Batson advanced. “Is that a weapon? Give it to me now.”
Casey shifted in his seat, winced, and evidently decided he wasn’t going anywhere. He held out his weapon to Batson, butt first. “Have you rubes ever seen one of these? It’s what we call a skinny-popper. An MP-93, a nine-millimeter submachine gun. German make . . .”
“Germans,” hissed Ruddy. “I knew it.”
“Be careful, or you’ll stitch your own damn head off.” Casey’s accent was undoubtedly American, but it sounded coarse to Josh, like a New York City slum dweller’s, while the woman sounded British, but with a flat, unfamiliar intonation to her voice.
From her seat the woman bent over Casey. “I think your tibia is broken,” she said. “Crushed under the seat . . . I’d sue the manufacturer if I were you.”
“Up your ass, your majesty,” Casey said through gritted teeth.
The woman said now, “Can I get out of here?”
Batson nodded. He set the “submachine gun” on the ground, where it gleamed, fascinating, baffling, and stood back, beckoning her. Batson was doing a good job, Josh thought; he kept the three intruders covered with his own weapon, and continually checked the troops around him to make sure all angles were monitored.
The woman had a tough time clambering out of the couch behind the two front seats, but at last she stood on the rocky ground. The second pilot, the Indian, climbed out too. He had the complexion of a sepoy but pale blue eyes and startling blond hair. All the machine’s crew wore clothing so bulky it masked their forms, making them seem inhuman, and wiry gadgets clung to their faces. “I guess it could have been worse,” the woman said. “I wasn’t expecting to walk away from this crash.”
The other replied, “I guess Casey won’t be, for a time. But these birds are designed for worst-case hard landings. Look—the sensor pod crumpled and absorbed a lot of the shock. The pilot seats are mounted on shock absorbers too, as is your bench. I think the spin sent Casey’s seat tipping to the left, and that was what did his leg in—he was unlucky—”
Batson interrupted. “Enough of your bukkin’. Who’s in charge?”
The woman glanced at the others and shrugged. “I’m the ranker. This is Chief Warrant Officer Abdikadir Omar; in the chopper you see Chief Warrant Officer Casey Othic. I’m Lieutenant Bisesa Dutt. British Army, on assignment to United Nations special forces operating out of—”
Ruddy laughed. “By Allah. A lieutenant in the British Army! And she’s a babu!”
Bisesa Dutt turned and glared at him. To his credit, Josh thought, Ruddy blushed under his Lahore sore. Josh knew that babu was a contemptuous Anglo-Indian term for those educated Indians who aspired to senior positions in the dominion’s administration.
Bisesa said, “We need to get Casey out of there. Do you have doctors?” She was putting on a show of strength, Josh thought, admirable given she had just come through an extraordinary crash and was being held at gunpoint. But he sensed a deeper fear.
Batson turned to one of the privates. “McKnight, run and fetch Captain Grove.”
“Right-oh.” The private, short and stocky, turned and ran barefoot over the broken ground.
Ruddy nudged Josh. “Come, Joshua, we need to be involved!” He hurried forward. “Ma’am, please—let us help.”
Bisesa studied Ruddy, his broad forehead crusted with dust, his beetling eyebrows, his defiant mustache. She was taller than he and she looked down on him with contempt, Josh thought—though with an odd puzzlement, a kind of recognition. She said, “You? You’ll come to the aid of a mere babu?”
Josh stepped forward, his most charming grin fixed in place. “You mustn’t mind Ruddy, ma’am. These expatriates have their eccentricities, and the soldiers are too busy holding out their guns at you. Come, let’s get on with it.” And he strode toward the “chopper,” rolling up his sleeves.
Abdikadir beckoned to Ruddy and Josh. “Help me lift him out.” With Abdikadir supporting from the far side, Ruddy got hold of Casey’s back, while Josh, cautiously, got his arms under his legs. Another man produced a blanket from somewhere and laid it on the ground. Abdikadir gave them a lead: “One, two, three, up.” Casey screamed when they raised him off his seat, and again when Josh allowed his damaged leg to brush the frame of the “chopper.” But in seconds they had Casey out and set on his side on the blanket.
