The Searcher

by Christopher Morgan Jones

“No kidding. We say that, too. He needs me alive to pay the second half of his money.”

  Vekua smiled. “Consider. He has one-half money, and happy client. Perfect conclusion.”

  FIFTEEN

  For a while they argued. Vekua wanted to take Hammer’s place, and force Koba to take her to Ben; Hammer wanted to stick with his original plan—if he was in danger he would go armed and alert. In the end they found a compromise: Hammer would meet Koba as agreed, and Vekua would follow them at a distance, ready to help as required. In truth, Hammer liked none of the variations, and the last perhaps least of all—better to be out in the mountains with one person you didn’t trust than with two—but as Vekua had reminded him, he had no authority here. It had briefly been his show, but no longer.

  Hammer finished dressing, as warmly as possible, checked his flashlight, and laced his boots. Then he went to find Natela outside.

  She was hopping from foot to foot in the cold; he took his coat off and draped it over her shoulders. Twenty yards away, standing rigid like a soldier with his back to the neighboring house, was a man in a thick black ski jacket, woolen cap, and heavy black boots. In and out of clouds the half-moon cast a weak light, and a small window by the door threw uncertain shadows on the snow. For the first time since Vekua’s arrival Natela looked him full in the eye, and he felt half the fear he had been feeling disappear. She was wounded, but not by him.

  She drew on the cigarette and turned her head to send the smoke into the night.

  “If you go you will not come back.”

  “I have to go.”

  “You trust her?”

  Hammer took the half-smoked cigarette from her fingers and drew on it. Strange, how it made him closer to her.

  “I want to. But no.”

  “Take a gun.”

  “There are two guns. I want Vano and Irodi here with them, watching over you.”

  He walked a few paces and with his boot cleared the snow away from a section of the path outside the house. At first he didn’t find what he was looking for, but a yard or two further on he stopped and picked up three good-sized stones.

  “I’m more worried about the dogs,” he said, and put them in his pocket.

  Natela threw her cigarette down and followed him inside. Eka was making dinner and paying no attention to Vekua, who was checking her bag and taking inventory of the items on the table: a flashlight, a compass, a knife, water, a map in a waterproof case.

  “Give me a minute with my hosts,” Hammer said. “With these people.”

  “There is not time.”

  “I need a minute.”

  Vekua hesitated, then gathered up her things and stood.

  “Of course. But not long.”

  Hammer waited until she had left.

  “Eka, where is Vano?”

  Natela translated, and Eka went out into the yard. A minute later she came back with her husband and her son. They stood together in a line with their backs to the sink, Vano grave, Eka concerned, Irodi impassive.

  “Natela, I want you to tell them what I’m saying. It’s important, so if you don’t understand something let me know. OK? I’ll go slow. OK.” He turned to Vano, who held his hands clasped in front of him. “Sir, I’m grateful to you for inviting me into your home, and more sorry than I can say that I’ve invited trouble in return.” He paused to make sure that Natela had understood, and nodded that she should translate. “I didn’t expect to, and I didn’t mean to, but there are some bad people in your country, like there are in every country, as you know better than me, I’m sure. Now, what I would love to do, for your good and mine, is to leave here this minute with Natela and go a long way away until we were safe and you were safe, too. But I can’t do that. I have a duty to you, and a duty to her, but also to my friend, who’s somewhere across the border, heaven knows where, and I guess I have this last chance to find him and bring him back. And I have to take this chance. It’s a question of honor as much as anything else. I can’t run.” As Natela translated this part, Vano gave a nod.

  Though part of me would like to run. Away, with Natela, to some other paradise where the world would not intrude.

  “So, I’m going across the border tonight, with that woman who was just here. She works for your government, but like everyone down on the plain I can’t work out whether she’s a good person or a bad one. She could be either or both. The reason I’m telling you this is that you four, you and Natela, are the only people I can trust, and I need you all to help each other. It’s possible I won’t come back. It’s possible the man outside will try to hurt you, and particularly,” he hesitated to say it, “particularly you, Natela.” He addressed Vano now, directly. “I have no right to ask this, sir, but I think I know what kind of man you are. If you could protect this woman here, who is very dear to me, for the next few hours while I’m away, I shall be always in your debt. Always. And if I don’t return, see that these people don’t harm her, and that she gets down the mountain. I have no right to ask it, but I hope you’ll do it.”

  Throughout Hammer’s speech and Natela’s halting translation Vano had listened with respect, as one elder should listen to another. His eyes were stern and gray and seemed to contain all the wisdom of his land, and when he spoke he kept them on Hammer. Two short sentences were all it took.

  “He says that last night you became a Tusheti man and you are still a Tusheti man. He will protect your family like his own.”

  Hammer bowed deeply, and a huge sense of gratitude and relief came over him. Somehow it was unimaginable that this man would let him down. Or Natela.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I cannot thank you enough.”

  He shook Vano’s hand, and Eka’s, and made to leave. Eka stopped him, and quickly gathered some food into a plastic bag: some bread, a hunk of cheese, two apples, some plain biscuits. Hammer bowed again.

