Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [78]
Masud went on: “This plan to train cadres from other zones must be explained to the other commanders. This will be difficult. They will be suspicious—especially if I present the proposal. I think you must put it to them, and tell them what your government is offering them.”
Jean-Pierre was riveted. A plan to train cadres from other zones! What the hell was the idea?
Ellis spoke with some difficulty. “I’d be glad to do that. You would have to bring them all together.”
“Yes.” Masud smiled. “I shall call a conference of all the Resistance leaders, to be held here in the Five Lions Valley, in the village of Darg, in eight days’ time. I will send runners today, with the message that a representative of the United States government is here to discuss arms supplies.”
A conference! Arms supplies! The shape of the deal was becoming clear to Jean-Pierre. But what should he do about it?
“Will they come?” Ellis asked.
“Many will,” Masud replied. “Our comrades from the western deserts will not—it’s too far, and they don’t know us.”
“What about the two we particularly want—Kamil and Azizi?”
Masud shrugged. “It is in God’s hands.”
Jean-Pierre was trembling with excitement. This would be the most important event in the history of the Afghan Resistance.
Ellis was fumbling in his kit bag, which was on the floor near his head. “I may be able to help you persuade Kamil and Azizi,” he was saying. He drew from the bag two small packages and opened one. It contained a flat, rectangular piece of yellow metal. “Gold,” said Ellis. “Each of these is worth about five thousand dollars.”
It was a fortune: five thousand dollars was more than two years’ income for the average Afghan.
Masud took the piece of gold and hefted it in his hand. “What’s that?” he said, pointing to an indented figure in the middle of the rectangle.
“The seal of the President of the United States,” said Ellis.
Clever, thought Jean-Pierre. Just the thing to impress tribal leaders and at the same time make them irresistibly curious to meet Ellis.
“Will that help to persuade Kamil and Azizi?” said Ellis.
Masud nodded. “I think they will come.”
You bet your life they’ll come, thought Jean-Pierre.
And suddenly he knew exactly what he had to do. Masud, Kamil and Azizi, the three great leaders of the Resistance, would be together in the village of Darg in eight days’ time.
He had to tell Anatoly.
Then Anatoly could kill them all.
This is it, thought Jean-Pierre; this is the moment I’ve been waiting for ever since I came to the Valley. I’ve got Masud where I want him—and two other rebel leaders, too.
But how can I tell Anatoly?
There must be a way.
“A summit meeting,” Masud was saying. He smiled rather proudly. “It will be a good start to the new unity of the Resistance, will it not?”
Either that, Jean-Pierre thought, or the beginning of the end. He lowered his hand, pointing the needle at the ground, and depressed the plunger, emptying the syringe. He watched the poison soak into the dusty earth. A new start, or the beginning of the end.
Jean-Pierre gave Ellis an anesthetic, took out the bullet, cleaned the wound, put a new dressing on it, and injected him with antibiotics to prevent infection. He then dealt with two guerrillas who also had minor wounds from the skirmish. By that time word had got around the village that the doctor was here, and a little cluster of patients gathered in the courtyard of the farmhouse. Jean-Pierre treated a bronchitic baby, three minor infections and a mullah with worms. Then he had lunch. Around midafternoon he packed his bag and climbed onto Maggie for the journey home.
He left Ellis behind. Ellis would be much better off staying where he was for a few days—the wound would heal faster if he lay still and quiet. Jean-Pierre was paradoxically anxious now that Ellis should remain in good health, for if he were to die the conference would be canceled.
As he rode the old horse up the Valley, he racked his brain for a