The wind came from the north, came into the teeth of the helicopter's flight path.
One hand hard on the stick to hold the big bird stable, with his wrist wrenched as the power of the gusts caught at the airframe and beat on the bulk of the cockpit canopy and the machine-gun bubble. Rostov would be sick, sick as a pig dog in the big hold behind the pilot's cockpit. He'd be strapped down in a webbing seat, puking his guts and shouting that he didn't volunteer to come, and no bastard hearing him. With his free hand Medev traced clear pencil lines on the map, directed himself to the place where the contour lines ran in tandem rails, where the valley was overstamped 'area Delta'.
The static burst in his ears, then the distort call of the radio.
'…XJ LIMA come in. XJ LIMA come in. XJ LIMA come in…
A quiet mirthless smile on Medev's face.
'XJ LIMA…Medev…this is the Frontal Aviation commander, Jalalabad base. You have disobeyed an instruction. You are in violation of orders. You are to return to your base immediately…'
Stupid fart. He'd have the Political Officer standing behind him with his book and pencil ready, ready for the Court Martial evidence. Now the shit was spinning he'd have brought in the Political Officer, and put out the signals orderlies and the clerks. Wouldn't want them to hear the Frontal Aviation commander being given two fingers over the radio set.
'You know my destination, you know the range of the helicopter. From that you will know when I am returning.'
A hollow chuckle in Medev's mouth. His fingers slipped down, flicked off the radio switch.
One man, one man only had dragged him to this flagrant breach of orders. High above the mountain peaks, sometimes blinded in cloud, sometimes seeing the snake river lines beneath him, he gave up the logical and consequential thoughts that on any other day and in any other place would have dominated him. Alone in the cockpit of the big bird, alone behind the wind-beaten canopy, he never doubted that he would find the one man, the one man only.
It was a bare landscape. A landscape of small rock and broken gravel and stunted weed. No trees and no scrub bushes had survived the age old ferocity of the wind, and no great rocks here. They went fast onto the plateau.
Because there was no cover, Barney pushed their pace. She was strong, Mia Fiori. He was not a man who willingly praised others. He would shout her praises, because he loved her, because she was strong, because she did not fight the pace he set.
He saw no hiding place on the plateau. He had no way of knowing at what altitude they walked. He knew they would be close to the altitude ceiling of the Mi-24, he had no way of knowing whether this plateau was above or below the helicopter's ceiling. It was hard to breathe on the plateau. Breathing was like the punching of a sponge. He struggled to win the flow of air down into his lungs. He wondered how Mia Fiori could manage. He was a shield for her body against the wind.
It was the ceiling of the world, the roof of the hemisphere. Around the plateau were the great mountains, the chimney stacks of the roof. The Hindu Kush and the Karakorams and the Himalayas were the mountain ranges to the west and the north and the east.
He thought that he had never loved a woman before in the way that he loved Mia Fiori.
The winds struck him, staggered him as he dropped his shoulder to take the charge of the gale winds. There had been girls at home, girls in the back of his car, girls on their parents' sofa, girls to escort to the Regiment's cocktail parties, girls to take to the Aqua Club under the Qurm Heights in Oman. There had never been a woman who was widowed, a woman who took her holiday in the mountain ranges of Afghanistan, a woman who could climb without protest and rest up on the side gullies of a battlefield valley. There had never been a woman like Mia Fiori.
All the time that they walked he held tight on her hand, and she was close behind his back, and the horizon for her eyes would be his backpack and his slung rifle and the Redeye missile launcher low on his shoulder.
They could follow the path. The path was tramped with hoof and sandal prints. Piebald with snow, the path was still clear' for them to see, curving into the emptiness of the plateau.
Barney shouted at the wind gusts.
'I love you, Mia Fiori.'
The answering shout, fleeing away from his ears on the wind, a smaller voice. 'I love you, Barney Crispin.'
'There has to be something for us, beyond this path.'
'There will be something.' Fierce and vibrant and sure.
Barney's head was ducked onto his chest, his chin hugged his throat, the winds whipped his cap and his hair strands.
'Before I came here I had nothing.'
'I, too, I had nothing.'
'Together we will make something, together we will never be alone.'
'After the place we have been, I think it is a crime to be happy.'
'Only for ourselves have we achieved anything.'
'If we have made ourselves happy is that sufficient achievement?'
'Mia Fiori, I love you, and I am happy, and I do not know the answer.'
He felt the strong grip of her fingers in his. He felt the brush of her leg against him as his stride faltered in the face of the gale gusts. He felt the wet in his boots and the dirt in the crevices of his body and the louse scabs on the flanks of his chest.
On across the plateau. On away from the valley. He stayed true to his promise, never to look back, never to turn and look back at the roofs of the far walls of the valley.
He flew up the valley fast and low. A speed of a hundred kilometres, an altitude of fifty metres. He flew the pattern of a coil, a coil of wire that has been released and is now spread out, so that the view of the baffles on the engine exhaust vents would always be minimised. The pattern was wasteful on fuel. He had saved the tanks while coming over the mountains, flying the direct route, now he turned the coin and was extravagant with his fuel. Over the radio he talked softly, calmly to Rostov. A pattern of flying was established, a pattern also of firing the Very flares from the fuselage hatch. He had Rostov in the hatchway secured by a hold strap to his waist. On each circle of the coil he saw the newest of the flares that Rostov had fired, falling prettily into a grey morning sky. He saw the deserted villages, he saw the wreckage of three helicopters.
He came to Atinam where the bomb craters were clearly formed in the flat stepped fields, where the devastation of the houses was complete, where there was the wreckage of two more helicopters. He had passed over the place where the pilot, Vladdy, lay broken in the rocks, he had passed over the place where the jackals hid before returning to feast on the body of the gunner who was trapped in the seat of the machine gun canopy.
The man would know, the man would understand. Medev believed that if his man, his one man only, was in the valley, that he would stand and present himself and fire. When one helicopter came, one helicopter alone, to search out the valley then the man would know. He would understand that this was the challenge of single-handed combat. Medev had come without the support of the Antonov reconnaissance aircraft and without the gunships flying behind him. Pyotr Medev believed that if the man were on the valley floor or on the valley walls that he would stand and take his chance and back his skill against the helicopter and the flares.
He was sick in disappointment as he cruised in a loop over Atinam.
Where was the bastard? Come out, you bastard…
He saw the rubbish heap where the body of the pilot, Alexei, had been discarded. He saw the scar marks where the rockets had taken the helicopter of the pilot, Sergei, close to the river trickle…come out, you bastard. He heard in his headset the plea of Rostov that enough was enough, that the search was unsuccessful. He climbed to three hundred metres.