Powder Burn (Burn with Sam Blackett #1) (22 page)

“
Civilization,” said Sam, more wearily than she had intended.

“
Yup,” said Pete, standing beside her on the terraced hillside overlooking the sleepy village. The sun was just coming up, smoke haze and mist drifted through the warm, soft light, birdsong on the still air. “We get down there and we’re just another group of tired trekkers on their way back to a hot bath and a good meal. It’s over.”

It had been four and a half days of hard walking. Route
finding had come down to guesswork, the flow of the streams and Pete’s compass. Several times they’d had to back up and look for another way down, or up, a hill or valley. But they’d spurred each other on with the promise of getting back onto a route they recognized, taking their place as regular members of society – and real food.

“
Is this where they had that outdoor shower rigged up?” she asked.

“
Certainly is,” said Pete, “not to mention the Coke, beer, more rice and meat than you can eat ...”

“
Oh god, stop, my knees are going weak at the thought,” she said. Then added, “And beds,” linking her arm round his as she spoke.

“
Now my knees are going weak,” said Pete.

“
So long as that’s the only bit that does, I don’t mind,” she retorted. “Do you think they’ll have shampoo?”

“
Maybe,” he replied.

She tried to run her hand through her hair.
“Ugh, it’s disgusting, and it itches like you wouldn’t believe.”

“
It’s not the easiest hairstyle to cope with out here, but it looks great all the same,” he told her.

“
On a wild pony,” she replied, as Lens stumbled up beside them. “Showers, fresh food, civilization – let’s get down there,” she added.

“
Get ready for the re-tox guys – phones, email, fast food, pollution ...” added Pete.

“
I don’t want to put a dampener on the celebrations,” wheezed Lens, “but before we meet anyone else, we have to get our story straight. Sorry, but we do.”

Neither of them replied at first. They both just stood and stared out over the valley, soaking up the calm. She hadn’t wanted to talk about what they had left behind, and neither had the others. It hadn’t been mentioned since they had left the cave. But they all knew it had to be done.

“All right,” she said, finally, dropping her pack to the dirt and looking for somewhere to sit that wasn’t wet grass. She found a stone. The others plunked their backpacks down and sat close. “Who’s going to start?” she said.

“
I will,” said Lens. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot ...”

“
Haven’t we all,” she told him.

“
And I don’t think there’s any point in going over whether or not we did the right things. We can’t change anything. We can’t bring anyone back. So let’s not dwell on that.”

“
Seconded,” said Pete, looking down at his feet.

She didn’t reply for a moment.
So much has happened, so many mistakes,
she thought ... but he was right, there wasn’t much point in stirring it all up again. “OK,” she said, “but don’t we have to report Vegas’s death to some authority or something? I mean, someone will have to be told, won’t they?”

“
My dad will know,” said Pete, “he was on an expedition to Kanchenjunga in the late seventies, before I was born. Anyway, he lost a good mate. They never recovered the body. He’ll know what we’re supposed to do.”

Sam and Lens looked at him in astonishment.
“You never mentioned that before,” she said.

“
No one asked,” replied Pete, with a shrug.

“
It’s a good idea. I’m sure we can find someone who’s been on a more recent expedition, in case the process has changed at all,” added Lens.

“
OK, but if we have to admit to where he died?” asked Pete.

“
This side of the border, the legal side,” replied Lens. “We’ll check the maps when we get back, find somewhere that’ll be half convincing as Powder Burn, just in case we have to back up our story.”

“
What about his family?” she asked.

“
Like I said, there really isn’t any. I know a few of his close friends back in LA, the guys he rode with early on, at the shop he talked about. I’ll get in touch with them. Maybe there’s a will, an estate, but I doubt it somehow.” He looked at them both in turn. “Is that all OK, everyone happy?”

Not really,
she thought,
but what else is there to do?

“
And I just wanted to say thank you,” said Lens.

Sam said nothing, looking away, out over the valley.

“I don’t know if it started out an accident, that thing with the sarong,” Lens continued, “but whatever, your actions saved a lot of people’s lives, not least of which was mine. And you weren’t to know he was that desperate. You can’t blame yourself for his death. I got free, he didn’t get the sword. It was an incredible move.”

She took a deep breath, still not looking at him.

“Three cheers to that,” said Pete, after a pause.

“
And I’m sure that Katniss Everdeen would be proud of you,” said Lens.

“
Huh,” said Sam, then to change the subject, “There’s one thing I want your opinions on, and then we never talk about it again. The sword – I’ll never be sure what I saw on the border at the first ambush, at the time I thought I saw him fend off bullets with it, but that seemed ridiculous. Now I’m not so sure. In the cave it was really hot, by the time I dropped it, it was just about impossible to hold on to even through the shirt. And how on earth did he ever find us in that cave if there wasn’t something” – she threw her hands up – “magic about it. Like it was calling him or something – that sounds absurd, I know.”

“
Pete,” said Lens, “you were the one who was trying to tell us it was the twenty-first century?”

“
There has to be an explanation,” he replied, shrugging.

“
Other than the obvious one?” she said.

“
What’s that?” he asked.

“
It was magic,” she replied.

“
Or ... what’s that saying about advanced technology being like magic?
Something like that ...” said Lens.

“
Plain magic seems a more likely explanation to me,” said Sam.

“
Anyway, unless we want the rest of the planet to think we’re stark raving mad, I suggest we never mention Jortse or that damn sword again,” said Lens. “In fact, I don’t think we should ever discuss any of what’s happened, ever again, with anyone. It didn’t happen, and that’s the end of it.”