Breathing hard, Josh studied Abdikadir. He was a big man, made bulkier by his uniform, his blue eyes striking. “You’re Indian?”
“Afghan,” Abdikadir said evenly. He watched Josh’s startled reaction. “Actually I’m a Pashtun. I take it you don’t have too many of us in your army.”
“Not exactly,” Josh said. “But then it isn’t my army.” Abdikadir said nothing more, but Josh had the sense that he knew, or had guessed, more about this strange situation than anybody else.
Private McKnight came running back, breathless. He said to Bisesa and Abdikadir, “Captain Grove wants to see the two of you in his office.”
Batson nodded. “Move.”
“No,” Casey grunted from his blanket. “Don’t leave the ship. You know the drill, Abdi. Wipe the damn memory. We don’t know who these people are—”
“These people,” Batson said menacingly, “have big guns that are pointing at you. Choop and chel.”
Bisesa and Abdikadir seemed confused by Batson’s mixture of strong Geordie with bits of Frontier argot, but his meaning was clear enough: shut up and move. “I don’t think we have a choice right now, Casey,” Bisesa said.
“And you, chum,” Batson said to Casey, “are heading for the infirmary.” Josh saw Casey was trying to conceal his alarm at this prospect.
Bisesa turned to go with McKnight, escorted by a few more armed privates. “We’ll come find you as soon as we can, Casey.”
“Yes,” Abdikadir called. “Don’t let them saw anything off in the meantime.”
“Ha ha, you prick,” Casey growled.
Ruddy muttered, “It seems that soldiers’ humor is universal, no matter where they come from.”
Josh and Ruddy tried to tag along with Bisesa and Abdikadir, but Batson politely but firmly turned them away.
7: CAPTAIN GROVE
Bisesa and Abdikadir were walked to the fort they had glimpsed from the air. It turned out to be a box-shaped enclosure surrounded by stout stone walls, with round watchtowers in each corner. It was a substantial base, and evidently well maintained.
“But it’s not on any map I ever saw,” Bisesa said tensely. Abdikadir didn’t reply.
The walls were manned by soldiers in red coats or khaki jackets. Some even wore kilts. The soldiers all seemed short, wiry, and many had bad teeth and skin infections; they wore kit that was heavily patched and worn. Native or otherwise, the soldiers all stared with open curiosity at Bisesa and Abdikadir—and, regarding Bisesa, with undisguised sexual speculation.
“No women here,” Abdikadir murmured. “Don’t let it bother you.”
“I wasn’t.” Too much had happened to her today, she told herself, for her to allow a few leering troopers in pith helmets and kilts to worry her. But the truth was her stomach churned; it was never good for a woman to be captured.
The heavy gates were open, and carts drawn by mules passed through. What looked like a stripped-down artillery piece was carried on the back of a couple more mules. The mules were driven by Indian troopers—what Bisesa heard the white soldiers call sepoys.
Inside the fort there was an air of bustle and orderly activity. But, Bisesa thought, what was more remarkable than what was here was what was lacking, such as any kind of motor vehicle, radio antenna or satellite dish.
They were taken into the main central building, and led to a kind of anteroom. Here McKnight issued a blunt order: “Strip.” His sergeant major, he said, wasn’t about to let them into the Captain’s hallowed presence without a thorough check of what was concealed under their bulky flight suits.
Bisesa forced a grin. “I think you just want to take a peek at my butt.” She was
gratified by the look of genuine shock on McKnight’s face. Then she start to peel off her layers, starting with her boots.
Under her flight suit she wore a load-bearing harness. Into its pockets she had crammed a canteen of water, maps, a set of night-vision goggles, a couple of packs of chewing gum, a small plastic first aid pack, other survival rations and gear—and her phone, which had the sense to keep itself inert. She crammed her useless wraparound microphone into an outside pocket. Off came shirt and trousers. They were both allowed to stop when they got down to their dirt-brown T-shirts and shorts.
They were unarmed, save for a bayonet knife Abdikadir carried strapped under his harness. He handed this over to McKnight with some reluctance. McKnight picked up the night goggles and peered through them, evidently baffled. Their little plastic boxes of kit were snapped open and rummaged through.
