Riders of the Pale Horse (5 page)

Wade proved to have a true gift for working with sick people. He was incredibly patient and infinitely gentle. He took time for the old and the lonely and the frightened. He accepted the most menial of duties without objection and carried them out professionally. When a local hospital gave him a six-month-trial contract, Wade spent more time on the wards than any other nurse and many of the doctors.

But Wade's mother stayed after him constantly to fulfill his destiny, as she put it. Wade remained silent and did nothing. Exasperated beyond speech, she finally mailed off for missionary application papers herself. During one Sunday afternoon visit, she slammed them down in front of him and demanded he complete the forms then and there.

Wade did not mind. He knew the whole thing was an exercise in futility. He had absolutely no aptitude for missionary work. Anybody but his mother would see that immediately, and send him packing. So Wade filled in the papers for the sake of peace, and when it came time to select his destination, he checked the most exotic name on the list: Grozny, capital of the Autonomous Republic of Chechenya, the Russian Federation.

The review board, however, decided to pay more attention to the nursing director at Wade's hospital than to their own impressions of the young man. The nursing director wrote and then followed the letter up with an unsolicited telephone call. She said that the young man had the power of a true healer. He held hands and people simply felt better. He did the work of ten and did so without complaint. She actually had been forced to send the young man home on several occasions. He would be missed at the hospital, but the nursing director was a Christian and would never stand in the way of someone called to service.

It was only at the airport, on the day of his departure for
Europe and final mission training, that his mother-the-soap-opera-star had become just a mom. By then it was too late. The fact that Wade was actually leaving hit her with the force of John Henry's hammer, and she had fallen apart. She had sent him down the departures tunnel with her wails echoing in his ears.

Wade had never in his life run across anybody like Rogue Robards. Not even close.

Robards was as solid as he was big—a rock-hard man with skin the color of a well-worn saddle. Though he was in his late thirties, the sheer power of the man made the number of his years unimportant. He exuded an unquestionable confidence, a complete reliance in his own ability to overcome whatever rose up before him. His smile came as easy as the sunrise, but contained neither warmth nor friendliness. It was as cold and confident as the gleam that lit the depths of his gray eyes.

“What do you make of all that fuss raised over you back there?” Rogue demanded.

Wade shrugged. “I guess it's like Reverend Phillips says, they know I tried to help them.”

“You a doctor or something?”

“A nurse.”

“Why didn't you get qualified as a doctor if you knew you were gonna come over?”

“Maybe I should have.”

“Well, there hasn't been a man born who's learned how to backtrack,” Robards said easily. “Might as well bury past mistakes and get on with life, right?”

“I guess so,” Wade said, marveling at the idea that it could really be as easy as that for somebody. Not for him, of course. Just for anybody.

Wade directed their course along the winding, crumbling streets of Grozny. The city was largely destroyed, almost every building pitted with shell holes and blackened by old fires.
Few windows were intact. Tall Stalinist towers rose like grim tombstones to an era that was no longer. The city was now split distinctly in two, and the Muslim section contained the largest market. The local Chechen tribe, who were Muslim, were great traders. The Russian area contained all the modern stores, because the Russians living in Grozny had never become comfortable with the lengthy bickering required to make a purchase in the Muslim market.

Here in the lowland capital, Russian soldiers massed at street corners and held the city to a grim semblance of order. Armored personnel carriers, their flat metal roofs sprouting machine-gun turrets, guarded major intersections. The key thoroughfares leading to and from the central city were defended round the clock by tanks, always in pairs, always with soldiers camped on neighboring verges.

With this show of force, and with more soldiers pouring into the city every day, peace reigned in the lowlands with the deceptive calm of a caged tiger. But at night, startling flashes of orange and yellow and red lit the outlying hills, and man-made thunder rolled down from cloudless, star-flecked skies.

“Hold it a second,” Robards said. He halted before a rickety street stall. The trader, a bearded hill tribesman, wore the traditional black knit cap with a little top button. The tribesman did not need girth to look imposing. A knife scar slashed down from a mutilated ear to his dark and scraggly beard. An empty bandolier crossed over his shoulder and fell to his waist, hanging with ease on the man who was obviously accustomed to its presence.

Robards asked, “You speak the lingo?”

“Some,” Wade admitted. “Russian mostly. I only know a few words of the hill dialects.”

Robards eyed him anew. “How long did you say you've been here?”

“A little over a year.”

“You study Russian before you came?”

Wade shook his head. “I've been taking lessons here, though. Every day.”

The big man nodded his approval. Once. “Well, ask the fellow here if he understands the tongue of his oppressors—or whatever's the right way to go about it.”

“He probably speaks it fairly well. Most city traders do.”

“Good stuff. Okay, then ask what his tribe is.”

“Chechen,” Wade answered instantly.

Robards looked down on him. “You gonna let me talk to the man or not?”

“I can tell the tribe from his clothing,” Wade explained. “If you ask questions that you should already know the answer to, he'll assume you won't know the proper price of anything and charge you more. He will anyway, since we're foreigners, but this would raise them even higher.”

“You know something?” Robards said. “I'm beginning to think that parson of yours is a purebred fool. How do you know all these things?”

Wade covered his embarrassed confusion with a glance at the stall's wares. The splintered boards were covered with a vast array of tools. “I listen.”

“Then maybe you can tell me whether the Chechen is one of the tribes at war.”

“Yes. With the Ossetians and the Ingush. That's why the Russian soldiers are here. The Chechen control a lot of the Caucasus highland south of here, and they are battling with the Ingush, the other hill tribe of that region. Then both the Chechen and the Ingush are fighting with the Ossetians, who are the only Christian tribe in the north Caucasus.”

