CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER
ANOTHER DAY OF BODY-SLAMMING DIRT-BIKING that was even more arduous than the first gave way to the horses on the third day. The horses were sturdy beasts, Thura told them, and possessed sure footing.
He said this was most critical due to the rugged terrain they would be encountering, where even nimble dirt bikes would not work. Plus, he said, even with the extra gas tank they did not have enough fuel for the bikes to make the full journey.
“Horses find their own fuel in the grass,” Thura said with a grin.
He and Zeya gave Nash a tutorial on riding while the horses were still in the corral. After an hour Thura pronounced him good enough. They set off, and for the first few miles the land was relatively flat. Then the ground started to rise rapidly, with more towering mountains ahead.
Thura looked at Nash and Temple and said, “Those are the Northern Mountains of Burma, the eastern ends of the Himalayas really. Hkakabo Razi is the highest peak here, but only twenty thousand feet tall.” He grinned.
“Luckily, we do not have to cross it to get to where we’re going.
Breathing up there would be very hard without oxygen,” he added with a smile.
He spurred his horse in the ribs and said, “Come, let us head to the clouds!”
For the most part the horses moved methodically with a rocking motion that kept making Nash drowsy.
But as the heights advanced he felt his adrenaline pick up, and he kept a tight grip on the reins.
However, the horses seemed to know what they were doing and where they were going.
He rode next to Temple for a while until Amrita let her mount slow down to where she roughly paralleled Nash.
Temple, after giving Nash a curious glance, moved up to take her spot in the column.
“Forget what I said the other night,” Amrita told Nash in a fierce tone. “I was tired and not thinking clearly.”
“You didn’t say anything wrong,” noted Nash. He wondered if Thura might have overheard the conversation between them and given her hell about it later.
To supply proof for this theory, she aimed an angry glance in Thura’s direction and whipped her head around, sending her long black hair flying in the stiff swirling wind coming off the mountain ridges.
“Forget all about it. Forget about me. This is just a job. For us both!”
She spurred on her horse and moved in front of Nash.
As Nash headed along the narrow trail, he reflected, and not for the first time, how extraordinary it was that he was currently on a horse with three strangers and his former boss crossing over mountains in Myanmar on a mission to free the mother of a global criminal from her prison.
Five years ago I went to Fiji with Judith and sat by the pool reading a book and having a daiquiri. And I thought that was adventurous.
They camped that night on a reasonably flat plain amid the shadows of far higher ground. It had become still colder as they had risen in elevation, and they built a small fire and ate around it, and afterward slept close to it for warmth.
It was Nash who was first to hear something amiss. The horses, tied up in a makeshift pen, were snorting and shuffling their hooves.
Nash’s first thought was of a deadly mammal or a venomous reptile, both of which were in abundance in Myanmar.
He slid his gun from his holster and racked the slide. Then Nash slowly sat up and let his eyes adjust to the poor light.
He heard Thura say softly, “Bandit, man, to the right, by the horses.”
Nash nodded. He quietly rose and kept his gaze in front of him.
He saw a glint of light and recognized it as the illumination coming from perhaps a phone or flashlight. Whoever was holding it was very near the horses, as Thura had said.
He edged toward the light and drew a bead on it with his Glock.
Then the light went out. A few moments later, Nash saw muzzle flashes and heard the sounds of two gunshots. Nash then heard someone cry out behind him.
He fired back and he must have hit his target because someone screamed in pain.
Thura ran past Nash and leapt onto the intruder, who had fallen to his knees next to the whinnying and rearing horses.
“Got him,” shouted Thura. He flipped the man over and shouted in Burmese, “Trying to steal our horses?”
Nash ran forward, and Temple and Amrita, roused by all the noise, joined them.
When they reached him, a terrified-looking Thura had risen off the fallen man and stared at Nash. “You killed one of the KIA’s soldiers.”
Nash felt his heart race as he looked down at the uniformed man lying dead in the grass. “What was he doing here?”
“He can be wherever he wants to be,” said Thura, looking wildly around. “Wait, where’s Zeya?”
Nash remembered something: the sound he’d heard when the soldier had fired.
He raced back over to the dying fire and saw Zeya lying face down on top of his sleeping bag.
Nash knelt down and felt for a pulse. There was none. He rolled the man over and saw the bullet hole in his face.
“Shit!”
This came from Thura, who had hustled after Nash and seen his dead comrade.
“We are fucked!” roared Thura.
Temple and Amrita raced up to them.
“What do we do?” she exclaimed in a frightened voice.
“We get the hell out of here,” replied Thura. “We leave now. The horses will find the way even in the dark. Come on, let’s go. Now.”
“And leave the bodies here?” said Nash.
“We can’t take the time to bury them. One soldier means others are close by. And if you don’t bury them deep the animals will get them anyway. Come on!”
He started rolling up his bedding and kicked dirt onto the fire. Amrita watched for a moment and then grabbed up her belongings.
Temple muttered to Nash, “We’re gonna die in this shithole.”
They saddled their horses, with Thura tethering Zeya’s horse to his.
By dawn they were far away from the dead men.