CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER
THEY SPENT ANOTHER NIGHT OUTSIDE in the mountains, but Thura told them they would turn the horses in the next day and make the rest of the trip to Myitkyina on foot.
After Temple and Thura were asleep Amrita whispered to Nash. “You killed the soldier.”
“I didn’t even know it was a soldier. I thought it was somebody trying to steal our horses, or worse.”
“Here that does not matter. They will kill you. They will kill all of us.”
“I never intended for any of this to happen, Amrita.”
“You may get out of here alive because you are American. But I will not. They will find me and kill me.”
“You don’t know that.”
Amrita’s face flushed. “I do know this. Do not tell me what I do not know.” Thura mumbled in his sleep and she glanced anxiously at him before turning back to Nash.
“I know I told you to forget about me wanting to go to America, but now it is different. With the KIA dead it is all changed. So can you help me?” she said urgently. “Can you take me with you? You and your boss? I am smart. I know the language. I can help with your. . . business.”
Nash was about to say no, but then he noted the woman’s desperate expression.
“I’ll talk to my boss. Maybe we can work something out. But what about Thura?”
“For me he cares nothing, but he will take care of himself. You will talk to your boss? You promise me this?”
“I promise you,” he said firmly, but his thoughts did not match his tone. Nash had always been at his best when he could think things through. Ever since boarding Victoria Steers’s plane for the flight to Hong Kong, he had only had time to be reactive.
Amrita gave him a searching look and then turned away. A few minutes later he could hear her gentle snores.
Nash looked up at the hazy sky and wondered what planet he was actually on.
Because it no longer feels like earth.
* * *
The hike was long and difficult, and it left them at varying points covered in sweat or chilled to the bone.
Nash could not imagine what it would be like during the monsoon season when the rain would fall in feet rather than inches.
As he glanced at Temple, who was trudging next to him, Nash could tell his boss was feeling the full effects of the journey.
But Temple’s grim expression also told Nash that the death of the soldier was probably also weighing heavily on him.
For himself Nash expected a chopper to roar over one of the mountain peaks and land with men holding automatic weapons pouring out of it, and his life would end either in a prison or with a wall of bullets.
He wondered if Thura had communicated to anyone what had happened. Had word reached Steers about the death of the soldier?
Even if we get back safely with her mother will she declare the deal null and void and kill us anyway?
These glum thoughts followed Nash until they made their last camp.
After a dinner that consisted of the remnants of their provisions and filled none of their bellies, Nash drew Temple aside and talked to him about Amrita and her request.
“Are you nuts, Dillon?” Temple had exclaimed. “It’s highly doubtful we’ll get out of this alive, much less with a third wheel. It’s out of the question.”
All of this made sense from a logistical point of view, Nash knew.
And also from a commonsense perspective.
But when one threw empathy into the equation it was not so simple.
However, he knew that Temple, as usual, was concerned only with his own survival.
The man clearly had no qualms about what might happen to Amrita.
That night around the campfire Amrita positioned herself near him and Nash knew what was coming.
Around one in the morning she whispered, “Did you talk to him?”
“Yes.”
“And what did he say?”
Nash decided to tell the woman the truth. “He said no.”
A sob escaped the woman’s lips. “I knew it, in my heart I knew that he would refuse to help me. He is American. They only care for themselves. It is why you all are so rich.” She spat on the cold ground.
“What were you planning to do once we got to Myitkyina?”
“Why do you care?” she shot back angrily.
“My boss said no, but I haven’t. Tell me. And it might help me make a case to my boss to help you after all.”
In the light of the campfire Nash could see that her expression grew calm, and when she spoke her tone was more measured. “We were told to get you to Myitkyina so that you can hold your ‘business’ meetings.”
“And after that I understand we are taking a short flight to Bhamo where there will be others to meet us?”
Surprisingly, Amrita shook her head. “I spoke with Thura. He said that after what happened the plane will not work. The KIA will surely be checking.”
“So you think they’ve found the bodies then?”
“Thura believes so. He has been on the phone, and even though reception is not so good here, he was able to get through to someone. He did not say in so many words, but his face told me that things are not good.”
“He should have told us that then,” said Nash irritably.
“Thura cares only for Thura. I have told you this!”
“Okay. When we get to Myitkyina do you know where we are to meet the local businessmen?”
“Yes, at the hotel where you will also be staying. We are to leave you there but remain in the area. Then we are to escort you to the airport in three days’ time, and then we will have finished our job.”
“What were you planning to do after that?”
“I have no choice but to continue to work for Thura. I am not even supposed to be in this country.”
“So if we can’t take a plane to Bhamo, how do we get there?”
“I know that one may travel by either a minibus or a car. The car will take around three hours at least. The minibus will be twice that long with a stopover in a village called Sinbo. But the thing is, the roads are not always safe or allowable for foreigners, and the bus service is very spotty. From day to day it might not run. And after the death of the soldier, the KIA will have set up checkpoints all along the roads. So, I do not think it is a good plan to take a car or bus.”
“How about a fast ferry on the Irrawaddy?”
She thought about this and nodded. “Yes, it is possible. But they will look for foreigners on the fast ferries, but not so much on the slow ones. Americans in particular do not like the slow ferries. They are. . .primitive and full of locals and animals, and the toilets are. . .not nice. And you sleep on the deck.”
“How long will the slow ferry take?”
“It is around two hundred kilometers on the Irrawaddy between Myitkyina and Bhamo with many stops in between. It could take a whole day.”
“We don’t have that much time. We were supposed to fly, which would only take a half hour, and the people meeting us aren’t going to wait a full day.”
“Is your business that important?”
He studied her, reading suspicion in every facet of her features. “Yes.”
“Then contact your people and tell them of your delay.”
A very sensible idea, thought Nash. Only they had not been allowed phones.
“We can’t count on that,” he said. “If you can aid us in getting out of Myitkyina ahead of schedule then I could help you get out of the country.”
“But nothing I can do is as fast as a plane.”
“But we can cut short our business meetings by a day and get on a slow ferry, and still beat the plane. Do you really think this provides us a better chance of evading the KIA?”
She brightened. “Undoubtedly it will.”
“If we change plans, what about Thura?”
“I think that once you get to Myitkyina you should lose Thura as soon as possible.”
“Why?”
“It is because he will see turning you in as the only way for him to escape responsibility for the soldier’s death.”
Nash took this in and nodded. “Okay, let me talk to my boss about all of this and ditching Thura, and we’ll go from there. But you need to get us on that ferry, okay? Whatever it takes. We have money.”
“As soon as we get to town I will work on this with all my passion, I swear,” she said. She then took his hand and kissed it. “Thank you.”
All this was done so earnestly that he almost smiled, until he realized that for her this was truly life and death.
As it is for all of us.