The Tiger Warrior (46 page)

They filed in behind Rahid. The walls were lined with wooden gun racks, most of them empty but several dozen weapons still there. There was a whiff of gun oil in the air, and everything was spotless. Jack walked over to the nearest rack. At the top was a long, ornate gun, an antique muzzle-loader with an extravagantly curved stock and rings of decorative metalwork up the barrel. “A jezail,” he said. “Matchlock, smoothbore, early nineteenth century.”

Rahid looked at him appreciatively. “You know guns.”

“A family tradition.”

“My ancestors killed with these. They are all kept ready to shoot.”

“So I see.” Below the jezail were several percussion muskets, East India Company smoothbores similar to the one in Jack’s cabin on
Seaquest II
Below that were half a dozen Martini-Henry rifles, with the cipher of Queen Victoria on the receivers. In the middle was a Snider-Enfield breech-loader, with the date 1860 visible on the lock plate. Pradesh pointed at the buttstock. “Look at that,” he said. “The stamped roundel of the Queen’s Own Madras Sappers and Miners. My regiment, and John Howard’s. He could have touched this, Jack.”

“All of these rifles were taken from the British,” Rahid said. “The Snider-Enfield was recovered from the battlefield at Maiwand, in October 1880. It was used by a British sergeant who fought to the last round, after all his Indian sappers had been killed. His name was O’Connell. That’s what those Persian letters on the stock mean. They were carved by our tribesmen, who found his name on his medals. We respect our enemies when they are brave. We are honored to take and use their weapons.”

Pradesh glanced at Jack. “Some of the sappers were redeployed up here from the Rampa jungle, a few months after the incident with the river steamer. This chap could even have been one of Howard’s NCOs.”

Jack touched the rifle stock, seeing where there was a careful repair near the breech, a darker piece of Indian wood inserted into the English walnut. He thought for a moment of the sappers that day in 1879 on the Godavari River, a thousand miles from this place. He stood back. The rest of the rifles were Lee-Enfields: snub-nosed Mark 3 rifles, made by the Ishapore arms factory in India, as well as later Mark 4 rifles from the Canadian Long Branch factory, many of them refurbished in Indian mahogany.

“We still use these,” Rahid said. “The .303 packs a bigger punch than modern standard-issue military rounds and the Lee-Enfield is highly accurate, with a remarkable rate of fire for a bolt-action. From the time of the jezail, we have been brought up to kill with a single round. One of my men with a Lee-Enfield can take out an entire party of Taliban, carrying automatic weapons they do not know how to use. They are not like the sapper sergeant. They are an enemy we despise. We desecrate their bodies and disdain their weapons.”

Jack eyed the rifles, stopping at one with a scope. “Long Branch, Number 4 Mark 1, 1943,” he murmured. “This was the rifle I learned to shoot.” He lifted it off the rack, checked the buttstock length, then took the leather covers off the eyepieces. “Scope pattern 1918, Number 32 Mark 1,” he murmured. “Three point five times magnification.” He pushed the safety forward, disengaged the bolthead and drew the bolt out, then held the rifle up to the light and peered down the barrel. “Perfect bore.”

“We look after our weapons,” Rahid said.

Jack replaced the bolt, drew the handle up and back, pushed it forward and down to cock it, pulled the trigger, repeated the process but let the bolt snap back, then pushed it forward while pulling the trigger. He clicked out the magazine and pressed down the feed platform, feeling the tension of the spring. Rahid handed him a khaki bandolier with five pouches. Jack slung it over his left shoulder, feeling the weight of the ammunition. He opened one and took out a five round clip. “Three-oh-three British, Mark 7,” he said. He drew back the bolt of the rifle, slotted the clip into the receiver and stripped the rounds into the magazine with his right thumb, then repeated the process with another clip. He closed the bolt over them, then flipped on the safety with his thumb. “I take it I won’t need to sight this in.”

“The scope is zeroed for three hundred yards. I did it myself.”

“Not a very powerful scope,” Costas murmured.

