For the past two hours they had waited in vain for the nomads to move. Two hours in which they had done nothing but watch helplessly as the bedouin brewed tea and talked.
‘I say we go down there and fuckin’ ask them,’ Jones stammered. His tongue felt like it was an alien part of his body, like it had no business being in his mouth. ‘I can’t keep this up much longer.’ He rolled onto his back and felt the relentless beat of the afternoon sun on his face.
‘Impossible, Yankee.’
They had been through this conversation already.
‘The Comrade Colonel’s orders were clear,’ Bitov added. ‘Avoid all contact with the local population.’
‘Come on,’ Jones said. ‘Tell me how the Comrade Colonel’s ever going to fuckin’ know?’
‘And anyway, the bedouin kill for their water,’ Bitov said. ‘They would not hesitate to kill us. They are armed. We have nothing to defend ourselves but our bare hands.’
‘We could still jump them.’
‘In your condition, Yankee?’
Jones noticed the blisters on the Russian’s face for the first time. Bitov was so pig-ugly, with his split lip and flat nose, superficial blemishes blended with his features. You had to look hard to see the sores.
‘You ain’t in much better shape yourself,’ Jones said, rolling back onto his stomach. ‘Besides, what the fuck would you have us do?’
Bitov lifted his eyes to the mid-afternoon sun. ‘Stop talking Jones. Be patient. They will move before long. And then we drink.’
‘So how come you’re so fuckin’ philosophical?’
‘Spetsnaz has taught me much.’
‘Stop shitting me, Bitov. Were you in Afghanistan?’
‘Yes. What of it?’
‘Was it as bad as they say it was?’
‘It was an experience.’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘The question was… political.’
Jones snorted. ‘Political? What happened to glasnost?’
‘It is not a word often heard in Spetsnaz.’
‘Well, it certainly seems to have given the Comrade Colonel a wide berth.’
‘He has much on his mind, Jones. Do not judge him too harshly.’
‘If he ain’t careful, a higher authority’s gonna be judging him sooner than he’d like. And it ain’t necessarily gonna be the Angels of Judgement that’ll put him in the dock.’
‘Is that a threat?’
‘The Pathfinders don’t take too kindly to this sort of treatment. Let’s leave it at that.’
‘This is discipline, Jones, nothing more, nothing less. Maybe if the Pathfinders had been more disciplined — ’
Bitov stopped short of completing the sentence.
Jones narrowed his eyes. ‘Don’t let me keep you from saying what’s on your mind, Bitov.’
‘We know what happened to the Pathfinders in Panama. Perhaps you should question your own colonel’s conduct before criticizing mine.’
Before Jones’s anger could spill over, there was a sudden movement far to their right. The three bedouin had risen from the well and were walking to their camels.
Jones could almost smell the cool, clear water. ‘Thank Christ.’
‘Save your breath.’
One of the bedouin pulled a rug from his camel saddle, spread it on the sand and lay down in the scant shade. The two others followed suit. The fourth, the one who had been sleeping, struggled to his feet, stretched and walked to a point between the camels and the well to begin his turn as guard picket. Even the taciturn Bitov allowed himself a curse.
‘Fuck it, I’m going down there,’ Jones said, stirring himself.
‘No.’
‘Look, if I approach from the desert, he’ll never see me. He’s staring out over the cliffs, for God’s sake.’
‘You will never make it, Yankee.’
‘Don’t you ever ease up? If we don’t get water, we die.’
‘I stand a better chance than you.’
In the end, Jones stuck two clenched fists in front of him and asked Bitov to choose between them. Bitov picked thin air and Jones kept the pebble.
Five minutes later, the American found himself squirming across the sand, the water bottle in his left hand. He kept his eye on the little he could see of the guard. The bedouin was sitting on a cluster of rocks about twenty yards beyond the watering hole, half his body hidden by the stone lip of the well.
Under the sun’s blistering heat, Jones’s sweat soaked his skin, his shirt, and trousers. A thin layer of sand now stuck to his body, giving him a little natural camouflage to help him blend with his surroundings. When he reached the well, he lay there catching his breath for a moment. Then summoning his strength, he raised his eyes level with the stones.
The guard’s back was almost four-square to him, but his head was turned fractionally, so that Jones could make out the harsh aquiline features of his face. The other three were fast asleep, the noise of their slumbering audible even above the deep breathing of the camels.
The tip of the shadoof seemed to tower above him, impossibly high. He could tell the jug was partially full, because water was dripping through the porous clay and splashing in the well.
Jones made his move. Silently, he clambered onto the sides of the well and stretched up for the jug, his eyes never deviating from the back of the bedouin. His hand slid over the moisture-soaked sides of the jug. He let it rest there for a second. The feel of it was pure magic.
Jones started to pull the shadoof towards him, praying that it would not creak in protest. As soon as the jug was level with his face, he dipped the bottle beneath the water. It burbled slightly as it filled, but nothing like loud enough for the bedouin or even the camels to hear.
Jones placed the full bottle gently by his feet. He was in the act of lowering himself to the ground when a slight breeze blew in from the sand sea behind him. Even as the thought formed in Jones’s mind as a radiating pulse of fear, one of the camels jerked as if it had been stung by a scorpion and let out an enormous belch.
Jones froze. He had forgotten one cardinal rule of stealth. He had approached from upwind.
The guard started to laugh. He was pointing at his companion, who was sitting bolt upright, startled by the sound and movement of his beast. The look on his face turned to horror as his eyes met Jones’s. The bedouin stuttered a warning, but the guard was too busy laughing. Jones could see the rifle of the startled one poking from the holster in the camel saddle. It would take the bedouin several seconds to reach it, several more to ready it.
Jones ran. He hurled himself first at the guard, grabbing him round the neck and bringing his head down on a rock jutting through the sand. The American pulled himself to his feet, fighting the dizziness. He ran for the second bedouin, just as he was pulling back the bolt of the Kalashnikov. Jones hit him in the stomach in a flying tackle and heard the breath expelled from his lungs. In the split-second advantage allowed to him, he chose between the two other stirring bodies and kicked the man closest to a rifle, catching him squarely under the jaw. He swung round to face the fourth to find a Kalashnikov levelled at his chest.
Jones saw the bedouin’s finger tighten on the trigger. There was no question but that the guy was going to do it. Jones mentally crossed himself, and swore that he would see Shabanov in hell.
A barely perceptible movement behind the nomad prompted Jones to break his stare. The reflex saved his life, for instead of firing, the bedouin turned to find Bitov rising from the sand like a striking cobra. The Russian, cloaked from head to foot in dust, brought his foot up into the bedouin’s groin in a whirl of movement and choking sand. The nomad fell to his knees, dropping his assault rifle. Bitov snatched it before it even hit the ground.