The Messiah Secret - James Becker [109]
‘I’ve had about enough of this,’ Bronson muttered, as the front wheels of the jeep left the ground completely and smashed down on to the rutted surface a split-second later, shaking the whole vehicle.
The good news was that they weren’t leaving much of a trail of dust, because the ground was rocky. Bronson was reasonably sure their progress would be invisible to anyone watching from Pänämik.
‘I’m checking everywhere,’ Angela said, ‘but there are no signs of any Indian Army patrols anywhere ahead of us. Or behind us, for that matter.’
‘I guess they just put up roadblocks and patrol the roads. They probably think nobody would be stupid enough to try to drive cross-country anywhere around here. And they’ve got a point,’ Bronson added, as the Nissan lurched particularly savagely.
They were right – there were no Indian Army troops closer to them than the roadblock they’d already seen on the north-bound road out of Pänämik. But they weren’t quite alone on the mountain. Nearly a mile behind them, a dusty grey Land Rover was plodding along steadily, not following exactly the same route as Bronson’s jeep because the driver didn’t need to. The tracking device, securely clamped to one of the chassis members, ensured that they knew exactly where Bronson was. That had been done the first night in Leh, after Bronson had collected the jeep from the vehicle hire company and parked it outside their lodging.
‘How much further?’ Bronson asked, the quaver in his voice caused by the car’s violent jolting.
‘No more than ten miles,’ Angela replied, trying to sound upbeat about the remaining distance. ‘We’ve already covered five.’
Nearly an hour later, Angela spotted a faint horizontal line on the side of the mountain right in front of them.
‘That’s got to be the road we’re looking for,’ she said, checking her map.
She looked over to the left and pointed. ‘I think those must be the outskirts of Arann.’
About ten minutes later, Bronson swung the Nissan on to the road and heaved a sigh of relief.
‘I vote we go back from here on the road. I’d rather try to crash through a bloody roadblock than do that again.’
‘You might not feel that way when we end up in jail,’ Angela said. ‘Now we head east, but take it slowly. We’re looking for anything that looks like a couple of pillars.’
About half a mile away, the driver of the grey Land Rover pulled the vehicle to a halt behind some rocks that completely hid it from the road ahead. Both men climbed out and stepped forward, pulling compact binoculars from their jacket pockets. In the distance, Bronson’s Nissan Patrol was heading slowly eastwards.
‘You reckon they’ve found anything?’ the driver asked.
‘Don’t look like it,’ the passenger replied. ‘He’s going real slow. I’ll go get the sat-phone, check in with Masters.’
He dialled a number and held a brief conversation.
‘What’s he want us to do?’
‘We stay here and keep eyes on the jeep. If it turns off the road, we tell Masters, then drive over there, stash the Rover and follow on foot, keepin’ out of sight. Masters is going to hole up with the other guys near Arann until he knows where Bronson and the woman are going. He doesn’t want them spooked, not when we’re this close.’
They watched the jeep continue down the road, moving at little more than a crawl, until it was only a distant speck at the limit of their vision.
‘You think we should maybe follow them now?’
‘No need. The tracker’ll tell us where they are if we have to move. Masters seemed to think that whatever they’re lookin’ for is most likely somewhere at this end of the valley.’
Both men focused their binoculars on the distant vehicle.
‘Looks like they’ve stopped.’
And moments later they watched as the Nissan four-by-four turned round in the road and began heading back in their direction.
In ten minutes, the jeep had covered most of the distance back to the point where they