The Shaddad Conspiracy

Chapter 30: Revelations

"And how do we get them to believe that we have this device? Pray tell, William."

"We use their mole, of course."

"William, we don't even know who their mole is." Ronan shook his head in frustration. "If we did, we would have closed that gaping hole in our security!"

"You would have, dear boy." Sir William patted Ronan's shoulder. "I've always suspected the identity of our mole and now I am going to kill two birds with one nuclear trigger." He grinned as he exited the room.

FORTY KILOMETERS OUTSIDE QUETTA

"What are you doing?" Alexandra shouted as the motorcycle slowed its bone-rattling ride.

Christopher continued the deceleration as he steered the motorcycle down a herder's scrabble path. As he applied the brakes, he tried not to react as Alexandra's body squashed against his back.

Since Alexandra's revelation an hour ago that she was not wearing a brassiere, he had attempted to focus on steering the machine, with the aid of the monocular night vision system, along the unpaved roads.

However, whenever Alexandra had slid forward on the pillion seat, both her breasts had pressed against his back which caused him to immediately apologize and to move forward on his seat.

"If you keep apologizing and moving forward, you'll be riding the gas tank instead of your seat," Alexandra had responded after his fifth or sixth apology. "Don't worry about it. I'm not concerned unless it distracts you from steering safely, Colonel. Are they?"

"Of course not!" had been his immediate response which caused her to promptly grin and move forward on the pillion.

"What are you doing?" Alexandra repeated her question as Christopher steered the bike off the path.

"Sound travels further at night," he answered as he used his legs to move the bike under a sandstone ledge. "We're heading into an open valley where anyone within three kilometers could hear us coming."

"What are we doing?" Alexandra whispered as he dropped the kickstand for the bike and signaled for her to dismount.

"Getting some rest before we become a part of the regular traffic that normally traverses the valley during the day." Christopher retrieved an entrenching tool from the motorcycle's pannier and began to excavate a four inch trench.

"What are you doing?"

"Making sure we don't freeze to death. Didn't they teach you this in survival school?" The paratrooper continued digging.

"Obviously, but it doesn't seem very cold at the moment." Alexandra retrieved a pair of night vision binoculars from her pack. "It's like a moonscape. Why does everything about this damned chadri upset me?" she attempted to use the binoculars through the gauze aperture of her headdress. In frustration, she removed the headdress. The action caused her raven locks to spill out onto her shoulders as she sighed in relief. "It's hot in that damned thing."

"And everything moving in that open space is being studied by satellites and drones in real time." He untied his large shoulder scarf and spread it in the trench. From the pannier, he extracted a large blanket folded it onto the scarf. "That's why we're not going out there until dawn otherwise our side will target us as Taliban."

Thirty minutes later, Alexandra assisted him to police the remnants of their ration kits into a crevice of the sandstone wall.

"How long do we have to wait for dawn?"

"Four hours. Try to get some sleep."

"Doesn't one of us have to stand guard?" She peered at the moonlit landscape.