Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [145]
“Good!”
“Tonight, after the search party arrived here in Mundol, our man questioned some villagers and learned that two foreigners with a baby passed through this afternoon, going south.”
“Then there’s no doubt,” said Jean-Pierre with satisfaction.
“None at all,” Anatoly agreed. “We’ll catch them tomorrow. For sure.”
Jean-Pierre woke up on an inflatable mattress—another KGB luxury—on the dirt floor of the house. The fire had gone out during the night and the air was cold. Anatoly’s bed, across the dim little room, was empty. Jean-Pierre did not know where the owners of the house had spent the night. After they had provided food and served it, Anatoly had sent them away. He treated the whole of Afghanistan as if it were his personal kingdom. Perhaps it was.
Jean-Pierre sat up and rubbed his eyes, then saw Anatoly standing in the doorway, looking at him speculatively. “Good morning,” said Jean-Pierre.
“Have you ever been here before?” Anatoly asked without preamble.
Jean-Pierre’s brain was still foggy with sleep. “Where?”
“Nuristan,” Anatoly replied impatiently.
“No.”
“Strange.”
Jean-Pierre found this enigmatic style of conversation irritating so early in the morning. “Why?” he said tetchily. “Why is it strange?”
“I was talking to the new guide a few minutes ago.”
“What’s his name?”
“Mohammed, Muhammad, Mahomet, Mahmoud—one of those names a million other people have.”
“What language did you use, with a Nuristani?”
“French, Russian, Dari and English—the usual mixture. He asked me who arrived in the second helicopter last night. I said: ‘A Frenchman who can identify the fugitives,’ or words to that effect. He asked your name, so I told him: I wanted to keep him going until I found out why he was so interested. But he didn’t ask any more questions. It was almost as if he knew you.”
“Impossible.”
“I suppose so.”
“Why don’t you just ask him?” It was not like Anatoly to be diffident, Jean-Pierre thought.
“There is no point in asking a man a question until you have established whether he has any reason to lie to you.” With that, Anatoly went out.
Jean-Pierre got up. He had slept in his shirt and underwear. He pulled on his trousers and boots, then draped the greatcoat over his shoulders and stepped outside.
He found himself on a rough wooden veranda overlooking the whole valley. Down below, the river coiled between the fields, broad and sluggish. Some way to the south it entered a long, narrow lake rimmed with mountains. The sun had not yet risen. A mist over the water obscured the far end of the lake. It was a pleasant scene. Of course, Jean-Pierre remembered, this was the most fertile and populous part of Nuristan: most of the rest was wilderness.
The Russians had dug a field latrine, Jean-Pierre noted with approval. The Afghan practice of using the streams from which they took their drinking water was the reason they all had worms. The Russians will really knock this country into shape once they get control of it, he thought.
He walked down to the meadow, used the latrine, washed in the river, and got a cup of coffee from a group of soldiers standing around a cooking fire.
The search party was ready to leave. Anatoly had decided last night that he would direct the search from here, remaining in constant radio contact with the searchers. The helicopters would stay ready to take him and Jean-Pierre to join the searchers as soon as they sighted their quarry.
While Jean-Pierre was sipping his coffee, Anatoly came across the field from the village. “Have you seen that damn guide?” he asked abruptly.
“No.”
“He seems to have disappeared.”
Jean-Pierre raised his eyebrows. “Just like the last one.”
“These people are impossible. I’ll have to ask the villagers. Come and translate.”
“I don’t speak their language.”
“Maybe they’ll understand your Dari.”
Jean-Pierre walked with Anatoly back across the meadow to the village. As they climbed the narrow dirt