‘Those dumb bastards,’ he said, trying to imagine the reaction back in Washington when the people at the NRO realized they were online with the Keyhole again.
‘Not for long,’ he chuckled and began to type out the autodestruct code on the computer’s keyboard. He had entered only half the code when the power went off again. Glancing up at the warning panel, he saw the Bus B light glowing red again. There was another loose connection somewhere, but he had run out of time. He would have to use explosives to do the job after all. But at least, back in Washington, they would now know he had found the satellite. And was about to destroy it.
From his pack Boyd took out the polythene-wrapped chunk of C4 plastique. Resembling white putty, C4 was the most versatile of explosives, being easily handled, waterproof, and with the help of a little added Vaseline, able to stick to just about anything. Planting explosives had always been an important part of Boyd’s job and he worked quickly, prying open the panel that protected the satellite’s internal machinery and shaping the C4 around the metal box that housed the radioisotope, for maximum effect. He was searching for a detonator in his pack when he heard a twig break and then a hoot series that announced the arrival of a yeti. Boyd snatched up his gun.
‘Customers,’ he said and fired twice in the direction of some moving bushes, with apparently no result. No scream. No collapsing body. Nothing. Boyd swore. He was losing his touch. Seven shots out of a thirty-shot magazine without a hit. He was going to have to be careful. Without a spare mag he would have to make every shot count now. And if every time he heard a yeti hoot or saw a bush move he fired a shot, he would lose it.
He waited a moment, listening carefully and watching the forest for more signs of movement. He was contemplating going back to the detonator when he heard a footfall, and whistling around, he saw a clump of scorched rhododendrons swaying as if something had walked among them. Boyd raised the telescopic stock of the carbine to his shoulder and thought better of firing.
‘Don’t get spooked,’ he reminded himself. ‘Mark a hard target first.’
He took several steps back, then ducked around the satellite and ran thirty or forty metres through the undergrowth in the opposite direction before turning abruptly to his right, dropping down onto his belly, and crawling quickly back to where he thought he had now placed his quarry.
Back in the States, Boyd often went hunting. In his time he had shot deer, mountain lion, coyote, seal, even a bear, but this was something new. He’d never shot a great ape. Excepting some of the men he’d killed. And hunting an animal no other man had hunted, that would be something. Boyd was beginning to enjoy himself. He crawled back to a spot immediately behind the clump of scorched rhododendrons. Expecting to see the hairy back of some yeti he was surprised to see a mirror image of himself. It was someone else wearing an SCE suit.
He had been followed from ABC.
Boyd cursed Ang Tsering, and then himself for not having done what should have been done. He ought to have killed them all when he had the chance. Just like he’d killed those Chinese.
Whoever it was had the automatic he had given Tsering and was crouched at the edge of the clearing, gun pointed at the satellite. Boyd was too intrigued to fire right away. He wanted to see who had dared to take him on before he killed them.
Swift knelt behind the cover of an enormous Himalayan silver fir, watching the satellite and wondering if Boyd was close by. She held the gun in both hands and kept it pointed in front of her in the way she had seen cops doing on TV.
A minute or so passed and then she lowered the gun. Maybe he hadn’t found it yet. Or maybe he had already been there, set his charge, and gone. But she felt sure that the shots had come from this direction.
She had a second or two to consider the amazing diversity of flowers around her: saxifrages, gentians, geraniums, anemones, cinquefoils, and primulas. If she did manage to get herself killed, she could think of worse places for her body to lie.
Gathering her courage she got to her feet, only to find them kicked away from beneath her and the gun flying out of her hand. She kicked out wildly and then felt the wind being knocked out of her as something struck her hard between the shoulder blades.
It was two or three minutes before she had sucked enough breath back into her bruised body to recognize that it was Boyd who had knocked her with his rifle butt, by which time he had removed her helmet as well as his own.
He was sitting on a tree stump a short distance from her, the carbine dangling loosely from a strap between his thighs like some kind of enormous medallion.
‘I might have known it’d be you,’ he grinned. ‘No one else with the guts, I imagine. Underneath all that ball-breaking science, you’re probably quite a woman, Swifty. Of course I’m only guessing. These suits are warm, but they’re hardly Issey Miyake, now are they?’
‘Fuck you, Boyd.’
‘Whatever you say, sweetheart.’
He wanted to have some fun before he killed her.
One of the job’s perks. There hadn’t been many of those. Fool around with her before he blew up the bird.
‘You know, that’s not a bad idea,’ he said and pointed the carbine squarely at her chest. ‘Why don’t you take that suit off? I’d like to see what you look like in your thermals.’
‘Go to hell, Boyd. Just kill me and get it over with, because I’m not about to play your—’
He fired a single shot above her head, so close that she felt it touch her hair.
‘I expect all you had in mind was that you should kill me,’ he said, ‘any way you could get a shot in. But there are lots of ways I can kill you, Swifty. Lots of slow ways. Apache style. Or you can hang on to life a while longer. Do what you’re told and stay alive. Maybe.’ His tone became more menacing. ‘Now get undressed or the next one will be in your kneecap.’
Swift remained motionless.
‘I can tell you’ve never seen anyone shot in the kneecap, Swifty. It hurts. Once I’ve shot you in the kneecap I can do what I want with you anyway. Makes no difference to me. What matters more is the difference it might make to you.’
He was right. While she was alive, she still had a ghost of a chance.
Resisting the temptation to tell him to go to hell. Swift unclipped the SCE control unit and tossed it to the ground. Then she turned her back on him, an idea already half-forming in her mind.
‘You’ll have to help me,’ she said. ‘It’s hard to get out of this thing by yourself.’
‘Okay,’ said Boyd. ‘But no tricks now.’ He placed the icy muzzle of the carbine under her ear. ‘Or I can promise you won’t hear my next word of reproach.’
She felt him unfasten the backpack life-support system.
‘Easy now,’ he said, unplugging her all-in-one underwear from its special little pipe.
Before she could do anything he stepped back.
‘Now climb out of the suit. Slowly.’
Swift did as she was told and then dropped the empty suit at her feet like a sloughed skin. She began to shiver, hardly sure whether it was from fear or from cold.
‘Now take the one-piece off.’
‘I always knew there was something fundamentally crummy about you, Boyd. Ever since that night in Khat, when you made that crude pass at me.’ She ripped open the Velcro strip covering her underwear’s zip fastener.