Kara Kush

  Their eyes met, and Halima Iskandari felt as if something had died within her.

  People spoke of the fires of Hell. Was there a hell worse than this?

  Sementsev was watching, alternately throwing back tots of white spirit and chewing nuts and raisins, a fixed smile on his face. He had looked into Halima’s eyes and he had seen just what he wanted. He had won, as he’d known he would.

  ‘Mrs Iskandari, you will either talk, now, or you will see what can happen to a girl, with all the possible variations, performed in front of you, starting with these idiots here, and followed by, oh, shall we say, twenty or thirty others.’

  ‘“I call you to the judgement of God, before tomorrow’s dawn!”’ Without knowing what she was saying, Halima screamed the words from the Classics, ‘“Have fear of the cry of the oppressed!”’

  The Russian laughed, really enjoying himself.

  ‘Yes, yes, Afganka, I’ll remember that. God’s going to call me for a little talk about sulphur and brimstone and demons with pitchforks, before the sun rises once more. Very poetic, old witch. But you will talk now, won’t you?’

  He knew the answer before she said it.

  ‘Yes, I’ll talk. May God destroy you and all your people, as he has destroyed the evil ones a thousand times before!’

  Sementsev could hardly stop laughing. What a comedy for an atheist, to see these wretched creatures relying on something that did not exist.

  Sementsev sent the other men out of the room. Security would have to be absolute: the secret – and the credit – would be his alone.

  He stood before her and, after a moment, nodded, as though signalling the exact instant when she should speak.

  Halima Iskandari told him about the caves, deep in the Paghman mountains where The Eagle, Kara Kush, was to be found.

  Sementsev slapped her face. ‘You realize that if you have lied, you and your daughter will have to pay even more than you already have?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He was too good an interrogator to doubt that she had told the truth.

  Then he handcuffed the girl’s wrists behind her back and raped her while her mother watched.

  When he had finished, Sementsev got up from the floor and walked to a hook on the wall, from which he took down two wooden handles connected by a piece of piano-wire. Slowly, with an entranced expression on his face, an expression which made him look almost benign, he strangled both the women. Security was complete. It was a very satisfactory feeling: especially as he still had his birthday party to look forward to.

  ‘Dead before tomorrow’s dawn’, indeed! Dead? He was just beginning to live.

  Absolute security. The woman was dead. He’d got The Eagle’s location and would report it personally to the military in the morning, verbally. By tomorrow afternoon The Eagle and his band would be wiped out or in prison.

  Now it was time for a good hot bath, a shave and a change into uniform. After that, a pleasant drive home to dear, plump Natalia and the birthday party which she was preparing at this very moment.

  He chuckled all the way to the house, at the memory of the curse. ‘Hello, God! I’ve come a little early, but you see this crazy Afganka woman summoned me to appear before you before tomorrow’s dawn …’

  It was cold, now, in the tree, and the Mirza hadn’t brought a warm coat. The quarry was undoubtedly away, at work. That meant he’d have to wait until six, at least. No sign of life from the house: nobody had been in or out for – how long? Nearly six hours; it was now three o’clock in the afternoon. There had been so little movement around the place that the Mirza, at first thankful that all was so quiet, now craved almost any stimulus, any sign that would connect him with his enemy. Only the busy helicopters, on observation missions, had disturbed the silence of the day.

  The workmen who must be involved with the improved security, the tower, the light, had not appeared. Just as well. Time to check in now. He called the colonel, sticking to the agreed wording. The washing on the line twitched in answer. Surprising how long a day could be if one was doing nothing …

  Suddenly, the Mirza stiffened. A delivery truck, its canvas hood strapped down, had arrived at the door of the Russian’s house. The driver got down, stood by the barbed-wire fence gesticulating, and seemed to be shouting. Within a few seconds, the patrol appeared. Either there was nobody in the sentry-boxes, or they were asleep. Anyway, the Mirza hadn’t seen any guard-change yet. Holding the dogs back, the guards, two of them, opened the gate in the fence and beckoned the vehicle inside. It was driven to the back of the house, out of sight. Well, nothing much there. It didn’t look like Sementsev coming back, unless he was taking extreme precautions, a possibility which the rest of the picture did not bear out. Besides, the truck wasn’t guarded or armed so far as one could see. And why would Sementsev be returning in mid-afternoon? A few minutes later the truck appeared again and, waved through by the same guards as before, rolled along the drive and disappeared in the direction of Kabul. False alarm.

