The Valhalla Prophecy

14

‘There is the road,’ Natalia said excitedly, pointing through the trees ahead.

‘About bloody time,’ Chase grumbled. Their trek had taken longer than expected, partly because of the need to watch out for more landmines, but mostly because of the one he was already carrying. Even though he was now fairly confident that the explosive inside the rusted casing had decomposed to harmlessness, there was still just enough doubt in his mind to encourage him to handle it very carefully.

They emerged into bright daylight. The road was nothing more than a muddy track, but tyre ruts told Chase that it was reasonably well used. Nobody had driven along it so far today, though; branches dislodged by the previous night’s storm were scattered all over, and none had been crushed into the wet soil. The search for the fugitives might not have reached this far — yet.

He was still wary, though. ‘Keep to the grass along the side,’ he warned Natalia. ‘So you don’t leave a trail.’

The young woman took heed and stopped at the roadside. She looked in each direction. ‘The village is… that way,’ she announced, pointing to the left.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes. Both roads out of it go up hills.’

The pair set off down the slope. Before long, they encountered the first signs of a settlement: scattered garbage in the undergrowth. ‘That’s civilisation for you,’ Chase said with a wry smile.

To his surprise, Natalia became defensive. ‘They do the best they can,’ she said. ‘They have so little — no money, and the land here is not good for farming. They cannot afford to take their trash to be recycled.’

He remembered a comment his late grandfather had once made — ‘You’re never too poor to pick up after yourself’ — but decided she wouldn’t appreciate the piece of Yorkshire wisdom. Instead, he asked, ‘How many people live here?’

‘About eighty. It is only small.’

‘And you stayed here for, what, four days? Wouldn’t have thought it’d take that long to give everyone a jab.’

‘A jab? Oh, a vaccination. No, we treated everyone who needed one on the first day. But we were doing other things also. Actually, that was the reason I came to Vietnam, not just to give out medicine.’

‘Yeah?’ Chase was about to ask more when he saw movement ahead. Someone was walking up the road. ‘Get down,’ he growled, sidestepping into the concealment of the undergrowth.

Natalia laughed. ‘It is okay — I know him!’ She waved, calling out in Vietnamese.

‘No, the guys looking for us might— Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ Seeing the man waving back, Natalia ran to meet him. Chase carefully put down the mine and raised the rifle, senses on alert for any signs of danger.

There were none. Natalia spoke to the man, who appeared delighted to see her, then waved for the Englishman to join them. Still annoyed, he collected the Bouncing Betty once more and followed her. ‘All right, who’s this?’

The man’s happy expression quickly became one of trepidation when he saw the mud-splattered, gun-toting Westerner advancing on him with a landmine in one hand. Natalia hurriedly gave him what Chase guessed was an assurance that he wasn’t a threat. The villager — he seemed quite elderly, though given his hardscrabble lifestyle it was possible he was only in his late forties — didn’t seem completely mollified, but his face at least now displayed more curiosity than fear.

She kept talking. The man reacted in surprise to something she said, an intense exchange following, then he gestured for them to follow. ‘He says to come with him to the village,’ Natalia told Chase. ‘They will help us.’

‘Ask him if anybody’s been there today asking about us,’ he said. She did so, getting a shake of the head in reply. ‘That’s something, then.’

It only took another five minutes before they entered Ly Quang itself. The settlement was not impressive, just a small cluster of shacks near a riverbank. Most of the structures were wood and thatch, though some were partially built of corrugated metal. The storm had inflicted damage, people patching up holes in the roofs of several houses.

Chase was more interested in something else: telephone poles, running along the road heading north out of the village. The line ended by one of the largest buildings, a single cable leading down to it. ‘I need to use the phone,’ he said.

