He had a fondness for these mountains between the beaches of Muscat and the northern extremity of Oman, the Empty Quarter. Not a love of these mountains, but an affection. It was a soldier's place, a man's place. It was a place of raw survival. If he was grateful for anything in this life, and if he were he seldom made his feelings known, then he would have thanked the distant War House in Whitehall for decreeing that men of the 22nd Regiment of the Special Air Service could still take their recreation in these magnificent hills.
When he had rested, he stood and eased the load of the Bergen and crooked the Armalite rifle over his lower arm before setting off westwards. And the sun coming behind him blasted his shadow into his path.
A turban hid his hair, and baggy trousers covered his legs, but his boots and his smock and the big pack and the high velocity rifle identified him as a serving soldier of the British army.
There were no casual watchers on the peak of the escarpment. Had there been, had they watched his departure from the rock lip where he had regained his breath, then they would soon have lost sight of him. It was within the skills of this man to blend into the upper lands around him.
He was Captain Crispin.
Chapter 2
'You're late.'
'I wasn't driving,' Barney Crispin said.
He looked past the tall, gaunt, wire-thin man who had met him, whose hand he had shaken at the entrance to the Terminal building.
He was late. For five hours he had sat at Dhofar waiting for the connection that would complete the long, hot sleepless journey from Muscat to Rawalpindi. He was in no great humour and he didn't need a stranger telling him he was late.
Yesterday morning was the first he'd known of it. The Colonel would like to see Captain Crispin. Before lunch? No, Sir, not before lunch…right away, Sir. The orderly had saluted, Barney had grunted, tucked his shirt into his shorts, and ambled away across the sand compound to the Colonel's office. There were only a few of them now, the British officers who trained and 'advised' the armed forces of Muscat and Oman. The Colonel wore no badges of rank, no flashes. Five minutes of conversation.
Something out of the ordinary, something from London, a particular request for Captain Crispin. So, the afternoon flight to Dhofar, the small hours flight to Rawalpindi. Pack for a few weeks, no letters home as to where you're going. The passport flipped across the Colonel's table gave Technical Representative as his profession. Might he ask what he would be doing in Rawalpindi? Yes, he might ask, but no, he wouldn't be told, couldn't be told because the Colonel didn't know. Better just get on with it, hadn't he? Better get himself packed. Not a lot of time to spare. The Colonel had wished him good hunting, yes, very good hunting and we'll expect you when we see you. Oh to be young, eh? Handshake across the desk. Salute at the door. Good luck.
Goodbye.
Barnaby Crispin had been ten years in the regular army, and seven of them in the 22nd Regiment, Special Air Service. Those ten years had given him a type of patience, he could wait a few more hours to be told why it was thought necessary to pitch him out of a quiet billet in Muscat.
He disliked the name of Barnaby, and called himself Barney. He was five foot eleven. His hair was blond with a tinge of redness when the sun caught it. He was fit, solid, muscled. He walked with an easy stride, rolling on the balls of his feet. He spoke with the accent of the south of England, usually cursorily as if words were running-away bath water and were useless things. Not an easy man to read, and a difficult man to ignore.
Now Barney Crispin stood at the entrance to the Customs and Immigration hall and took in the chaos around him. Men with suitcases straining against their string bindings, women bent down with the burden of London department stores' soft furnishings, kiddies in long-trousered grey suits and bright frocks holding tin toys and howling. All around him, pushing him, shoving him, elbowing him, and he didn't even know why he was in Rawalpindi.
'I wasn't blaming you, I just said you were late,' Howard Rossiter said.
'I didn't say you were blaming me, I just said I wasn't driving.'
Rossiter decided there was little point in pretending a good humour. He had been out of his bed at first light to meet the flight. He had sat about for five hours, occasionally sipping warm orange juice, never once finding anyone capable of giving him an accurate arrival time.
He gazed into the face of the younger man. All the same, these SAS men — arrogant and conceited because they're a bloody elite. This one didn't look any different. But he had to work with this one, so he mustered a thin puddle of a smile.
There was a pain behind his temple. He'd been with some pathetic businessman the night before, all piss and wind and money success talk, but the creature had brought a quart of Chivas Regal into Pakistan, and Rossiter hadn't taken a drink for the previous ten days. All right for a business creature to run the Customs gauntlet, not all right for anyone in Rossiter's line. Crap on Islamisation, they'd agreed. About the only bloody thing they had agreed upon. Crap on dry countries. God knew how much they'd drunk while the creature spelled out the triumphs of his line of commerce and seemed to think Rossiter should be interested. But he wasn't, not one atom. Foreign and Commonwealth Office career man, that was Howard Rossiter. Not a diplomat, a diplomat was too grand for Howard Rossiter. He was an official of FCO, a road sweeper for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Something to be done that's not Intelligence and that's not Embassy or High Commission, then wheel out old Rossiter because he's a good sort of chap who gets on with things, a good sort of chap who'll get his hands dirty and hasn't the clout to whine if the work's a bit messy.
He would be fifty the next year. His grey, cut-short hair was thinning. His suit was too weighty for Pakistan in August, but his ranking did not run to Overseas Dress Allowance. He was pale and he was sweating. He thought he loathed the place they had sent him to, he thought he had loathed it from the moment he had stepped off the plane from Heathrow with the family row still clamouring in his mind. Should a sixteen-year-old girl be at a drinks party until three o'clock in the morning? That had started it. Somewhere along the way his wife had declared her imperative need of a new refrigerator. Could he leave a cheque? No, alas, he could not. What a bloody way to leave home. No kiss on the cheek, not from his wife, not from his daughter, not from his son still in bed, just a slammed bloody door and a smirk on the face of the cab driver who had heard most of it from the pavement. The row still rankled.
Getting himself out through the Customs areas and onto the apron to meet the Tristar passengers had been his one hard earned victory of the day. He'd given the officious little fart in Customs uniform a part of his mind, and that had been joyous. It was twenty-five years since Rossiter had been in Pakistan and, God, how the place had changed, and nothing for the better that he'd noticed.
He pulled back his concentration. Again the smile. 'I'm Howard Rossiter, I'm usually called Ross.'
'Pleased to meet you, Mr Rossiter. I'm Barney Crispin.'
'You didn't bring a bottle, did you?'
'No.'
'We'd better get your bag.'
Barney Crispin's bag was one of the last onto the conveyor belt.
It didn't matter to him. He yawned a couple of times and stood with his legs firm and apart and his arms casually folded and waited, and quietly enjoyed the impatience of Rossiter hovering behind him. They'd been fast enough through Passport Control and when they'd left the Immigration area a little man in uniform had snapped a salute to Rossiter as though he were the bloody Viceroy, and that had curled a smile at Barney's mouth.