  The Mirza reflected, at 6 p.m., that in only fifteen hours he’d have to be at Kabul Airport, heading for home. Time was his luxury.

  *

  It was going to be even colder tonight. If he had to wait until then, the Mirza was prepared to do the job at close quarters. Somehow, in that case, he’d have to get through that barbed wire. Not over it: the height was more than fifteen feet. Evade, or deal with, the dogs and the patrol, and any other guards who might appear. Find where the quarry was, and deal with him. And then get out and away, if that were possible. If not, Colonel Sakafi would get the news back to Amin. He was only ten years old, but he was already a good shot and spoke the two chief Afghan languages, like all the family. It might be, say, four years before Amin could undertake the task, but that he would do it, and avenge his father, the Mirza was certain.

  Eight-forty. It was time for the sunset prayer.

  Eight-fifty p.m. There was a car coming, its engine drowning out the wail of the distant Kabul curfew siren. A large Chaika, the Russian model which looked like one of the flashy old Packards, without an escort, coming in very fast, off the main road. This must be him. There were lights on in the house now, and a bright one illuminating the front entrance. Why no escort? Because it was probably safer to look anonymous: a car could be ambushed on the road if it had a telltale escort of motorcyclists.

  The men of the patrol had opened the barbed-wire gate before the lumbering, twenty-foot long Chaika reached it. They could be seen, dimly, standing to attention just inside. The Mirza suddenly cursed. If he had known more about the conditions, that would have been the perfect place for the ambush. They hadn’t surveyed things properly, any more than he had. Of course, he’d had no time, but they had had plenty. There was a clump of bushes where he could have hidden, and a couple of grenades would have done the job from there. People on guard, standing to attention, were ridiculous under alert conditions. All very well when you were playing soldiers, on a parade ground or ‘standing guard’ somewhere for ceremonial purposes.

  Too late for that now. The car swept into the drive, headlamps on full beam, and stopped at the front door. A rectangle of light flooded out. The man who was opening the door looked like a soldier. Mr Sementsev’s wife was wise not to greet her husband herself. Or perhaps she was busy with the dinner arrangements. No chance to shoot.

  The KGB chief – or at any rate, a man of medium height – entered the house, and the car was driven to the back. There must be another garage there, or perhaps the driver was going to the kitchen for a snack and a smoke.

  More lights in the windows. Yes, that must be the main reception room. Ground floor. It had long curtains, filmy ones, which showed up the heavy iron bars. Looking at the windows through the telescopic sight did not help much. The gauze of the curtains fuzzed everything in the room beyond. Except some moving figures. No, what would have been useful was an infra-red sight or telescope, to sweep the immediate approach to the place, to learn of any movement around the h
ouse, in case he had to go into the close-quarters mode. Some infra-red sniperscopes intensified even starlight, made the darkness almost as bright as day …

  The thought suddenly struck him. Infra-red, of course! For all he knew, everything he did was being watched, from the house, by infra-red. Then he remembered that the Dragunow had a sophisticated infra-red detector. He could check.

  The Mirza felt for the detector switch. There it was, at the top left of the ’scope, three-quarters of the way along. Flick it on. He moved the range drum to setting ‘4’, for infra-red, and looked through the sight. No sign. Now sweep from left to right, slowly. If an orange-red blob appeared in the telescope, it would mark the point from which he was being observed. He could hit such a source in the dark, by aligning the reticule on it, but the muzzle-flash of the shot would give away his presence. No coloured light. No infra-red. He relaxed.