Their arrival had already attracted attention. Everyone seemed genuinely pleased to see Natalia, even if their reactions to her travelling companion were more uncertain. Chase made a point of shouldering the AK across his back out of easy reach, though he kept hold of the mine — which encouraged the villagers to keep their distance. After sharing greetings with everyone, the German had a brief discussion with one of the men, then turned to Chase in disappointment. ‘He says the telephone is not working. The storm took down the line — it could be days before it is repaired.’

‘Arse chives,’ he muttered, looking down at the Bouncing Betty. ‘They won’t be able to call anyone to deal with this either. What do they normally do with mines if they find ’em?’

Another rapid conversation. She smiled at the Englishman. ‘They usually go to a safe distance and throw stones at them until they explode. They think you are crazy for carrying one all this way.’

‘Christ, you try to do a good deed… So what do I do with this?’

‘There is a place by the river where you can leave it,’ she told him after getting an answer. ‘They will make sure nobody goes near it.’ A young man, beaming broadly despite missing several teeth, stepped forward. ‘Thanh will take you. You can leave the gun there too.’

Chase was less happy about that, but nevertheless went with the smiling youth to deposit the weapons amongst some rocks, taking the detonator from his backpack and leaving it beside the mine. By the time he returned, the reunion had moved into one of the houses. A middle-aged woman signalled for him and his guide to come inside.

‘You weren’t kidding about having friends here,’ he said on entering. Natalia sat on a rug, older villagers looking on with amusement as several laughing children clung to her. One boy had a crude prosthetic leg below the knee. The young German had replaced her filthy medical gown with a donated wraparound skirt and a faded T-shirt bearing the logo of some Vietnamese product he didn’t recognise, as well as a pair of sandals.

‘I wanted to work with children,’ she replied, grinning. Then the smile faded. ‘And when I heard what had happened here, that made me want to help them even more.’

‘What did happen?’

Natalia spoke to two of the women, gesturing towards Chase. They regarded him with suspicion, but a plea eventually drew reluctant nods. ‘I told them you are English, not American,’ she said. ‘The people here, they… they try to forgive for the war, but it is hard.’

‘Is it something to do with the landmines?’ he asked.

A deep sadness crossed her face. ‘Worse than that.’ She spoke to each of the children, managing to pluck them off her one by one before standing. ‘I will show you.’ One of the women rose as well. ‘But I have to warn you, it is…’ She paused, searching for the correct word. ‘Upsetting.’

Unsure what to expect, Chase followed them out of the little house to the building where the telephone line terminated. The Vietnamese woman opened the screen door and called out, getting a reply from someone inside.

They entered. Insects flitted around an electric light hanging from the ceiling; he heard the flat puttering of a small generator somewhere outside. A woman in her thirties, pretty but tired far beyond her years, greeted them. A curtained doorway led to an adjoining room. The sound of a softly crying child came from beyond it.

The woman pulled aside the curtain. Natalia gave Chase a look of both warning and apology. ‘Please, do not be afraid, or… disgusted. They are children, they have done nothing to deserve this. The people here do everything they can to help them.’

‘What happened to them?’ Chase asked.

Natalia stepped through the doorway and nodded for him to follow. ‘Come and see.’

He hesitated, then entered the next room with her.

What he saw would haunt him for the rest of his life.

There were five beds, each occupied by a child. Their ages ranged from around three years to twelve.

All were terribly, cruelly deformed.

Chase now knew why Natalia had issued her warning. His first response to the sight was an instinctive revulsion — followed at once by shame at his own feelings, then sadness as he realised the extent of their suffering. One child had stunted arms and a hugely swollen, lopsided head, dark eyes peering pitiably out from an unnaturally wide expanse of skin. Another’s jaw was only partially formed, a gaping hole in her cheek exposing gums and the twisted roots of teeth. The youngest of them had no limbs at all, just gnarled stumps. Her entire skull was stretched almost to a point, eyes bulging, her small chest rising and falling rapidly as she struggled to draw in each breath.

