James Becker - The Messiah Secret

‘And the second half of the line?’ Bronson asked.

‘That’s the tricky bit. The phrase “beyond their shadows” could refer to the pillars, perhaps, if they were free-standing structures. So it might mean that the entrance to the cave is close to the pillars, just beyond the furthest point that the sun casts their shadows. But I suppose it’s also possible that “their shadows” refers to Isaac and his company, in which case it might simply mean that they kept on going north, heading for a point “beyond their shadows”. Or it could be a description of something completely different — something that’s not so far occurred to me.’ Angela sighed in frustration.

‘Look, we’re at the top,’ Bronson said, pointing through the windscreen.

They’d been climbing steadily ever since they’d left Leh, the road steep and rough, but it now looked as if they’d finally reached the crest of the Khardung La pass. As he spoke, he saw a sign at the side of the road bearing characters he didn’t recognize, but underneath were the English words ‘Khardung La’ and below that the height — 5,385 metres, or almost exactly 17,500 feet. The word La means ‘pass’.

‘The last time I was as high as this I was in an aircraft,’ Bronson said in amazement.

The view was, indeed, spectacular. Uninterrupted vistas opened up in all directions from their vantage point, and Bronson had the feeling of being literally on top of the world, because almost everything they could see around them was actually below them. In that instant he had a sudden insight into the reasons why mountaineers found climbing so exhilarating.

‘I guess it’s downhill all the way from now on — at least geographically,’ Angela said, as Bronson slipped the jeep into second gear for the long descent down the east side of the pass to the river Shyok that ran along the bottom of the valley. If he used the brakes to keep their speed down, they’d be useless — the fluid would boil and the pads burn out — long before they reached the end of the slope.

The road up to Khardung La had been steep and impressive, but as Bronson looked ahead he realized that the descent was going to be even more spectacular. He could see a virtual knitting-pattern of steep drops, hairpin bends and only slightly wider turns that marked the route down to the point where the rushing Shyok and Nubra rivers met at the bottom of the valley.

They’d covered about another quarter of a mile down the hill before a scruffy grey Land Rover crested the rise behind them and started the same long descent to the river valley below.

On the outskirts of Hushe, in Eastern Baltistan, Nick Masters jumped out of the army helicopter and started supervising the unloading of his men and their equipment.

The weapons were wrapped in sacking to avoid them getting damaged while in transit, although damaging a Kalashnikov with anything smaller than a sledgehammer was quite a difficult thing to do, and the ammunition and pistols were packed in green-painted steel boxes. Masters had even found a Barrett sniper rifle.

At one side of the landing area stood two well-used four-by-fours on Indian plates, and beside them, watching their arrival, was Rodini.

‘Come to check on your investment?’ Masters asked, walking over to him.

‘Just making sure everything is correct,’ Rodini replied, looking at the men who’d accompanied Masters. ‘Let me show you these vehicles.’

He led the way across to the Land Cruisers and swung open the rear door of one of them. The door was heavy, because a spare wheel was bolted to it.

‘This is the clever bit,’ he said. ‘The bumper’s been lowered by about three inches, which is hardly noticeable on a vehicle of this size, and a shallow tray’s been made to slide into the body of the jeep just above it. This is how you release it.’

He lifted up what looked like a pair of worn bolt-heads at the rear of the loading area, but when he’d extracted them from the floor, Masters could see that there was no thread on them — they were both completely smooth, like simple locking pins, which in fact is what they were.

Then Rodini took out a knife, slid the point into a tiny gap at the very edge of the floor pan and levered. A tray slid an inch or two out from the floor pan, and he reached down and pulled it out fully. It was the width of the rear bumper, and had been made to fit along the normal panel joint lines, so that it was effectively invisible. The tray wasn’t big. It was perhaps five or six inches deep and about three feet long, but almost five feet wide.

‘Neat,’ Masters said. ‘You could pack a lot of cocaine inside this.’

Rodini nodded. ‘And that’s exactly what they did. Unfortunately for the smugglers, they didn’t make the right pay-offs to the right people, and that’s why you’re now the proud owner of these two vehicles. Your weapons and ammunition will easily fit in there.’

‘Definitely,’ Masters replied, looking behind him where his men had assembled in a loose bunch, weapons and ammunition boxes and other gear scattered around them. ‘John,’ Masters called. ‘Bring a couple of the AKs over here, will you? And some of that sacking.’

A bulky, bear-like man, most of his face hidden behind a thick black beard, picked up two of the Kalashnikovs and ambled over to the back of the Land Cruiser.

Masters nodded his thanks to Rodini, spread the sacking on the bottom of the tray and laid the two Kalashnikovs on it. Even a casual glance showed that there was room for at least half a dozen of the weapons in the tray, as long as their magazines were detached.

‘That’s good,’ he said. Then, raising his voice slightly, ‘OK, you guys. Take the mags off the AKs and put them in these two trays. The Barrett, too. Pack the ammo around them.’

‘What about the shorts?’ the heavy-set man asked. ‘You want them in there as well?’

Masters shook his head. ‘No — we’ll keep the pistols on us, just in case we need some additional persuasion at some checkpoint.’

Rodini shook his head. ‘I would strongly suggest that you don’t get into a fire-fight with the Indian Army patrols across the border. I can almost guarantee that you’ll lose.’

‘Noted,’ Masters said. ‘But I don’t want all our weapons locked away and inaccessible, just in case we do run into any trouble.’ He watched as his men stowed away the weapons and ammunition, and closed the two secret trays in the backs of the Land Cruisers.

‘Now,’ Rodini said, ‘crossing the border. You all have your passports and Inner Line permits?’

Masters nodded. He’d personally checked the documents when Rodini had handed them back after the forgers had done their work, and he also had a set ready for JJ Donovan when he finally arrived.

‘We’re here.’ Rodini opened up a map, spread it out on the bonnet of the Land Cruiser, and pointed at a spot about ten or twelve miles from the border between Pakistani and Indian territory. ‘On the tracks that pass for roads in this area, the border’s about a half-hour drive down to the south-east. What I propose to do is quite simple. I intend to escort all of you down there under guard and then hand you over to the Indian troops.’

‘We’re still pretty high, aren’t we?’ Bronson asked.

They’d descended all the way to the bottom of the Khardung La pass, and crossed the bridge over the Shyok, the river that ran along the bottom of the valley. At the T-junction on the other side of the fast-flowing waters, they turned left and again began descending, but this time more gently.

‘Yes,’ Angela replied. ‘This whole area’s at an elevation of about ten thousand feet.’ She glanced at her map. ‘Pretty soon we’ll come to another junction, and one fork of the road will go south, back across to the other side of the Shyok. We need to stay on this side, the east side, of the river, and we’ll keep on heading more or less northwest until we reach the town of Panamik.’