Then they were allowed to dress again, and were given back most of their gear—but not the knife, and not, Bisesa noted with amusement, her chewing gum.
After that, to Bisesa’s astonishment, Captain Grove, the commanding officer, kept them waiting.
The two of them sat side by side in his office, on a hard wooden bench. A single private stood guard at the door, rifle ready. The Captain’s room had a certain comfort, even elegance. The walls were whitewashed, the floor wooden; there was rush matting on the floor, and what looked like a Kashmiri rug hanging on one wall. This was obviously the office of a working professional. On a big wooden desk there were piles of papers and cardboard folders, and a nib pen standing in an ink pot. There were some personal touches, like a polo ball set on the desk, and a big old grandfather clock that ticked mournfully. But there was no electric light; only oil lamps supplemented the fading glow from the single small window.
Bisesa felt compelled to whisper. “It’s like a museum. Where are the softscreens, the radios, the phones? There’s nothing here but paper.”
Abdikadir said, “And yet they ran an empire, with paper.”
She stared at him. “They? Where do you think we are?”
“Jamrud,” he said without hesitation. “A fortress—nineteenth-century—built by the Sikhs, maintained by the British.”
“You’ve been here?”
“I’ve seen pictures. I’ve studied the history—it’s my region, after all. But the books show it as a ruin.”
Bisesa frowned, unable to grasp that. “Well, it isn’t a ruin now.”
“Their kit,” murmured Abdikadir. “Did you notice? Puttees and Sam Browne belts. And their weapons—those rifles were single-shot breech-loading Martini-Henrys and Sniders. Seriously out of date. That stuff hasn’t been used since the British were here in the nineteenth century, and even they moved over to Lee Metfords, Gatlings and Maxims as soon as they were available.”
“When was that?”
Abdikadir shrugged. “I’m not sure. The 1890s, I think.”
“The 1890s?”
“Have you tried your survival radio?” They both carried tracking beacons sewn into their harnesses, as well as miniaturized survival radio transceivers, thankfully undetected during McKnight’s inspection.
“No joy. The phone’s still out of touch too. No more signal than when we were in the air.” She shivered slightly. “Nobody knows where we are, or where we came down. Or even if we’re alive.” It wasn’t just the crash that spooked her, she knew. It was the feeling of being out of contact—cut off from the warmly interconnected world in which she had been immersed since the moment of her birth. For a citizen of the twenty-first century it was a unique, disorienting feeling of isolation.
Abdikadir’s hand slipped over hers, and she was grateful for the warm human connection. He said, “They’ll start search-and-retrieve operations soon. That crashed Bird is a big marker. Although it’s getting dark outside.”
Somehow she had forgotten that bit of strangeness. “It’s too early to get dark.”
“Yes. I don’t know about you but I feel a little jet-lagged . . .”
Captain Grove bustled in, accompanied by an orderly, and they stood up. Grove was a short, slightly overweight, stressed-looking officer of perhaps forty, in a light khaki uniform. Bisesa noted dust on his boots and puttees: he was a man who put his job before appearances, she thought. But he sported an immense walrus mustache, the largest facial growth Bisesa had seen outside a wrestling ring.
Grove stood before them, hands on hips, glaring at them. “Batson told me your names, and what you claim are your ranks.” His accent was clipped, oddly out of date, like the British officer class in a World War II movie. “And I’ve been to see that machine of yours.”
Bisesa said, “We were on a peaceful reconnaissance mission.”
Grove raised a graying eyebrow. “I’ve seen your weapons. Some ‘reconnaissance’!”
Abdikadir shrugged. “Nevertheless, we’re telling you the truth.”
Grove said, “I suggest we get down to business. Let me tell you first that your man is being taken care of as well as we can.”
“Thank you,” Bisesa said stiffly.
“Now—who are you, and what are you doing at my fort?”
Bisesa narrowed her eyes. “We don’t have to tell you anything but name, rank, serial number . . .” She faltered to a halt as Grove looked baffled.
Abdikadir said gently, “I’m not sure if our conventions of war apply here, Bisesa. And besides I have the feeling that this situation is so strange that it may be best for all of us if we are open with each other.” He was eyeing Grove challengingly.
