Don Pendleton - Savage Deadlock

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Copyright

Chapter One

Shazana Yasmin looked out over the river as the evening faded into dusk. She loved coming back here to where her family had settled after the city life of Quetta had ceased to have any appeal. Her father was attached to the mountainous regions of Balochistan, Pakistan, close to the borders with Afghanistan and Iran, and had stubbornly refused to move back to civilization, even though the hilly terrain was now dangerous to pass at times, as bandits and revolutionaries prowled the land.

Despite this, she still saw it as a tranquil haven away from the city and the academic life that had enveloped her, and she liked to travel here when she could. Since her mother had passed away, her father had become more reclusive and curmudgeonly, allowing his sons to run the businesses that had bought them this palatial villa, nestled into the hills and overlooking the peacefully flowing river.

As the dusk closed, so the insects became bolder, and their buzzing grew louder in her ears. Idly, she swatted them away, her thoughts far from the peace of the countryside.

“Malaria, fever of some kind if they bite...then maybe hospitalization, which isn’t easy in the back end of beyond. I don’t know, maybe by the time they get you there, you’ll be dead. And think what a loss to humanity that would be. It doesn’t really bear thinking about.”

“Go boil your head,” she answered without turning around.

“That’s a fine way for a nicely brought up girl to speak to a man. Especially one who is her elder,” murmured her brother, who now settled himself on the veranda railing beside her, resting his arms so that he could lean out over the rocks below. “It’s a long way down,” he added.

“Then you should make sure that you balance yourself on those ape arms of yours,” she replied, staring at his thick, hairy wrists. “I don’t know how you came to look like that, Mahmood. Dad is totally bald, and Mom—”

“Was as delicate and beautiful as you are, Shaz,” he answered. “Not as prone to answering back and being disrespectful, but I blame that on your inevitable Westernization.”

Her mouth fell open, and she prepared to abuse her brother even further before catching the spark of humor in his eyes and realizing she was being had.

“Funny...you’re a very funny man,” she said with a slow nod. “Especially as you spend eight months of the year in Canada rather than Lahore, and you have even more of an accent than I do.”

Mahmood Yasmin shrugged. “I like the West. It is what it is. Here...’ He paused. “Here there is no knowing. This is a country in flux, Shaz, and if Dad had any sense he’d sell up this place and join me in Toronto. It won’t be safe for him, soon. There’s a radicalism in the air that has no place for the likes of him. It has no time for the pragmatic man who seeks to make the best for his children, bending to the times in which he lives. It knows only its own unyielding standards.”

“Dad’s not going to leave. It took him long enough to earn the money to build this place. All his memories of Mom are here. He’s not going to give them up easily.”

“He may not have the choice. If he doesn’t give it up, then it’ll be snatched from him. This is a new dark age, Shaz, and he won’t be safe. Neither will you. You shouldn’t come back here anymore.”

“Why not? You do,” she posited.

Her brother gazed out over the river. “I have to. Someone has to look out for the old man. See that?” He indicated distant, winking lights downriver. “That’s the nearest villa. It’s got to be about twenty kilometers, right? And not on an easy road. Things could happen out here and not be discovered for a long time.”

Yasmin shivered. “You’re scaring me.”

“Good, I should be,” he answered bluntly. “Listen...’ He gestured her to silence, and for some time they stood listening to the quiet of the evening. The river ran beneath them, and they could hear their father in the house behind them, cooking dinner and mumbling to himself. The buzz of insects was a steady hum. Yasmin studied her brother with bemusement. He indicated that she listen harder.

In the far distance, she could hear the crack of rifle fire.

Mahmood nodded as he saw that she had registered the sound. “It’s there all the time, now. It’s so much a part of the background that you don’t notice it unless you actually stop and listen hard.”

“But it’s miles away,” she said dismissively.

“Is it? Sound travels across these hills, I know. It’s clear air. But even so, that means all sound. The gunfire is clear over a lot of other things. And there’s more of it every day. I won’t be happy until you’re out of here, Shaz. I don’t just mean this region, I mean the whole damned country. You shouldn’t have left MIT.”

She shook her head sadly. “I would have thought you understood. This is my country, and I love it. It’s not perfect, I’ll grant you that, though I couldn’t say the U.S. is, either. Balochistan gave me a good education—”

“It didn’t give it to you, Shaz. You earned it. You earned it because you’re a genius.”

“Hardly.” She shrugged. “Though if you want to think that and treat me like a princess, then I’ll let you. Seriously, Mahmood, I really feel like I could make a difference here, help drag this land into the twenty-first century and put it up there with other nations.”

He snorted with derision. “It’s being dragged into the twenty-first century all right, but not in the way you’re hoping. This world is undergoing a polarized split, and I’m not sure Pakistan is going to be on the right side of that.”

“Then we have to fight to make sure that it is,” she said, her calm tone laced with steel. “It’s up to us to make sure that it falls the right way.”

“Now you really do sound like Mom,” he said with a smile. “I’ll still be happier when you’re as far from the border as you can get, though.”

They turned and went in, hearing their father’s call to dinner. Over the meal, neither sibling mentioned their discussion, although Yasmin was sure she could still hear the distant gunfire, even as she settled down for the night.

It lulled her to sleep, but not for long.

* * *

YASMIN WAS DREAMING of MIT again. America had been good to her, and she had enjoyed her time there. Often, these days, she found that her dream world was populated by the faces and places of those days. Coming home to bring her specialist skills to the Pakistan authorities had been her aim, but it had soured as the bureaucracy and outmoded attitudes of those around her had taken their toll. Worse still had been the way that many had looked at her. In their eyes, despite the results she achieved, she was still “just” a woman.

If this country was truly to drag itself into the twenty-first century, then there was still a long way to go. It was inevitable that shortcuts would have to be taken.

A sudden noise jolted her out of her dream world, her heart thumping and her mouth dry. She lay there in the darkness, trying to stop her body from shaking as the adrenaline pumped through her veins.

The door to her bedroom was pushed open, and by the light from the hallway outside she could see a small figure, face swathed in scarves, standing in the doorway. The figure was black against the light, though she could clearly see the outline of an assault rifle held at a downward angle. The fear came back up in her throat, like bile.