Алистер Маклин - Borrowed Time

Amrit gave himself a sharp reprimand about the body-patting and sat back with his head against the wall, waiting.

Half an hour passed before the fat man came for him.

‘Look lively now, hurry up. You mustn’t keep people waiting.’

The tone of his approach had changed now, and he no longer smiled the way he had. He was brusque, pushing Amrit ahead of him towards the little house at the centre of the farm, warning him to behave when he was inside and only to speak when he was asked a question.

In the cottage he was shown along a short passage and into a smoky room with a low ceiling. Two men were in there: one was old, stooped and stony-faced, with one eye so watery it appeared to be dissolving; the other man was much younger, broad-shouldered and so tall that his head nearly touched the ceiling. The old one pointed to a chair by a small table in the centre of the room. Amrit sat down.

‘What is your name?’ the big man said.

‘Opu Hikmet, sir.’

‘Can you read?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Can you remember things you are told?’

‘Yes, sir.’

The old man came forward and handed Amrit a folded sheet of linen paper. ‘This is your map,’ he said, his voice gravelly. ‘You must follow it exactly. You must take no shortcuts, you must not try to change the route in any way. The journey will take you three or maybe four days. At night you will rest where it is safe, because you will be carrying valuable merchandise.’

The big man pointed to a burlap sack on the table. ‘Pick it up with one hand,’ he said.

Amrit reached forward and lifted the sack. It weighed roughly ten kilos. He put it down again.

‘Will you have difficulty carrying that? It will be a long journey, remember, and you must travel on foot.’

‘No, sir, I will have no difficulty.’

‘It must stay with you at all times,’ the old man said. He produced another folded piece of linen paper. ‘Three men will approach you when you have crossed the border and gone to the place described here and marked with red on the map. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘When each man says the phrase that is written, and when you reply with the other phrase that is written, you will give each man one bag from the sack.’

Both men were silent now, looking at Amrit. For a moment he wondered if a reaction was expected. It dawned on him that they were watching for signs of uncertainty.

‘Repeat what you have been told,’ the big man snapped.

‘I have to carry the sack with me at all times and at night I must sleep only where it is safe, for the merchandise is valuable. I must follow the map and must not take any other route. When I cross the border and go to the place marked in red I must wait for three men.’

‘And when they make themselves known to you?’ the big man said.

‘I must reply with the second phrase that is written, and give each of them one bag from the sack.’

The old man nodded curtly. ‘Now I will give you two more things.’ From a drawer in the table he took a thick bundle of banknotes and a small envelope. He handed the money to Amrit. ‘That is yours. It is payment for the one and only delivery you will make for us.’

Amrit tried to imagine it was the most money he had ever seen at one time. He put on a face of restrained rapture.

‘You may do with the money as you wish,’ the old man said, without a glimmer of a smile. He held up the small envelope. ‘This is something else you must keep with you at all times.’

He opened the end of the envelope and tipped a black capsule on to his palm. Amrit stared at it, knowing what it was, feigning bafflement.

‘If anything should happen to make the plan go wrong, if you should lose your merchandise, if you are arrested by the police, or if for any other reason you do not deliver the merchandise to the three men named on the second piece of paper, then you must not hesitate to swallow this. Keep it hidden about your body, somewhere that it will not be found but somewhere you can reach it if you need it suddenly.’

Amrit looked at the old man, then at the other one. ‘What is it, please?’

‘It will make you die very quickly,’ the big man said.

Amrit gulped softly. His fingers tightened around the money.

‘That is our bargain, our agreement,’ the old man said. ‘You do what we have told you to do, and if you cannot do it you swallow the potion. You must do it at once, you must do it without talking to anyone or answering any questions.’

Amrit watched the old man drop the capsule back into the envelope.

‘If anything goes wrong, and yet you do not take the potion,’ the big man said, ‘then your family will suffer.’

The old man held up a sheet of paper. It was a rural census sheet, the kind kept in district registries. It had pictures of Amrit and his fictitious wife and children. These people had been thorough, Amrit thought; but so had UNACO.

‘They will suffer in ways you cannot imagine,’ the big man said. He looked grim now, like a policeman issuing a warning. ‘There will be no pity. You may be tempted to think you could run away with our money and our merchandise, but if you do your wife and your three fine children will be seized at once. They will be taken to a place where their arms and legs will be broken, and then while they still scream with pain they will be put into a pottery furnace and burned to death.’

It took no effort for Amrit to look sick.

‘You can change your mind still, if you wish,’ the old man said.

Amrit looked at the money, ten centimetres thick in his hand. He looked up at the old man. ‘I will make the delivery,’ he said.

The old man nodded and handed him the envelope with the capsule.

Sabrina stood under the shower in the neat little bathroom at the cabin. For five whole minutes she had let the hot water sting her and revive her sense of wellbeing. Now as she killed the flow, she felt the throb in her leg start up again.

She pushed back the shower curtain and took a shaving mirror from the window ledge. Twisting round, with the mirror positioned at the back of her thigh, she was able to see the knife wound. In spite of the immediate treatment she had applied, and subsequent fresh dressings, the edges looked raw and angry.

She got out, dried herself, then fumbled in her bag. From the zippered emergency pouch she took a flexible ampoule of penicillin powder. She broke off the top and squirted the contents in a white stream on to the wound, moving the jet of powder up and down until it was exhausted. She put on a fresh dressing, told herself that would fix it, and got on with preparing herself for the day.

Ten minutes later, wearing jeans, sneakers and a OuiSet denim shirt, she joined Mike and Larry in the kitchen. They had pushed the used breakfast things to one end of the table and had her photographs of the hill bandits spread out in two rows.

‘Great shots, Sabrina,’ Mike said.

‘Thanks, but the EVC12A deserves most of the credit.’

‘That’s no way to get yourself a reputation,’ Lenny told her. ‘Never praise the equipment – in fact never praise anything that can’t argue.’

‘They’re a lot better than I expected,’ Sabrina said. She picked up a print and peered at the detail. The pictures had been sent directly to the cabin through the high-definition laserfax, and they looked like lab-printed glossies. ‘You can see all the faces,’ she said. ‘Pretty grim faces, at that.’ She looked at Mike. ‘Have you gained anything from them?’

‘The man at the front, the leader, is definitely Paul Seaton,’ he said.

‘Who’s he?’

Mike gave her a summary of Seaton’s career.

‘And what’s your special interest in him?’