Алистер Маклин - Borrowed Time

As he began walking again a few moments later, he patted the gun where it now lay, in the waistband of his baggy trousers, the metal cool against his skin.

He began to smile, and after a few more minutes he started to whistle. It took so little, he thought, to make him feel really sure of himself again.

The bandits didn’t show.

‘You’re entitled to say you knew this would happen,’ Mike told Lenny.

‘You know I don’t do stuff like that.’

‘Yeah. Ignore me, I’m just sore. Very sore.’

A call had come through from Srinagar to the helicopter pilot five minutes earlier. The assistant to Commissioner Mantur told the pilot that he and the marksmen, who were now running into overtime, had to return to base without delay.

As the men began filing silently down the mountainside to the tiny plateau where the helicopter sat, Mike grabbed Lenny’s arm. ‘I’m staying,’ he said.

‘What for?’

‘I don’t feel like I’ve tried. Going now is just defeatist.’

‘Staying can’t help that. They won’t be along tonight. It’s getting dark, they’ve obviously changed their schedule. We can come another time.’

‘Now what are the real chances of that happening? Who’s going to give us the leeway after this bummer?’

‘Mike, what are you hoping to do?’ Lenny peered at his face in the dusk, trying to get a pinch of reason past the impulsiveness. ‘It’s going to get very dark soon. You’re all alone up here …’

‘Sabrina’s around somewhere.’

‘You don’t know that. Her radio was out. She probably took off when she realized she couldn’t make contact. That would be the drill, right?’

‘Yeah,’ Mike sighed, ‘that’s the drill.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t care. I’m staying. I’ve no idea what I’ll do, but I know I don’t want to go away from here empty-handed – not without really trying.’

‘You’ve no resources.’

‘I’m good at commandeering. And stealing.’

‘OK,’ Lenny said. ‘I’ll stay, too.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘When you’re back in New York bragging about how you hauled in Paul Seaton single-handed, I don’t want to have to skulk out of the room in case somebody asks me where I was at that moment.’

‘We’ll have to rough it,’ Mike said.

‘That won’t put me off. I bet I’ve roughed it more times, and worse, than you ever did.’

They caught up with the others and explained what they were doing. The pilot, a tall bearded Sikh, told them they were crazy. ‘But I wish you luck, nevertheless. If by some miracle you ever get back to Srinagar, look me up and I’ll buy you a beer. Your story should be worth hearing.’

Mike and Lenny took their padded windcheaters from the helicopter and stepped back, watching the others get on board. They stood and waved as the craft rose vertically for fifty metres and then swung away towards the north.

‘It’s going to be quiet around here with the boys gone,’ Lenny quipped.

Mike was gazing up at the ridge of rocks above the mountain path. ‘I hope Sabrina’s OK,’ he said.

They moved up the incline along the eastern side of the forest and sat down on the edge of the road, facing west.

‘Might as well catch the sunset,’ Lenny said.

They watched orange light fan out across the western horizon. By swift stages it turned to gold, red and purple as the sun dropped halfway below the dark margin of rock and mountain.

‘It never disappoints,’ Mike said.

They both turned at a sound to their right. Coming from the perimeter of the forest were six men, their faces dark amber in the fading blaze of sun. They all carried rifles, all of them pointing at Mike and Lenny.

‘One of us has to run for it,’ Mike said, lips scarcely moving, his voice no more than a whisper.

‘You go,’ Lenny grunted.

It was the rule. If two agents were cornered, and the prospects for survival looked slight, then one agent must try to escape.

‘No. You go.’

‘You’re a top UNACO man, for God’s sake …’

As they stood up, their hands in the air, Mike shoved Lenny violently with his shoulder, knocking him over the edge of the road. Lenny could do nothing but run.

‘Go like the wind!’ Mike yelled.

Lenny ploughed down the mountainside, arms flailing as he galloped over stones, leapt boulders and ran headlong through thickets and under overhanging trees.

Five of the bandits formed a circle around Mike. The sixth man went to the edge of the road and got down on one knee. He steadied his elbow and took aim with his rifle.

‘No!’ Mike yelled at him. ‘No, you bastard!’

A single shot rang out. Mike saw Lenny stumble and fall. The gunman stood up, walked down the mountainside a distance, then fired again. When he came back he gave his companions a thumbs-up.

Mike threw himself at the gunman but didn’t get past the two in front of him. They each hit him once, on the ears with clenched fists, deafening him, making his skull hurt so badly he had to clamp his hands over his head.

He was pushed and pulled towards the forest and marched through the trees in almost total darkness. After five or six minutes he began to see light, and as they marched forward, threading their way, he could hear the hum of a generator.

All at once they were on the edge of a clearing and he could see bright electric lights, mounted high on tubular metal stands. There were tents, cooking fires with spits mounted over them, and horses tethered in a long line by a wooden trough.

As Mike was shoved forward into the wide circle of light he saw a woman tied to a pole near one of the guttering fires. Her head was bowed and he saw blood caked on the front of her shirt. Drawing nearer he realized it was Sabrina. He jerked forward, making the men holding his arms stumble.

‘Sabrina! Sabrina honey! Are you OK?’

Somebody slapped him on the neck. Mike’s head jerked round, ‘You goddamned scum!’

He pulled an arm free and punched the nearest bandit on the chin. As the man fell Mike spun and kicked the one on the other side.

‘Vermin! Woman-beaters! You’re filth! Filth! I’ll kill every last one of you!’

For a moment he was out of their control, free, moving to his own rhythm while they bumped into each other trying to block him. He put his hands on the shoulders of a barrel-shaped man and head-butted him on the nose. The sound of cracking bone gave Mike fresh energy.

‘Get out of my way!’ He slipped his hand under his jacket and pulled out his gun. ‘Back! Get back!’ He thumbed the hammer as men scattered. ‘Sabrina! Wake up!’

He turned to the pole where Sabrina was tied. A bandit behind him waited with his rifle raised until Mike lined himself up. In that split second the rifle butt came down with flashing speed and struck Mike’s head. He stopped moving for a moment, staring at the pole and Sabrina’s sagging body. Then he fell over on his face.

His first recollection when he came round was that Lenny Trent was dead. Through his pain and immobility he felt a terrible distress. There was a kaleidoscope of tumbling images, all of Lenny, all the pictures bright, full of energy and laughter.

The images were an assertion: He isn’t dead! The vehemence was a voice inside Mike, his own, chanting over and over to a banging fist, reinforcing his refusal to believe.

The pain in his head intruded but he hung on to the images, knowing they were going to fade, wanting them to stay and wipe out the reality.

‘Stay, buddy, stay …’

How could it be that Lenny Trent no longer existed? In a buzzing, sickening haze, surfacing quickly to full consciousness, Mike saw Lenny’s mobile face again, the eyes so alive behind their lenses. And then he faded away, and Mike accepted the hollow certainty.