  To Natela he gave a card, which he had ready in his pocket.

  “If there’s any trouble, and you get out of this place, call this number and ask for Katerina.”

  Natela held the card in both hands, unable to take her eyes from it, and then without looking up tore it in two and handed the pieces back to him.

  “I want you. I do not want your world.”

  SIXTEEN

  At first he knew the path: out of the village, past the sign remembering Diklo’s dead, through the gate and into sheepdog country, following the hillside as it wound toward the fortress. The silver slopes magnified the half-light of the moon and made the way clear ahead; no wind blew, and with each step he heard the creak of his boots on the frosting snow. Vekua had started after him, and though he listened for her and from time to time looked back he couldn’t make her out.

  There was only one way across the border, or at least only one that made sense. Leading down from the fortress was a path which wound steeply through forest and then followed the water as it flowed toward Russia. Half a mile further on, high up on a shoulder of land that ended in a sheer cliff, a border post overlooked both the narrow chasm and the old rising trail cut into the opposite hillside that had once carried trade between villages. At night it would be possible to take this trail unobserved.

  Hammer was used to the terrain now, and refreshed to be out in the cold air. His heart beat fast from the exertion, and his nerves strained against his skin. He counted the uncertainties: his mercenary guide ahead, his unknowable guard behind, the sense of closing on his treacherous goal. As he went he scanned the path for dark shapes, resting his hand on the rocks in his pocket.

  Soon he passed the point that he had reached with Natela just a few hours before, and after another half a mile he dimly made out a split in the path and by it a mound of rocks four or five feet high. As he drew closer a brief flare showed Koba’s red face as he lit a cigarette.

  He said nothing as Hammer approached, and little when he arrived.

 
“We go.”

  “You lead the way,” said Hammer, and saw that the shrine was made not of rocks but of rams’ skulls, their horns twisting and writhing together in the moonlight.

  Some journey this was. Walking into the icy wastes of Dagestan with two people he couldn’t trust. With every step he felt less safe.

  Koba set off at a pace that belied his age and his bulk, and for a while Hammer had to concentrate on keeping up. The only noise was the crunching of boots and the gruff seesawing of Koba’s breath. Before long, they came off the path onto a high, wide spur of land that fell away into darkness on either side, where the snow was deep and the going heavier, and loosely spaced trees began to cut out some of the light. Hammer got closer to Koba, until he was on his shoulder and could begin to talk. Talking might help. It might tell him something.

  “You check your account?”

  Koba looked over his shoulder but said nothing.

  “I was just wondering,” said Hammer, breathing hard himself, “whether you had a chance to check your account. The money should be there.”

  “Money is fine.”

  “You ever had a payout like that before, Koba? I’m going to keep calling you Koba, save me having to learn your real name.”

  Koba trudged on.

  “How much you being paid by your boss, Koba? Roughly. You don’t want to say, OK. Because I would love to know who that is. You want more money, just tell me who he is and what he wants.”

  Koba took another few steps, then stopped and turned, his face dark with exertion.

  “Less talk. Yes? We have deal. Is all.”

  “Sorry. I like to talk.”

  Koba set off again.

  “Another five hundred, you tell me who he is.”

  Koba simply raised a hand and carried on walking.

  Hammer left it for a while, then tried again, talking between breaths.

  “Koba, tell me. What was the plan for me? For my friend? You going to kill us both or what?”

  Nothing.

  “Come on. You can tell me that much. No one’s going to hear.”

  “No talk.”

  “It’s just, it’s kind of personal. I’m curious.”

  “No talk.”

  Hammer hadn’t expected a reply to any of this, but he sensed he was getting the response he wanted. The new Koba might be different from the old but he still had a temper.

  “OK. I’m sorry. Just one last thing. Your guys, do they know we’re coming?”

  “No radios. Cannot know.”

  “That’s right. You said. So how are they going to know it’s us? What’s to stop them shooting us?”

  “I make signal.”

  “That’s good.”

  Hammer took the next few steps in silence, to give Koba the impression he was thinking.

  “That’s good. A signal. So how d’you communicate with your guys?”

  “We have plan.”

  “What if the plan changes?”

  But Koba was standing still and alert, and his hand was up for him to be quiet. Hammer peered ahead but there was nothing to see; just dark trees and lighter patches of snow and one small clearing where the moon reached. Then he saw them: two gray shapes on the ground, twenty yards away, not moving. Koba pointed up the slope and set off carefully, keeping his eye on the spot. Hammer’s hand hovered by his jacket pocket.

  Up they went, but after ten steps Koba again went rigid. In the clearing a shape stirred and let out a bark that split the night. It waited for its companion to stand before approaching steadily, barking all the while.

  Hammer stepped forward, a rock ready in his hand, and saw a gun in Koba’s. He touched his sleeve.

  “I can handle this.”

  “Mountain motherfuckers,” said Koba, and raised the pistol.

  “Koba, there’s no need.”