“We didn’t have scopes when we destroyed the British Army of the Indus with our jezails in 1841,” Rahid retorted sharply.

“Point taken.”

Pradesh reached up and took down one of the Ishapore rifles from the rack above, giving it a quick inspection. “I’ll borrow one of these, if you don’t mind.”

Jack passed two clips from the bandolier to Pradesh, who stripped them into his rifle. Rahid’s radio receiver lit up, and he spoke into it quickly. He snapped it shut, then gave Jack a length of old gray turban cloth and a pair of thick sheepskin mitts. “Use the cloth to camouflage the rifle. Watch the sunlight off the scope. Keep those mitts on until you have to pull the trigger. We must part now.” He led them back to the cave entrance, then turned and spoke to Jack, quietly. “I will tell you what you need to know. As boys we played in the lapis lazuli mines. I know them all, every last passage, every nook and cranny. Just below the upper ridge are three shafts, not visible from the valley floor. They are in a line above the main workings, away from the shafts where the lapis has been mined most recently. The upper workings are old shafts, very old, where there is no good lapis to be found anymore. We were told as boys that they were the shafts worked at the time of the ancient Egyptians, of Alexander the Great. That was where my grandfather told us never to go, or a guardian demon would devour us. But I told you, I went, once. What you seek lies in the central shaft, the one just visible from the path you will be taking above the valley floor.”

“Nobody else ever goes there?”

“For generations we controlled the mines. During the Soviet war we sold lapis lazuli to buy guns. The mines were under my sway and that of my forefathers. Our word was law. We banned anyone from going to the old workings on pain of death. It was what my grandfather wanted. It is only since the rise of the Taliban that our control has slackened, as we have had to look elsewhere, to defend our villages like the one being attacked now across the valley. Even so I am certain they are undisturbed. It is only the lower shafts now that produce the high-grade lapis. And nobody who lives in these mountains climbs higher than they absolutely need to. Up there you will find only death.”

While he was talking the others filed out behind. There was a whinnying from somewhere below, then a strange bellow and a stomping of hooves. Katya caught her breath. “You have the
akhal-teke
!”

Rahid stared at her. “You know,” he said quietly. “Of course. You told me. Your Kazakh family.”

“No other horse makes a sound like that,” she said, her voice halting. “The war-cry of the
akhal-teke.
”

“They run wild in the valley. This is one of the last places where they are kept pure. That’s one reason why we keep outsiders away.”

“You breed them?” Costas said.

Rahid paused, then looked at him. “I am the direct male heir of Qais Abdul Rashid, progenitor of all the Pashtun tribes,” he said. “He in turn was descended from the clan who lived in this valley from before the time of Alexander the Great. My ancestors bred the
akhal-teke
for the First Emperor of China,
Shihuangdi
, after his warriors came here looking for them.”

Katya stared at him, stunned. “Your clan are imperial horse-breeders,” she said. “We thought they had all passed into history.”

“We are the last. Ours are the final remaining purebreds.”

“Do you still heed the call?” Katya said quietly. “Do the warriors still come?”

“A Pashtun’s word is his oath. My ancestor gave it sixty-six generations ago.”

“When was the last time they came? Has Jack told you I think we are being followed?”

“The oath was one of secrecy.”

“I sensed the
akhal-teke
near the lake at Issyk-Kul,” Katya murmured. “I heard that noise, and smelled something. There was a presence nearby.”

“Our oath was to
Shihuangdi
, and to those who can prove to us that they are his eternal guardians.”

“The Brotherhood of the Tiger,” Costas said.

Katya pulled out a photograph from her front pocket. “You mean those who can show you this. The tattoo.”

Rahid remained silent, staring at the valley. There was a sudden tension in the atmosphere. Jack shot Costas a warning look, and Katya saw it. She put away the photo and confronted Rahid. “You know the Brotherhood is corrupted. He who controls it now has been tempted, and rules as if he is the reincarnation
of Shihuangdi
himself In doing so he has broken his oath to the emperor. The oath of your clan is no longer binding.”

