The Miernik Dossier - Charles McCarry [97]
Zofia and I found the ruins where Miernik had last been seen, and a little distance away the tracks of the other Land Rover. These led southeast for two or three miles, then turned straight north. As the ground rose, it became less sandy, and following the tracks became increasingly difficult. Mostly I guessed at the route: in that terrain, which is a jumble of ffinty hills and gravel fields, there in nowhere to go except through the passes. Occasionally, on a patch of soft ground, I’d find a tire track, and once a smear of oil where the Land Rover had apparently been parked while Qemal and Miernik and their friends ate lunch: there were pieces of food strewn over the ground, and behind a rock a pile of human excrement.
The country was absolutely empty and silent, with not even a bird showing itself against the sky. The sun was very strong. I had taken the canvas roof off the cab of the Land Rover: I wanted to see behind me. Zofia rode beside me, not talking, not complaining. I put her to work as a lookout, wondering all the time if she would tell me if any of the ALF came sneaking over a hilltop. I more or less thought she would; she couldn’t be certain that any armed men she happened to see belonged to her brother. I couldn’t be certain that she knew anything about her brother’s mission.
We covered perhaps seventy miles, mostly in first gear, before dark. We camped in an oasis and went separately to the spring to take bucket showers. I made contact with Kalash at nine o’clock, the agreed transmission time, before we went to bed.
Zofia had difficulty sleeping. I awoke about midnight when I heard her rummaging around in the Land Rover. She was looking for her cigarettes, she said. She sat down near me to smoke, and in the flare of the match I saw that her face was wet with tears. She has a silent way of crying—no sniffling or whimpering; the tears just squeeze out of the corners of her eyes and run down her cheeks. Zofia is a very appealing girl. She asked in a perfectly steady voice if I minded her talking to me. I told her to go ahead.
“Have you any curiosity about my brother at all?” she asked. “I’d like to know what you really think about him, Paul.”
“What do you think about friends?” I said, shrugging into my wonderful-person role. “You take them as they are. Tadeusz is certainly a little more colorful than most people. I like him. It’s natural to like a man who interests you.
“Not many people have ever liked Tadeusz. You and Sasha. My father never liked him. He was an ugly man, like Tadeusz. Perhaps he didn’t want to be reminded of his own looks every time he saw his son. That’s Tadeusz’s explanation. He was badly damaged by our father’s indifference. It was not cruelty. Father wasn’t even unkind. He simply ignored his son. That’s always been Tadeusz’s fate, to be ignored.”
“Well, he seems to have broken that mold with a vengeance. Half the people in these mountains are thinking of nothing but Tadeusz at this moment.”
“Why do you say that?” Zofia said sharply.
“The obvious reason, Zofia. If he has been kidnapped, then his captors must be very much aware of him. I know I am. Kalash, Nigel, the Amir—your brother is in everyone’s thoughts.”
She drew on her cigarette in the darkness. “You sound exasperated,” she said. “I guess I can’t blame you. This really is a stupid situation, and it’s all Tadeusz’s fault. I’d like to blame Kalash, but that’s unfair. My brother isn’t a child. Why should Kalash have held his hand? He wouldn’t have done it for you or Nigel. There would have been no need. With Tadeusz, there has always been that need. Things happen to him. He falls over everything.”
I couldn’t see Zofia’s face, but the tone of her voice fitted the words