Borrowed Time Read online

  The images were an assertion: He isn’t dead! The vehemence was a voice inside Mike, his own, chanting over and over to a banging fist, reinforcing his refusal to believe.

  The pain in his head intruded but he hung on to the images, knowing they were going to fade, wanting them to stay and wipe out the reality.

  ‘Stay, buddy, stay …’

  How could it be that Lenny Trent no longer existed? In a buzzing, sickening haze, surfacing quickly to full consciousness, Mike saw Lenny’s mobile face again, the eyes so alive behind their lenses. And then he faded away, and Mike accepted the hollow certainty.

  Dead and gone.

  He opened his eyes and more pain scythed across his skull. He was aware that he was sitting, and that his arms were tied. Another face moved in close to his, hairy and belligerent. It was familiar.

  ‘Paul Seaton,’ Mike said.

  ‘Nowadays I am called Memet-Muhammad.’

  ‘Crap by any other name …’

  Seaton stiffened. Not used to people talking back, Mike thought.

  ‘I have plans for your poisonous tongue,’ Seaton said, ‘once you’ve told me what I want to know.’

  The American accent was overlaid with the clipped syllabic delivery of Indian speech. Seaton probably hadn’t spoken English for years.

  ‘I’m telling you nothing.’ Mike turned his head to one side. There were maybe fifty people moving about in the clearing, a third of them women. ‘So this is where you live.’

  ‘Astute of you to work that out.’ Seaton grinned. He still had the hard and dangerous manner, but now it had a reckless edge, the bravura of a man who won every fight. ‘It amused me the way you all kept clinging to this forest for cover, hiding from me right under my nose.’

  A woman brought a plate with food on it. Seaton took it and began eating with his fingers.

  ‘Tell me who you are.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shall I ask the woman instead?’

  Sabrina! Mike suddenly remembered. He looked anxiously around and finally saw her. She was still where he had seen her last, still sagging against the pole in the middle of the clearing.

  ‘If my hands were free,’ Mike said, ‘I’d kill you with them.’

  ‘Aw, sorry — I have to frustrate you by denying you the chance.’

  Seaton reached out with greasy fingers and twisted Mike’s nose. He kept twisting until the pain made Mike cry out.

  ‘I’ve guessed a thing or two about you and your friends, mostly from the equipment the woman was carrying. But I need to fill in the gaps.’

  ‘Didn’t she tell you, then?’

  Seaton shook his head and popped more food into his mouth. ‘She’s very well trained. Not a word, in spite of everything.’

  ‘How did it feel, putting your grubby paws on a civilized person?’

  ‘Civilized! Ha!’ Particles of food flew from Seaton’s mouth. ‘You have no idea what civilization is. You think you are cultured, enlightened, a citizen of an advanced society. What you are, Mister Interloper, what you lamentably are is the feeble instrument of a corrupt western fixation with territory and material wealth.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘You and your kind will be swallowed by the wilderness created by your own greed.’

  ‘Fine ideological words,’ Mike said. ‘They don’t sound so good coming from a crummy bandit who started his career as a lump of mouth-breathing hired muscle.’

  ‘That tongue of yours,’ Seaton said, wagging a finger.

  ‘I remember how you once destroyed a good man, Seaton. A man you didn’t even know. You did it without a qualm. You did your harm the way an insect would. And today you killed my friend just as brutally, with as little feeling. You’re not entitled to an opinion or to justice. You’re a barbarian.’

  That appeared to sting Seaton. He blinked at Mike a couple of times, then he said, ‘People can be misunderstood.’

  ‘Not people like you.’

  ‘Yes. People change, remember.’

  ‘Oh sure. Time and circumstance, the great changers. Now you’re an Islamic separatist honcho. You’re into laudable pursuits like scaring pathetic drug mules into killing themselves sooner than face your notion of punishment —’

  ‘Hold on!’ Seaton shouted. ‘I won’t have that!’

  ‘Too late. I just gave it to you.’

  ‘No! No! You won’t hang that on me!’

