Riders of the Pale Horse

by T. Davis Bunn

  Their journey was noisy and dirty and slow. As the day progressed, the wind became their constant companion. Several miles after they joined the highway, they passed another petrol station. Robards insisted they stop and top off their tanks. They sat in sweltering heat, trying to breathe through the diesel fumes and dust clouds as inch by inch the mammoth line crawled forward.

  “Take a look at those,” Robards said when Wade climbed on his running board during the wait. He jutted his chin toward the meadow flanking the station where a flock of shaggy beasts cropped meager grass.

  “They’re called yakaws,” Wade explained. “A cross between yak and cattle. You see their milk a lot in the markets.”

  Robards pointed to where shepherds watched the animals, ignoring the station’s noisy cacophony. “What tribe are they?”

  “I’d guess Ingush,” Wade said after a moment’s hesitation. “The Chechen generally have sharper features. They are said to be a Persian tribe. The Ingush are probably of Turkish descent. Some say Afghan, though. They are swarthier; a lot have the hawk noses and full features of the Himalayan tribesmen. They’re considered the more easygoing of the two, but that’s only a matter of degree. As Mikhail said, the Ingush farm and tend cattle. A lot of them wear expensive sable hats or fedoras.”

  Within a half hour of leaving the station, they began a steady climb. Their speed slowed even more, seldom creeping above twenty miles an hour. The old man rode in the first truck with Robards. Wade found himself not minding the solitude at all. The scenery was vast and ever changing, the road an invitation to explore the interior as well as exterior landscape.

  Streams and rivers crisscrossed the highway every mile or so. A dozen waterfalls glistened in the distance. As the two trucks crossed one makeshift wooden bridge, Wade spotted the metal girders of a more modern construction. It was upended and embedded in a monstrous pile of debris, testimony to the spring floods that roared down from above.

  The mountains’ lower reaches were dreamlands of mist and silver birches. As the trucks ground relentlessly higher, the mists gave way to aching blue-black skies, the birch to ancient firs and then to silver-green meadows.

  They rounded yet another curve and a broad, rushing river came into view. At the top of the rise they pulled into a turnout crowded with trucks and buses and people taking a break from the heat. With his first step into the icy torrent, Wade lost all feeling in his feet. He continued out until the rushing current threatened to pluck him away. The mist hanging above the river dropped the air’s temperature by fifty degrees. Wade stood and reveled in the coolness until he saw Rogue wave for him to return.

  When he arrived back at the trucks, the old man said with pride, “That is the River Terek. We follow its path all the way to the Krestovy Pass. Pushkin called it the laughing waters. Tolstoy called it the river of smoke.”

  Mikhail then pointed off to his right to where a rutted track broke off and meandered into a heavily wooded glen. “The entrance to the Fiagdon Valley. There lie the remnants of the Ossetian city called Tsimitar. Beyond that stands the City of the Dead, where until the Middle Ages my people came and buried their kin in family towers built over a thousand years ago. Now there is nothing. Stalin, the killer who was half-Ossetian himself, succeeded where even Tamerlane had failed. Today our valley is empty of life.”

  Rogue grinned at the news. “Tribes who love to carry steel, fight, sneak across borders with contraband, pass down grudges for centuries, and wear fancy headgear. Tamerlane and the Mongols and a battleground for over two thousand years. Makes me wish I could strap a sword to my side and go riding off on a great white charger.”

  “It doesn’t bother you,” Wade countered, “hearing about all the tragedy this land has known?”

  Robards gave his easy shrug. “They lived, they died. Same as you and me, Sport. Life’s only a tragedy for those on the receiving end, a place I avoid.” He tossed an empty Pepsi bottle toward a colossal pile of trash. “Come on, time to head for the hills.”

