Ken Follett - Lie down with lions

"So you've succeeded."

"Yes. I even have a treaty, signed by all the rebel leaders and witnessed by the mullah."

"You must be proud." She reached out and squeezed his arm, then withdrew her hand quickly. She was so glad he was here to keep her from being alone that she felt guilty about having been angry with him for such a long time. But she was afraid she might accidentally give him the mistaken impression that she still cared for him in the old way, which would be awkward.

She turned away from him and looked around the cave. The bandages and syringes were in their boxes and the drugs were in her bag. The wounded guerrillas were comfortable on rugs or blankets. They would stay in the cave all night: it was too difficult to move them all down the hill. They had water and a little bread, and two or three of them were well enough to get up and make tea. Mousa, the one-handed son of Mohammed, was squatting in the mouth of the cave, playing a mysterious game in the dust with the knife his father had given him: he would stay with the wounded men, and in the unlikely event that one of them should need medical attention during the night, the boy would run down the hill and fetch Jane.

Everything was in order. She wished them good night, patted Mousa on the head and went outside. Ellis followed. Jane felt a hint of cold in the evening breeze. It was the first sign of the end of summer. She looked up at the distant mountaintops of the Hindu Kush, from where the winter would come. The snowy peaks were pink with the reflection of the setting sun. This was a beautiful country: that was too easy to forget, especially on busy days. I'm glad I've seen it, she thought, even though I can't wait to go home.

She walked down the hill with Ellis at her side. She glanced at him now and again. The sunset made his face appear bronzed and craggy. She realized that he probably had not slept much the night before. "You look tired," she said.

"It's a long time since I was in a real war," he replied. "Peace makes you soft."

He was very matter-of-fact about it. At least he did not relish the slaughter, as the Afghan men did. He had told her the bare fact that he had blown up the bridge at Darg, but one of the wounded guerrillas had given her the details, explaining how the timing of the explosion had turned the tide of the battle and graphically describing the carnage.

Down in the village of Banda, there was an air of celebration. Men and women stood talking animatedly in groups, instead of retiring to their courtyards. The children were playing noisy war games, ambushing imaginary Russians in imitation of their older brothers. Somewhere a man was singing to the beat of a drum. The thought of spending the evening alone suddenly seemed unbearably dreary to Jane, and on impulse she said to Ellis: "Come and have tea with me—if you don't mind my feeding Chantal."

"I'd like that," he said.

The baby was crying as they entered the house, and as always Jane's body responded: one of her breasts sprang a sudden leak. She said hurriedly: "Sit down, and Fara will bring you some tea,'' then she darted into the other room before Ellis could see the embarrassing stain on her shirt.

She undid her buttons quickly and picked up the baby. There was the usual moment of blind panic as Chantal sought the nipple, then she began to suck, painfully hard at first and then more gently. Jane felt awkward about going back into the other room. Don't be silly, she told herself; you asked him, and he said it was okay, and in any case you spent practically every night in his bed at one time. ... All the same, she felt herself flush slightly as she walked through the door.

Ellis was looking at Jean-Pierre's maps. "This was the cleverest thing," he said. "He knew all the routes because Mohammed always used his maps." He looked up at her, saw her expression and said hastily: "But let's not talk about that. What will you do now?"

She sat on the cushion with her back against the wall, her favorite position for nursing. Ellis did not seem embarrassed by her exposed breast, and she began to feel more comfortable. "I have to wait," she said. "As soon as the route to Pakistan is open and the convoys begin again, I'll go home. What about you?"

"The same. My work here is over. The agreement will have to be supervised, of course, but the Agency has people in Pakistan who can do that."

Fara brought the tea. Jane wondered what Ellis's next job would be: plotting a coup in Nicaragua, or blackmailing a Soviet diplomat in Washington, or perhaps assassinating an African Communist? She had questioned him, when they were lovers, about going to Vietnam, and he had told her that everybody had expected him to dodge the draft, but he was a contrary son of a bitch and so he did me opposite. She was not sure she believed that, but even if it was true it did not explain why he had remained in this violent line of work even after he got out of the army. "So what will you do when you get home?" she asked. "Go back to devising cute ways of killing Castro?"

"The Agency is not supposed to do assassinations," he said.

"But it does."

"There's a lunatic element that gives us a bad name. Unfortunately, presidents can't resist the temptation to play secret-agent games, and that encourages the nutcase faction."

"Why don't you turn your back on them all and join the human race?"

"Look. America is full of people who believe that other countries as well as their own have a right to be free—but they're the type of people who turn their backs and join the human race. In consequence, the Agency employs too many psychopaths and too few decent, compassionate citizens. Then, when the Agency brings down a foreign government at the whim of a president, they all ask how this kind of thing can possibly happen. The answer is because they let it. My country is a democracy, so mere's nobody to blame but me when things are wrong; and if things are to be put right, I have to do it, because it's my responsibility."

Jane was unconvinced. "Would you say that the way to reform the KGB is to join it?"

"No, because the KGB is not ultimately controlled by the people. The Agency is."

"Control isn't that simple," said Jane. "The CIA tells lies to the people. You can't control them if you have no way of knowing what they're doing."

"But in the end it's our Agency and our responsibility."

"You could work to abolish it instead of joining it."

"But we need a central intelligence agency. We live in a hostile world and we need information about our enemies.''

Jane sighed. "But look what it leads to," she said. "You're planning to send more and bigger guns to Masud so that he can kill more people faster. And that's what you people always end up doing.''

"It's not just so that he can kill more people faster," Ellis protested. "The Afghans are fighting for their freedom—and they're fighting against a bunch of murderers—"

"They're all fighting for their freedom," Jane interrupted. "The PLO, the Cuban exiles, the Weathermen, the IRA, the white South Africans and the Free Wales Army."

"Some are right and some aren't."

"And the CIA knows the difference?"

"It ought to—"

"But it doesn't. Whose freedom is Masud fighting for?"

"The freedom of all Afghans."

"Bullshit," Jane said fiercely. "He's a Muslim fundamentalist, and if he ever takes power the first thing he'll do is clamp down on women. He will never give them the vote—he wants to take away what few rights they have. And how do you think he will treat his opponents, given that his political hero is the Ayatollah Khomeini? Will scientists and teachers have academic freedom? Will gay men and women have sexual freedom? What will happen to the Hindus, the Buddhists, the atheists and the Plymouth Brethren?"

Ellis said: "Do you seriously think Masud's regime would be worse that that of the Russians?''