‘Jesus,’ he whispered, a shiver coursing through him despite the heat. He had witnessed plenty of death in his military career, bodies smashed and mangled in horrifying ways, but the knowledge that these figures were still very much alive made their injuries — he wasn’t even sure that was the right word — all the more disturbing.

Natalia went to each bed in turn. The children recognised her, responding with sounds of delight. She smiled back, hugging and caressing, speaking softly in Vietnamese. The woman who had come with them spoke; Chase didn’t understand her words, but could tell from her tone that she was expressing gratitude.

‘We brought them things for the children,’ Natalia explained. ‘Medicines, mosquito nets, food, toys…’ She gestured at a doll on a small table beside one of the beds. A photograph was pinned to the wall above; it showed the young German hugging the little girl in the bed, who was clutching the plastic figure. ‘We gave them as much as we could, though it was still not enough. There is never enough,’ she added sadly.

The Englishman suspected that he knew the cause, but felt compelled to ask all the same. ‘What happened to them?’

‘Chemical warfare. Agent Orange.’ Chase nodded; he had been right. ‘The Americans dumped millions of litres of poison on the jungle during the war, without caring for a moment what effect it would have on the people who lived there. Or even their own soldiers. The children of American troops have suffered deformities and cancers because of what their fathers were exposed to… but nothing like this. The poison is still in the ground, in the water and plants, everywhere. And the children are paying for it, even after all this time.’

‘I’m sorry.’ It was all he could say. He could barely begin to imagine the horror and heartbreak the parents must have been through when their children were born.

She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. ‘This is why I came here, to help children like this. There are many more in other villages in this part of the country. I wanted to do as much as I could for them. I had to.’

Chase sensed an almost confessional tone to her words. ‘Why?’

She looked away, gently touching the head of the smallest child. ‘Because… because I am a part of what happened to them.’ Before he could ask what she meant, she went on: ‘And because I am one of them.’

She stood and turned, pulling up the T-shirt to expose the left side of her torso to him. In the jungle, the gown had covered what lay beneath; now he got a clear, chilling view. A twisted scar ran from below her armpit almost to her waist, smaller branches lancing off it around her chest and back. ‘I had tumours removed,’ Natalia said, seeing his shock. She pulled the shirt back down. ‘The doctors did not know what caused them. But I did.’

She said goodbye to the children, then spoke briefly to the Vietnamese women before going back outside. Chase went with her, blinking in the bright sunlight. ‘What was it?’

She did not answer the question at first, wiping her eyes as they wandered through the little village. ‘My mother had the same tumours. So did my grandmother. They both died from them. I will too.’

‘You don’t know that,’ said Chase, unsettled by her matter-of-fact acceptance.

‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘I do. It is my family’s curse, and the reason why I must never have children of my own — because they will suffer it too.’

‘What do you mean, your curse?’

There was a makeshift bench by one building, a plank supported by two old oil drums. Natalia took a seat, then beckoned him to join her. ‘My grandfather was a man named Serafim Volkov,’ she began as he sat and put his pack down under the bench. ‘He was Russian, a scientist in the Cold War. He was going to defect to the West with my grandmother, but died before he got out of Russia.’

Chase nodded. ‘Yeah, you said.’

‘He gave my grandmother a letter, only to be opened if he did not escape. She told my mother that she did not open it for over a year, in the hope that he was still alive. When at last she did, she thought it would tell of his love for her and his hopes that their child would have a better life in a new country.’ She paused, taking a mournful breath. ‘It did not.’

‘What did it talk about?’

‘His work. What he had been doing for the Soviet Union — and what he planned to sell to the Americans. He was creating weapons. Awful, terrible weapons.’

‘Chemical warfare?’

‘Yes. And biological too — the difference is sometimes small. That was true of what he had created.’ A pause as she shook her head. ‘No, that is the wrong word. He did not create it. He… exploited it. It was something the Russians had found.’

‘What kind of thing?’