  Seaton jumped to his feet. He went to the centre of the clearing, shouting and gesticulating. Mike felt the bonds on his wrists being cut. He dropped his hands in his lap and flexed his fingers. The blood came tingling back. He watched as Sabrina’s ropes were cut and three women put her on a pallet and carried her away to a tent.

  Seaton came back, still agitated, waiting while two women put food and water in front of Mike. Mike tasted the meat and found it was succulent chicken. He took a mouthful of water and stared at Seaton.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Seaton got down on his hunkers. He pointed at the plate. ‘Eat.’

  Mike put a chunk of chicken breast in his mouth and chewed. It was as good as anything he had ever tasted.

  ‘What you said about the mules, being forced to kill themselves, that is what happens to people in the new trade.’

  ‘New trade? You mean the traffic in highly refined drugs?’

  Seaton nodded. ‘Superfine heroin, MDA, pure coke, concentrated cannabis oil, crack — all that stuff is down to somebody else. I’m no part of the trade and I’m no part of the practices. Do you understand that? It’s got nothing to do with us.’

  Mike pointed to his plate. ‘Why the sudden generosity?’

  ‘We’re obviously not so totally on opposite sides as I thought. Or as you thought. For all I knew before, you were an outcrop of the DEA.’

  ‘I could be. My friend that one of your goons shot for sport — he used to be DEA.’

  ‘Listen, about your dead friend — he had a gun, he would have shot me or mine given a chance, so let’s not get mired down in recrimination here. Just tell me one thing. Is it any part of your brief to stop the new trade?’

  ‘It certainly is.’

  ‘Well now let me tell you about my operation. It’s nothing angelic, but there’s a big difference between what we are and what they are, believe me. First off, we have no part in terrorizing peasant people or poor people of any kind.’

  ‘What do you do, then?’

  ‘Fundamentally, we look after ourselves.’ Seaton smiled briefly, showing surprisingly white teeth. ‘That’s what it’s about, survival. To survive we have to do some unpopular things, hard and damaging things, just to keep our status. If we ever softened we would be swamped.’

  ‘You haven’t really told me what you do.’

  ‘I operate drug convoys. That’s where the revenue comes from. The life-blood. But in my operation there are no hapless couriers, no victims within the trade. There’s only me, my men and their women and children. The merchandise we transport is traditional low-quality hashish and heroin destined for the usual outlets in the West. Any garbage will do for them.’

  ‘What’s your exact stance on the new trade?’

  ‘For months I’ve watched and I’ve searched. I caught one of their mules but he executed himself before he could be questioned. I’ll keep on watching and searching.’

  ‘And if you get lucky?’ Mike said. ‘What’ll you do?’

  ‘When I find the people who run the market in refined drugs, I’ll kill them. I don’t care how many there are. They will all die.’

  ‘That’s one way to deal with the competition, I suppose.’

  ‘They won’t be eradicated because they are competitors,’ Seaton said. ‘They are the worst kind of parasites, they devour our society. That is why they will die.’

  ‘You’re not exactly a credit to your society.’

  ‘We make waves and we make trouble but we do not destroy the fabric of community,’ Seaton insisted. ‘Call me what you like,
but nobody can say I ever exploited or harmed the poor or the vulnerable.’

  They stared at each other for a tense moment. ‘I made a mistake about you,’ Mike said. ‘I jumped to the conclusion that suited my prejudice. I was wrong.’ He swallowed the last of the chicken and took more water. ‘You’re still a rotten man, though,’ he added. ‘Your principles don’t save you from that.’

  Seaton shrugged. He stood up and walked away. A minute later Sabrina was led out of the tent where the women had taken her. She had been bathed and her hair was combed. She looked pale but unharmed.

  Two women helped her on to a horse. Mike was nudged and when he turned a man pointed to a horse standing saddled and ready at the edge of the clearing. Mike climbed stiffly into the saddle and coaxed the horse to where Sabrina’s stood.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Better than I expected,’ Sabrina said.

  Seaton appeared and pointed to three of his men mounted on horses. ‘They will take you to a main road, and from there you will be able to make your way back to wherever you came from.’

