“Well, most couples have these sorts of sweet little conversations when they’re breathless and spent. You have to lie there and listen to me snore and pass gas all night without any of the… you know, fringe benefits.”
Quinn yawned again, longer this time, shuddering. “Could be worse. You could have night terrors and wake up trying to kill someone.”
She scrunched up next to him, stealing the warmth of his body. Smelling the musky odor of his skin.
“Is that what you do?”
“Only when I’m extremely tired…”
Through the darkness, she thought she saw him smile.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Dawn took its time in the protected valleys of the High Pamir. The mist was gone, but the morning would linger gray and clammy-cold for hours before the sun finally peeked over the knife ridges high above. A brisk wind popped at the tent fly.
Quinn stirred under the blankets, feeling the familiar aches in his shoulders and hips from too many nights on the unforgiving ground. His hands felt like claws from gripping the Enfield’s handlebars all day. The effects of the fight with Umar left him with a stiff neck and a wrenched knee that was sure to give him problems when he got older. He thought of the Chinese proverb: When two tigers fight, one is injured beyond repair-and the other one is dead.
During the night Ronnie had rolled half on top of him. Her arm flailed across his chest, the warmth of a long leg draped over his thigh. Quinn lay still for a moment, feeling the moist, fluttering puff of her exhausted breathing against his neck.
Bootystan, he thought. Jacques, Jacques, Jacques. If you could only see me now…
Trying not to wake her, he wriggled out of the tent, stifling a gasp as he stepped into his chilly riding pants and stiff Haix patrol boots. He munched a piece of naan from his day pack-courtesy of Umar’s wife-and swung his arms trying to warm up. In the muted light, he could just make out the outline of a path he hadn’t noticed the night before. Likely a game trail used by ibex or Marco Polo sheep, it ran at an angle to a small plateau about a two hundred feet above the camp.
“What do you see?”
Quinn jumped at Ronnie’s voice behind him. She’d poked her head out the tent door.
“I’m thinking I’d like to take a look at what’s up there. It might give me a glimpse of what’s ahead of us.”
“Take the bike.” She yawned, catlike. “I’m awake. Anyway, a girl could use a little privacy first thing in the morning.”
Quinn looked down at the Breitling. “Oh-seven-fifty Afghan time,” he said. “I should be back in twenty minutes.”
“Sounds good.” She pulled her head back inside the tent. “I’ll heat up some of that goat’s head soup or whatever it was.”
The trail up the mountain was strewn with baseball-sized rocks and steep enough Quinn had to keep the bike going forward or risk sliding back down. Umar had replaced the little bike’s stock Avon tires with decent enough Chinese-made Cheng Shin knobbies suitable for the washouts and gravel roads of the western frontier. It climbed without complaint.
The trouble with the Enfield was that, being old-school, some parts were prone to break. The bolts that held on the muffler had sheared off somewhere along the way since they’d left Kashgar. Quinn knew he’d have to figure out a way to jury-rig the exhaust before it fell off or risk deafness and an avalanche from blatting engine noise.
The bikes had their flaws, but the simple beauty of the Enfield was its fixability. Every village from the southern tip of India to the Mongolian Steppe had at least one shade tree mechanic who was familiar enough with the thumper to repair it with little more than a metal file and a screwdriver. Quinn felt confident he’d be able to figure something out when he got back to camp.
At the top of the goat path he was greeted by row after endless row of jagged peaks and rivers of flowing glacier ice. The world seemed nothing but muted shades of blue and slate gray.
The trail he’d hoped to scout disappeared around yet another plateau. It was easy to see how someone could hide in such a forgotten place high on the roof of the world.
Disappointed, Quinn turned the bike, rolling it to the lip before starting the short but steep ride back to camp. His breath caught hard in his chest when he peered over the edge and he took a reflexive step back, out of sight.
Less than two hundred feet below, a pair of men in rolled Afghan Pakol hats and knee-length shalwar kameez shirts fingered through their gear. A third man Quinn recognized as the young camel herder from the day before stood behind Ronnie, pinning her arms.
Adrenaline surged through Quinn’s body as he realized he had no weapons. Each of the men had a rifle slung over his shoulder. In this part of the world, they were sure to have knives as well.
Every few seconds the camel herder craned his long neck to gaze up the trail, obviously expecting Quinn to return from that direction. He’d likely convinced his friends to travel all night in order to rob the rich tourists. The other two bandits tossed through clothing and camping gear as they searched for anything of value. It wouldn’t be long before they realized the only thing in camp worth selling was Veronica Garcia.
Quinn formed his plan as he went, relying on instinct over intellect. Jumping from the Enfield, he found a rock and bashed at the damaged muffler where it joined the straight pipe coming directly off the engine. In seconds he was able to shear the remaining screw and rip the muffler away.
Moments later he sat aboard the silent bike. A soft wind blew in his face. Looking over the edge, he shifted into third. He kept an eye on Ronnie while he slipped the Breitling from his wrist and unscrewed the crown on the lower barrel that contained the emergency location transmitter. He stopped short of pulling out the wire that would activate the satellite beacon.
Gripping the watch between his teeth, Quinn made certain the Enfield’s ignition switch was turned on. For his plan to work, he’d need the element of surprise and a hell of a lot of luck. The camel herder already knew he was unarmed-but he hadn’t counted on the Breitling.
Quinn pressed the clutch so he could pop it when he wanted to start the bike, and released the brake. He was rolling.
A hundred feet above the bandits, the trail leveled before making the final drop to camp. Quinn popped the clutch here. The Bullet’s 499cc engine shuddered, skidding the back wheel in the loose gray shale. Thankfully, it caught enough traction and thumped to life. Without a muffler the little bike rattled and popped like a fifty cal.
“ Made like a gun,” Quinn whispered the Royal Enfield slogan through gritted teeth. And that was just how he intended to use it.
Rolling on all the power he had, he yanked back on the handlebars, praying they didn’t snap off in his hands. The bike rose to an agitated wheelie, bouncing over the rocks, rearing like an angry horse.
Two of the men dove for cover at the sound of a sudden attack. The camel herder shoved Ronnie to the side. He brought up the Kalashnikov and began to fire.
The Enfield’s chassis and engine gave Quinn some protection from the gunfire, but he was thankful the guy used the regional “spray and pray” tactic with no attempt at aiming his shots.
Rocks and debris skittered down the mountain ahead of the bike. The deafening crack-crack-crack of rifle fire and motorcycle engine slammed off the cliffs and echoed through the canyons. Thirty feet out, Quinn used his teeth to tug the coiled antenna wire on the Breitling, activating the locator beacon. He tossed the watch toward the two bandits standing beside his gear and plowed the Enfield straight into the camel driver, sending him and the bike over the edge and flailing through empty space.
Quinn bailed off the bike a split second before the front wheel impacted the startled man in the chest. He grabbed Garcia by the arm.
“Run, run, run!” he yelled, dragging her over the edge.