by Marc Cameron
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Umar held a blood-soaked cloth to his nose and pushed the paperwork across the counter. “Royal Enfield Bullet,” he sniffed. “Only the best motorcycle for you, my friend.”
Quinn signed the rental contract, written by some Chinese lawyer in poorly translated English. He worked his bruised jaw back and forth as he handed back the pen.
Umar tossed the rag on the counter and raised his beefy hand. His injured lip split back open when he grinned, dripping blood on the contract. “Four hundred and ninety-nine cc, four stroke, twenty-seven horsepower—best bike for you. Altitude no problem.”
“Twenty-seven horsepower.” Quinn nodded, thinking about the hundred-twenty-plus of his modified BMW. Still, the Enfield was a sweet little bike. Gaunt and skinny enough to show its ribs, it was a motorcycle that brought back memories of black-and-white newsreels from the war and dispatches that just had to make it through enemy lines. The Indian government had started using the Enfield bikes in 1955 and later bought the tooling equipment from the British in 1957. Little had changed over decades of production, but the new fuel injection would come in handy climbing the sixteen-thousand-foot passes leading into the High Pamir.
Umar knew his motorcycles. It a shame that these two little machines wouldn’t make it back into his stable. Quinn made a mental note to see that new ones were provided as replacements as soon as he got home—if he got home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Gaithersburg
Mujaheed Beg ran a chipped fingernail across the black-and-white striped pillow from Veronica Garcia’s rumpled bed. Egyptian cotton. She had good taste. He held it to his nose and breathed in the musky floral scent of jasmine perfume. A pile of clothes lay strewn over the bed as if she’d dumped them out of a hamper. A small wicker basket full of lipsticks and eye makeup sat on the nightstand beside the bed. Two empty suitcases lay tossed on top of one another in the corner.
Wherever she’d gone, she left in a hurry.
Beg picked up a skimpy pair of leopard-print panties from the laundry on the bed and twirled them around his finger.
“It’s now or never,” he sang in a passable Elvis impression. His eyes wandered around the bedroom. “Show me her secrets... .”
He’d made a similar trip to Grace Smallwood’s apartment. It was how he’d discovered her allergy to bees.
Garcia’s ballistic vest had been tossed unceremoniously on a pile of dirty laundry. A large-frame .40-caliber Glock and a smaller, more feminine Kahr nine-millimeter sat loaded and holstered on the top shelf of the closet. He slid the hangers over one by one, stopping at a sequined blue evening gown. It made him laugh out loud to think of this buxom woman trying to hide a pistol under the sheer gown.
“What has become of you, my dear?” he muttered, running his hands along the hanging clothes.
He found it unbelievable that the dangerous woman he’d seen coming into Nadia Arbakova’s house would leave her weapons at home ... unless she’d gone somewhere she could not take them... .
Veronica Garcia’s bathroom revealed less than her bedroom. She took no medications but aspirin, used tampons instead of pads, and shaved her legs in the shower. Jasmine was her preferred scent for soaps and body lotions.
The familiar smell made him ache to meet her, to spend time with her alone in this house. He went back to the bedroom and shoved the pile of clothes on the floor to lie down on the striped sheets that smelled so strongly of her.
His phone began to buzz before his head hit the pillow. It had to be Badeeb.
He sat up, cursing in Tajik.
“Yes?”
“Allah be praised. Are you well?”
“Yes.” He did not wish to waste time with the doctor on pleasantries.
“Are you nearby?” came the familiar clicky voice.
“How would I know if that is so until you tell me where you are?”
“Never mind,” Badeeb said, snapping his cigarette lighter closed. “I have a job for you. I believe it will be straight up your street, so to speak... .”
Beg rubbed a hand over his hair. “I don’t know what that means.”
“You know,” Badeeb stuttered. “Something you will enjoy—up your street.”
“Right up my alley,” Beg corrected. That such a witless man could accomplish so much of such great importance was surely a mystery.