Another pause. Natalia stared silently at the ground before finally looking back at him. ‘Do you know anything about Norse mythology, Eddie?’

‘You mean like Vikings?’ he asked, surprised by the change of subject. ‘Not really. I never paid much attention in history class.’

‘I did. My mother encouraged it, especially to do with Norse legends. I did not know why until just before she died. But there is a substance in their myth called eitr. It is a black liquid, a deadly poison… and it is also the source of life.’

He frowned at the contradiction. ‘How does that work?’

‘In the myth, there was a sea of eitr, and from the drops of a splash rose the first giant, Ymir. From him came all other life. But the eitr remained, still a poison, hidden beneath the ground.’ Her expression became grave. ‘The Russians found it. There was a Viking runestone in the Arctic at the entrance to a pit full of eitr. My grandfather wrote the first lines of the runes in his letter; they told how the Vikings had travelled from Valhalla across a rainbow bridge and through a lake of lightning to fight a giant monster and prevent the end of the world.’

‘You mean the legend’s real?’

‘No — not really. I do not believe there were giants and gods and serpents that circled the whole of the earth — the blood of the serpent was eitr, and in their legends it was what killed Thor. But it is based on something that was real. The eitr was deadly, but it also had… other effects. My grandfather discovered them. He was trying to turn the eitr into a weapon the Soviet Union could use against the West, but began his own experiments — which he was going to take to America.’

Each word seemed to weigh her down a little more. Chase realised that something awful was coming. ‘What sort of experiments?’ he prompted.

‘Human experiments,’ she whispered. ‘On my grandmother. He used her to see what eitr would do to a living person — and her unborn child.’

‘Shit,’ he said, shocked. ‘He actually poisoned his own wife? While she was pregnant?’

‘He was an evil, evil man.’ A new tear ran down her cheek. ‘I am ashamed that I have anything to do with him.’

‘It’s not your fault. But why did he do it?’

She raised her head. ‘The eitr is not just a poison, even though according to his letter just a few drops on the skin can kill a person — they tested it on prisoners.’ Utter disgust and loathing twisted her features for a moment. ‘In smaller amounts, it is a… a mutagen is I think the English word. It causes mutations in DNA, sometimes huge. My grandfather believed these mutations could be controlled to create a new breed of human. Supermen, a master race.’ Another expression of revulsion, this time at the connections to her own country’s past. ‘The Soviets only cared about turning the eitr into a weapon, so he continued his work in secret. After testing on animals, he put a tiny amount into my grandmother’s food to see the effect it would have on people.’

‘And it gave her cancer?’

‘And eventually killed her. But because it caused mutations at a genetic level, they were passed down to my mother while she was still in the womb — and then to me.’ She looked down at her side, one hand tracing the line of the scar. ‘The tumours appeared when I was sixteen. They almost killed me — I was in hospital for half a year. By the time I came out, my mother was suffering from them too. But with her, the doctors could not risk removing them; they were too advanced. All I could do was — was watch her die.’ She sniffed, wiping her eyes again. ‘I am sorry, it is still hard to talk about.’

‘That’s okay,’ said Chase, with deep sympathy. He had been through the same terrible experience with his own mother.

‘Thank you. Oh…’ She released a long, sighing breath, then looked round as the child with the prosthetic leg hobbled up and hugged her tightly, chattering and laughing in Vietnamese. Natalia managed a smile, giving the excitable boy a kiss on the forehead before sending him back to his mother. Another sigh. ‘I love children, I do. But I can never have any of my own — it is too dangerous. That is my family’s curse, Eddie. My grandfather poisoned us for ever.’

‘Christ. I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to find out.’

‘My grandmother gave the letter to my mother on her deathbed, telling her the truth about how they had come to Germany,’ Natalia continued. ‘The CIA was supposed to take her out of Russia, first to West Germany and then on to America. But when my grandfather did not make it, they abandoned my grandmother. She had to make her own life in a new country. Which she did — until the eitr at last killed her. My mother kept the letter, but did not tell me about it. Until she too was on her deathbed.’

