Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [147]
A few minutes later they were in the air. Both Anatoly and Jean-Pierre stood near the open door and looked down. A well-beaten path, clearly visible, led from the village to the top of the hill, then disappeared into the trees. Anatoly spoke into the pilot’s radio, then explained to Jean-Pierre: “I have sent some troopers to beat those woods, just in case he decided to hide.”
The runaway had almost certainly gone farther than this, Jean-Pierre thought, but Anatoly was being cautious—as usual.
They flew parallel with the river for a mile or so, then reached the mouth of the Linar. Had Mohammed continued up the valley, into the cold heart of Nuristan, or had he turned east, into the Linar Valley, heading for Five Lions?
Jean-Pierre said to the one-eyed man: “Where did Mohammed come from?”
“I don’t know,” said the man. “But he was a Tajik.”
That meant he was more likely to be from the Linar Valley than the Nuristan. Jean-Pierre explained this to Anatoly, and Anatoly directed the pilot to turn left and follow the Linar.
This was a telling illustration, Jean-Pierre thought, of why the search for Ellis and Jane could not be conducted by helicopter. Mohammed had only an hour’s start, and already they might have lost track of him. When the fugitives were a whole day ahead, as Ellis and Jane were, there were very many more alternative routes and places to hide.
If there was a track along the Linar Valley, it was not visible from the air. The helicopter pilot simply followed the river. The hillsides were bare of vegetation, but not yet snow-covered, so that if the fugitive were here, he would have nowhere to hide.
They spotted him a few minutes later.
His white robes and turban stood out clearly against the gray-brown ground. He was striding out along the clifftop with the steady, tireless pace of Afghan travelers, his possessions in a bag slung over his shoulder. When he heard the noise of the helicopters he stopped and looked back at them, then continued walking.
“Is that him?” said Jean-Pierre.
“I think so,” said Anatoly. “We’ll soon find out.” He took the pilot’s headset and spoke to the other helicopter. It went on ahead, passing over the figure on the ground, and landed a hundred meters or so in front of him. He walked toward it unconcernedly.
“Why don’t we land, too?” Jean-Pierre asked Anatoly.
“Just a precaution.”
The side door of the other helicopter opened and six troopers got out. The man in white walked toward them, unslinging his bag. It was a long bag, like a military kit bag, and the sight of it rang a bell in Jean-Pierre’s memory; but before he could figure out what it reminded him of, Mohammed hefted the bag and pointed it at the troopers, and Jean-Pierre realized what he was about to do and opened his mouth to shout a useless warning.
It was like trying to shout in a dream, or run under water: events moved slowly, but he moved even slower. Before words could come he saw the snout of a machine gun emerge from the bag.
The sound of shooting was drowned by the noise of the helicopters, which gave the weird impression that it all took place in dead silence. One of the Russian troops clutched his belly and fell forward; another threw up his arms and fell back; and the face of a third exploded in blood and flesh. The other three got their weapons raised. One died before he could pull the trigger, but the other two unleashed a storm of bullets, and even as Anatoly was yelling, “Niet! Niet! Niet! Niet!” into the radio, the body of Mohammed was lifted off the ground and thrown backward to land in a bloody heap on the cold ground.
Anatoly was still shouting furiously into the radio. The helicopter went down fast. Jean-Pierre found himself trembling with excitement. The sight of battle had given him a high like cocaine, making him feel as if he wanted to laugh, or fuck, or run, or dance. The thought flashed across his mind: I used to