“Yes, exactly that,” the doctor continued. “This one will be quite enjoyable, for you. I need you take care of an issue with the congressman. There is a situation.” Badeeb paused to take a long drag on his cigarette. “A situation I have been, of necessity, keeping from you ...”
Beg picked up Garcia’s striped pillow and held it to his nose.
“Of course.” He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, unwilling to leave the scent of Veronica Garcia so quickly for any reason. “I will meet you in two hours’ time.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Xinjiang Province/Uyghur Autonomous Region
China
Dressed in matching olive two-piece Rev’it textile riding suits against the chill of high altitude, Quinn and Garcia reached the police checkpoint at Tashkurgan before lunch. They’d stopped on the way for a bathroom break along the Karakoram Highway at the black waters of Lake Karakul. Quinn paid a Uyghur man five quai—less than a dollar—to take a photo of Ronnie sitting on a camel. They didn’t have the time for such things, but a tourist who rode by the high desert lake and didn’t take stop for photos would be highly suspect. And, he had to admit, she looked pretty good sitting up there, snowcapped peaks in the background, her hair blowing in the wind.
The ramshackle outpost of Tashkurgan was little more than a faceless government building and a touristy hotel with a line of fake yurts. They would need a special permit to continue down the Karakoram to their ostensible destination of the Khunjerab Pass leading into Pakistan. Umar had assured them the police were used to letting people riding his motorcycles through. As it turned out, the three Chinese guards, who were barely out of their teens, offered to let Garcia get her picture taken wearing one of their hats for twenty U.S. dollars—each. Quinn gladly paid the sixty bucks and they were able to slip through as long as they promised to just “go and come back” to the Pakistani border.
“Not a bad fee all in all,” Quinn said as they pushed the Enfields away from the concrete barricades and back on to the Karakoram heading south.
“That wasn’t a fee.” Ronnie wrinkled her nose. “That was a bribe.”
Quinn swung a leg over his bike. “You say tomato... . We made it through without having to duct tape anyone and leave them in the closet. That’s what matters.”
Thirty miles south of Tashkurgan, they cut right, leaving the relative comfort of the paved Karakoram Highway to head west on an old jeep trail toward the sixteen-thousand-foot level marking Wakhir Pass and Afghanistan. Luckily, they saw no other traffic at the diversion from their promised route.
Garcia handled the rock-strewn road like Quinn had seen her handle everything in the short time he’d know her: by pretending she was an expert long enough that she became one. She was a strong woman, naturally athletic. Off-road motorcycling appeared to come easily to her.
As Umar had promised, the Enfield Bullets thumped along the rutted trail without complaint. Quinn had expected some drop in performance as they climbed near six thousand meters, but the bikes took Gabrielle’s impossibly steep smugglers’ trail along a sheer rock wall like metal mountain goats.
The only lag in performance was of the human kind. Both Quinn and Garcia were in excellent physical shape, but they were accustomed to living at sea level. By twelve thousand feet, even the act of horsing the motorcycles over gravel and dust forced them to stop for frequent breathers and sips of water. He’d read stories of ancient Buddhist monks who gave these places names like Big Headache and Nosebleed Pass. The throbbing killer at Quinn’s temples made him understand why.
Garcia made no secret of the fact that she hated the dizzyin
g heights, refusing to look down and urging Quinn to get going again shortly after they’d stopped. He was sure her knuckles were white under the thick leather gloves.
Fatigue wasn’t their only problem. At thirteen thousand feet, they ran into a wall of blowing gray dust, ground fine as talc by the host of glaciers among the endless sawtooth peaks that stretched before them. The air was thin enough already and the dust made it nearly impossible to draw a breath.
Used for centuries by Silk Road travelers who wanted no contact with government officials, the hidden trail rose quickly, jogging around slabs of rock the size of houses and fields of gray boulders that fanned from snowcapped crags on all sides. Finally battling their way above the dust storm, they were able to make good progress until they were three miles from the pass.
Quinn saw the lone man from nearly a mile away, picking his way across a boulder-strewn side hill leading seven camels.
