Line of Control

SIXTY-THREE

Nanda did not remember much of what had happened since the helicopter had attacked them. She knew that her grandfather had died. But it seemed as if after that her mind had drifted. She was awake but her spirit had been elsewhere. The shock of her grandfather's death must have dulled her kundalini, her life force. That forced the Shakti to take over. Those were the female deities that protected true believers in times of strife. Using their own secret mantras and mandalas, the mystical words and diagrams, the Shakti had guarded her life force until Nanda's own depleted natural energies could revive it.

The shock of the latest explosions and the rattling gunfire had accelerated the process. General Rodgers's high-intensity activities of the last few minutes had finished it. Whatever alertness Nanda had always felt when she was dealing with the SFF had come back to her. And she was glad it had. The young woman's return seemed to have defused whatever tensions had been building between Rodgers and his fellow American.

Nanda continued to chisel, hack, and pry at the ice. She worked from left to right, cutting new inroads with her right hand while scooping out ice chips with her left. At the same time she felt for anything that might be a cable or a conduit. With their luck they would find one and it would be made of steel or some compound they could not break through.

Whatever the outcome, the activity of chopping the hard ice felt good for the moment. It helped keep her blood flowing and kept her torso and arms relatively warm.

Rodgers had only been gone a minute or two before returning. He came back alone.

"Where's your boy?" Friday asked.

"He's not doing too well," Rodgers admitted. "But he told me what to do." The general moved close to Nanda. "Hold on a second," he said. "I want to check the dig."

Nanda stopped. She could hear General Rodgers feeling along the perimeter of the slab.

"This is good," he said. "Thanks. Now I need you both to move back, over by the slope. Lie there with your feet to your chin, arms tucked in, hands over your ears. Leave as little of yourself exposed as possible."

"What are you going to do?" Nanda asked.

"I have one more of those flash-bang grenades I used earlier," Rodgers said. "I'm going to put it in here. Enough of the force will go downward. The heat of the explosion should melt the ice for several feet in all directions."

"Did our terrorist friend tell you what to do if the cable is inside two-inch-thick piping?" Friday asked.

"In that case we bury the hand grenade I have," Rodgers said. "That should put a good-sized dent in any casing. Now go back," he went on. "I'm ready to let this go."

Her hands stretched in front of her, Nanda knee-walked toward the slope. The ground was sharp and lumpy and it hurt. But she was glad to feel the pain. Years before, a potter, an artisan of the menial Sudra caste in Srinagar, had told her that it is better to feel something, even if it is hunger, than to feel nothing at all. Thinking of her own suffering and her dead grandfather, Nanda finally understood what the man had meant.

When she reached the wall, Nanda curled up on the ice the way Rodgers had instructed.

It did not escape Nanda's notice that the American had taken a moment to thank her for the work she had done. In the midst of all the turmoil and doubt, the horror of what had been and what might lie ahead, his word smelled like a single, beautiful rose.

That was the pretty image in the young woman's mind as the ground heaved and her back grew hot beneath her clothes and the roar blew through her hands, ringing her skull from back to jaw.