  As the road rose to meet the mountains, the curves became more extreme, the climb steeper. Ahead of Wade, Robards slowed his truck to a crawl. A protruding rock outcrop crumbled as Rogue’s truck hugged the wall for safety. While Wade waited for Rogue to manage the turn, he swiveled in his seat and looked back. To his left, the road dropped away to nothingness. A mountain eagle drifted on an unseen current, its four-foot wingspan unfurled and stable as it screamed at these human interlopers.

  Beyond and two thousand feet below, a valley expanded as it left the mountain fastness. The earth was mirrored silver in the harsh afternoon light. Richer bands of green ran alongside delta rivulets that tracked over the burnished autumn steppe. Here and there the utter flatness was broken by solitary foothills, rising and falling like tiny waves upon a silver sea. Winds whistled and moaned, the constant voice of this alien land.

  The roar of Rogue’s engine signaled Wade that the way was clear. He ground the gears and started forward, inching his way around the bend. Halfway around the curve, he turned back once again.

  At that moment, before his vision was blocked by the cliff wall, Wade knew a moment of utter clarity. He felt his own life yawing forth in an instant of realization, a glimpse of choices soon to be forced upon him.

  On the one side was the terror of open space with no visible support whatsoever. On the other the strength and power of visible and solid cliffs.

  Yet for some reason, it was the cliffs that frightened him most of all.

  6

  The Daimler swept them toward Heathrow Airport, which was as far as Cyril Price would allow them to be seen together in public. Once on the plane, she would be on her own. Allison watched the windshield wiper clear away the misting rain and felt her own emotions sweep back and forth, back and forth, between the thrill of adventure and the fear of unknown dangers.

  Allison clenched her hands in her lap to keep them still and worked to keep her voice calm as she commented, “I don’t see why you were the one who approached me about this.”

  “Oh, the Americans are all too pleased to have our assistance. We British have ever so much more experience at this sort of hands-on work. There is only so much your lot can gain through eyes in the sky. Since we did not have the cash lying about to heft up those great rockets, we have focused our attention on running agents on the ground.”

  “But when something like this came up, the Americans were left empty-handed.”

  “Not entirely, but more than they might wish to be. Distant eyes can see only what is large enough to be identified. And technical ears can hear only what is sent out over radio waves or spoken by telephone—unless there is an agent on the ground to carry a microphone, of course. When groups are limited in size to small terrorist cells that gather only in caverns and mosques, then all the technology in the world becomes, well...”

  “Useless,” Allison finished for him.

  “Mind you, when such decisions were being made, the American agencies saw their Middle Eastern foes as limited in the amount of damage they could produce—limited both by their small numbers and the conventionality of their arms.”

  “But with more deadly weapons, all this changes.”

  “Precisely. Place small, portable nuclear armaments in the hands of certain governments or terrorist groups, offer them missiles capable of transporting these bombs from the decks of small boats to our cities, and the situation is transformed. It is then an explosive situation that requires our direct, on-the-ground, dirty-hands involvement.”

  “Which is where I come in,” she said, finding it difficult to force air into her lungs. “I just hope I can do it right.”

  “You will, my dear. Of that I have not the slightest doubt.” His tone turned brisk. “As was explained yesterday, you have an introduction to someone within your embassy in Amman. Her name is Judith Armstead. But I would prefer that you hold off contacting her for the first few days, granting us an opportunity to establish your cover, so to speak. I shall meet
with you myself as the occasion arises. But not at our embassy. I intend for you to have as little contact as possible with my own number inside the British Embassy.”

  “Why is that?”

  “If it comes to light that Ben is sheltering an agent of the American government...”

  “I see,” Allison said, understanding the implications of Cyril’s unfinished statement.

  Cyril picked at an imaginary fleck on his trousers. “Now, to succeed—that is, to survive—you must be extremely alert and ready to abandon all whenever the situation turns against you.”

  “You’re about to frighten me. Again.”

  “Fear can be quite useful, so long as you do not allow your fear to make you incapable of functioning.” He stared at her with utter gravity. “You must be alert at all times. If fear helps you to do so, so be it.”