Quinn motioned for Garcia to pull off the trail alongside him on an uphill swell of gravel and dismount. There was just enough room for both bikes. It took his breath away when she shook her thick hair free of her helmet. He looked away quickly, back at the approaching camel herder, hoping she hadn’t noticed his stares.
The herdsman’s clucking and scolding could be heard for ten minutes before the little troupe crested the rise in the trail. Each camel had a barbed stick through its nose attached to a cord connecting it to the animal ahead. The man held a piece of rope from the nose of the lead beast. Only the baby trotted independently of the rest, even more knock-kneed and gangly than the adults.
“You have your camera handy?” Quinn asked.
Garcia tapped the chest pocket of her riding jacket. “Right here.”
The copper bell on the baby’s halter clanged happily as it plodded closer over the stony path.
“Go ahead and get it out,” he whispered, smiling at the approaching man. “It’s always some herder that trips you up... . He needs to think we’re just tourists.”
The herdsman raised his right hand to his breast, bowing his head slightly. He was young, still in his twenties with a flint-hard look in his eye the smile couldn’t conceal. A FAM, fighting-age male, he carried a paratrooper Kalashnikov with a folding stock hung on a cloth sling over his shoulder. The Wahkir didn’t see enough traffic for professional bandits, but if one smuggler happened to be better armed than another he met along the path, there was no honor among those in the black market. The collar of a wool suit jacket was turned up against the chill. The tail of his flimsy shirt hung out over stained khaki military trousers. Thin leather sandals did little to protect his cracked feet from the ravages of weather and stone.
Quinn thought it best to play dumb and gave an awkward Chinese greeting.
The camel man shook his head, grinning with a mouth full of indigo and snuff-stained teeth.
“No Chinaman,” he said. He puffed up his chest. “Pashtu.”
The herder eyed the Royal Enfields with a keen interest, dropping the rope to his lead camel. He patted the seat on Jericho’s bike. “You sell?”
Quinn shook his head. It never surprised him when traders talked business in a whole multitude of languages. They might not be able to tell you the time, but they could barter, curse, and call you a cheapskate in the language of your choice.
Quinn shook his head. “Not mine. Umar’s bikes. You know Umar?”
The herdsman’s eyes went wide. He showed his blue-black teeth. “Umar’s bikes,” he repeated. He turned to stare at Garcia for a moment, took a deep breath, and stooped to pick up his lead rope.
Without a word of good-bye he clucked at his camels and started down the trail toward the Karakoram Highway. His animals trundled along after him bawling and farting until they fell back into their traveling jog.
“That was weird,” Garcia said tucking the camera back in her pocket.
Quinn threw a leg over his Enfield, anxious to be moving again. “I’m pretty sure he was looking at you as much as the bikes.”
Garcia paused. “What if he pulled the rifle?”
Quinn pretended to act incredulous. “And that from a woman who just witnessed my physical prowess at not beating Umar the giant. Come on, we should get going. That fight gave us a late start. We need to make it over Gabrielle’s secret pass by nightfall.”
“You afraid we’ll run into Chinese soldiers?”
“Nope,” Quinn said, starting his bike. “The big problem on smugglers’ trails is smugglers.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
They rolled through the gap between two great, guardian-like boulders and into Afghanistan an hour before sunset. There was nothing to mark the nameless pass but for a stone cairn topped with the skull of a heavy-horned Marco Polo sheep. A half mile in, they were met by a crude, hand-painted and weatherworn sign showing a human figure with his leg being blown off by a land mine. It was a notice to all to keep to the relative safety of the trail.
Quinn stopped for a moment to check the map Gabrielle had drawn, comparing it to the topographic tour map Umar had supplied. The detail gave out thirty miles into Afghanistan. Quinn hoped that would be enough.
The next forty-five minutes saw them descend six thousand feet. A camp at ten thousand feet would be uncomfortable for flatlanders, but it would be infinitely better than one at sixteen thousand. Quinn slowed, turning back to Garcia, two bike-lengths behind him. It was impossible to tell behind her full-face helmet, but her eyes said she was grinning.
