One of the Indian soldiers was dead on the snow: his head little more than a crimson stain on the pristine sterility of the glacier. But the other was still very much alive. The Indian hesitated for a split second as if he was unsure if the dark-skinned, white-clad man in front of him was friend or foe.
That was all the time Tej needed. He flung his kukri underarm, at the same time raising his pistol and squeezing off a single round.
His opponent never knew what hit him. The attack was so fast, it was impossible to tell what had killed him: the bullet wound through the bridge of his shattered nose or the razor-sharp, leaf-shaped blade of the kukri buried in his chest.
He dropped without a sound.
Tej dashed over, the short, powerful legs of the born mountain man powering easily through the knee high snow. He yanked his kukri from the dead man’s chest on the run and set off in the direction of Marinucci’s snowmobile.
Marinucci revved the engine to keep his stuttering steed from dying completely in the thin air. Tej was still nowhere to be seen. In this weather he would have to be right on top of him before he stood a chance of seeing his companion. If the little warrior was still alive, Marinucci could only hope that he would stick to their original plan.
All too aware that every second he waited gave his enemies more time to home in on the sound of his engine, Marinucci gunned the throttle and took off towards the helicopter.
The helicopter was a French Cougar armed troop carrier. With its five long rotor blades tied down against the wind and its side-mounted armament pods almost touching the snow it looked like some giant alien insect resting its wings. Marinucci circled it warily. There were certainly still Indian soldiers still at large, and they knew that at least one of them had been guarding the chopper.
Dammit, where was that Carver woman when he needed her? Marinucci was a practical man; he was used to coming up with the simplest solution rather than the most devious tactic.
Just then, the helicopter sprung to life; electric motors whined inside its armoured shell and suddenly the snow around him erupted! It was like being inside a snow globe shaken by some giant hand. The snowmobile flipped over, flinging Marinucci onto his back as all around him supersonic bullets tore at the snow like a flurry of invisible claws.
The onslaught stopped just as suddenly as it had appeared. Marinucci crawled through the snow away from the sound of the still-running snowmobile. He could see the helicopter now. It was about twenty feet away, its cockpit glowing from within from the dim light of the instruments and its armament pods whining as they searched for their target.
There was no way they’d get anywhere near the chopper now. It was only a matter of time before he was found. Or maybe the Indians would just wait for him to die out in the snow. Either way it didn’t look good.
Marinucci watched in horror as the chopper’s twenty-millimetre cannon swivelled on its mount until it was pointing directly at the upside-down snowmobile and unleashed another firestorm of heavy vehicle shredding rounds. The snowmobile was riddled with bullets: every surface shattered, every pipe and cylinder punctured a dozen times over. Fuel leaked and sank into the snow with the faint alcoholic sting of antifreeze. Oily flames sprung up inside its shattered body.
But they weren’t finished there. Another electrical whining warned of the second armament pod being brought to bear.
‘Oh, fuck!’
The rocket launcher gave off a high power hiss like a steam hose and a single sixty-eight millimetre rocket drew a line of vapour towards the wrecked snowmobile as quick as a striking snake.
The explosion lifted the wreckage into the air and it fell back to the snow as little more than charred metal slivers to lie burning in the snow.
Tej was lost.
The swirling snow meant that even standing still he felt like the world was spinning around him. The wind and his own hick clothing muffled sound until he had only the vaguest idea of where Marinucci and Carver might be. And even then there was no guarantee that they were anywhere near the helicopter that was their ultimate goal.
Suddenly the throaty clatter of a high-calibre machine gun tore through the noise of the wind. Tej dropped to the snow, instinctively raising his new rifle—a Colt Commando recently appropriated from the body of an Indian soldier.
But the gunfire was not directed at him.
There was a moment of silence and then an explosion lit up the silhouette of the helicopter, not twenty metres away.
Keeping low, Tej raced towards it.
