“Once we get to the border, we got the DRA, that’s the Afghan Army, looking sharp to nail our asses to a board. And they got nasty Mi-35 Export Hind helicopters flying around, and they still got more than one or two Spetsnaz — that’s Russian Green Beret — caravan hunter teams wandering around the countryside looking for dushmans, that’s bad boys like us. So having along a little friend who can fly and shoot some serious fire from his hands has the potential to come in mighty handy.”
“What’re you carrying?”
“Well, the boys themselves. They been on furlough, kind of. Plus we got some antiaircraft and antitank missiles. Russian stuff — buy it offa the Morskoye Pekhota, Naval infantry boys attached to the Black Sea fleet. They’ll do anything for hash oil and Traci Lords videotapes.”
“But I thought the Russians had left Afghanistan,” Mark protested.
“Most of ’em have.”
“Then what’re the freedom fighters fighting against?”
“My man Dr. Najib. The dictator. Soviet puppet with most of his strings snipped.”
“I’ve heard of him. But the TV news always said he was a moderate. Really interested in, like, trying to reform the country.”
“He’s got him some funny notions about reform. He broke into the big time as a professional torturer for KhAD, the Afghan secret police. He’s really into medical experimentation too, if you know what I mean. Can you say, Dr. Mengele? Sure. I knew you could.”
“I don’t know, man. I don’t want to get mixed up in a war or anything.”
“Peace, Love, Dope forever, huh? Well, shit, man, I gotta say I respect you for it. These days it’s War, Hate, and Just Say No. Teach it to the kids in school.”
Actually it was that Mark had just been in a war, and it was pretty bad, and he didn’t want to get mixed up with another. He didn’t say anything about that. He didn’t want Frank to think he was completely crazy.
“Still, man, think about it — where you gonna go? You surehell can’t stay here. You want to get where the DEA can’t lay a glove on you, right? Try Afghanistan. Or if that’s a little too intense, I can pull a few strings and you can just keep trucking into India.”
India. Now, there was an idea. There was a place he could really use his talents; use them to help other people. He could help them manufacture cheap antibiotics to fight disease, safe, biodegradable insecticides to save their crops. Some of those maharajahs were incredibly rich, rich as any oil sheik. Maybe he could get one to spring for a research facility, really get some work done.
Maybe he could find a guru, too. India was a very spiritual place. The Maharishi came from there, and Meher Baba. Maybe it was time to cultivate that side of his nature.
“How about it, man?” Frank asked. “You stay clear of the one or two kingdoms the U.S. has in its back pocket and they’ll never touch you. What do you say?”
“I’ll do it.”
Frank jumped up and threw his hat in the air. “All right!
Come on, boys, saddle up — we got us an ace in the hole.”
The Revolutionary Ministry of whatever it was had let them have a car to drive around in. It was an ’87 Toyota Camry in a shade of blue nobody could ever remember seeing before. It ran well.
J. Bob Belew walked slowly across the truck park. The setting sun stretched his shadow clear to the perimeter fence. He slid in behind the wheel and slammed the door.
“Straw boss says a man matching Meadows’ description was here, all right. But he left three, four hours ago with another American he met here. They say they headed north, as if they were planning to cross the Elburz, for what that’s worth. Which is probably nothing.”
He started the engine. “Does that mean we’ve lost him?” Helen asked from the passenger seat.
“For the moment.”
Helen Carlysle set her mouth and gazed out the window at the distant blue Elburz. In the back where they thought he couldn’t see, Lynn Saxon shot his partner Gary a thumb’s up.
In front, where no one did see, J. Bob Belew smiled. All to himself
It was dark on the windswept Iranian Plateau. It was getting extremely cold in the bed of the canvasback truck grinding up the endless grade toward the Roof of the World, even though one of the mujahidin had given Mark a sheepskin coat that smelled as if the sheep was still living in it, and possibly several other animals as well.
He pulled the coat closer about his shinny frame and tried again to find a comfortable position in which to rest his butt on a lot of wood crates marked in Cyrillic letters. In the near-total blackness he could see the glimmer of starlight on eyeballs turned expectantly toward him, a vagrant gleam from Ali Sher’s gold tooth.
They’d pretty much played out “Give Peace a Chance.” In fact the Afghans didn’t look as if there were anything in the world they were less ready to give a chance to than peace, unless it was a Soviet armored column. But that hadn’t stopped them from singing about it with a will. Now they want more.
“I know you probably don’t drink, either,” he said, “but try this anyway: Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer …
Chapter Fourteen
“Dr. Meadows,” the tall, sleek, dark-skinned man in the blue turban said, “we have satisfied ourselves as to your bona fides. You have a most impressive résumé. I must admit, however, that it surprises me that one of your qualifications should have spent the last several years as a merchant and restaurant operator.”
“Uh,” Mark said, brushing his nose with the thumb of his closed right hand. He had an answer ready for that one. “Burnout, man. I just couldn’t take the pace any longer. Like, New York, y’know? But I’m ready to get back to work now.”
He also had a blue vial stashed away in his right fist, ready to slam down at the first hint of trouble. He wasn’t trusting anybody these days. Another sign of his moral corruption.
Mr. Singh nodded, one of those extremely precise nods that make you suspect a person has click-detents in his cervical vertebrae. “The Maharajah is definitely willing to consider accepting you into his service.” He smiled. His teeth were too white for his own good. His English was mellifluous, steady, and Oxonian, not the singsong high-pitched whine of most Indians Mark had tried to converse with. In his dark European-style business suit Mr. Singh looked as if he played a lot of handball or found other means of keeping himself trim.
Mark leaned forward in his chair, his heart jumping around in his ribcage. Visions of himself as Mother Teresa danced in his head. “I can start you out on production of 108 certain basic antibiotics right away. From there we can move to simple gene-engineering stuff like making E. coli — create insulin — kids’ stuff, anyone can do it. In a couple of years, given the current state of the art and the availability of biotech equipment, we start doing original work. It’s time somebody made a real move with monoclonal antibodies, or if your maharajah wants to be ambitious, he can shoot for the whole enchilada: creating a counter-virus that will attach to the gp12O sequence on the protein coat of the AIDS virus — it never changes, no matter how the virus mutates, ’cause without it, it wouldn’t still be AIDS.”
Laughing, Mr. Singh held up his hands. He had a rich, deep laugh. “Dr. Meadows, please. Your enthusiasm does you credit; no doubt you will accomplish many great things for our people.”