  To Hammer it seemed that the sound came before the white flash in the dark. There was no echo, just a blunt report, immense and instantly gone, and then another noise immediately, the same but more distant. Hammer brought his hands to his ears, saw the dog crumple to its left, heard a roar from Koba, who clutched at his cheek and wheeled round as if someone had spun him. A third shot broke his cries and sent him sprawling silent onto the snow.

  “Koba!” shouted Hammer, and kneeled by him, not understanding. His gun must have misfired. His face was pushed into the snow, which was suffused with black.

  “Leave him,” said a voice behind him. “Back.”

  Hammer turned to her.

  “What the fuck have you done? What the fuck?”

  Vekua ignored him and walked up to the body, kneeling by it and taking off a glove to check the pulse in his neck, her pistol still in her hand. Her fingers came away covered in Koba’s blood. She cleaned it off in the snow, dried her hand on her coat, and put her glove back on; then walked a few paces to where his gun lay, picked it up, and put a gun in each pocket.

  Shocked, the shots still playing in his ears, hardly believing what he had seen, Hammer sat back on the ground. Bile rose in his throat.

  “What the fuck did you do?”

  “He took out his gun. I shot.”

  “He shot the dog. He shot the fucking dog.”

  “I saw no dog. Now it is simple. Come.”

  Returning to Koba, Vekua went through his coat and pulled out a flashlight, a compass, two packets of cigarettes, a lighter, and a bottle of water. No radio. The dog’s companion loped away through the clearing.

  “What are you doing?”

  Vekua glanced up at him. In the half-light he couldn’t make out whether her expression was shocked, exhilarated, or triumphant, but her poise was still evident. She was in control.

  “Investigating,” she said, pocketing the flashlight and leaving the rest. “Come.”

  Hammer watched her set off and pass the dead heap of the dog, stepping lightly and steadily, as if she had just encountered nothing more than an everyday obstacle. The sight of her chilled him more than the cold that had begun to settle in his limbs as soon as they had stopped.

  “How the fuck are we going to find the way?”

  “I know the way.”

  How did she know? Hammer followed, doing his best to breathe, to think, to quieten the noise in his head. Before, he had known he was walking into trouble; now he was more sure than ever that what lay in wait for him was a trap.

  He paused for a moment by the dog’s corpse. In the near dark he couldn’t tell for certain, but it looked like his dog, the one that had released him earlier, and this upset him further. It was an innocent. Alone of all these bastards it had honored their contract.

  By the time he caught up with her they were scrambling up a bank of snow and scree at the end of the ridge to the ruined fortress, whose jagged walls cut the sky. This was the highest point until the mountains that lined the border, and from it cliffs dropped a thousand feet to the winding river below. Hammer saw miles of peaks and forests, endless and empty, and had the odd sensation that this really was all theirs; that there was no one else to lay claim to it. Behind them, the two or three tiny dim lights of Diklo were the only sign in the whole world that they weren’t altogether alone. He wondered whether Natela had heard the shots, and what she would now be thinking.

  At the fortress Vekua stopped and surveyed the scene, waiting for him to catch up.

  “And what happens when we get there?” said Hammer. “Who does the exchange?”

  “Understand. At some point, in Russia, he would shoot you and then kill your friend. There was no exchange. Now we are two people, and he has two men. We are equal.”

  Hammer shook his head, his breath showing thickly in the cold. How does she know there are two men?

  “And you think we’re getting across the border, after all that noise.”

  Vekua lau
ghed, for once as if she meant it.

  “Russian border police. There will be two of them. By now they have drunk half a bottle of vodka each and are beginning to fight. In a half hour they will be friends again. They will not look outside until long after dawn.”

  “Not even when some crazy’s shooting outside their door?”

  “Georgia is like America. Everyone shoots guns. Come.”

  • • •

  Vekua headed carefully down toward a dark line of trees and Hammer followed, wondering with every step what grounds he had to entrust his fate to this woman. Of the various outcomes that filed through his thoughts, few were good, and those that were depended utterly on her honesty. She had all the power, and both of the guns. His only comfort was an absence of choice.

  Then, far behind them, with a flat report and an echo that rang round the mountains, sounded a shot. It was distant but unmistakable, and it was followed quickly by another, and a third. All fired behind them; all fired, as far as he could tell, from the same gun.

  Hammer’s calculations ceased; every thought but one left his head.

  “What was that?”

  Vekua had stopped and was dead still, listening, like prey suspecting the presence of a hunter.

  “Shots.”

  “From the village.”

  “I think so.”

  “We have to go back.”

  “We cannot go back.”

  “We’ll go quickly.”

  “If we do not go now, we will be too late. Koba’s men are expecting him.”

  “But I have to know those people are safe.”

  “Then you have a decision. You can return. But I will go on.”

  Her white face seemed to shine with certainty. Out here in the half-light, Hammer found himself hating its symmetry, its disengagement.

  “Your man,” he said. “What orders did you give him?”

  “To protect the village.”

  “From what?”

  “From Zoidze and his men, of course.”

  “How many men does he have?”

  “I do not know. That is why I left a guard. And in case I do not return, he can fly your friend to Tbilisi.”