‘But we have a far more urgent situation: it’s called Solomon.’
Kroll’s lighter paused in mid-air.
‘Go ahead and light it. You’ll probably need another after what I’m about to tell you.’
They sat in the shade of the camo net while Dima gave them the highlights of Blackburn’s story — the beheading, the maps and the remaining nuke in the bank vault. When he had finished, Kroll hung his head.
‘I think I’d rather go back to prison,’ said Vladimir.
Kroll drew heavily on his cigarette and gave Dima a look. ‘I hope that’s not your “Anyone for Paris?” face.’
Dima ignored him. ‘We don’t know how long we’ve got: put that down as a known unknown. Whether Solomon has his own people already in place there and in New York, just waiting for the nukes to be delivered — that joins a long list of unknown unknowns.’
‘Yeah, like who in Moscow tipped off Kaffarov.’
Kroll wasn’t one to hide his indignation.
Dima turned to Blackburn.
‘I guess this is the moment you decide what you’re going to do.’
Blackburn looked pale, still stunned by the events of the last half hour. Eventually he spoke.
‘There’s only one choice. I have to get back to my company.’
‘What condition was the chalet in when you left?’ Dima asked.
Kroll made a tumbling gesture with his hands.
‘They backed off after the rest of the front collapsed. Don’t think anyone’s going back in there.’
Blackburn and Dima exchanged a look. Blackburn set the water bottle down.
‘Guess it’s time.’
Vladimir turned to Dima. ‘And that’s not a problem for us? We don’t want the US Army on our tail.’
They all looked at Dima. Blackburn could go back to his superiors with a version of what had just happened and they could come right after them.
It was Blackburn who broke the silence, suddenly calm and resolute. He addressed Kroll and Vladimir. ‘Your comrade saved my life today. And he witnessed something that would put me behind bars for the rest of my life. We have a mutual interest in each other’s survival.’
Dima turned to Blackburn, who had got to his feet.
‘Sure you wouldn’t rather stick with us?’
It was the first time he’d seen a smile onBlackburn’s face. Suddenly he looked much younger.
‘I’m flattered by your offer, Dima. But I think I might cramp your style.’
Dima looked at the track that led up to the cleft between the two mountains.
‘Well, would you like us to see you to the top?’
‘I think I better do this one alone — should an Osprey show up.’
Dima shook his hand. ‘One question, if it’s not too personal. How old are you?’
‘I think we’re well past that point. Twenty-five next Thanksgiving.’
Twenty-five years since Paris, Dima thought. The young man in the photograph — they would be the same age.
‘You mind how you go, Sergeant Blackburn.’
Blackburn saluted him then shook hands with the others. The three of them watched the young Marine until he was not much more than a speck on the mountainside.
Eventually Kroll broke the silence.
‘Are you going to tell us just what the fuck that was all about?’
55
Tehran — Tabriz Highway, Northern Iran
Kroll drove, Vladimir drank, Dima slept: the three of them side-by-side on the bench seat up front. Amara, still fast asleep, had the whole of the back seat to herself. After what she had been through in the last twenty-four hours, no one was going to move her. It was hot and sticky inside the Land Cruiser. They kept the air conditioning off to save fuel but even with the windows open the humid night air that gushed in seemed to have retained the previous day’s heat.
Dima slept fitfully. Too frequently he was jolted back to consciousness by a pothole, or Kroll swerving to avoid stray cattle or lumps of rubble from the quake. And when he did sleep his dreams were disturbing, weirdly edited versions of scenes replayed from the last twenty-four hours. He knew it was inevitable that his brain had to process it all, but that didn’t make it any less unpleasant. Yin and Yang, Kaffarov and Cole, each made an appearance, re-enacting their roles, each time with different outcomes. He felt Yin’s grip as he held him underwater, unrelenting and strong as iron, until he felt the life ebbing from him. That woke him up. Then Blackburn was there again, not reacting this time, and Cole’s gun exploded in Dima’s face, blinding him with a fatal white flash.
Then more distant memories floated back into view. Solomon, when Dima first met him — still a teenager, but with that look he recognised from boy soldiers in Africa, of having seen too much, too soon. His brooding, heavy brow, high cheekbones, olive skin: the calculating eyes that were never still. The brilliant fearless teenager with no past and no name he could call his own. Dima wondered if he had ever found out who he really was. He knew it troubled him not knowing.
‘How can I choose whose side to be on?’ he had said, when the boy inside him was still alive, before it had been extinguished by hate.
‘You’re on your own side,’ Dima had replied, struggling to find him some consolation. ‘Fight for yourself: you are your own cause.’
More than any other, this was the one piece of Dima’s advice Solomon had taken to heart — if he had such a thing as a heart. As Solomon’s trainer and then his handler, Dima had made an effort to befriend him, to establish trust, but Solomon was having none of it. Friendship, he said, was a weakness and a distraction: the first real sign that he was shedding his humanity, like a creature remaking itself. He took himself so seriously that some of his peers teased him. They soon regretted it. He seldom lost his temper but could extract the energy from his own anger, like a solar panel absorbs the sun, storing it for later use. And that could come at any time in the future — three days, three weeks, even years later. Nothing gave Solomon more pleasure than watching the dismay build on a victim’s face as it gradually dawned on them why they were being punished. He was brilliant at deception. His mastery of languages, his gift of mimicry, bettered even Dima’s, and the terrorist cells he was sent to infiltrate were invariably won over by his willingness to undertake whatever initiation rite was demanded to prove his loyalty, no matter how brutal. He was a chilling adversary. And one Dima had not expected to face — until now.
They kept to the mountains until they were well clear of the Americans, then dropped down to the Tehran — Tabriz road they had taken two days before. Apart from several vehicles abandoned during the exodus from Tehran, it was deserted. They came across a bus that had come off the road and slid down a bank. But there was no sign of the passengers, or the rest of the multitude who had left their homes and livelihoods behind in the shattered capital.
At Miyaneh, southeast of Tabriz, Kroll said,
‘We’re almost out of juice.’
It was three a.m.
‘I guess the fun had to end sometime,’ said Dima. ‘They’ve got gas coming out of their ears in these bloody places, but can you find any when you need it?’
The entire town was shuttered, but a vast impromptu camp had sprung up in the parking lot of a shopping mall, with hundreds sleeping in their cars. They woke a few of them up and offered cash for whatever was left in their tanks, but all swore they were as good as empty. They sputtered on a little further, then the tank ran dry. They found a plastic can in the trunk, and leaving Kroll with Amara, Vladimir and Dima walked on until they came to a gas station.
‘Nice and quiet,’ said Vladimir.
But they were not alone. A gang of raw-looking PLR recruits appeared out of the shadows and raised their AKs. One look at them and you could see the lack of experience, the volatile combination of fear and the lack of impulse control.