Marinucci lay on the snow. He couldn’t run—he’d be cut down in seconds, and he couldn’t return fire for fear of damaging the helicopter.
Dammit, where was Carver? Maybe, working together, the two of them could still take the chopper. He could hear the roar of her snowmobile roaming through the blizzard. The noise rose and fell with the wind until it was almost impossible to tell from which direction it came or how close it was.
He was starting to get the shakes. The deep cold wracked his body with constant shivering, plus the occasional deeper twitch that spoke of the early onset of hypothermia.
He had to do something and do it fast.
‘Thaharanaa!’
Marinucci froze. The voice came from right behind him. He turned slowly to see an Indian soldier practically standing over him. He was close enough for Marinucci to smell the burned fireworks smell of the soldier’s rifle.
The movement earned him a swift boot to the side of the head.
‘Thaharanaa, Behen chod!’
Marinucci got the idea. Lie still or die.
The Indian moved around in front of Marinucci and kicked his rifle away into the snow. He kept his rifle trained on Marinucci with one hand while he pressed the other to the side of his head as if listening.
The Indian spoke briefly but his words were muffled by the white mask that covered his face from his goggles to chin. He raised his rifle. Whatever orders he’d received didn’t look like they involved taking any prisoners.
Marinucci braced himself for the end.
Suddenly, the cannon on the helicopter roared to life catching the Indian in a barrage of deadly high calibre fire. Each bullet was as big around as a ten cent piece; they were designed to make short work of Humvee engine blocks; the effect on an unarmoured human was devastating. The barrage physically lifted the hapless Indian off the snow and flung him over Marinucci’s head. The crushed, red thing that landed was something less than human.
‘What the fuck!’
Dazed, Marinucci lifted himself off the snow. The cold had stiffened his limbs, particularly his wounded leg which started to throb painfully.
Retrieving his rifle, Marinucci stumbled towards the helicopter, not even bothering to raise the weapon to his shoulder. It didn’t matter now. Either he was dead, or he was saved.
As he got closer he saw Tej sitting in the right-hand co-pilot’s seat. The inside of the glass-enclosed cockpit was stained with splashes of blood. Its original occupant had not gone down without a fight, but the Ghurkha had won through.
Soon Marinucci was under the big chopper’s rotor-span. As he passed one of the tie-downs that held the tips of the rotors steady in the fierce wind, he took out a knife and cut it loose. The rotor sprang up and began to oscillate slowly with the wind. He worked his way around to the other rotors and was soon joined by Tej. Within seconds they had released all the bonds that secured the chopper.
Something was approaching from the north. Both men raised their rifles, but lowered them as Carver pulled up on her snowmobile. Campbell was still strapped to the pillion.
‘Well, I’m glad to see you’re okay,’ Marinucci said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘Sorry, Frank. I’ve changed my mind,’ she replied. ‘A woman’s prerogative.’
Marinucci just stared at her. She sat astride the snowmobile with two guns raised: her SCAR trained on Tej and the snub-nosed MP-5 aimed right at the centre of Frank’s chest.
‘I never did trus
t you, Carver.’
‘Then you’re a wiser man than I gave you credit for. Never trust anyone, Frank. That’s my advice. Pity you won’t have time to use it.’
‘You can’t keep us both covered for ever.’
‘How right you are.’
The MP-5 barked in her hand and Marinucci felt the three round burst hit him as one like a sledgehammer to the gut. The brilliant white of the snowfield encroached on the side of his vision. Time seemed to slow. The scene before him dissolved, washed-out like an over-exposed photograph until all he could see was Carver’s Cheshire Cat-like grin and he pitched forward into oblivion.
CHAPTER 20
‘Dig faster you sons of kuttiyas! Or I will make sure you never leave this mountain.’
The Major pulled one of his men to the side and started tearing into the snow himself.
