by Matt Rogers
The calmness of his trip to Bhutan had dissipated the second he’d hung up the payphone. Now his senses were heightened, cortisol flooding his brain as he became wired, tuned into his surroundings, fully aware. He was about to step into a brutal world he hadn’t anticipated visiting for at least a couple of weeks. That required a change in demeanour, an icy hardness that was already starting to settle over him.
The vast wooden entrance doors of the Dzong swung open to greet them as they reached the entrance. Griffin stepped through into a high-ceilinged foyer that had been converted into a military administrative room, complete with sprawling desks piled with documents and several more Bhutanese men spread out across the tiled floor. A couple had M16A2 assault rifles resting by their side, but there weren’t many weapons in the room.
Griffin imagined the Royal Bhutan Army didn’t run into terrorist threats all that often.
With a population of just over seven hundred thousand, the bad eggs were likely few and far between.
Actually, it seemed they were condensed into one geographical hotspot buried in the mountains of Great Himalaya.
One of the Bhutanese men — a thirty-something man dressed in faded army fatigues — rose from his chair and crossed the enormous foyer, the sound of his footsteps echoing off the hardwood far above their heads. He drew to a halt only inches in front of Griffin and furrowed his brow.
‘Weapons,’ Griffin said, electing to keep things simple.
‘You don’t need to speak to me like a child. I’m the translator.’
‘Oh.’
‘I take it you’re just as unwilling to share the purpose of your visit as my superiors were.’
‘Afraid so. It’s a matter of national security, though.’
‘We do not need an American protecting us.’
‘I never said you did.’
‘Interesting…’
‘Look,’ Griffin said. ‘I’m on a tight schedule here. Either give me what I need or send me on my way and deal with the consequences later.’
‘Is that a threat?’
‘I know almost as little as you do about all of this. Trust me. Just help me out here.’
‘You don’t need to beg. I have to help you out. Those are the orders. But don’t think I’m happy about it.’
‘I don’t care what you think.’
With the tension crackling in the air, the translator led Griffin through to a converted windowless room deep in the bowels of the fortress. Metal shelving had been erected around the room, and a collection of weaponry rested atop the shelves. Griffin cast his eyes over a few Kalashnikovs, a Heckler & Koch G3, and an assortment of Browning sidearms. He stood in place, mulling over his next steps, Lars’ words ringing in his ears.
‘Well,’ the translator said expectantly. ‘Help yourself.’
‘I’m just thinking.’
‘I don’t know what you need these for, but I hope your intentions are good.’
Griffin could sense the desperation in the man’s tone. He wanted something, anything, to reassure him. Being kept in the dark was a horrifying experience under the correct circumstances — Griffin thought of the last couple of weeks of his life and understood exactly how the translator was feeling.
‘My intentions are good,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I can’t say more.’
‘Is your business in the Paro Valley?’
‘I can’t say.’
The translator didn’t respond, but the tension considerably amplified. Griffin ignored the cold sweat materialising in his palms and crossed the tiny room. He picked up a black INSAS assault rifle — carted over from India, no doubt — and studied it. Truth was, he hadn’t been this uncertain in his entire life. He had listened to every word Lars had said regarding the advised approach to the monastery, but he had never taken a risk like that before.
Leave the big guns, Lars had said. Take a Browning Hi-Power and act like a lost traveller.
But Griffin couldn’t bring himself to do that. Striding up to an ancient fortress with a sidearm and a barebones plan of attack was asking to die.
He had to look at the situation objectively. Everything Lars had told him about the mountain temple all but eliminated a conventional approach. Trying to storm the fortress with guns blazing would best be reserved for the Royal Army, and it more than likely wouldn’t work.
And there were few ways to conceal a full-auto assault rifle.
Griffin gulped back the humid air and put the INSAS back into place.
He picked up a loaded Browning Hi-Power, collected four additional fifteen-round magazines — giving him seventy-five total 9mm rounds to work with — and slotted the weapon into his waistband, drawing his belt tight over the gun.
Then he turned back to the translator.
‘I’m done,’ he said, wondering whether he was making the biggest mistake of his life.
6
The translator froze in place. Sweat had appeared on the man’s brow. It was clear that he was nervous. Griffin couldn’t imagine the extent of the man’s uncertainty.
‘I don’t understand,’ the translator said. ‘I was under the impression you were preparing for war.’
‘I just needed a gun. One gun. There must have been a breakdown in communication.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘We already discussed this. I can’t—’
The speed with which the translator drew his weapon astonished Griffin — he missed the half-second window to wrench the Browning out of his waistband, and as a result found himself staring down the barrel of an identical sidearm.
Looking death in the eye.
There was nothing pleasant about having a weapon pointed at you. Griffin didn’t take it lightly. Even though the translator was no doubt rabid for answers and uncomfortable with a stranger moving freely through his building, that didn’t excuse the gun.