  The car pulled up in front of the terminal. Jules climbed out and extracted her cases from the trunk. Allison took a suddenly shaky breath. “I guess this is it, then.”

  Cyril grasped her damp hand with both of his. “Your father would be very proud of you, my dear.”

  There it was, the very right thing at the very right time. Allison felt herself steady. “He was a spy for a while, wasn’t he?”

  Cyril smiled with genuine fondness. “When this is behind us, we shall find a quiet corner, you and I. And I shall fill you to the brim with tales of daring and intrigue.”

  “Once my initiation is over, right?”

  “Come.” He reached across her and opened her door, then slid out behind her. When they were standing beside the car he offered his hand once more. “Remember, my dear. Intelligence is not concerned with stopping threats. It is involved solely in warning. Our task is to ensure that our governments are never surprised. Leave the actual intervention to others with the proper expertise. You are the eyes and the ears, nothing more, nothing less.”

  It was hot in Amman, hotter than Allison had imagined possible for early autumn. The sun was a blazing orb overhead. Shadows cut spiked angles from the ground. There were no clouds. The air was dry and dusty and sucked the moisture from her skin. Allison walked down the sidewalk outside the airport terminal and searched desperately for a familiar face.

  “Over here, Miss Taylor,” called a testy voice.

  Allison squinted through the glare and found herself looking at a squat little man in a sweat-stained white shirt, a handkerchief knotted over his bald head. “Were you talking to me?”

  With an exasperated sigh the little man waddled over, grasped her two cases, and lugged them toward a vintage taxi. “Indeed. Now come along.”

  The car had the suspension of a trampoline. Every bump in the road threatened to send her through the roof. The driver was a dull-faced Arab who neither returned her greeting nor looked her way. He drove with more use of his horn than his brakes. They raced out of the airport complex, took the highway turnoff on two wheels, and barreled southward at speeds Allison did not care to think about.

  The little man swiped the handkerchief from his head and used it to mop his peeling red face. “There was a problem at the clinic,” he said with undisguised annoyance. “I was appointed stand-in.”

  “I’m sorry; I don’t believe I caught your name....”

  “Smathers. British Embassy. Doesn’t matter, really. With luck we shall never need to see each other again.”

  “You would have preferred it if they had sent someone else,” Allison guessed.

  “I have long since given up dwelling upon the decisions of the powers-that-be,” he said with asperity.

  “This wasn’t my idea,” Allison told him.

  “You cannot imagine how much reassurance I find in that,” he snapped.

  “You don’t think this is going to work, do you?” Allison demanded. “Bringing in an outsider like this.”

  “Quite the contrary,” he replied acidly. “Since professionals have been chasing down these absurd rumors for more than five weeks and found absolutely nothing, naturally we are grateful for the assistance of someone as qualified as you.”

  Then it came to her. “You’re him, aren’t you?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The guy who Ben Shannon kicked out of the clinic. Cyril Price told me about you on the way to the airport.”

  The man’s complexion darkened. “No doubt it was a cause of amusement to everyone concerned. I cannot wait to hear how you succeed where I have failed.”

  Allison decided to let that one slip by. She leaned back in her seat, bracing herself with both arms against the jouncing, rocking ride. The highway was a narrow man-made band running through utter desolation. Rock and scrub wilderness stretched out in every direction. Wherever patches of dusty green signaled the presence of underground springs, people appeared. Bedouin tents reached out a variety of multicolored arms as wide as houses. Flocks grazed nearby—sheep, goats, donkeys, camels. Towns were clusters of square concrete blockhouses connected by packed earth tracks. There was little vegetation to soften the harshness of this desert world. The few trees grew stunted and dry and gnarled. Roads to distant settlements were not roads at all, but dusty tracks that rose and fell and twisted like yellow veins on the hard surface.

  Closer to Aqaba, the mountains closed in on both sides. Pink and yellow and ocher sandstone cliffs were striated with black volcanic ash and white quartz and brown iron ore, carved into weird shapes by a hundred million years of wind.