  Time to test the night-firing procedure. The Dragunow had a battery-operated shielded lamp which lit the sight needle when a switch on the gun barrel was turned. Yes, it worked perfectly. Just as well the battery hadn’t run down. The Mirza could see the glow of his sight perfectly.

  That about completed the technical work. Time to do some more dynamic exercises, or he wouldn’t be able to run when the time came. And, of course, the finger and knuckle exercises, to keep supple for the trigger work.

  Nine o’clock. The Mirza checked in on the mini-transmitter. Too dark to see the washing on the line now. The colonel would turn on the bathroom light to signify ‘received your message’. Yes, there it was. Strange to think that his lifeline was a yard of flimsy wire.

  He turned back to his quarry’s house just in time to see the first cars approaching from the main road. There was a whole string of them. Several were those outdated five-seater Zhigulis, Russian copies of the old American Plymouth. They cost $12,000 and were greatly coveted by high officials. As automobiles, they were rubbish; but as Soviet status symbols they were second only to the top car, the luxurious Zils, imitations of the Lincoln Continental. The cars stopped, to be checked and admitted through the security gate. As each car deposited its passengers, it drew to the side and did not immediately leave, allowing the following cars to let their occupants out. Then, when there was a gap, the car turned, went down the drive, passed through the gate, and headed towards the Kabul road again. So, Sementsev was giving a party.

  As each guest arrived, the Mirza could see a man in the warm glow of the front door with his hand extended. Sometimes a formal handshake, sometimes an embrace with both arms, sometimes a real bear-hug. There was no doubt that this thickset figure was Sementsev, the quarry, the tiger. And he was only about five feet seven inches tall. Good. And the guests? No doubt, either, that they were the bait which had brought him out.

  Sitting in his machan, looking at his tiger, Mirza Timur-Khel chuckled to himself. There it was. He had lacked a lure, the customary goat. But he had not had to bring his own. The tiger was providing a whole herd of them.

  The guests did not start to leave Sementsev’s house until well after midnight. The Mirza had counted the hours, keeping himself awake with difficulty. In such cramped conditions there was a great danger of falling asleep. He had been here for fifteen hours now: no tiger ambush ever lasted more than nine or ten hours, at the very most.

  Here they were, at last; guests leaving, cars picking them up, affectionate and slightly drunken farewells, floodlights on. With luck, he might get the man, though only as a silhouette.

  That was rather a problem. Every marksman has fired at sometime or other in the dark, of course: but always at a lighted target. Whenever Sementsev came to the door to speed a guest he was not in the light. The bulb shone behind him, outlining his head almost like a halo. Would that affect the aim, mislead the retina, cause the bullet to go wide?

  The Mirza had counted some thirty people going into the house, and had not had a single chance to shoot. At least ten times he had started to squeeze the trigger when, through the magnifying telescope, he had had the host’s head in the middle of the crossed threads. But always he had moved away, almost as if he knew that he was in the sights.

  So there were thirty who would be going home, and, not all of them at once of course, so there should be several opportunities. He knew nothing about Russian parties. How long did people stay? Were they all seen off by their host?

  In the event, the guests left in ones and twos. Sementsev came out each time to say goodbye. They were drifting away now at quite nicely spaced intervals. They must have telephoned for their cars, which were always waiting when the door opened.

  Seven people had left so far. There were now less than six hours left. That raised another question. Would it be better to wait for most of them to go, or to strike as soon as he had a perfect opportunity? In the first case, there would be less people available for pursuit. In the second, he could start his escape straight away, while he still felt like it. Because there was an itch in his mind which suggested that he might shoot Sementsev and then, instead of retreating, finish off a few more of them, just for the sport of it. But no, some might be innocent; he was here as an executioner, not a murderer.

  He had wedged the gun on an improvised rack, nailed to the branch in front of him, so that he could use it, like the ancient musketeers, to take the weight and prevent the trembling which came from muscle-fatigue.

  The rifle now lay at the perfect angle, its butt against his cheek. It was pointed directly, and slightly downwards, towards the place where Sementsev’s head was usually to be seen when he came out of the door. It was a self-loader, of course.