“
So what did happen?” said Pete.

“
We all went to Powder Burn. Vegas rode first and went off the cliff. We abandoned the attempt and walked back out. I’ll do a memorial film to Vegas about the expedition, and Sam can write an article to the same end. We’ll keep Powder Burn a secret, as we planned.”

“
I think I have to write about Shibde too,” said Sam. “I think people should know about the quiet suffering that’s going on there. It doesn’t have to mention the sword specifically, but I think that there is an important story to be told about CIA agitation and how the people of Shibde don’t want it.”

“
People will connect you to the Powder Burn story,” said Lens, “and figure out where it is, perhaps it could lead them to the Council chambers.”

“
Then I’ll write the Powder Burn story for you, and you can publish it under your own name.”

“
But won’t we need your name and reputation to get it placed in
National Geographic
?” asked Lens.

Pete kicked her foot.

She looked at him.

He shook his head
a fraction.

“
It’s OK, Pete, Lens needs to know,” she said, “he’ll find out anyway. Lens, I’m sorry, but I’ve never had a story published in anything bigger than the local Vermont climbing magazine. I totally talked my way onto this trip.”

“
You what? You did? You did what?” said Lens.

“
I’m not a real journalist, Lens, but I’m going to be. I can write this Shibde story and it’s going to be huge, this will be front page of the
New York Times
. I’m going to make people sit up and pay attention to what’s happening over there. If it works like I hope, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble helping you publish the Powder Burn story somewhere big after that.”

Lens stared at her for a moment.
“So, while we thought we were manipulating you into helping us, into crossing the border into Shibde – it was actually the other way around?”

“
Pretty much,” she said, with a disarming upward flick of her eyebrows.

Lens snorted.
“Holy crap, Sam Blackett, you are piece of work,” he said.

“
Amen to that,” said Pete, with a grin.

Lens smiled ruefully and nodded.
“All right, I owe you my life – what can I say?”

“
It’ll be all right,” said Sam, “don’t worry, we’ll make it work.”

Lens nodded again, gazing out over the valley, distracted by some thought or other.

So Sam stood and looked at Pete. “Time to get back to civilization ...” she said.

Pete joined her on his feet, they both hauled the backpacks up and then they linked arms to head down to the village. She glanced back at Lens, who was still staring into the middle distance.
I wonder if he’ll keep his marriage together,
she thought.
The one and only thing I have to worry about now is phoning my mother ...

“
Who’s Katniss Everdeen?” asked Pete.

Pete
hasn’t heard of
The Hunger Games
? Maybe two things ...

The man known as the
Swordmaster
unwrapped the thin paper with stiff, cold fingers. The message had come, like the others, by horseman across the plains. He held it up to the yak-butter lamp, careful not to set light to it as the wind flickered the flame. His partner had already decrypted the CIA code, the translation neatly printed in the gaps between the lines. The message did nothing for his temper, which rose as he scanned the words. “Holy weepings!” he thundered, not even halfway down the page. “Johnny – did you read this crap from Langley? I thought these were gonna be extraction instructions!”

Johnny appeared at the ramshackle door.
“Yeah, sucks, huh? They tracked the sword to a few miles short of the border. Then it just disappeared. It’s been three months and neither Jortse Choedron nor the other one has surfaced at any of their normal haunts. I guess we lost them, the sword, we lost it all.”

“
Shit!”

“
Yeah ...”

“
And these things don’t grow on trees either, that thing was state-of-the-art technology – goddamn DNA user-only activation response, force-field generators, trackers to die for and the whole nine yards. Cost a freakin’ fortune, there’s stuff in that thing that the goddamn president doesn’t even know about yet! The power-source technology was the best part of ten million bucks on its own!” he yelled, jumping to his feet and kicking the box that would now have to hold another sword.

“
Langley’s still pretty loose with the money,” said Johnny, after a moment. He shrugged. “Man, call it Homeland Security and them government dudes will always find the cash somehow. It ain’t a problem.”

“
Not a problem? Goddamn it ain’t a problem – we need to give the goddamn Demagistanis something to think about. There’s nothing like a little rebellion in the backyard to take their minds off world domination. And where the hell is Langley going to find someone else to do the job? I thought this guy Choedron was a one-off? We could be stuck out here in this godforsaken wilderness forever!”

“
He’s got a younger brother, apparently. They’ve already made contact and got him into play. After that
New York Times
article hit the front page, it was easy to get the conversation started.”

“
And what the hell was that about, how could that goddamn chick journalist have known about this shit?”

“
They had a tail on her for a while, and they’re still monitoring her email and stuff, but she just sat on a beach in Goa with her boyfriend for a month, and then headed east on her own. She’s in China now, I think, but there’s no trail back to her source for the Shibde story. So we just have to sit tight –”

“
Sit tight! While those idiot desk jockeys make up legends and fake old research notes and magic antique swords ...” He kicked the box again for good measure. “Shoulda just put a squad of black-ops boys in with a coupla crates of AK-47s and grenades and the damn job’d be done by now. We’d have a proper little rebellion going!”

“
Kinda ugly if they get caught, remember that spy plane?”

He turned sharply to his younger companion, was about to say something and then thought better of it. He sat down hard on the box. A big sigh, then,
“Yeah, you’re right. Any idea how long this is gonna take?”

“
Could be months before he’s properly on the hook and commits.”

“
Holy weepings. All right. Let’s have a cup of that disgusting tea and make a plan for picking the new goddamn sword up. Maybe they’ll let us get outta here for a few days too, so we can get a shower and a decent steak.”

Sam Blackett will return in
Chinese Burn