Джеймс Паттерсон - Private Rogue

The ice-cold air chilled his lungs and his head swam from the exertion of climbing the stairs. Whoever had hit him had cracked his head good. He paused for a moment, but a rifle barrel in the small of his back told him to keep moving. When he got closer to the top of the steps and the torch being shone on him, he saw it was being held by a teenage boy with a scraggly beard. He wasn’t sure, but thought it was probably the kid who’d surprised him when he’d first come to the village. The teenager urged Floyd through a doorway that led into a small antechamber full of shoes and coats. The boy opened an interior door and ushered Floyd into a large, well-lit hall.

There were fifty or sixty people in a space about the size of a tennis court. The floor was bare cedarwood, but the walls were hung with ornate woven rugs and a large fire burned in a central hearth. A brick chimney rose into the steeply angled roof. The people were nearly all men and had clustered before the fire. The only two women Floyd could see in the throng were both in their sixties and were seated in heavy armchairs covered in the chipped remains of old gilding. Next to these women were three older men in similar, once grand chairs. These five seemed to command reverence from the assembled crowd.

“ Amrikani ,” a gray-haired man in a brown shalwar kameez said, looking at Floyd. He was seated in the armchair at the center of the line of elders.

“You are accused of being a spy and a thief,” the man said in English.

He turned to the crowd and said something in Kamviri.

“I’m neither of those things,” Floyd protested.

The elder continued as though he hadn’t spoken, “The punishment for these crimes is death.”

The elder barked a command in Kamviri, and a man stepped forward from the crowd. He was dressed in black, a red sash tied around his waist. He held a long sword in his right hand. Reflected flames danced along its polished blade. Floyd’s stomach lurched as he realized he was looking at his executioner.

“I’m not a thief or a spy,” he protested, backing away. “I’m an American soldier who was shot down. You can hold me as a prisoner-of-war, but you cannot execute me.”

The elder said something Floyd didn’t understand. Scarface and his other jailer grabbed hold of Floyd’s arms and pushed him forward. He tried to resist, but they held fast and forced him on. The executioner’s gaze did not waver. Floyd could tell from the thin half-smile on his face that this was a man who enjoyed his work.

After a few steps, Scarface and his companion forced Floyd to his knees.

“No!” he cried, trying to push himself up.

He was rewarded with a punch, which dazed him.

“Don’t struggle and it will be quick,” the elder advised.

Floyd fought and bucked against the two men holding him, but they dragged him to the right of the fireplace, where the crowd parted to reveal a wooden block stained black and marred by deep scores. Two metal eyelets and a long leather strap left no doubt as to the block’s purpose.

“You can’t do this,” Floyd protested as he was hauled over to the block.

He tried to force himself up, but someone threw the leather strap over his shoulders and a moment later he was pinned in position. His legs kicked at the floor, to no effect.

“No!” Floyd yelled as he saw the executioner approach.

The man raised his sword and muttered something under his breath. Reflected flames danced across the blade, and the edge glinted in the golden light.

Floyd felt a lump form in his throat and his stomach churned with nausea as he faced reality: he was about to die. He would never see his wife or children again. Never hold his son or hug his daughter. He felt tears spring to his eyes.

“Please,” he begged.

There was a sudden crash and the clatter of wood hitting something solid. Someone yelled something in Kamviri, and there was commotion in the crowd. The elder replied and was challenged by a new voice. Floyd tried to turn, but he was held fast. He heard footsteps behind him, and another exchange with the elder.

A moment later, a man came into view. Although he wore a navy blue shalwar kameez beneath a thick woolen coat, there was no mistaking his Western features. He reached out and began to pull the leather strap from Floyd’s shoulders. He could have wept when he felt it go slack.

The new arrival helped him to his feet and offered Floyd his hand.

“My name is John,” he said in a British accent.

“Joshua Floyd, Captain, US Army. How did you...?”

“I advised them that executing a US soldier would have repercussions. I’m sorry, I only just learned of your capture, otherwise I would have been here sooner.”

The elder said something to John.

“He says I must pledge my honor for you.”

Floyd looked lost.

“It means they’ll execute me in your place if it turns out you are a spy or a thief,” John explained gravely. “Don’t worry,” he added, breaking into a smile, “he has no intention of killing me. He’s just trying to save face.”

John replied to the elder, and a murmur rippled through the crowd.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

John steered Floyd toward the exit and led him out into the freezing night.

Floyd had never been more pleased to feel himself shiver at the cut of an icy wind. The stars had never shone so brightly, nor the air tasted so sweet. Floyd’s British guardian angel led him along a rough track that ran between two rows of terraced houses, and every step felt like a gift. The bleak threat of death had brought the little things of ordinary life into sharp relief for him.

“Harsh conditions can create harsh people,” John said. “It probably won’t seem like it now, but that’s not true of the Kom people. They’re usually very friendly and welcoming. It must have been the uniform. Americans haven’t done much good here.”

The track was illuminated by lights in the windows of the houses they passed. To Floyd’s left, the roof of the nearest house formed a support for the one above, and beyond that stretched an unbroken run of five similar step structures built into the mountain until the next lateral track, which cut through the town. Narrow alleyways separated each run of houses from their neighbors, and enabled people to access the homes in the center of each “staircase”. The same pattern of construction was visible to Floyd’s right, going down the mountain.

“This place is something, isn’t it?” John remarked.

Floyd nodded.

“I couldn’t believe it, when I first saw it. That people managed to build like this in these mountains before modern technology. Or that they’d want to. But spend long enough here, and you understand why.”

Floyd hadn’t reached that revelatory moment yet. His lungs were acclimatizing to the thin ice-cold air, and he was still getting over having almost been murdered.

“Live at the limits of existence,” John said, “and you understand what it means to be truly alive.”

It sounded like a snowboard manufacturer’s tagline.

“You been here long?” Floyd asked.

“Uh-huh,” John replied. “Some years.”

Floyd could appreciate the majesty of the place, but he couldn’t think of anything better than being curled up on the sofa with his family, watching a movie and munching caramel popcorn. He didn’t need to be on the edge to appreciate life. He’d been close enough to the brink far too many times to forget the view. Tonight was just the latest and most painful trip.

“Up here,” John said, and hurried left, along one of the lateral alleyways that ran directly up the mountain.