Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [92]
Jane grinned at him and went into the front room. She found the tablets on a shelf beneath the shopkeeper’s counter. She poured about a hundred into a container and returned to the living room. Chantal was staring, fascinated, at Mohammed. Jane took the baby and handed over the pills. “Tell Alishan to rest more,” she said.
Mohammed shook his head. “He’s not frightened of me,” he said. “You tell him.”
Jane laughed. Coming from an Afghan, that joke was almost feminist.
Mohammed said: “Why did Jean-Pierre go to Skabun?”
“There was a bombing there this morning.”
“No, there wasn’t.”
“Of course there wa—” Jane stopped suddenly.
Mohammed shrugged. “I was there all day with Masud. You must be mistaken.”
She tried to keep her face composed. “Yes. I must have misheard.”
“Thank you for the pills.” He went out.
Jane sat down heavily on a stool. There had been no bombing at Skabun. Jean-Pierre had gone to meet his contact. She did not see quite how he had arranged it, but she had no doubt whatsoever.
What was she to do?
If Jean-Pierre knew about the gathering tomorrow, and could tell the Russians about it, then the Russians would be able to attack—
They could wipe out the entire leadership of the Afghan Resistance in a single day.
She had to see Ellis.
She wrapped a shawl around Chantal—the air would be a little cooler now—and left the house, heading for the mosque. Ellis was in the courtyard with the rest of the men, poring over Jean-Pierre’s maps with Masud and Mohammed and the man with the eye patch. Some guerrillas were passing around a hookah; others were eating. They stared in surprise as she walked in with her baby on her hip. “Ellis,” she said. He looked up. “I need to talk to you. Would you come outside?”
He got up, and they went out through the arch and stood in front of the mosque.
“What is it?” he said.
“Does Jean-Pierre know about this gathering you have arranged, of all the Resistance leaders?”
“Yes—when Masud and I first talked about it, he was right there, taking the slug out of my ass. Why?”
Jane’s heart sank. Her last hope had been that Jean-Pierre might not know. Now she had no choice. She looked around. There was no one else within earshot, and anyway they were speaking English. “I have something to tell you,” she said, “but I want your promise that no harm will come to him.”
He stared at her for a moment. “Oh, shit,” he said fervently. “Oh fuck, oh shit. He works for them. Of course! Why didn’t I guess? In Paris he must have led those motherfuckers to my apartment! He’s been telling them about the convoys—that’s why they’ve been losing so many! The bastard—” He stopped suddenly, and spoke more gently. “It must have been terrible for you.”
“Yes,” she said. Irresistibly her face crumpled, tears rushed to her eyes and she began to sob. She felt weak and foolish and ashamed of herself for crying, but she also felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from her.
Ellis put his arms around her and Chantal. “You poor thing,” he said.
“Yes,” she sobbed. “It was awful.”
“How long have you known?”
“A few weeks.”
“You didn’t know when you married him.”
“No.”
“Both of us,” he said. “We both did it to you.”
“Yes.”
“You mixed with the wrong crowd.”
“Yes.”
She buried her face in his shirt and cried without restraint, for all the lies and betrayals and spent time and wasted love. Chantal cried, too. Ellis held Jane close and stroked her hair until eventually she stopped shaking, began to calm down and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I broke his radio, you see,” she said, “and then I thought he had no way of getting in touch with them; but today he was called to Skabun to see to the bomb-wounded, but there was no bombing at Skabun today. . . .”
Mohammed came out of the mosque. Ellis let go of Jane and looked embarrassed. “What’s happening?” he said to Mohammed in French.
“They’re arguing,” he said. “Some say this is a good plan and it will help us defeat the Russians. Others ask why Masud is considered the only good commander, and who is Ellis Thaler that he should judge Afghan leaders? You must come