Tej’s grenade had done its job. The two metre deep pit that had been dug to reach the buried plane was completely full of snow. More had spilled in through the open cargo door, clumping around the twisted metal luggage racks and forming a formidable barrier.
The Major’s men worked three abreast in the dark and steeply angled confines of the plane’s fuselage. The balanced on the backs of seats and braced themselves against whatever they could as they tore into the snow with entrenching tools, rifle butts and their hands. Those that could not reach shone their torches for those that could. Great chunks of snow and ice were ripped out and tumbled down to the floor of the crevasse some eight metres below.
When they finally burst through into the wind and wan sunlight, it was the Major himself that led the first group out into the storm. They moved swiftly but carefully—wary of booby traps. All contact with the troops that had made it to the surface had been lost for over ten minutes. That meant there were still hostiles around.
The Major led his men through the snow in the direction of the helicopter. He was under no illusion that their transportation was still there. The loss of communication could only mean one thing. His men were dead, and the chopper gone. His one hope was that his men had been able to destroy the chopper before they died, sacrificing it before those other behen chod could get away with it. Either way it was going to mean an ignominious return to base for the proud Major: no retrieval of the device; no confirmation of its destruction and now having to call for another helicopter to retrieve them. This mission had suddenly turned from bad to shit.
The chopper was still there!
The major was instantly on edge... Was it a booby trap? Was the enemy hiding out in it, ready to pick off his men as they approached?
He held up a fist, ordering his men to stay put while he approached. What he saw defied all of his expectations. Two men knelt in the snow in front of the chopper’s main cannon with their hands clasped on top of their heads. Both were dressed in blood-stained Indian uniforms, but even from a distance, the Major could tell that they were not his men. They both looked half dead from cold. Snow had drifted up against their torsos, almost burying the smaller man, but only stomach high on the hulking second figure. Another man was sprawled face down, almost buried except for his upper body which was shielded somewhat by the chopper’s armament pod.
The Major was taken aback. What the hell was going on? For a man whose speciality was an almost instantaneous grasp of any tactical situation, this time he was completely at a loss.
‘Hold your fire!’ The voice came from inside the open door of the helicopter. ‘One person coming out.’
The Major drew a bead on the door with his M4, but curbed his instinct to pump a grenade through the open doorway. He watched intently as a single figure stepped out into the knee deep snow. In one hand the figure carried an MP-5 sub-machine gun, but it wasn’t pointed in the Major’s direction. Instead, it was covering the two kneeling men. In the other hand, the figure held outreached a small rucksack.
‘I have something you want,’ the figure said. ‘Want to talk terms?’
◆◆◆
Rose made sure that Yvonne was safely over the lip of the ledge before jugging the last few feet up the rope. He clambered onto the ledge: shaking with exhaustion and stale adrenaline. He all but crawled across the ledge into the cave opening and fell on his back, panting, shattered but safe.
Yvonne was in a similar condition. She sat, huddled against McCarthy with her head bowed. Rose knew what she was feeling. He had come close to death on a few occasions and knew that the aftermath of a near escape was sometimes the most difficult part to deal with. Far from being exhilarated by their experience, many were sullen as they struggled to deal with the fact of their own fallibility and mortality.
McCarthy was the exact opposite. She beamed at him from the depths of her quilted hood.
‘That’s one-one in the life-saving stakes, Johnny-Boy,’ she said. ‘You want to go for the decider?’
‘Just give me five minutes,’ Rose panted, ‘—then you’re on.’
He propped himself up on one elbow, suddenly very aware that not all of the party was there. ‘Where’s Khamas?’ he asked.
McCarthy nodded towards the back of the cave. He’s doing a little exploring.’
Rose took a pen-flashlight out of his pack and shone its narrow beam into the darkness. He had first taken their retreat to be little more than a deep alcove in the rock face. But now he saw tat it was only the mouth of a much deeper cave. A large, flat rock blocked the back of the cave, leaving only a narrow opening – just wide enough for a person to squeeze through. Beyond that, he could see nothing.