  The doctor who came out to greet her arrival was both the man she remembered and a different man entirely.

  “My dear Allison,” Ben Shannon called out, approaching through the compound’s open gates. “After all these years. What a delight to see you again.”

  Allison recalled Ben Shannon as an unpleasant man—pesky, arrogant, loud, impatient. Having him over to dinner had meant listening to a boring monologue. Either that or somebody had to argue with him, for the only way to make him stop talking was to push back hard.

  But none of those memories seemed to have anything to do with the man who now stood before her.

  “Hello, Ben,” she said uncertainly, disarmed by his smile.

  “Right.” The little man from the embassy deposited her two suitcases and his own battered case at her feet. “Break a leg and all that.” He climbed back into his taxi and screeched away with a plume of oily smoke.

  “He was about the most unpleasant man I’ve ever met,” Allison said, her eyes on the departing taxi.

  “The result of a continual diet of subterfuge,” Ben replied.

  She couldn’t stop staring at him. He was strong yet worn to a fine and delicate edge. His face was a chiseled set of firm lines and determined action, his body wiry yet fragile. His eyes, though smudged with weary shadows, were full of peace. “You’re not like I remember you. Even your voice is different.”

  “Ah. That is the Arabic, I suppose. The language is so demanding that it tends to wipe the slate clear as far as other accents are concerned.”

  As Ben led her through the gates, a woman emerged from the compound and walked toward them, carrying a thick book. She was a lovely, olive-skinned woman whose unlined face and youthful gaze struck an intriguing contrast to her graying hair.

  “This is my wife, Leah.” Ben said as they drew near.

  The woman smiled, then sent a questioning glance from her husband back to Allison. “You must be Allison,” she guessed.

  “Oh, sorry,” Ben muttered, seeming to remember his manners, “Allison Taylor; Leah Shannon.”

  “You are very welcome here, Allison,” Leah said, extending her hand. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

  “Thank you,” Allison said, taking the woman’s hand in her own. “You are Palestinian, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your English is perfect; where did you learn it?”

  “In America.”

  “Really? When did you live there?”

  “My family emigrated from Beersheba after the ’67 wa
r. That is where most of the Palestinians in Aqaba come from—Beersheba and the southern villages. My father had a brother working in Baltimore, and we emigrated there.”

  “Well, I’m pleased to meet you, Leah.”

  “And I you. I hope we will have more time to talk later. But right now I must go; I am late for my Bible study.”

  Leah lifted a hand in farewell as she departed through the compound gates. Ben and Allison watched her go.

  “She’s lovely, Ben.”

  “Yes, she is. Inside and out. And she’s right, you are a most welcome addition here.”

  Ben led Allison toward the compound. “Our level of expertise is high, but as with all such clinics, we are underfunded and understaffed. There is always a need for volunteers.”

  “You expect me to work at the clinic?”

  He nodded. “You will be watched constantly. It is the Arab way. Our only protection is to have you carry out normal duties.”

  She glanced through the compound’s entrance. “What kind of problems do you face here?”

  “Stomach and intestinal diseases,” he replied instantly. “Infected skin lesions. Infant and childhood ailments. Dehydration. Eye problems. Tooth and gum disease. Some bullet wounds, some beatings, some bomb fragments. But mostly our problems are the result of overcrowding, lack of clean water, and poor sanitation, not war.”

  “I still don’t see what use I’m going to be to you.”

  “You will.” He gestured toward where the clinic’s outer wall was festooned with Arabic spray-painted murals. “Your education begins here. This wall is a sort of running weekly news journal. I say weekly because we whitewash the walls every Sunday. There are strike announcements, new reasons given to hate the West, ditto for the Israelis, notices of political activities and planned protests supporting the struggle in the occupied territories—that sort of thing. Most families here have relatives in camps or settlements across the Israeli border. Also, a remarkable number of the graffiti announcements these days are calls for people to return to their Islamic roots.”