Griffin turned his face to stone. ‘Put that down.’
‘No!’ the man barked. ‘What is this shit? I get a call from my commander saying that I need to let an American arm himself, and that it’s out of my hands. You will tell me what you are doing or—’
‘Or what?’ Griffin barked. ‘You going to shoot me right here? Good luck explaining that.’
‘You will not leave this room until—’
Griffin cut him off for the second time consecutively by raising his arms up in the air, palms facing the translator, who had taken up the entire doorway in an effort to look imposing. Griffin allowed as much innocence as possible to creep into his expression and he stepped forward with tentative motions, even though his heart hammered against his chest wall.
‘Let’s just calm things down,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to get into this. I’ll be out of your hair now. I just needed a Browning.’
‘Why do you need the Browning?’
‘You don’t let up, do you?’
‘I want to know. I’m not comfortable with letting a complete stranger walk out of this building armed. No matter what my superiors say.’
‘You’re a soldier. You follow orders. What do you think you’ll achieve by disobeying your commander?’
‘What if he’s corrupt? What if you’re going to go and kill innocent people? I could not live with myself.’
‘I’m not going to do that.’
‘How can I know for sure?’
‘You’re just going to have to take my word for it.’
‘That’s not good enough.’ The translator reached down with his free hand and yanked a bulky satellite phone out of the pocket of his fatigues. He tossed it underhanded across the room and Griffin caught it. ‘I was told to give this to you. It’s got GPS co-ordinates preset into it by whoever is responsible for you.’
‘Did you look at the co-ordinates?’
‘Of course.’
‘Were you told not to?’
‘Of course. Why are you headed into the mountains?’
‘I’m not allowed to share anything with you,’ Griffin said.
‘You going to put that thing down?’ Griffin said.
‘Not yet.’
No-one had come running in to defuse the situation, mostly because they were both still speaking in calm, controlled voices. But there was no mistaking the horrendous fear in the air — both from the translator trying to squeeze out answers, and from Griffin wondering whether the man would pull the trigger and everything would go dark.
He kept his demeanour as relaxed as possible, waiting for the slightest opening.
‘Please tell me,’ the translator said, growing increasingly frustrated. ‘I want to know that I’m doing the right thing.’
‘You are doing the right thing, but I’ve received direct orders not to—’
‘Fuck the orders. Tell me right now. I could kill you here and we could bury you out the back — none of the men in this building would care. We could tell your superiors that we let you out into the valley and never saw you again…’
‘That wouldn’t be very nice.’
‘I don’t know whether you are a nice guy or not.’
‘Are we going to go around in circles all day?’
‘No. You will tell me what—’
‘Okay,’ Griffin said.
‘What?’
‘I said okay.’
‘Okay, you’ll tell me?’
‘If you really want to know, then—’
Halfway through the sentence Griffin reached out a hand with his fingers splayed, trying his best to make it seem like he meant no harm. It was a lackadaisical gesture — as if he were inexperienced in the realm of combat and simply trying to wave off the Browning pointed at his head. He knew he wouldn’t be able to actually brush the sidearm away, but he only needed to…
Now.
His fingers hovered a few inches away from the barrel of the Browning and Griffin suddenly transformed into a raging battering ram, injecting his movements with enough explosive energy to take complete control of the situation in a heartbeat. With his outstretched hand he smashed the gun off the centre-line, knocking the translator’s wrist into the closest wall. Simultaneously he powered his other fist into the guy’s chin, transferring enough kinetic energy to send the guy sprawling off his feet. A crack emanated from the man’s jaw and Griffin followed up by kicking him in the side of the head hard enough to knock him unconscious.
A fistfight, especially involving someone of Griffin’s abilities, was always a strange dynamic. Before the confrontation had unfolded there had been no energy whatsoever in Griffin’s limbs. Then he’d flooded himself with rage and decimated the translator in a couple of strikes. Now that the man was stripped of his consciousness, Griffin’s limbs slackened and he returned to his usual demeanour.
The life of the patient warrior.
Brutality, then nothingness.
He crouched down and snatched hold of the translator’s fatigues, dragging the guy over the threshold and dumping his unresisting body in the equipment room. The man would come to in a few seconds but it would take him a couple of minutes to get his bearings.
That was all the time Griffin needed.
He shut the door behind him and double-checked the Browning Hi-Power was still slotted into place in his waistband. Satisfied, he hurried down the corridor and emerged back out into the main foyer as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all.
None of the other Bhutanese soldiers spoke English, so Griffin simply smiled and nodded, indicating he had all he’d come for.
A couple of them nodded back, and ushered him to the open entrance doors leading back out into the biting cold.
He was not their concern.
He offered a farewell smile and left the Dzong fortress behind. He adjusted the duffel bag on his shoulders and strode down the gravel trail, heading for the same rural road cutting along the bottom of the valley, twisting and weaving through farmland.
