oh how I hope you’re right. I don’t want it better but just as it was, normal, like it’s always been, normal again.’

  ‘Oh, it will be.’ Sharazad felt so contented, the water so silky and so warm and womblike. Ah, she thought, only three more days and then my Tommy comes back, and then, the next day, the great day, I should know for certain though I’m certain now. Haven’t I always been so regular? Then I can give Tommy my gift of God and he’ll be so proud. ‘The Imam does the work of God. How can it be otherwise than good?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sharazad, but never in our history have mullahs been worthy of trust—just parasites on the backs of the villagers.’

  ‘Ah, but now it’s different,’ Sharazad told her, not really wanting to discuss such serious matters. ‘Now we have a real leader. Now he’s in control of Iran for the first time ever. Isn’t he the most pious of men, the most learned of Islam and the law? Doesn’t he do God’s work? Hasn’t he achieved the impossible, throwing out the Shah and his nasty corruption, stopping the generals from making a coup with the Americans? Father says we’re safer now than we’ve ever been.’

  ‘Are we?’ Azadeh remembered Rakoczy in the chopper and what he had said about Khomeini and stepping backwards in history, and she knew he had spoken the truth, a lot of truth, and she had clawed at him, hating him, wanting him dead, for of course he was one of those who would use the simple-minded mullahs to enslave everyone else. ‘You want to be ruled by Islamic laws of the Prophet’s time, almost fifteen hundred years ago—enforced chador, the loss of our hard-won rights of voting, working and being equal, Sharazad?’

  ‘I don’t want to vote, or work, or be equal—how can a woman equal a man? I just want to be a good wife to my Tommy, and in Iran I prefer the chador on the streets.’ Delicately Sharazad covered another yawn, drowsed by the warmth. ‘Insha’Allah, Azadeh, darling. Of course everything will be as before but Father says more wonderful because now we possess ourselves, our land, our oil, and everything in our land. There’ll be no nasty foreign generals or politicians to disgrace us and with the evil Shah gone, we’ll all live happily ever after, you with your Erikki, me with my Tommy, and lots and lots of children. How else could it be? God is with the Imam and the Imam is with us! We’re so lucky.’ She smiled at her and put her arm around her friend’s legs affectionately. ‘I’m so glad you’re staying with me, Azadeh. It seems such a long time since you were in Tehran.’

  ‘Yes.’ They had been friends for many years. First in Switzerland where they had met at school, up in the High Country, though Sharazad had only stayed one term, unhappy to be away from her family and Iran, then later at the university in Tehran. And now, for a little over a year, because both had married foreigners in the same company, they had become even closer, closer than sisters, helping each other adapt to foreign idiosyncrasies.

  ‘Sometimes I just don’t understand my Tommy at all, Azadeh,’ Sharazad had said tearfully in the beginning. ‘He enjoys being alone, I mean quite alone, just him and me, the house empty, not even one servant—he even told me he likes to be alone by himself, just reading, no family around or children, no conversation or friends. Oh, sometimes it’s just awful.’

  ‘Erikki’s just the same,’ Azadeh had said. ‘Foreigners aren’t like us—they’re very strange. I want to spend days with friends and children and family, but Erikki doesn’t. It’s good that Erikki and Tommy work during the days—you’re luckier, Tommy’s off for two weeks at a time when you can be normal. Another thing, you know, it took me months to get used to sleeping in a bed.’

  ‘I never could! Oh, so high off the floor, so easy to fall off, always a huge dip on his side, so you’re always uncomfortable and you wake up with an ache in your back. A bed’s so awful compared with soft quilts on beautiful carpets on the floor, so comfortable and civilised.’

  ‘Yes. But Erikki won’t use quilts and carpets, he insists on a bed. He just won’t try it any more—sometimes it’s such a relief when he’s away.’

  ‘Oh, we sleep correctly now, Azadeh. I stopped the nonsense of a Western bed after the first month.’

  ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘Oh, I’d sigh all night long and keep my poor darling awake—then I’d sleep during the day to be fresh again to sigh all night long.’ Sharazad had laughed delightedly. ‘Seven nights and my darling collapsed, slept like a baby for the next three nights correctly, and now he always sleeps like a civilised person should—he even does so when he’s at Zagros! Why don’t you try it? I guarantee you’ll be successful, darling, particularly if you also complain just a tin
y bit that the bed has caused a backache and of course you would still adore to make love but please be a little careful.’

  Azadeh had laughed. ‘My Erikki’s cleverer than your Tommy—when Erikki tried the quilts on our carpet he sighed all night and turned and turned and kept me awake—I was so exhausted after three nights I quite liked the bed. When I visit my family I sleep civilised, though when Erikki’s at the palace we use a bed. You know, darling, another problem: I love my Erikki but sometimes he’s so rude I almost die. He keeps saying “yes” and “no” when I ask him something—how can you have a conversation after yes or no?’

  She smiled to herself now. Yes, it’s very difficult living with him, but living without him now is unthinkable—all his love and good humour and size and strength and always doing what I want but only just a little too easily so I have little chance to sharpen my wiles. ‘We’re both very lucky, Sharazad, aren’t we?’

  ‘Oh, yes, darling. Can you stay for a week or two—even if Erikki has to go back, you stay, please?’

  ‘I’d like to. When Erikki gets back. . . perhaps I’ll ask him.’

  Sharazad shifted in the bath, moving the bubbles over her breasts, blowing them off her hands. ‘Mac said they’d come here from the airport if they were delayed. Genny’s coming straight from the apartment but not before nine—I also asked Paula to join us, the Italian girl, but not for Nogger, for Charlie.’ She chuckled. ‘Charlie almost swoons when she just looks at him!’

  ‘Charlie Pettikin? Oh, but that’s wonderful. Oh, that’s very good. Then we should help him—we owe him so much! Let’s help him snare the sexy Italian!’

  ‘Wonderful! Let’s plan how to give Paula to him.’

  ‘As a mistress or wife?’

  ‘Mistress. Well, let me think! How old is she? She must be at least twenty-seven. Do you think she’d make him a good wife? He should have a wife. All the girls Tommy and I have shown him discreetly, he just smiles and shrugs—I even brought my third cousin who was fifteen thinking that would tempt him, but nothing. Oh good, now we have something to plan. We’ve plenty of time to plan and dress and get ready—and I’ve some lovely dresses for you to choose from.’