WEST OF QUETTA
"Are you being glib?" He moved his head backwards as he attempted to avoid her touch.
"Does it have anything to do with the seven people you think you killed without cause?"
"That a kind way of putting it." He turned away from her as he began speaking. "They were two mothers and five children—and they were innocent victims." He massaged the back of his neck as he moved further back into the crevice. "Be careful, I will tell you if you really want to know, but you'd better get ready to enter my earthly version of hell." After a long silence from her, he smiled. "Good choice. Now we'd better get ready for our little trip."
"I wasn't avoiding you or your history, Christopher. I just picked the wrong time to broach the subject." She shook her hair loose from the bandana. "This isn't the time for it. You and I need to spend some time together without distractions so we can discuss it. Do you want your T shirt back?" She unfolded her chadri and stood up.
"It's going to be cold out there. Keep it and put this on over it." He tossed her a cotton sweater. "Keep the weapons between the layers so that their outlines are hidden."
"So all I have to do is go wherever Sangar's wife takes me on the initial contact? What's her name?"
**
"Shababa. And she's a Hazara. She's not Pashtun."
Alexandra adjusted her chadri, ensuring that the outlines of her weapons and ammunition pouches were not evident. "They're from the central region, aren't they? The Hazara, I mean. We saw a lot of them in Quetta in that marketplace."
"Very good—you read the Ministry's brief on Afghanistan and Pakistan." He rolled the blankets and inserted several ration packs into the folds before tying them down.
"I thought the Hazara were Shiite. How does a Sunni Muslim marry a Shiite?"
Christopher tossed her one of the remaining ration packs. "Sangar and Shababa signed the marriage contact and committed to each other three times like any other Muslim couple, I assume. This is your last chance to eat for a few hours—same thing with the bathroom. So, eat up, and do whatever you have to do back there."
"You're not answering me. I didn't want to know about the damned ceremony, I want to know how and why they got together. Is there any chance for some hot water?" She held up a pack of instant coffee.
"Yes, the sun's up and we can get away with a small fire. Are you asking me how Sangar convinced Shababa to marry him? Like any other man. I suppose he lied, seduced, begged or groveled – whatever it took for him to get her to say yes." He piled several handfuls of dry debris into a pyramid. "Reach over there and pass me those twigs, we don't need a large fire for this."
12 ST CHARLES STREET
LONDON
"Have you ever thought why you're a Whitehall outsider, William?" Ronan ruminated as he watched Lady Catherine disappearing into the back seat of her BMW.
"I have a short memory that masquerades as a clear conscience, Ronan." Sir William strode over to the tea service. "Why not remind me?"
"It's because you're a bloody iconoclast! Why are you using Catherine to seed your damned rumor? Do you really think she's the mole?" Ronan slapped the morning newspaper on the desk's edge. "Or is your bloody adolescent fawning that is running rampant?"
"None of them. Think, Ronan! Based on her remit as Chairperson of the Select Defence Committee and those other bizarre cabals in Whitehall, who does Catherine have to advise of the information I just told her?"
YOU ARE READING
The Shaddad Conspiracy
Adventure“Your murder victim was not an innocent, naive woman. She was on our terrorist watch list. The fact that she escaped from Basra and lived a normal life in London buggers belief, but she was planted here by a foreign government to wreck the Taliban p...