  ‘What about the Range-Rover?’ Sabrina said.

  ‘A bonus we can really use,’ Seaton said, ‘for which we’re grateful.’ He looked at Mike. ‘Your friend’s body has been taken to the railway station at the town of Jerrida. Given your obvious resources, I’m sure you’ll be able to arrange its removal to wherever you want.’

  Without another word Seaton turned and walked into one of the tents. The three horsemen moved off. Mike and Sabrina followed them.

  By the time they reached the main road it was bright daylight. Mike and Sabrina sat on their horses and watched the bandits disappear into the rocks of the mountainside.

  ‘So here we are,’ Mike said, ‘wherever here is.’

  A fresh morning breeze blew Sabrina’s hair out behind her. Mike told her she looked like an ad for shampoo.

  ‘Death warmed-over is what I feel like.’

  ‘They treated you pretty badly?’

  ‘Well, no …’ Sabrina shrugged. ‘It wasn’t like I was tortured or anything. The blood that was on me, I got that falling over a couple of rocks on the way to the forest. What they did was threaten, mostly.’

  ‘So what’s wrong?’

  ‘I developed septicaemia over the last few days —’

  ‘Septicaemia? How —’

  ‘Knife wound in my leg, it’s a long story. Anyway, I hit the crisis while I was up in the rocks, keeping watch. I can’t help feeling it was my fault it all went the way it did.’

  ‘You couldn’t have prevented what happened.’

  ‘I could have been more alert, and if I’d been more alert I might have spotted something going on in the forest.’

  ‘Forget it,’ Mike said. ‘The hills are Seaton’s territory. We didn’t stand a chance.’

  ‘I’m sorry about Lenny,’ Sabrina said, stroking her horse’s neck.

  ‘He was a good, dear friend,’ Mike said. ‘If I talk about him I’ll get maudlin. There’ll be time for that later. First things first. How’s the leg now? Should we try to get medical help?’

  ‘No need,’ Sabrina said. ‘Back there in the tent the ladies gave me the hill-bandit version of a blanket bath, and when they saw the dressing they had to have a look. Well I don’t know what they did, but they did it with squashed leaves and powder from a leather bag. It stung like hell for maybe three minutes, then they washed it off, bound the wound again and now it feels like it’s healing. The rotten way I feel, that’s just aftermath. The fact is I’m mending fast.’

  Mike looked at the sun and pointed along the long dusty stretch of the road. ‘That way’s north. For now, that’s all we need to know.’

  Sabrina brought her horse around, getting it to stand beside Mike’s. ‘This has been a terrible setback, hasn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘You could put it that way. We’re God knows how many miles from where we should be, we’ve wasted time and huge resources on chasing the wrong people, and a fine operator and good friend has been wiped out. It’s all loss, there’s been no gain at all.’

  ‘So it’s a time for taking one of Philpott’s axioms to heart.’

  ‘Which one would that be?’

  Sabrina recited from memory. ‘“Defeat in a venture should be regarded as a challenge, just as an obstacle should be seen as a disguised opportunity. Adversity should make us even more determined to succeed.”’

  ‘Hear, hear.’ Mike smiled wearily. ‘Good old Uncle Malcolm. I’ll definitely do that one in cross-stitch when I get a minute.’

  They began travelling north, the horses keeping in step, treading the road as if they regularly made that journey.

  ‘It’s odd,’ Mike said after a while, ‘but we haven’t started fighting yet.’

  ‘I noticed that.’

  ‘By now we should have been full of recrimination and blaming each other for all this catastrophe.’

  ‘Could we be maturing?’ Sabrina said.

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘I reckon we’re just too low to take the trouble to bicker. Give it time. We’ll revert to type.’

  Sabrina was shielding her eyes from the sun, gazing at the winding stretch of road ahead. ‘I’ve no idea where we are,’ she said, ‘but it would be great if we came to the village where old Aziz lives — you know, the man who put me on to the convoy route?’

  ‘He could help us now, could he?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Sabrina said. ‘But he makes a terrific cup of tea.’

