"I did not know you had been transferred to the Parachinar area, my dear. I would have sought out your delightful company had I known." He extended a pack of Turkish cigarettes. "Smoke?"
"No, thank you."
He fitted one into his onyx holder and lit up. "Forgive me, it is my one unshakable vice."
"But of course, General." Do it now! her mind screamed. Is it possible his work and vices have kept him so busy that he does not know I am wanted by Kabul? Then she thought of where this could lead: onto the base, to the Devil's Rain, the further damage she could do, and she resisted the impulse to pull the gun from her purse and kill this pig right here and now. She felt knotted up tight inside but hoped that Voukelitch, if he noticed it at all, would interpret it as her natural embarrassment at the situation she had invented to explain her presence here.
In what she hoped was a steady voice with just the right amount of throaty flirtatiousness, she said, "Actually, I have not been transferred. I am on a one-week furlough."
He regarded her through twin streams of smoke exhaled from his nostrils. "A peculiar spot for a holiday, Parachinar."
Not an accusation, she thought, or is it? Is he playing me like a cat with a mouse?
"I had met this officer in Kabul. He seemed a nice sort, a friend of the family. I realize now what anerror injudgment I made."
"He is not under my command, I trust? I would have the knave drawn and quartered."
She detected sarcasm.
Killhimnow!
"He... is not, and I should not wish to embarrass him."
"Admirable. Better and better, Miss Mozzhechkov. Or may I call you Katrina? And I am Pytyour."
And there it is, she realized. I can take this further. I can do so much if I play him along.
"Of course... Pytyour."
"Good," he said briskly, but his voice did not change. Katrina's skin would not stop crawling.
"Where are you staying, in town, my dear? We would be glad to drop you off."
"I was staying with the man who left me stranded here, sir... Pytyour."
"I see. Then the only answer is for you to accompany my driver and me back to the garrison post until I can arrange accommodations for you in Parachinar, first thing in the morning. Would that be satisfactory to a lady in distress?"
She forced herself to smile at the pig.
"Most satisfactory. I am no longer in distress, it would seem, thanks to you, Pytyour. I truly appreciate this."
"I'm sure you do. The corporal and I have but one, ah, bit of business to attend to, some people to meet. It won't take long. I beg your indulgence, and then we shall return to the fort and... but here we are. Corporal, do you recognize the turnoff beyond this tree?"
"Yes, sir," was the driver replied.
The ZIL slowed and turned smoothly from the blacktop onto a rutted path. The limo continued off the highway.
The undulating terrain soon obscured the highway behind them, the headlights razoring a gash across stygian gloom, at last picking out a cluster of three men. They stood waiting for the ZIL in a loose halfcircle across the path, holding rifles, not stepping aside when the limo approached.
The driver braked to a stop.
Katrina looked beyond him through the windshield, and thought her heart would hammer out of her chest when she recognized the jukiabkr from the village near Charikar where Tarik Khan's mujahedeen force had bivouacked the night before! The jukiabkr would recognize her and tell Voukelitch everything if he saw her.
At the moment he and the two Afghan hillmen with him could not see Katrina.
Then the driver snapped off the headlights.
It would take time for their eyes to readjust, Katrina realized. She held her shoulder bag close to her, her palm itching to feel the reassuring butt of the pistol within, but she had gambled this far and knew she would have to gamble some more or give up.
And she would never do that.
The driver killed the car engine.
A predawn breeze whistled softly through nearby pines. "Do you wish me to get out with you, sir?" the corporal asked, not taking his eyes from the mujahedeen silhouetted in the starlight before him.
"Follow the plan," Voukelitch instructed his driver. "You know the signal?"
"Yes, sir."
"It begins, then." Voukelitch turned to Katrina and lifted her hand to kiss it gallantly. "Only a moment, my dear, I promise."
"Of course, Pytyour."
Voukelitch and Corporal Fet left the car.
Katrina remained in the tonneau. She casually lifted a hand to brush an errant strand of hair away from her forehead in the brief moment the interior light of the car went on.
Corporal Fet positioned himself close to the limo.
Voukelitch left the opposite side of the vehicle. He approached the waiting hillmen, who had not moved. His boots crunched the ground with his even strides, the only sound in the gloom.
The jukiabkr smelled as bad as ever to the Russian, a fetid combination of hashish and body odor.
The jukiabkr stepped forward.
His bodyguards remained behind, gripping their rifles in both hands, their eyes riveted unblinking on the general and the driver, who did not move from beside the car.
The jukiabkr kept a hand to his shoulderstrapped Kalashnikov rifle to facilitate swinging it around rapidly.
This hardly concerned Voukelitch. He read more greed than wariness in the faces of these men.
"You kept us waiting," the leader growled in his own tongue.
"We were delayed," the general replied in precise Pashto. I can use the bitch to advantage right now, he decided, and continued in the jukiabkr's language. "A woman deserted on the highway. A very, lovely woman."
The jukiabkr licked his lips.
"A... Russian woman?" Voukelitch nodded.
"Very provocatively clothed. Would you like a glimpse, my friend? Or... more? She is my prisoner of sorts, though she does not know it yet, an enemy of the Soviet state. Perhaps I could share her with you." The jukiabkr started toward the car.
"An excellent idea, my General."
Voukelitch lifted a hand to the man's arm, then quickly wiped his fingers on his uniform trousers.
"Ah, I would suggest business first though, my friend. And I understand you have arrived with information for me."
The Afghan turned reluctantly from the limousine to reach beneath the folds of his robe and produce a wrapped package. He extended the brick of hash to Voukelitch.
The Russian extended a wad of currency that quickly disappeared into the hillman's grasping hand, then into the voluminous robe. The Afghan purred.
"A satisfactory transaction as always."
"And this information you have brought for me?" Voukelitch prodded.
The jukiabkr oiled a crafty smile.
"You will understand, surely, my General, that all things have a value."
Insolent swine, thought Voukelitch.
"And you will appreciate, friend jukiabkr, the value of trust. I shall determine the price of what you have to sell as in our other dealings. And above that, you can have the woman. I am done with her." The hillman liked that.
Voukelitch had the desert snake right where he wanted him. "I shall tell you then." The Afghan nodded, unable to keep his eyes from the dark windows of the limo.
The gray of false dawn etched the eastern hills in sharp silhouette tinged with pink, not enough light for the jukiabkr to see the bait, and that made the lure all the more effective, Voukelitch knew. "Be quick," he snapped. "I have a most busy day ahead of me. It is about the ambushed convoy last night, is it not? That happened near your village."
The jukiabkr forced his attention away from the car.
"You anticipate me. A force of mujahedeen led by Tarik Khan was responsible."
"Kabul must surmise as much," Voukelitch snapped again, impatient now for this to be over. As he spoke he angled toward the car. The jukiabkr accompanied him, the smuggler's bodyguards remaining at a suitable distance. "Tarik Khan is known to operate in the hills between Kabul and the Pass."