Grove nodded curtly. He sat behind his desk, and absently waved them to sit on their bench. He said, “Suppose I put aside for the moment the most likely possibility, which is that you are some sort of spies for Russia or her allies, sent on some destabilization mission. Perhaps you even engineered the loss of contact we are suffering . . . As I say, let’s put that aside. You say you’re on temporary assignment from the British army. You’re here to keep the peace. Well, so am I, I suppose. Tell me how flapping about in that whirling contraption achieves that.” He was brisk, but visibly uncertain.
Bisesa took a deep breath. Briefly she sketched the geopolitical situation: the standoff of the great powers over the region’s oil, the complex local tensions. Grove seemed to follow this, even if most of it seemed unfamiliar, and at times he showed great surprise. “Russia an ally, you say? . . .
“Let me tell you how I see the situation here. We’re at a point of tension all right—but the tension is between Britain and Russia. My job is to help defend the frontier of the Empire, and then the security of the Raj. About all I recognized from your little speech was the trouble you have with the Pashtuns. No offense,” he said to Abdikadir.
Bisesa found this impossible to take in. She was reduced to repeating his words. “The Raj? The Empire?”
“It seems,” Grove said, “we are here to wage different wars, Lieutenant Dutt.”
But Abdikadir was nodding. “Captain Grove—you have had trouble with your communications in the last few hours?”
Grove paused, evidently deciding what to tell him. “Very well—yes. We lost both the telegraph link, and even the heliograph stations from about noon. Haven’t heard a peep since, and we still don’t know what’s going on. And you?”
Abdikadir sighed. “The time scale is a little different. We lost our radio communications just before the crash—a few hours ago.”
“Radio? . . . Never mind,” Grove said, waving a hand. “So we have similar problems, you in your flying roundabout, me in my fortress. And what do you suppose caused this?”
Bisesa said in a rush, “A hot war.” She had been brooding on this possibility since the crash; despite the terror of those moments, and the shock of what had followed, she hadn’t been able to get it out of her head. She said to Abdikadir, “An electromagnetic pulse—what else could knock out both civilian and military comms, simultaneously? The strange lights we saw in the sky—the weather, the sudden winds—”
“But
we saw no contrails,” Abdikadir said calmly. “Come to think of it, I haven’t noticed a single contrail since the crash.”
“Once again,” Grove said with irritation, “I have not the first idea what you’re talking about.”
“I mean,” Bisesa said, “I fear a nuclear war has broken out. And that’s what’s stranded us all. It’s happened before in this area, after all. It’s only seventeen years since Lahore was destroyed by the Indian strike.”
Grove stared at her. “Destroyed, you say?”
She frowned. “Utterly. You must know it was.”
Grove stood, went to the door, and gave an order to the private waiting there. After a couple of minutes the bustling young civilian called “Ruddy” came to the door, slightly breathless, evidently summoned by Grove. The other civilian, the young man called Josh who had helped Abdikadir get Casey out of the downed chopper, came pushing his way into the room too.
Grove raised his eyebrows. “I should have expected you to sneak in, Mr. White. But you have your job to do, I suppose. You!” Peremptorily he pointed at Ruddy. “When were you last in Lahore?”
Ruddy thought briefly. “Three—four weeks ago, I believe.”
“Can you describe the place as you saw it then?”
Ruddy seemed puzzled by the request, but he complied: “An old walled city—two hundred thousand and odd Punjabis, and a few thousand Europeans and mixed race—lots of Mughal monuments—since the Mutiny it’s become a center of administration, as well as the platform for military expeditions to see off the Russkie threat. I don’t know what you want me to tell you, sir.”
“Just this. Has Lahore been destroyed? Was it, in fact, devastated seventeen years ago?”
Ruddy guffawed. “Scarcely. My father worked there. He built a house on the Mozang Road!”
Grove snapped at Bisesa, “Why are you lying?”
Foolishly Bisesa felt like crying. Why won’t you believe me? She turned to Abdikadir. He had fallen silent; he was gazing out of the window at the reddening sun. “Abdi? Back me up here.”
Abdikadir said to her softly, “You don’t see the pattern yet.”