His curiosity got the better of his exhaustion and, leaving his pack behind, he shimmied through the narrow gap.
‘Impressive is it not?’
Khamas was standing just on the other side of the blockage.
‘I couldn’t see very much with this,’ he said, waving the puny flame of his cigarette lighter, ‘-but what I did find was most intriguing. Our friends out there are the very least of it.’
Rose knelt by the huge stone slab that blocked most of the cave’s width. It was almost perfectly circular except for on one side where a two foot wide chord had cracked off. It lay on the floor of the cave. Had the slab been whole it would have completely sealed the cave.
‘I can find no evidence of any hinge that might have once existed,’ Khamas said. ‘This was not a door, Captain. This was a cover stone of some kind.’
Rose examined the stone in more detail. It did look as if it had been carved to fit the cave, although how its masons had transported it so far up a mountain was impossible to determine. Both sides of the huge disc seemed to have carvings of some kind. One side weathered and cracked, the other better preserved and with the recognisable shapes of human figures and what may once have been writing.
‘Can you read any of this?’ Rose asked.
Khamas shook his head. ‘I think it is a kind of early Sanskrit. I know enough to recognise the characters, much as a European may be able to recognise the letters of the Russian alphabet. But, sadly, reading it is beyond my humble abilities.
‘Perhaps your Nepali friend would have better luck... If he still lives,’ he added pointedly.
Rose nodded glumly. ‘That’s a pretty big if.’
Khamas slapped him on the shoulder. ‘You fear for your friend: that is a good instinct, Captain. But you cannot let your decisions be ruled by fear. Make hope your beacon. Allow yourself to be guided by its light.’
‘Just as you hope your daughter is still alive.’
Khamas smiled. ‘No, Captain, that is not a hope. Allah has carried me through an avalanche. He has given me the strength to climb a mountain so that I can return to my Hadeeqa. These gifts are not bestowed for no reason. My daughter still lives, of that I am certain.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘That’s the spirit.’
Rose smiled. He couldn’t help but be impressed by Khamas’s optimism.
‘You say this is Sanskrit?’ he asked as he took out a notebook and copied the strange wri
ting down as best he could.
‘Yes, although there are many sections that look somehow different. I’m guessing it must be very old, but Sanskrit would seem to be consistent with our friend out there.’ He gestured back out towards the cave mouth.
Rose had not yet had a chance to examine the statues. He squeezed back through the narrow opening. The storm still raged—storms in that part of the Himalayas were known to last for days—but even in the open mouth of the cave, they were sheltered from the worst of it.
Taking a firm handhold, Rose leaned out to get a good look at the statue. Moe ice had fallen away during McCarthy’s improvised rescue attempt and the top half of the statue was completely free from ice, probably for the first time in many hundreds or even thousands of years.
The huge stone figure had the regal bearing of a king; even the garish necktie of climbing rope that still hung around its neck could not rob the statue of its dignity.
The face, Rose noticed, had a wide brow and a strong profile with a severe regularity of nose and jaw. But the overall appearance was saved from looking haughty by a full and sensuous mouth on which the sculptor had captured a kindly smile.
The statue on the other side of the ledge was still entombed in the ice. It was roughly the same size as its opposite, although the dark shadow of the head seemed larger and oddly-shaped as if the figure was wearing some kind of horned helmet.
‘Let’s see what you look like, my friend,’ Rose said. He swung his ice axe at the figure, digging the needle-sharp point of the serrated prong into the ice and using it like a claw hammer to pry away the encrustation. The ice was as hard as concrete and Rose had to hack at it with all his strength before he made any impression.
Suddenly the ice ripped apart with a great crack and fell away in huge slabs.
‘Holy shit!’ Rose exclaimed.
The figure revealed by the ice was unlike any he had ever seen or even dreamed about. Indeed he pitied the man whose imagination could have spawned such a monster.
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