Yousaf became aware of someone stealing up behind him far too late to avoid the arm that had suddenly locked around his throat — and the cold press of a blade across it.
A harsh voice in his ear: “Judge no one else’s soul. Not when it was you who sent one of your own operatives to his death in the wastes between here and Chikar.”
Yousaf tried to shake his head in denial, felt the knife press more tightly against his throat, and stopped.
The scout in front of him, meanwhile, had taken several long steps forward.
“Did you think Ahmad would not have you watched from the beginning, little pig?” he said. “That he would not have eyes among the men in your convoy? A voice to inform him that you’d started across the mountains with another? Or can it be you’ve already forgotten your good companion Khalid?”
Yousaf swallowed silently and the steel edge of the blade met his Adam’s apple.
“Cast blame wherever you will, it was you who arranged for your mule train to encounter these troops… if actual troops they are,” the scout said to him, bringing his face close. “I suspect them to be something else. Khalistani fighters disguised as soldiers. Or Nagas. Or Punjabi rebels.” The scout’s face came still closer. “Brothers sometimes compete most fiercely, do they not? And there has been much competition for the weapon among our professed brethren in India.”
Yousaf swallowed again. The blade broke skin.
“Let me speak to Ahmad,” he grated in desperation. “I can prove you’re wrong—”
“Ahmad,” the scout repeated. A mocking grin had spread across his face. “Tell me, little pig… how can you be sure that my men and I are loyal to Ahmad? That we do not have our own buyers for the cannon? What makes you so certain of its destination — its intended targets — in a world of constant uncertainty?”
Yousaf looked at him, his mouth forming a circular grimace of surprise.
It had suddenly dawned on him that he had no answers. No answers to any of the scout’s questions. No answers to his own. No answers to anything at all.
Nothing, indeed, to take from the world but uncertainty as the scout looked past him at whoever had come up from behind, and made a slicing gesture with his hand, and the knife sliced deeply, deeply into his throat.