Ten minutes later they’d hidden both motorcycles behind a faded gray boulder, in a fold of the mountain of the main trail. Quinn removed his heavy armored jacket, setting up camp in the suspendered riding pants and a gray long-sleeved wool T-shirt. While cotton might be king in the south, growing up in Alaska had taught him wool was the way to go when things got wet and cold.
Garcia still wore all her gear against the chill and donned a Nepalese wool beanie with earflaps and braided cords.
“You’ve come a very long way from Cuba,” Quinn chuckled. He situated the aluminum poles of their mountaineering tent over the flattest patch of rubble he could find. They’d told Umar they were married as part of the cover story—he would have been unhappy sending an unmarried woman out alone with Quinn. Wanting to save space on the smallish Enfields, the big Ugyhr provided only one tent. Luckily, it was a three-person, which in mountaineering terms translated as “tight for two.”
Garcia squatted opposite Quinn and helped him thread the poles into the sleeves of the bright orange fabric. “Must be old hat for you,” she said, teeth chattering. “I suppose this is a lot like Alaska?”
“In some ways.” Quinn looked to his left at the sheer rock face that faded into a layer of clouds a thousand feet above. Fifty feet to his right an abrupt ledge fell away to nothingness for nearly a mile. Howling winds raced off hidden glaciers and the distant hush of a river whispered up from the valley floor. “Yeah, I guess it does remind me of home.”
Quinn finished snapping in the last pole and looked up to see Garcia shaking her head and blinking as if she was dizzy.
“We should feed you and get to bed,” he said.
She smiled weakly. “Not tonight, honey. I have a headache.”
He took her by the shoulders and led her to the base of a car-sized rock, where he made her a sort of nest with their bedrolls and sleeping pads. “You sit here while I whip us up my two-mile-high specialty.
Garcia drew her knees to her chest, drawing her neck inside her jacket like a turtle and her hands into her sleeves. Only the pink tip of her nose showed above the collar of her coat.
“Seriously,” she moaned. “I don’t want to be a whiner, but I feel like someone may be digging my eyes out with a spoon. I couldn’t eat a bite.”
“It’s the altitude,” Quinn said. “I should have paid attention to it earlier.”
“I’m a big girl, in case you haven’t noticed.” She let her head loll back against the boulder.
“You rest. I’ll make supper,” he sai
d. He thought: Oh, I’ve noticed all right.
A couple of aspirin and Quinn’s mutton noodle soup worked miracles. Ronnie went from feeling like she’d been trampled by a camel to aching as though she’d just been dragged by one. The pain in her head down to a dull throb, she was able to concentrate on Jericho.
“Hard to breathe up here,” she said, wanting to make conversation.
“There’s this sign on the wall above the swimming pool at the Academy,” he said. “The Air Is Rare.” He held a mug of soup under his chin. Steam curled around the stubble of beard that seemed twice as dark as it had only a few hours before. “We have an early start if we want to find the Kyrgyz camp tomorrow,” he said.
The wind had died off with the sun. A thick layer of fog had settled in, rendering the orange tent almost invisible just a few feet away. They had to wear headlamps to keep from walking off the cliff.
Quinn played his light toward the tent. “Sorry about the cramped arrangements.”
“No problem.” She got up with a groan. “I’ve watched enough Bond movies to know this is the way things always work out. I only need to know if I’m the girl spy you end up with as the credits roll or the sacrificial one who has passionate sex with you, then dies halfway through the movie.”
“Remains to be seen,” Quinn mused over his mug, blowing away a plume of steam.
“Anyway,” she added, “you look too beat to try anything tonight, Mr. Bond.”
“Sex is messy.” Quinn shrugged. “We’d probably knock the tent off the ledge—or your head would explode from all the exertion.”
Garcia pursed her lips, thinking that over. She eyed him carefully. “I’m not sure if you’re trying to talk me out of or into sleeping with you... .”
“Oh.” Quinn grinned. “In Umar’s infinite wisdom, he believed a married couple should have blankets instead of warm down bags. We’re sleeping together all right. But that’s as far as it goes.”