REAMDE

“Are others on the way?” he asked Seamus.

 

“Other what? What are you talking about?”

 

“Like … reinforcements?”

 

“We’re on our own,” Seamus said.

 

“But you knew I was here … that the jihadists were here.”

 

“If we’d known they were here, we would have showed up with the entire fucking Idaho National Guard. And once we got here, we would not have hovered in a place where we could get shot down by one asshole with a rifle.”

 

Richard just stared at him.

 

“I’m doing this on my own,” Seamus said. “Checking out a hypothesis. No one else believes me. I had only a vague suspicion Jones might have come this way until rounds started going through our engine block.”

 

“Were you able to send out a distress call or—” Then Richard shut up, realizing he was making an ass of himself. He had seen the shoot-down. They had not had time to send out a distress call. “Okay, but at some point someone is going to notice that the chopper hasn’t come back.”

 

“It is a one-man operation. It might take hours. By then, it’s all going to be over.”

 

“What’s all going to be over?”

 

“Whatever is going to happen now,” Seamus said. “Where the hell is Jones, by the way?”

 

“The guys who just shot you down are the rear guard. Jones is farther south. I’m happy to show you the way. But first may I suggest that we think about the ones who are actually shooting at us?”

 

As Richard was saying this, Seamus’s eyes wandered up the slope in the general direction of the bad guys in question. Then they snagged on something. “It looks like someone else is already on that particular case,” he pointed out. “Dead man walking.”

 

THE HIKE SOUTH to the border had involved a number of events that Ershut might have accounted disappointments, hardships, and setbacks had he grown up in an effete Western democracy. As it was, he could hardly be bothered to notice them. The only thing that had really disturbed him had been what had happened to poor Sayed. A long bloody trail through the woods had led to a small tree where Sayed’s body had been dragged up three meters off the ground and stuffed in a fork between two branches. His head lolled forward, nose pressed against breastbone, since all the structure had been removed from the back of his neck. A neat hole had been carved in the front of his abdomen and his liver removed. The very weirdness of the spectacle had made it much more troubling to him than the body of Zakir, who had expired in a way that was extremely bloody but much more conventional.

 

From there, they had hiked back to their campsite, staying always on the path to prevent the man on the motorcycle from turning around and escaping from the valley. Ershut and Jahandar had taken turns: one guarding the path so that the other could trudge to the campsite above and gather all the things that he would need to complete the final phase of the journey. Then they had hiked up the valley, following the track of the motorcycle, dotted with occasional drips of blood. This had been the source of great satisfaction to Jahandar, who had been convinced that he had gotten one good clear shot off at the motorcyclist.

 

The trip through the ridge had not gone well, since the way through the tunnels had been barred by a motorcycle lock on the gate, and Jahandar’s attempts to shoot it off had been unavailing. But only a soft and corrupt infidel would imagine that this would really prove an obstacle to two men such as Ershut and Jahandar. They had withdrawn from the mine and simply climbed over the top of the ridge, camping near the summit, where they could get a clear view in all directions, and then proceeding south as soon as it had become light. Ershut had slept poorly, remembering Sayed up in that tree, and wondering who or what had carried out the atrocity. Ershut was burly and abnormally strong, and yet he doubted that he could have carried the limp burden of Sayed that far up a tree that was lacking in convenient side branches. Its bark had been marked with deep gouges made by four parallel claws, causing Ershut to form the opinion that this had been the work of a predatory beast, stashing its kill in the tree fork to keep it up away from jackals or whatever jackal-like beasts might inhabit these mountains. Jahandar scoffed at the theory. He was convinced that this had been the work of a human, trying to put a scare into them by mutilating Sayed’s body and leaving it up where they could not help but notice it.

 

In any case, they had slept lightly and kept their weapons near to hand. During his watch, Ershut was convinced he sensed something prowling around their camp, and once, sweeping his flashlight beam around him, he was certain that he saw, for a fraction of a second, a pair of gleaming eyes shining out of the darkness. But when he swept the beam back, they had already disappeared.

 

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