Wade motioned toward the southern mountains rising through the afternoon dust. “Some of the Muslim tribesmen are fighting with the Abkhazi farther to the southwest. A couple of the bigger Chechen warlords have decided to join with the Abkhazian and Svaneti to fight for independence from Georgia.”

“The Chechen are Muslim, right?”

“Sunni,” Wade agreed. “And one of the most militant tribes.”

Robards turned his attention to the stallkeeper. The bearded man had followed the incomprehensible conversation with glittering black eyes. He was accustomed to long and bickering arguments over prices before money exchanged hands, and had the patience of one with nowhere better to go and nothing else to do.

Robards said, “Go ahead and give the gentleman the proper salute.”

Wade turned and bobbed his head. “Peace be upon thee and thy family.”

“And upon thee, stranger to our lands,” the man replied, clearly taken aback by the words coming from the mouth of one so alien. “This is indeed a day of miracles.”

“I apologize that I do not speak thy own tongue,” Wade continued in Russian, but using the formal tone of the Muslim tribes.

“It is nonetheless an honor to deal with one who has the gift of proper speech,” the tribesman replied. “And makes a change from the pestilent soldiers who surround us on all sides.”

Robards watched carefully, noted the man's surprise, and knew he had gained an advantage. “Ask him if he's got other goods for sale.”

“My friend wishes to know if all thou carest to share with us this day is here on display.”

The gleam sparked. “That would depend both upon what is sought and who does the seeking.”

“He says maybe,” Wade translated, not understanding the parley at all. “It depends on whether he trusts us or not. What is it you're after?”

“Tell him I'm looking to keep my skin in one piece when we travel into the hills.”

“My friend wishes to know if he might acquire safe passage through thy homelands.”

The tribesman again showed surprise. “Thou goest into the highlands?”

“If thou and thy peoples might permit us, we would wish it.”

“Then make thy peace with Allah,” the tribesman replied with no malice to his voice, “for all who enter have great chance of seeing his face. Especially strangers.”

“He says we don't have much hope of surviving,” Wade said, his pulse racing with fear and something more. There was the scent of adventure here. The touch of the unknown. The drug called danger.

Robards gave an easy shrug, as though expecting nothing more. He reached across the counter, plucked up a dark metal object from among the litter of tools. It was only when he held it up that Wade recognized it as a rifle clip, about fifteen inches long, curved like a saber blade, black and deadly.

“Tell the man that in that case, maybe we ought to buy ourselves a couple of passports.”

Wade could not help but glance up at Robards. The man's face had undergone a sudden transformation, as though a mask had been set aside to reveal a brief glimpse of what lay beneath. The confidence of the man was no longer a calm and resting strength. The power was laid bare.

He found himself slightly breathless as he said, “My friend wishes to ask thee if perhaps articles such as this might assist us with our passage.”

The tribesman had also noted the change in Robards. Yet instead of alarm, there was only respect in his eyes. A recognition of something shared, something Wade could not fathom. “A wise man always trusts in Allah and then ties his camels carefully,” the tribesman replied.

“Kalashnikov AK-47,” Robards said, not waiting for the translation. “Probably the updated AKM version. Extensive usage of plastics and metal stampings to reduce weight. Nice to see you guys are using the latest in weaponry. Fires forty rounds per minute in semiautomatic mode, accurate to four
hundred meters. Cyclic rate reducer and compensator, can be fitted with an NSP-2 infrared sight. One of the finest automatic rifles ever made.”

The tribesman nodded slightly as Wade translated loosely. “Truly your friend knows quality wares.”

“And this,” Robards continued, fishing through the tools and coming up with a second, stubbier clip. “Druganov SVD sniper's rifle. Best in the world. Ten-round magazine, fires long 7.62 millimeter rimmed bullets. Muzzle has flash suppressor and recoil compensator for a level second shot. Uses a PSO-1 sight with times-four power. Accurate to twelve hundred yards, in the right pair of hands.”

“It is indeed as he says,” the tribesman said, nodding to the words Wade was able to remember. “Of course, such items are outlawed in these quarters. The pestilent Russian invaders have orders to shoot an armed man on sight unless he is a licensed private guard and on private grounds.”

“Tell him we'd be happy to take delivery after dark.”

“The veil of night covers many transactions,” the tribesman agreed when Wade was finished. “Would it be possible to ask what takes thee along such an uncertain course?”

“We seek to deliver medicines to a clinic in the hills,” Wade explained.

The dark eyes turned blank. “One whose flag has a cross of blood upon a white surface?”

“Red Cross, yes,” Wade said, his pulse surging. “Thou hast seen them?”

“I have heard only,” the tribesman replied, his tone flat.

“We are concerned for their safety,” Wade pressed. “It has been too long since we had word from them.”

“Of such things I know nothing,” the tribesman replied. “I am a simple trader only.”

Wade turned to Robards and said disconsolately, “I think something's happened at the clinic.”

“He tell you that?”

Wade shook his head. “He just refused to talk about it, like he knows something but doesn't want to say.”

“Well, maybe you're right,” Robards answered, not concerned by the prospect. “But worrying about it now won't solve a thing. That news just makes it more important to get started.” He focused once more on the tribesman. “Tell him we'll be back in touch about the goods.”

The tribesman saw them off with the three-pointed hand signal of the devout—first to heart, then lips, then forehead. When they had rejoined the crowds jostling good-naturedly down the rutted way, Wade asked Robards, “How can you trust him?”