  21

  Malcolm Philpott’s arrival in India was precisely as low-key as he wanted, and his transfer from Delhi to Jammu was just as discreet. He arrived at the area office of Charity Distribution International in mid-afternoon and was shown into the office of the Senior Co-ordinator for northern India, Sarj Deerpaul.

  ‘Mr Philpott, your reputation comes before you!’

  Deerpaul came around his desk with arms wide and for a second Philpott thought he was going to be hugged. But the rotund little man brought his arms down again, executed a short bow, and reached out his hand. They shook and Deerpaul showed Philpott to a chair.

  ‘Harry Lewis speaks so highly of you.’ Deerpaul got behind the desk again. ‘I gather you were once colleagues.’

  ‘Many years ago. But we’ve remained friends. I suppose he told you why I’m here?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Deerpaul patted the square knot of his yellow silk tie. ‘He tells me you hope to direct your expertise towards a solution, or at least a partial solution, of our biggest problem, the black market in charity aid.’

  ‘I hope to arrive at an evaluation, at any rate.’ Philpott was reluctant to make extravagant promises before he knew anything. ‘A plan of attack is the first essential.’

  ‘From our experience, I would say you will find yourself up against some very unpleasant characters, Mr Philpott. In our own probing of the problem we have lost investigators, and not just a handful. Good skilled men and women have died for doing no more than asking casual questions in the wrong quarter.’

  Philpott explained he was particularly interested in a farm near Srinagar where aid consignments had appeared to be taken regularly for redistribution.

  ‘I know of that place,’ Deerpaul said. ‘It looks so vulnerable, so wide open to inspection and so entirely above board. We have not been able to do more than harbour suspicions, however. Two investigations have drawn blanks. Officers conducting a third investigation of the place never came back.’ Deerpaul smiled wincingly. ‘Melodramatic, no? But that is exactly what happened. Two seasoned investigators decided to tackle the owner of the farm — it is really no more than a smallholding — and those officers were never seen again.’

  Part of Deerpaul’s trouble, Philpott knew, was that he and his investigators had to respect the laws of any region where they worked. UNACO had to do that too, officially. Unofficially there were agreements, and codicils to agreements, that made sure the law of a territory did not
obstruct the work of a Task Force or anyone else connected with UNACO.

  ‘I would like to visit that farm tonight, if that’s possible, Mr Deerpaul.’

  ‘Why, yes …’

  ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘Well… ahem … I had not expected you to be so avid in your need to get started. Consequently I have no agents available at present who can be assigned to go with you. The day after tomorrow, perhaps —’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Philpott said. ‘Give me a map, provide me with a car, and I’ll take care of the rest myself.’

  Deerpaul looked shocked. ‘You would go there alone?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Philpott said brightly. ‘I do find that I function better in the field if I don’t have to take anyone else’s presence into account.’

  ‘But I was thinking of the potential for danger.’

  ‘Oh, I’m still potentially dangerous, all right.’

  Deerpaul laughed dutifully, but he still looked worried. ‘There is the most awful risk attached to visiting such a place as that farm on your own, Mr Philpott. I strongly advise you to wait until someone familiar with the territory can go with you.’

  ‘I simply don’t have the time.’

  Deerpaul began to look very uneasy. ‘This is not right,’ he said. ‘Here you are, prepared to put yourself at hazard on behalf of this organization, and I can be of no help to you at all. Frankly, Mr Philpott, I feel terrible about this.’

  ‘Then try not to.’

  ‘Is there anything at all that I can do? After all, you have taken the trouble to come here —’

  ‘If you could let me have a summary of how much stuff, and what kind, goes through the farm in an average month…’

  ‘I have those figures to hand,’ Deerpaul beamed.

  ‘Then that would be a great help.’

  ‘Thank heavens.’

  Deerpaul touched a button on an intercom and asked his secretary to bring in the latest estimates of black market dealing in the Vale of Kashmir.

  ‘Now you are sure this will help you, Mr Philpott? You are not simply humouring me in order to save my feelings?’