Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [148]
The helicopter touched down. Anatoly pulled off the headset, saying disgustedly: “Now we’ll never know why that guide got his throat cut.” He jumped out, and Jean-Pierre followed him.
They walked over to the dead Afghan. The front of his body was a mass of torn flesh, and most of his face had gone, but Anatoly said: “It’s that guide, I’m sure. The build is right, the coloring is right, and I recognize the bag.” He bent down and carefully picked up the machine gun. “But why is he carrying a machine gun?”
A piece of paper had fallen out of the bag and fluttered to the ground. Jean-Pierre picked it up and looked at it. It was a Polaroid photograph of Mousa. “Oh, my God,” he said. “I think I understand this.”
“What is it?” said Anatoly. “What do you understand?”
“The dead man is from the Five Lions Valley,” Jean-Pierre said. “He is one of Masud’s top lieutenants. This is a photograph of his son, Mousa. The photograph was taken by Jane. I also recognize the bag in which he concealed his gun: it used to belong to Ellis.”
“So what?” said Anatoly impatiently. “What do you conclude from that?”
Jean-Pierre’s brain was in overdrive, working things out faster than he could explain them. “Mohammed killed your guide in order to take his place,” he began. “You had no way of knowing he was not what he claimed to be. The Nuristanis knew that he was not one of them, of course, but that didn’t matter, because (a) they didn’t know he was pretending to be a local and (b) even if they had they couldn’t have told you because he was also your interpreter. In fact there was only one person who could possibly find him out. . . .”
“You,” said Anatoly. “Because you knew him.”
“He was aware of that danger and he was on the lookout for me. That’s why this morning he asked you who it was that arrived after dark yesterday. You told him my name. He left immediately.” Jean-Pierre frowned: something was not quite right. “But why did he stay out in the open? He could have concealed himself in the woods, or hidden in a cave: it would have taken us much longer to find him. It’s as if he didn’t expect to be pursued.”
“Why should he?” said Anatoly. “When the first guide disappeared, we didn’t send a search party after him—we just got another guide and carried on: no investigation, no pursuit. What was different this time—what went wrong for Mohammed—was that the local people found the body and accused us of murder. That made us suspicious of Mohammed. Even so, we considered forgetting about him and just pressing on. He was unlucky.”
“He didn’t know what a cautious man he was dealing with,” said Jean-Pierre. “Next question: What was his motive in all this? Why did he go to so much trouble to substitute himself for the original guide?”
“Presumably to mislead us. Presumably, everything he told us was a lie. He did not see Ellis and Jane yesterday afternoon at the mouth of the Linar Valley. They did not turn south into the Nuristan. The villagers of Mundol did not confirm that two foreigners with a baby passed through yesterday heading south—Mohammed never even asked them the question. He knew where the fugitives were—”
“And he led us in the opposite direction, of course!” Jean-Pierre felt elated again. “The old guide disappeared just after the search party left the village of Linar, didn’t he?”
“Yes. So we can assume that reports up to that point are true—therefore Ellis and Jane did pass through that village. Afterward, Mohammed took over and led us south—”
“Because Ellis and Jane went north!” said Jean-Pierre triumphantly.
Anatoly nodded grimly. “Mohammed gained them a day, at most,” he said thoughtfully. “For that he gave his life. Was it worth it?”
Jean-Pierre looked again at the Polaroid photograph of Mousa. The cold wind made it flutter in his hand. “You know,” he said, “I think Mohammed would answer: Yes, it was worth it.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
They left Gadwal in the deep darkness before dawn, hoping to steal a march on the Russians by setting out so early. Ellis knew how difficult it was for even the most capable