  The Mirza sat still, breathing slowly and evenly, with every muscle slack, his eyes glued to the rubber moulding of the sight. Tension caused wobble. At this range that could be a real problem. He did not want to loose off shot after shot, like some cowboy in a movie, however satisfying it might feel. He was a trained sharpshooter: professionalism almost demanded that he should do the job in one shot.

  The door opened a crack, then stopped. He noted with satisfaction that his breathing was not affected; the pulse-rate perhaps, he could not tell, but the breath was perfect. He was glad that he did not smoke: shallow breathing was the best, but it had to be in long, even breaths.

  Was Sementsev never going to open that door?

  The time dragged on. Two o’clock. Five hours to airport check-in.

  Now the door-crack was opening wider. Sementsev and his friend must have been having a last-minute word, or perhaps it was a drunken handshake. The guests who had come out last were staggering slightly, and one stumbled and even fell. An extra bonus.

  The door was wide open now. There he was, the tiger, moving forward. If he came any farther, he’d be too woolly, less than a shadow, and it wouldn’t be worth trying. Now here was the man Sementsev was seeing off. Good, there was no confusing them: the other man was very short and slim, and Sementsev looked almost tall beside him. Yes, both were moving slowly, swaying slightly.

  They were still talking. The guest stepped almost, but not quite, beyond the range of the light. Better still. Through the magnifying lens of the ’scope, the hunter saw Sementsev move forward. Now: he was the perfect target. Stay there, murderer, while sentence is carried out … he fired. The recoil compensator was so good he hardly felt the weapon lurch.

  A tremendous urge to run, to get out of the tree, even to fall out, to run forward and attack or else to run away, away to safety, began to take hold of him. He could feel it spreading through his whole body, like the craving for a drug. One word came rushing to the rescue: discipline. The Mirza’s army training had not been wasted, or forgotten. He sat stock still. This feels like an age, he thought, but I must wait until I see him fall.

  It must have been less than a second, for so far the man had not moved at all. Then, as if hit by a tremendous punch, Sementsev spun sideways, into the lintel of the door, arms upraised, knees stiff, body curving. It was like slow-motion, and the Mirza could see his every movement a
s he fell. He was too experienced a hunter not to know when the quarry has been killed. No, Sementsev had not been merely wounded, however badly. He was, clearly – and cleanly – dead.

  As the Mirza gathered up his rifle and equipment, he could see that the people at the front door were milling about, like ants when their nest is disturbed, their very movements speaking of their puzzlement. He kissed the warm metal of the gun.

  He had expected to be exhilarated, and he was. But he had not reckoned with the euphoria which now made him want to stop, to go straight home to his wife and child, like someone who has been to an entertainment in town, and now wants only to rejoin reality, perhaps to talk it over in a warm room, sipping a cup of tea and munching tiny sweet almond pies, with the curtains drawn against the winter …

  The floodlights had gone out, and there was some firing, though not in his direction. Perhaps a panic-stricken Russian had imagined that they were being attacked by guerrillas from the road. Good, they still did not know what had really happened, so they would not know what to do. Perhaps they needed a good NCO, someone to take charge. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said aloud, to the picture of Sementsev’s family in his mind. ‘But it was a debt, and it is not seemly that a man should owe.’ To Sementsev’s shade he said, ‘You hanged a child, and we gave you a soldier’s death.’

  Now he was down from the tree. No cramp. Lucky he had remembered to do static exercises. Well, perhaps a bit stiff. That would soon wear off. No time to talk to the colonel. But the old man must know that something, good or bad, had happened, since there had been no call at two o’clock.

  Over the wall, on to the ground. Now down the road, up the slope. Hard to see in the dark. He followed the road, though quite slowly, by dragging and tapping a stick which he had picked up. Moving incongruously like a blind man at a trot, the tap of the wood telling him when he was off the tarmac surface. The smell of honeysuckle was now very strong. There was a bush of it directly beside his destination.