‘What now?’ Jamie demanded.
‘We can hold them here for a while, I think,’ Tenzin said, his dust-coated hawk’s face creased in a frown of concentration.
Jamie saw he was right. The Chinese paratroop commander now faced the choice of attacking over the open ground the Tibetans had just crossed or a long flanking movement to the east. The first would cost him casualties, the second might give the beleaguered insurgents a chance to escape. It all depended on just how determined he was to kill them.
A sustained burst from a dozen assault rifles on fully automatic signalled his decision. Jamie curled into a foetal ball as the rocks around him exploded. For the first time in many days he thought of his grandfather. This combination of exhaustion and sheer terror was the life Matthew Sinclair had lived for six long years. The knowledge lit some spark in him and he raised his head and sighted the Type 56 carbine on the open ground just as a dozen green-clad soldiers broke cover and rushed forward, shooting as they ran. All hell broke loose around him as the Tibetans opened fire and Jamie joined in with short controlled bursts that set the rifle shuddering in his hands. The man who had found Matthew Sinclair’s journal would have fired warning shots over the attacker’s heads. The man who had read it and fought for it took deliberate aim at the chest of the leading attacker. His first shots flew high and he automatically sighted lower, watching as the shots kicked up dust among the charging men. First one went down, spun by a burst that caught him in the upper chest, then a second who dropped like a stone. In an instant, the landscape was empty, the survivors melting into the dusty ground.
Tenzin called out an order and the firing died away, apart from a few desultory single shots from the Chinese four hundred yards off on the far side of the track.
Jamie turned and saw Sarah struggling to get to her feet. He ran to her at a crouch and pulled her down. ‘Do you want to get your bloody head shot off?’
‘Hey, Saintclair,’ she mumbled, ‘I can look after myself.’
Jamie lifted her chin and wiped flecks of vomit from her lips. Her eyes were dilated. His heart sank as he recognized the signs. Altitude sickness. The longer they stayed at this height the worse it would get. Unless he could get her out of here and down to the foothills she could die.
‘Sure you can, tough guy.’ He matched the words with a reassuring smile, but she wasn’t fooled.
‘Screwed, huh?’
‘’Fraid it looks like it, love.’
‘We gonna surrender?’
‘I’m not sure they’ll give us the option.’
A soft plop like a bubble of mud bursting in a hot spring punctuated the sentence and he threw himself on top of her.
‘Christ, Jamie—’
‘Mortar!’
The explosion twenty yards to the right sent razor shards of shattered stone whizzing through their refuge and Jamie cried out as he felt the sting of something slicing across his brow.
Sarah reached out and touched his head and her fingers came away red. ‘You’re hurt?’
‘It’s just a scratch,’ he insisted, because it was, but for a moment he felt like a bit-part actor in a cowboy movie and the thought almost made him smile. Tenzin and Chiru were huddled in conversation behind a nearby rock and as Sarah dabbed ineffectually at his forehead with her sleeve, the Tibetan leader crawled to where they lay.
‘There may be a way to get you out of here, it will be dang—’ The next mortar blast was much closer and to their left. Tenzin frowned. ‘Ranging shots. You know what comes next. Chiru will lead your way; with him you have a chance, stay and . . .’
Jamie knew what staying meant. The next round from the two-inch mortar, or the one after that, was going to land in the little circle of rocks and kill or disable them all. It was the simple arithmetic of war. Two or three ranging shots and one in the bull’s-eye. But there was something else. ‘What do you mean he will lead us? What about you and the others?’
Tenzin’s amber eyes were lit with the same inner glow as the night he had burned the juniper leaves over the fire. ‘We stay. The Ghosts of the Four Rivers will cover your retreat.’
Jamie shook his head. ‘But—’
The Tibetan was already moving. ‘There is no time for buts, Mr Saintclair. If you go, it must be now.’
‘No,’ Sarah gasped. ‘We can’t leave you.’
Tenzin gave a sad, almost embarrassed smile. ‘But you must, Miss Grant. Only you can ensure that the Sun Stone is never used for what Walter Brohm intended. Please.’ His voice was urgent now. ‘Go now. You have your job to do; I have mine.’
Chiru plucked at Jamie’s jacket, and the Briton took Sarah by the arm, but there was still one thing he had to do. He unwrapped the King’s College scarf from his neck and placed it formally round Tenzin’s.