Borrowed Time. Hugh Miller

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       4

      Next morning the plans for the Kashmir assignment were firmed up and finalized in the briefing suite. It was agreed that Mike would be flown directly to Delhi, then taken north by helicopter to the mountains north-west of the Vale of Kashmir. There he would receive an intensive introduction to the region from a Kashmiri Indian, Ram Jarwal, who was a UN Area Observer stationed near Srinagar, in the west of the Indian-administered territory of Kashmir.

      Sabrina would spend a single day being briefed by a team of WHO specialists before she travelled to a US-operated commercial airfield at Dehra Dun, eighty kilometres north-west of Delhi. From there she would be spirited northward and would finally become fully visible driving a car into the town of Kulu, in the Pradesh region, 160 kilometres south of the Kashmir border.

      ‘As ever with agents collecting peripheral intelligence,’ Philpott said, ‘we want Sabrina to appear to have been around for a while, without anyone being able to pinpoint the place or time she arrived. The rule here is always worth remembering — a reassuring presence and a hazy history make for convincing cover.’

      On her journey northward, Sabrina would carry the credentials of a WHO Ecology Monitor.

      ‘Since you will both arrive in the Vale of Kashmir by different means and at different rates of progress,’ Philpott continued, ‘it’s to be hoped you’ll pick up widely different intelligence in the early stages of your assignment. What we need to know, principally, is the severity of criminal activity — of recent origin, remember — in the target region. Long-standing problems are already accommodated by a number of means; we need to know what’s being added to make the pot boil over, as it were. The causes could be far more widespread than Reverend Young or our observers think. The short version is, we badly need hard intelligence.’

      ‘Nothing to be taken for granted,’ Sabrina murmured, scribbling.

      ‘Quite so,’ Philpott said. ‘We need to know the nature of the beast, where it’s from and how far it sprawls. In more realistic terms, we need to find out how best to counter and prevent a series of political reactions which could result in an Indo-Chinese bloodbath.’

      Mike wanted to know if current intelligence still indicated that the main troubles were orchestrated by one or two terrorist groups.

      ‘That is still the view of our best-informed observers,’ Philpott said. ‘You may find differently once you get past the various façades, of course. If you do discover you’re up against something that calls for a small army rather than a couple of smart saboteurs, then don’t indulge in heroics. Evaluate the position, report to me, then clear out.’

      Before dismissing them Philpott issued a caution. ‘At all times, remain aware that UNACO’s function is to combat and neutralize crime without impinging on local politics or customs. In this case it won’t be easy to avoid trespassing on sensitive ground, so damage-limitation must be a priority. Making matters worse will be a lot easier than making them better.’

      In the corridor outside, Mike and Sabrina wished each other luck. Sabrina even put a peck on Mike’s cheek before they parted.

      ‘My, but that was cordial and civilized,’ Whitlock observed, stepping out of the recessed doorway of the briefing room. ‘Not like you two at all.’

      ‘Truces come and go,’ Mike said. ‘For a while now it’s been OK between us.’

      ‘Because you haven’t been working closely with one another.’

      ‘Precisely, C.W. The peace can’t hold. Sooner or later we’ll find ourselves sharing a predicament, and then she’ll try to assert what she feels is her natural authority —’

      ‘Over what you know to be yours.’ Whitlock held up his attaché case and tapped the side. ‘I’ve got something for you. Let’s go to Secure Comms.’

      Mike had expected photographs, but what C.W. took out of the case was a mini CD.

      ‘This was the only way to do it.’ He powered up a graphics computer on a steel table in the middle of the floor. ‘Photographic prints at Aerial Defence are numbered and accounted for. They are also magnetically tagged through a ferrous component in the paper emulsion, so there was no way anybody was going to get one out of there. However, I have a resourceful friend on the strength, and he knows the code that unlocks the negative disks.’

      ‘Negative disks?’

      ‘The negatives aren’t on film. They’re electronic and they’re stored on hard disks. So my compadre unlocked the negs and transferred identical copies to this minidisk.’

      Whitlock opened a zippered pouch and took out a Sony MZ-R3 minidisk recorder. He plugged one end of a transfer cord into the tiny silver machine and put the other end into a socket in the back of the computer. He put the CD into the Sony and a moment later a picture began to appear on the screen. It built slowly at first, then accelerated until the whole screen was filled with a sharp photographic image of eleven turbaned men on horses travelling through mountainous countryside. No faces were visible.

      ‘That’s no good,’ Mike said. ‘I was told they could be identified …’

      ‘There are over twenty still to go,’ Whitlock said. ‘Be patient, can’t you?’

      He began tapping a button on top of the Sony. With each tap the picture on the screen changed.

      ‘Stop!’ Mike pointed as the eighth picture came up. ‘Stop right there!’

      The image was a closer view and a different angle from the ones before. The faces of three men were visible. One was the leader, but he had moved his head at the moment of exposure and the features were blurred.

      ‘Damn!’ СКАЧАТЬ