Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [126]
“And me?” said Jean-Pierre. “What will happen to me?”
“You’ll become a nobody,” said Anatoly. “You won’t work for us anymore. They might let you stay in Moscow, but most likely they would send you back.”
“If Ellis gets away, I can never go back to France—they would kill me.”
“You have committed no crime in France.”
“Nor had my father, but they killed him.”
“Maybe you could go to some neutral country—Nicaragua, say, or Egypt.”
“Shit.”
“But let us not give up hope,” Anatoly said a little more brightly. “People cannot vanish into thin air. Our fugitives are somewhere.”
“If we can’t find them with a thousand men, I don’t suppose we can find them with ten thousand,” said Jean-Pierre gloomily.
“We shan’t have a thousand, let alone ten thousand,” said Anatoly. “From now on we have to use our brains, and minimal resources. All our credit is spent. Let’s try a different approach. Think: somebody must have helped them hide. That means that somebody knows where they are.”
Jean-Pierre considered. “If they had help it was probably from the guerrillas—the people least likely to tell.”
“Others may know about it.”
“Perhaps. But will they tell?”
“Our fugitives must have some enemies,” Anatoly persisted.
Jean-Pierre shook his head. “Ellis hasn’t been here long enough to make enemies, and Jane is a heroine—they treat her like Joan of Arc. Nobody dislikes her—oh!” Even as he was speaking, he realized it was not true.
“Well?”
“The mullah.”
“Aaah.”
“Somehow she irritated him beyond reason. It was partly that her cures were more effective than his, but not only that, for mine were, too, but he never disliked me particularly.”
“He probably called her a Western whore.”
“How did you guess?”
“They always do. Where does this mullah live?”
“Abdullah lives in Banda, in a house about half a kilometer outside the village.”
“Will he talk?”
“He probably hates Jane enough to give her away to us,” said Jean-Pierre reflectively. “But he couldn’t be seen to do it. We can’t just land in the village and pick him up—everyone would know what had happened and he would clam up. I’d have to meet him in secret somehow. . . .” Jean-Pierre wondered what kind of danger he might put himself in if he continued thinking along this line. Then he thought of the humiliation he had suffered: revenge was worth any risk. “If you drop me near the village I can make my way to the path between the village and his house and hide there until he comes along.”
“What if he doesn’t ‘come along’ all day?”
“Yes . . .”
“We’ll just have to make sure he does.” Anatoly frowned. “We’ll round up all the villagers in the mosque, as we did before—then just let them go. Abdullah will almost certainly go back to his house.”
“But will he be alone?”
“Hmmm. Suppose we let the women go first, and order them to return to their homes. Then, when the men are released they will all want to check on their wives. Does anyone else live near Abdullah?”
“No.”
“Then he should hurry along that footpath all alone. You step out from behind a bush—”
“And he slits my throat from ear to ear.”
“He carries a knife?”
“Did you ever meet an Afghan who didn’t?”
Anatoly shrugged. “You can take my pistol.”
Jean-Pierre was pleased, and a little surprised, to be trusted that much, even though he did not know how to use a gun. “I suppose it may serve as a threat,” he said anxiously. “I’ll need some native clothes, just in case I’m seen by someone other than Abdullah. What if I meet someone who knows me? I’ll have to cover my face with a scarf or something. . . .”
“That’s easy,” said Anatoly. He shouted something in Russian, and three of the soldiers jumped to their feet. They disappeared into the houses and emerged a few seconds later with the old horse dealer. “You can take his clothes,” said Anatoly.
“Good,” said Jean-Pierre. “The hood will hide my face.” He switched to Dari and