Rahid looked at her silently, and then spoke. “Two weeks ago, a group came to the valley from a mining company, claiming I owed them allegiance. Eight men, prospectors. They wanted me to take them to the lapis lazuli mines.”

“A mining company,” Jack murmured. “Chinese?”

“INTACON.”

Jack drew in his breath. “What did you do?”

“I told you what we do.” Rahid gestured at the rifle in Jack’s hands. “My ancestor swore an oath to the emperor, to the true Brotherhood, not to these animals. I killed them all.”

“And the other one?” Jack said quietly. “The one who followed them, who is there now? Waiting for us?”

Rahid touched the rifle, and stared at Jack. “Your enemy is my enemy. God be with you.
Inshallah.”

Jack looked him hard in the eyes, and understood. Through the entrance passageway they heard the staccato noise of distant gunfire, and then the bellow of the horse, a strange, unnerving sound. Katya still seemed distracted by it, disturbed. “Can I touch it?” she said. “I haven’t touched one since I was a child.”

Rahid shook his head. “Not now. When you return. When you bring that rifle back, with one round missing.” He looked at Jack, then pointed at the path toward the mountains. “That’s your route.”

Jack held out his hand.
“Tashakkurr
. I owe you.”

Rahid shook it. “It’s our code.
Pashtunwali
. Hospitality to travelers.”

“But not all of them,” Costas said.

“No, not all of them. You’ve been lucky.” Rahid slapped Costas on the back.
“Salaam
. Go now.” He turned and disappeared over the ledge. A few moments later there was the sound of whinnying, then the clatter of hooves on shingle, receding down the slope. Then the noise was gone, and all Jack heard was a whispering of wind across the rock, a sharp, dry wind brought down from the peaks of the Hindu Kush. He slung the rifle over his left shoulder and squinted up the valley. He took the Beretta out of his bag and handed it to Costas. Pradesh slung his rifle and passed his revolver to Altamaty. They knew that Katya had her own sidearm. Costas snapped back the slider on the Beretta, cocking it, then eased the hammer to the safe position and tucked the pistol in the breast pocket of his coat. “I’m ready,” he said.

“I’ll take point,” Jack said, walking forward.

“No.” Pradesh niftily sidestepped Jack and took the lead, heading off up the path. Jack relented, and looked at his watch. “It’ll take two hours to get there, according to Rahid. That puts us at mid-afternoon. And that’s probably two hours Afghan time, for people who live in these mountains. The air’s pretty thin and we’re not acclimatized. We’d better get moving. We don’t want to be stuck up there after dark.”

Costas pulled on a pair of fleece gloves. “Roger that.”

J
UST OVER TWO HOURS LATER JACK UNSLUNG THE
rifle and sat on a rock, waiting for the others to catch up. The penetrating chill of the early morning had gone, but he knew that a few minutes sitting here and the cold would return with a vengeance, made worse by lack of sleep and food. He pulled his binoculars out and scanned the narrowing cleft in the mountains ahead, looking for signs of movement, the telltale flash of sunlight against metal. Still nothing. He tucked the binoculars away, and made a mental note to avoid using them again unless absolutely necessary. If he did have to use the rifle, he needed to be attuned to what he could see with the naked eye, to be able to judge distances, to sense the difference at a thousand yards between rock and animate form. He glanced at the ridge far above, squinting in the harsh sunlight. The valley had become narrower and higher as they had trekked farther into the mountains. The cleft ahead was no more than two hundred meters wide, bare rock and scree on both sides, the ground between dry and cracked. They had followed Rahid’s advice and kept to the upper path, a good hundred meters above the valley floor. Jack reached down and picked up a piece of rock. Despite the frigid air it was warm, baked by the sun. There was no blue in it, but it was jagged, fractured. The scree ahead could be mine tailings, debris from thousands of years of hacking and picking at the rock, by miners lighting fires to crack the stone and expose the veins of precious blue. Jack looked at the slopes again. It fitted exactly with the description in Lieutenant Wood’s book. He realized that he must be looking at the fabled lapis lazuli mines of Sar-e-Sang. His heart began to pound.
This was it
.