Far in the distance the mountain range beckoned.
Griffin quickened his pace, sensing the darkness behind him. Soon the semiconscious translator would be discovered and all hell would break loose, but by then Griffin would be lost in the wilderness, trekking through North Himalaya toward an unknown threat.
Despite everything, something told him this was what he had been put on this earth to do.
The timing was too coincidental. The ancient monastery drew him toward the mountains, and he simply put one foot in front of the other and followed.
Fourteen mercenaries.
He didn’t stand a chance.
But he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if he’d refused. He would have turned on the television one day and heard about a chimera virus unleashed upon a nation, tearing innocent people apart from the inside.
No.
He now knew why he’d ended up in Bhutan.
7
The satellite phone in his hand beeped intermittently to correct his course, but for the most part the journey into the mountains consisted of Colt Griffin alone with his thoughts, putting one foot in front of the other without a sign of life in any direction.
He had ample opportunities to accept his potential fate. He’d seen combat before, but nothing of this nature. Nothing of a one-man-army variety, which apparently his life would become if he survived this ordeal and accepted a position in Black Force’s ranks. The thought tantalised him, and the strange nature of the approaching combat actually sent a shiver of anticipation down his spine.
Time and time again he looked to his left, and then to his right, as if expecting to find fellow soldiers heading into the madness.
But it was just him, alone in the valley, draped in civilian clothes with a rucksack on his back and a semi-automatic pistol shoved into the waistband of his outdoor hiking pants.
A nomadic wanderer, headed for trouble.
It suited him fine.
Then all those thoughts melted away, replaced by an existential dread that permeated through to his core. He had to come to terms with the fact that he might die in these mountains, but it bothered him far less than he’d originally expected. He had taken each promotion during his career in stride, always keeping the knowledge in the back of his mind that every time he accelerated up through the ranks it carried a greater likelihood of dying.
He didn’t care.
The flat stretch of farmland began to incline, beginning the ascent into the mountains. Griffin put his elite physical conditioning to work and ignored the lactic acid burning in his calves as he strode up vast hillsides. Every now and then he passed a local, all of whom shot him puzzled looks. They probably didn’t see tourists this far off the beaten track without accompanying guides.
But he didn’t need their concern.
He knew how to handle himself.
One hour blended into two. There was no going back — he had come too far. He fished into his duffel bag and took a long drink on a plastic bottle of distilled water, then wolfed down a pair of protein bars he’d picked up from a supply shop near the airport.
He’d figured at the time that relying on local food vendors could sometimes result in being stranded in the middle of nowhere without direct access to supplies, and now that precautionary measure was paying dividends.
He continued on, and the landscape became more alien still.
Griffin couldn’t help but stare in awe at the staggering cliff faces all around him, most of the rock a mix between grey granite and stunning ochre. Lush vegetation covered great swathes of the cliffs, and there wasn’t a soul in sight.
The sheer silence of the region struck a chord with him, making the Browning at his hip appear entirely unnecessary.
It seemed like an unsuppressed gunshot in these m
ountains would rival a blast of TNT in its intensity. It would disrupt the peace that seeped through the region.
But Griffin reminded himself that the peace had already been disturbed.
Despite the isolation and the wind howling through the mountains, the satellite phone never faltered. Connected to devices tens of thousands of miles skyward, it kept him on a straight path through the maze of rural trails, taking him up the side of cliff faces, always heading for the strange monastery tucked into the depths of the mountains.
Earlier into his trip Griffin had deliberated about visiting Tiger’s Nest, the most famous monastery in Bhutan. Positioned in picturesque fashion atop a slab of stone on a mountainside, he’d decided not to venture that way at risk of having to mingle with a horde of tourists with similar intentions. He’d wanted to spend the trip finding peace with himself, heading far off the beaten track to destinations seldom visited by anyone.
Now, he was taking that concept to the extreme.
The GPS told him the ancient fortress was less than a mile from his current position, and his pulse quickened as he pressed forward along a zigzagging mountain trail running through the bottom of a narrow valley. Trees clogged the way on either side, and far above his head the cliffs and mountains speared into the sky.
He was an ant amongst titans.
Ten minutes later he made it out of the tree line, keeping his hands looped around the straps of his duffel bag in case anyone was watching from afar. He had never imitated a foolish civilian before, and the experience proved strangely unnerving.
In linear combat, both parties were under no illusions as to each other’s intentions. They simply wanted to kill each other.
Now, he was testing new concepts.
Deception.
Infiltration.
He whistled as he strolled, breaking free from the claustrophobic valley trail and stepping out onto a potholed road arcing up the side of a relatively steep hillside. That same hillside transformed into a staggering line of mountains, elevating into the low-hanging cloud and disappearing from sight.