‘If she’d told someone what was causing the tumours, couldn’t they have done something about them?’

The young woman shook her head firmly. ‘We did not want to tell anyone about my grandfather’s experiments, or the eitr. That was something my grandmother made my mother promise, and she made me promise. It is a promise I meant to keep. I did not even tell my father.’

‘But you’re telling me now.’

‘Someone else already knows.’

Chase glanced towards the jungle. ‘The Russians?’

‘It is the only possible reason why they would have taken me. They want to start the experiments again.’

‘So why would they want you? Couldn’t they just go to wherever they found this eitr stuff and get more?’

‘Because it was destroyed. My grandmother worked out what must have happened. The letter said the eitr was discovered on Novaya Zemlya, off northern Russia.’

‘That was where the Russians tested their nukes,’ he remembered.

‘Yes, but a research facility was also built where they found the eitr. That was where my grandfather worked. I do not know the details, they were not in the letter, but there was an accident involving the eitr. Many people died. Khrushchev ordered the project to be closed down. That was when my grandfather decided to defect, and take his research with him. But he needed a sample of eitr to give to the Americans. There was only one place he could get it — the pit in the Arctic. So his plan was to go in secret to the facility to steal some, then the CIA would get him out of the country. He never came back. A nuclear test took place on the same day.’

‘So… you’re saying they nuked the place?’

‘They must have wanted to be sure that no one would ever have the eitr. They dropped the biggest bomb ever made—’

‘The Tsar Bomb.’ Chase saw her questioning look. ‘I paid attention to military history.’

‘But you did not know the real reason why they dropped it, did you? It was to destroy the facility, and the eitr. I read about the results of the explosion. Nothing was left — even the ground was melted.’

‘I still don’t get why they’d need you, though. It’s not like you’ve got eitr running through your veins.’

‘No, I do not. But…’ Natalia stared at the ground again, deep in thought, before continuing. ‘I have been exposed to it. Through my mother, and my grandmother. My DNA has been mutated by the eitr. If these Russians had samples, they could compare them to normal DNA and find out how it had been mutated. That could tell them enough about what the eitr does to create more, or create something that has the same effect.’ She turned back to him, fearful. ‘They want to use me. They want to take what my grandfather did to me, and turn it into a weapon. Eddie, that cannot happen! I will not let it.’

‘It won’t,’ he assured her. ‘I’ll get you out of here, I promise.’

‘That is not a promise you can keep!’ she cried. ‘They are still hunting for us, they must be — if I am so important to them, they will not let me escape. If they find us—’

He put a hand on her arm. ‘I won’t let them take you.’

‘How? With what? A broken landmine and a gun with one bullet?’ She straightened, suddenly resolute. ‘The bullet — you must keep it for me.’

‘What?’

‘I am serious. You saw those poor children in there.’ She jabbed a hand towards their building. ‘That is what chemical warfare did to them, and that was just a — a side effect. Agent Orange was created to kill plants; they did not even think about what it would do to people. But if the Russians create more eitr, it will be as a weapon of deliberate mass murder. Anyone who is exposed to it will die, either from the poison or the mutations it will cause. I will not allow that. It is against everything I believe in. If I let it happen, I would be as evil as my grandfather! It cannot happen. It cannot.’ She began to cry again. ‘Promise me that, Eddie. Promise me that.’

‘I am not going to promise to put a fucking bullet in your head, Natalia!’ he said, dismayed. ‘But I’ll stick to the promise I already made. I’ll get you out of here, trust me. It’ll take a bit longer since the phone’s out, but once I meet up with the others at the rendezvous, we’ll take you somewhere safe. These Russians won’t get hold of you.’

