Christopher Reich - Rules of Betrayal

“So you just left them there?”

“Our tracking data showed that one of the devices broke apart on impact and was rendered useless. We figured we only had to worry about the one. We had a decent idea where the plane went down, but remember, this was back in 1984, before we had the kind of GPS system we do now. We were able to narrow down the crash’s location to a one-hundred-square-mile perimeter. The problem was the terrain. Up there, a hundred square miles might as well be a million. For three years we put teams up that mountain. It was a monumental undertaking, more so because it’s impossible to travel around without being noticed. When a place is absolutely deserted, even a single person stands out. It’s not like you can zip in there at night, grab the thing, and zip back out. We’re talking the tallest mountains on earth.”

“What about satellites?”

“To reposition one of our birds in space required an order of Congress. You can’t just flip some switch and move your footprint. At least, you couldn’t back then. No one wanted to spill the beans. We were effectively blind.”

“No one ever found it?”

Grant shook his head. “It was a miracle we were even able to locate the plane. We blew up all the pieces we found. There was sensitive equipment on board, and we wanted to cover our tracks. But we never did find hide nor hair of that last bomb. After a while we just forgot about it. It was no different from losing a bomb at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Hell, if we couldn’t get to it, who could?”

Connor absorbed the information without emotion. He had seen a lot of incompetence during his years. He knew about prevarication and self-deception and all the other white lies bureaucrats tell themselves to paper over their failures. “How big, Joe?”

“I swear we tried,” said Grant. “We did everything we could. You of all people should know that some things have to remain secret.”

“How big a bomb are we talking about?”

“It was Russia we were up against. How big do you think?”

“I’m waiting, Congressman.”

“One-fifty.”

“One-fifty what?”

“One hundred fifty kilotons. The biggest that we could fit on an ALCM.”

“And Hiroshima was how big?”

“Ten.”

Connor kept his liverish gaze on Grant.

“It can’t be found,” Grant pleaded. “It’s above twenty-two thousand feet, two hundred miles from the nearest city. The goddamn thing weighs three thousand pounds. It’s gone, Frank. Do you hear me? It’s at the bottom of some prehistoric crevasse. No one can get to it. It’s impossible.”

The team numbered eight in all. There was the helicopter pilot, a rangy Pakistani who had flown rescue missions in the Hindu Kush for forty years. The guide, the farmer from the region who had found the missile and knew the approach like the back of his hand. Two nuclear physicists, both veterans of the A. Q. Khan network. Three porters to carry the equipment. And Emma.

Emma was the team leader, or, as Lord Balfour had informed her, “his personal ambassador to keep the others in line and focused on their task.” She knew better than to rely on his imprimatur of authority. In her pack she carried an Uzi submachine gun, just in case.

It was eleven o’clock in the morning. Emma had put down at an airfield in Chitral, elevation twenty-six hundred meters, four hundred kilometers northeast of Islamabad and a stone’s throw from the Afghan border. If, that is, one could throw a stone over the towering peaks that held the impoverished mountain village in their palm. She stood huddled with the pilot and guide on the tarmac, backs turned against a bitterly cold norther as they studied a topographic map of the region.

“Missile here.” The guide pointed to a red dot inked near the peak of Tirich Mir.

“It’s very high,” said Emma, noting the altitude. “Seven thousand meters.”

“No worries, madam,” he continued in his crisply enunciated but broken English. “Missile not at seven thousand meter. Avalanche in spring. Maybe missile come down mountain. Maybe six thousand meter. No higher.”

Emma considered this. Six thousand meters was over nineteen thousand feet. With little time to acclimatize, the entire team would require oxygen. “You’re sure you can find it again?”

“My brother there now. Lord Balfour pay.”

Emma turned to the pilot. “How high can you take your chopper?”

“Five thousand meters.”

“That’s all? Surely you can take us higher.”

“Not in my aircraft. The air’s thin at that altitude. It’s very difficult to get proper lift. To go higher, you need a military helicopter. I’m sorry.”

“Any place to put down nearby?”

“There are no airfields, if that’s what you mean. No one lives in the area. It’s beyond hell and gone. I suggest we make a recce and hope to find a decent place to set down.” The pilot caught Emma’s eye. “Might I have a word?”

Emma said, “Of course,” and asked the guide to give them a moment. Grudgingly, the guide moved a few steps away. The pilot glanced at the sky, taking in the thin cumulus clouds that raked it. “There’s a front moving in. If you think it’s windy here, wait until we get up high. The gusts will be blowing at gale force. It might be better to postpone the expedition.”

A front meant snow. This late in the year, a significant snowfall would keep the missile buried until the spring thaw next May or June. Emma couldn’t allow that to happen. “We’ll manage,” she said. “Let’s finish fueling and get moving.”

“So we go?” asked the guide, who’d overheard every word. The trip meant payment, and in his case an early retirement.

“We go,” said Emma.

The guide smiled broadly and began barking orders at the porters and engineers to get to the chopper. Emma did not smile, though she had equally compelling reasons to get up the mountain. Her future survival would depend on it. She phoned Balfour and informed him that they were completing fueling and would be taking off again in minutes. All further communication would be conducted via radio.

Emma climbed into the copilot’s seat and pulled the door closed. The helicopter lifted into the air, buffeted by the gusting wind. The town of Chitral passed below, a maze of mud walls and battered buildings laced with thousands of colorful prayer flags. The pilot pushed the stick to the left and the aircraft banked hard, leaving behind the high plateau and advancing into the towering, shark-toothed mountains.

Behind her, the guide and the engineers sat bunched together, looking miserable. The porters were crammed along with the equipment into the aft cargo bay. Emma shifted in the seat and stared out of the Perspex canopy. An infinite landscape of peaks and valleys beckoned. The wind calmed, and she felt as if she were floating into the jaws of a great white beast. The altimeter read four thousand meters, but already the mountains soared high above them. The broad, snowy faces threatened to graze the helicopter’s skids, passing so close that she was certain she could reach out and scrape her palms against the exposed rock.

Emma roused herself from her daydream, reminding herself of the importance of the mission. It was a rare rebuke. Normally her single-minded focus was her strongest suit. And so she readily admitted to having been drifting for a while now. Days, if not weeks. Her destination never varied: it was the past that drew her. And now, looking at the mountains, feeling as if she were being swallowed whole by them, she heard its siren song more strongly than ever.

She knew only one person who loved the mountains more than she did.

“His name is Ransom. He’s a surgeon. We think he’s exactly the ticket to provide you the cover you require.”