‘But what can we do?’
‘When the time comes you will have a decision to make, only then will you know what to do.’
Sarah shot an anguished glance towards Jamie, but he had already made up his mind. He felt as if he was bathed in the aura created by the monk’s strength and resolve. This had been his fate from the start. This was the final chapter of Matthew Sinclair’s story. He would finish what his grandfather had started.
‘We should leave in the morning.’
Tenzin set a punishing pace as the fourteen-strong column headed back towards the border, but on the second and third days he became progressively warier. Twice they took cover beneath the rocks at the sound of an aircraft flying at altitude somewhere above them.
‘We are fortunate that they do not have the spare parts to keep their Black Hawk helicopters in the air,’ the Tibetan confided to Jamie. ‘The J-7 and J-11 jets based up at Lhasa are too fast to do us any harm among the mountains, but there are reconnaissance planes flying from smaller airfields all along the frontier and if they spotted us, they would call in a patrol to intercept us.’
‘I thought the Black Hawk was an American helicopter,’ Sarah said.
‘That is correct, Miss Grant. Your American defenders of democracy sanctioned the sale of twenty UH-60s to China during the nineteen eighties, which they swiftly used to suppress any resurgence of democracy in Tibet. Ironic, is it not?’
Late in the afternoon, one of the insurgents who had been covering the rear of the little column jogged up and conferred with Tenzin. The monk nodded and his face was grim when he turned to Jamie and Sarah.
‘They are coming.’
If Jamie believed the pace had been hard over the past three days he quickly discovered how wrong he’d been. The Tibetans relieved them of their rucksacks and Tenzin set off at a trot that quickly had Jamie’s lungs screaming for oxygen. Only the knowledge of what would happen if the Chinese caught them kept him going, but, even so, after ten minutes he was willing the monk to ease off or turn an ankle, anything to stop the pain in his chest. It wasn’t until Sarah began reeling on her feet and two of the insurgents were forced to support her that Tenzin slowed to a brisk walk.
‘We must stay ahead of them until dark,’ the Tibetan leader explained. ‘If they are wujing, they have learned to fear the night and the Ghosts of the Four Rivers and they will halt, while we carry on.’ Jamie’s heart almost stopped at the thought of crossing this unforgiving landscape in the inky blackness of a Himalayan night, but Tenzin’s next words sobered him still further. ‘It is possible the soldiers who follow us are mountain-trained special forces troops. These men fear nothing and are equipped with night-vision equipment.’
‘How will we know?’ Jamie gasped.
‘If they are still with us at dawn,’ Tenzin said, and picked up the pace again.
What followed was the longest night of their lives. Tenzin kept up the relentless rhythm of the march for hour after hour, stopping only once to allow them to rest and take a drink. Ten minutes at the trot, followed by ten minutes at the walk to conserve their dwindling strength. Jamie and Sarah ran with a Tibetan on either side whispering incomprehensible words of encouragement as they kept their faltering charges upright through the rocks. In the gossamer-aired darkness every breath felt like a dying gasp, every heartbeat the hammer blow that preceded a seizure. Eventually, they travelled as if in a dream, their bodies pushed beyond the human norms of pain and exhaustion, their movements automatic and their minds seeking refuge in some weightless nirvana. Time or distance had no meaning, they could have marched three miles or thirty. It was only with the gathering Himalayan dawn, that soft, roseate light which garlanded the faraway peaks like a pink halo, that they realized they were alive, would live, and with it came the dread knowledge that soon they would know whether the martyrdom in the darkness had been worthwhile.
Thirty minutes into the new day Tenzin ordered a halt, but insisted everyone stay on their feet. Jamie hated him for it, but he knew that if he had slumped to the ground he would never have risen again. Sarah swayed between her two minders with her eyes closed, mumbling to herself. The Tibetan stared at the far horizon. Jamie followed his gaze, but could see nothing but barren grey rocks.
‘They are here. Two miles.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The wind carries their message. I do not know how, I only know.’
‘Then we’re finished.’ Jamie fought the urge to let himself collapse to the ground. He and Sarah might be kept alive, but there was no hope for this man he had come to respect and admire.