‘But they are working with the Vietnamese, they must be,’ she protested. ‘The man you knocked out…’

‘Yeah, I know. One of my mates reckoned they were secret police — something called TC2.’ From her stricken expression, he guessed their infamy was widely known. ‘But they won’t catch us either. You know I said I was a soldier?’

‘Yes?’

He gave her a small but meaningful grin. ‘I wasn’t just some squaddie. Trust me, I’ll—’

He snapped his head around at a sound from the north. An engine. Someone was driving down the track into the village. ‘Oh, fuckeration. Time to go!’

‘Do you think it is them?’ Natalia asked as he jumped up.

‘I’m not taking any chances that it’s not!’ He looked up the hill. The vehicle was not yet visible, but he glimpsed flickers of colour between the trees as it approached. The land around the village had been cleared, making their chances of escaping before the new arrivals spotted them slim. ‘Did you tell the people here what happened to you?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Are they your friends?’

‘Yes, absolutely, but—’

‘Then tell ’em we need to hide!’

He ran with her to the nearby villagers. Natalia hurriedly spoke to them, then cried, ‘Here, quickly!’ She and Chase rushed for the building that was home to the Agent Orange victims, one of the Vietnamese women going with them. A call drew out the woman inside. Natalia exchanged rapid words, then the nurse bustled them into the children’s room.

The only hiding places were under the beds. The woman led Natalia to one of them, then gestured for Chase to get under another. He dropped to his belly and slithered beneath it. There was barely enough room, his back touching the slats supporting the thin mattress; he realised at once that it was also too small to conceal him fully. Even if he positioned himself to be hidden from someone coming through the door, if they walked past the bed he would be visible.

Natalia, smaller and slimmer, was better covered, but the most cursory search would expose her too. She gave the Englishman a fearful look across the grubby floor. One of the children made a sound, excited at seeing the young blonde again, but the carer quickly hushed him.

The vehicle drew closer. For a moment Chase thought it was going to drive straight through the village, but then it downshifted rapidly before stopping. He heard voices, a man with an unmistakably commanding tone calling out.

Natalia tensed. ‘It is the men from the camp,’ she whispered. ‘He is asking if they have seen any foreigners. They are telling him no, but…’

The sudden silence as the new arrivals switched off their vehicle’s idling engine was a clear sign that they were not convinced. More words were exchanged. ‘He says he is from the government,’ she continued. ‘And that… Eddie, he is telling them that you have kidnapped me!’

‘Let’s hope your friends don’t believe him,’ was his grim reply.

She kept listening to the unfolding discussion. The voices of the villagers became agitated. Were they going to give the fugitives away? Chase checked the room for other possible exits. A window with a half-open shutter, some uneven planks in one corner that might break if charged with enough force…

Natalia’s breathless whisper brought his gaze back to her. ‘They are still saying they have not seen us!’

Chase strained to listen, trying to read the emotional state of those outside from their voices. If the villagers were too insistent about not having visitors, it would arouse suspicion.

Had they convinced the secret police? Or would a house-to-house search be ordered? Chase looked back at the window, working out the quickest route to his weapons by the river…

‘They’re going,’ Natalia gasped. The commander issued orders with grudging acceptance. His men climbed back into their vehicle. ‘My friends did not give us away. I knew they would help us.’

Chase remained silent. The man was still talking; he guessed he was reminding the villagers of their duty to report any sightings of the kidnapper and his prisoner. Their replies sounded like assurances that they would. One of the women called out, ‘Tạm biệt,’ which even after only a short time in Vietnam he knew meant ‘goodbye’. They had done it…

A child’s chatter and laughter caught his attention. It was the one-legged boy who had hugged Natalia earlier, scurrying from one of the houses to see the new visitors. His mother shouted for him to come back, but he was already in the middle of the group, asking excited questions. Chase held in a sound of irritation. The kid was going to hold up the secret police’s departure—

Natalia’s sudden look of horror warned him that he was doing more than that. ‘What?’ he whispered.

