Act of Terror

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

The surviving Enfield was cramped riding two-up, but they didn’t have to worry about gear since most of it had been obliterated by the missile. The impact of the Hellfire had knocked the bike over and snapped the clutch lever, forcing Quinn to shift by feel alone. It was something he often did on the track, but the rough terrain made it touchy.

But for Ronnie’s pants, the armored Rev’it riding suits had been blown to bits. The warmth of Ronnie’s body pressed close behind him, unencumbered by heavy clothing, made it doubly difficult to concentrate on the narrow confines of the bumpy path.

He’d just warned her for the fifth time to stop breathing in his ear if she didn’t want him to drive off the mountain when the Kyrgyz encampment appeared in the valley ahead.

After hours of nothing but rock and ice, finding the little congregation of smoky yurts and grazing sheep was like discovering life on the moon.

Nine felt yurts were strung along a small glacial lake in a broad meadow. A handful of snot-nosed kids scampered out to meet them as the motorcycle chuffed into camp with two foreign devils aboard.

A stooped woman wearing a heavy wool sweater and a long skirt ducked out of her yurt to scold the gawking children. She was bent by years of childbearing and heavy lifting. Her face was so smudged with grime and soot that it looked permanently blackened. As soon as Quinn mentioned Gabrielle Deuben’s name, the woman’s eyes brightened and she motioned them inside.

“Ainura,” she said, motioning for her guests to sit on the coarse piles of wool rugs against the wood lattice walls of the felt yurt. Her English was poor-just a few words, apparently taught to her by Gabrielle-but as a child she’d spent enough time in outpost towns that she spoke passable Russian. She bustled around the smoky yurt, preparing tea and bread as she introduced herself and asked for news about her friend, Dr. Gabby.

Quinn recognized the overly sweet, musty-incense scent of opium smoke as the woman gave him a chipped clay mug of tea. She was probably in her late thirties but looked fifty.

Her eyes narrowed, noticing his look. She turned to speak to Ronnie in Russian.

“She says she can tell you still smell the thief.” Ronnie interpreted. Ainura sat on the rug beside them, hands folded quietly on the lap of a colorful, handwoven apron.

“She says her oldest son is addicted to opium,” Ronnie continued. “She told him he could not smoke it in here so he went down the mountain to Sarhad.”

Ainura’s face remained stoic, but her eyes were heavy with the misery of a woman mired in the hopelessness of a land where half of the children die before they reached their fifth birthday.

Quinn took a sip of his salt tea, nodding in genuine thanks. “Dr. Deuben told us of an orphanage somewhere in the mountains…”

The Kyrgyz woman’s green eyes flashed and the words began to spill out of her mouth.

Ronnie translated as she spoke.

“She thought perhaps that is why we were here. There are stories, she says, of soldiers who come in the night. They butcher the men and rape the women in front of the children before taking them away…” Ronnie stopped translating for a moment and spoke in rapid-fire Russian, clarifying a specific point. She shook her head, but the old woman was adamant.

Ronnie looked at Quinn. “She says the soldiers are Americans.”