Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [115]
So what was he interested in?
It was obvious. He was after Ellis.
“I believe I may have fucked up,” Ellis said, mainly to himself. Jean-Pierre wanted Jane and Chantal, but Anatoly was looking for him. Anatoly wanted revenge for yesterday’s humiliation; he wanted to prevent Ellis returning to the West with the treaty the rebel commanders had signed; and he wanted to put Ellis on trial to prove to the world that the CIA was behind the Afghan rebellion. I should have thought of all this yesterday, Ellis reflected bitterly, but I was flushed with success and thinking only about Jane. Besides, Anatoly could not know I was here—I might have been in Darg, or Astana, or hiding out in the hills with Masud—so it must have been a long shot. But it had almost worked. Anatoly had good instincts. He was a formidable opponent—and the battle was not yet over.
Jane was weeping. Ellis stroked her hair and made soothing noises while he watched Jean-Pierre and Anatoly walk back toward the helicopters, which were still standing in the fields with their rotors churning the air.
The Hind that had landed on the hilltop near the caves took off again and rose over Ellis’s and Jane’s heads. Ellis wondered whether the seven wounded guerrillas in the cave clinic had been interrogated or taken prisoner or both.
It ended very quickly. The soldiers came out of the mosque at the double and piled into the Hip as fast as they had emerged. Jean-Pierre and Anatoly boarded one of the Hinds. The ugly aircraft took off, one by one, lifting giddily until they were higher than the hill and then speeding southward in a straight line.
Ellis, knowing what was in Jane’s mind, said: “Just wait a few more seconds, until all the choppers have gone—don’t spoil everything now.”
She nodded tearful acquiescence.
The villagers began to trickle out of the mosque, looking scared. The last helicopter took off and headed south. Jane scrambled out of the sleeping bag, pulled on her trousers, shrugged into her shirt and ran off down the hillside, slipping and stumbling and buttoning her shirt as she went. Ellis watched her go, feeling that somehow she had spurned him, knowing that the feeling was irrational, unable nevertheless to shake it. He would not follow her yet, he decided. He would leave her alone for her reunion with Chantal.
She went out of sight beyond the mullah’s house. Ellis looked down at the village. It was beginning to return to normal. He could hear voices raised in excited cries. The children were running around playing helicopters or pointing imaginary guns and herding chickens into courtyards to be interrogated. Most of the adults were walking slowly back to their homes, looking cowed.
Ellis remembered the seven wounded guerrillas and the boy with one hand in the cave clinic. He decided he would check on them. He pulled on his clothes, rolled up his sleeping bag and set off up the mountain path.
He recalled Allen Winderman, in his gray suit and his striped tie, picking over a salad in a Washington restaurant and saying: “What are the chances that the Russians would catch our man?” Slender, Ellis had said. If they can’t catch Masud, why would they be able to catch an undercover agent sent to meet Masud? Now he knew the answer to that question: Because of Jean-Pierre. “Goddam Jean-Pierre,” said Ellis aloud.
He reached the clearing. There was no noise coming from the cave clinic. He hoped the Russians had not taken the child, Mousa, as well as the wounded guerrillas—Mohammed would be inconsolable.
He went into the cave. The sun was up now and he could see quite clearly. They were all there, lying still and quiet. “Are you all right?” Ellis asked in Dari.
There was no reply. None of them moved.
“Oh, God,” Ellis whispered.
He knelt beside the nearest guerrilla and touched the bearded face. The man was lying in a pool of blood. He had been shot in the head at point-blank range.
Moving quickly, Ellis checked each of them.