She waved him to silence, listening intently. The commander was speaking again, but now in a much more amiable tone. The boy laughed and gave him a happy reply. The other villagers were conspicuously silent.

‘He’s asking if he’s seen me,’ she told Chase, frightened. ‘He calls me “the girl with yellow hair”, and — and he said yes!’

‘Shit,’ Chase hissed. Outside, the car’s doors opened again. Still sounding friendly, the commander asked another question. The boy’s response was enthusiastic.

Too enthusiastic. He hurried to the door of the building, calling out. Natalia swallowed. ‘He told them I’m in here!’

Options flashed through Chase’s mind. He didn’t like any of them. Both potential escape routes would put them only a matter of yards from their pursuers, but if he tried to stand and fight he would be outnumbered and outgunned—

Out of time. The boy ignored his mother’s pleas to come back to her and entered the building — then the room. Behind him, Chase saw tough leather boots beneath khaki trousers. The commander. A second man, then a third, followed him. One of the children in the beds made a sound of fearful surprise at the sight of the strangers.

Adrenalin surged through the Englishman’s body as the boy limped towards him, then stopped — but not by his bed. Nor Natalia’s. The boy eagerly beckoned the commander to look at something.

One of the other men chuckled quietly, drawing an irritated exhalation from his superior. He spoke to the boy again, now more patronising than friendly, then issued an order. The three men turned and clomped out of the building. The boy went after them, still asking questions.

Natalia started to crawl out from under her bed, but Chase waved for her to remain still. He waited until the car had restarted and driven away before finally signalling that it was safe for her to move. Hands shaking, she slowly emerged. ‘What happened?’

Chase had already got to his feet and found the explanation. ‘You were in here, and he brought them to see.’

The realisation made her laugh, though it was a pure release of tension rather than humour. ‘So I am,’ she said, gently touching the photograph of herself. ‘Oh God, I thought they had found us…’

‘So did I.’ He took a slow breath, trying to calm down. ‘It’s too risky to stay here — they’ll probably come back. They know that you knew about this place, and since it’s the nearest village, they’ll expect you to come here sooner or later.’

‘I cannot let anything happen to my friends because of me,’ she said, nodding. ‘You are right, we have to go.’

A thought occurred to Chase. ‘Bollocks!’

‘What is it?’

‘The mine. We can’t leave it for a bomb-disposal guy to deal with — they’ll know we were here.’

‘How?’

‘’Cause they’ll realise that someone with training did their job for them. And I’m guessing that even if we’re long gone, it won’t be good for your friends if anyone finds out they sheltered us.’

‘It will not,’ said Natalia gloomily. ‘It is getting better, but… it is still not a free country. So what do we do?’

‘We’ll have to take the bloody thing with us. Once we get to the rendezvous, I’ll blow it up just before we leave.’ He went to the window and pushed open the shutter. The villagers were clustered outside, several still staring anxiously up the road after the departed vehicle. ‘You say bye to your friends while I get the mine and my gun. Tell ’em thanks from me too.’

‘I will,’ Natalia replied. She began to say goodbye to the children.

Chase left her, giving hurried gestures of gratitude to the people outside before retrieving his rucksack and jogging back to the river. The Bouncing Betty and the AKS were still there, untouched. He shouldered the rifle, then carefully picked up the mine and detonator before starting back to the village. A flustered Natalia met him on the outskirts. ‘I told them that if I get caught, I will not tell them I went to the village,’ she said. ‘But I—’

‘We won’t get caught,’ Chase cut in firmly. ‘I’ll take you to the rendezvous, and then we’ll be out of here. We just need to get across the river.’

She pointed downstream. ‘There is a shallow place where we can cross. It goes to a track on the other side.’

‘Great.’ He had already memorised the relative positions of the village and the rendezvous on the map; the journey through the jungle would take only a few hours. Cradling the landmine in the crook of one arm, he led the way along the riverbank, Natalia right behind him.