Page 16 of What Remains

Which meant his time was short.

Running was the only option.

But where? Could he even hope to outrun Amu? The man would surely come after him, especially if Poya took an animal. Yet, without a donkey or yak or one of the four ill-tempered camels the clan owned, Poya would gain very little ground each day.

Stealing an animal, though, also meant stealing feed. These people didn’t have a lot for their animals to begin with. Could he doom some of their remaining animals to starvation? Or, worse, Amu or another clansmen having to walk for two weeks, in brutal cold, to Sarhad to barter for feed?

His father once showed him a film,Catch-22.Poya was smart, but he’d not understood it well at the time. Now, though, he did because he was living the movie’s circular logic. On the one hand, it was suicide to run. But, on the other, if he didn’t, he was almost certainly going to wind up in a position where he might well die anyway.

You’ll think of something. You’re smart. You know things.

Well, maaaybe.A small imp of doubt scratched the back of his brain.Yes, yes, you’re very bookish. You know movies. You’re smart. But can you hunt? Do you know how to start a fire or build a shelter in winter? Do you know how to find your way if you?—

“Oh, be quiet,” he muttered. Even if he’d known how to hunt, there wasnothing heretohunt. Every self-respecting snow leopard knew that. Although the felines stuck mostly to the mountains north and west, there were stories of hunger driving the animals down here into the Little Pamir. There was a reason children went for water together. There was safety in numbers.

As for building a shelter or starting a fire…there were no trees in a valley this high. None of the other children here had ever seen a tree or even a bush. Amu and the rest of clan—all the nomads, in fact—burned dried yak dung cakes.

He knew the math. One cake lasted about seven hours. Assuming his trek towhereverlasted a week, he needed at least two cakes every night. Add in a few days’ extra fuel just in case…well, that was a lot of yak poo to drag around. He could do it, but he had other things heneededto take. Some were weighty, but he’d never leave those items behind, no matter what.

Which meant that he’d probably be lugging around at least twelve or fifteen kilos on his back. Thanks to the time he’d spent here, he was much stronger with more muscle than before but still relatively slim. Hiking over mountain passes in winterwould be a problem, however, and that brought him, full-circle, right back to stealing an animal.

He couldn’t wait for much longer either. Mami had been right. The decision, out of his hands before, was being made for him, in inexorable increments, with each passing day.

His hands balled with frustration. If only the American had kept his promises! Things would be so different. His parents would be alive. He wouldn’t be in this mess. He wouldn’t have to hide who he was in America. Oh, people might stare, but Baba had said that, in America, no one cursed you for being Satan’s spawn.

If Poya wanted out, his own two feet would have to do. He couldn’t wait until the thaw either when Sarbaz’s mining operations would start up again. Sarbaz himself came to check on things at intervals and there were always workers but no trucks. Once the snow disappeared, that would change. Could he stow away on a lorry? No, that was no good. The trucks were headed the wrong way. He needed to get out of Afghanistan not deeper into the country.

I have got to find a way out of here.Mami’s cell phone still clasped to his chest, Poya felt a familiar sting at the backs of his eyes. Crying would be safe now. He was hidden behind his shyrdak. But his tears would change nothing. Gritting his teeth, he willed his eyes to remain dry.

You are on your own.What Poya wanted or who he had been didn’t matter. That would change, however, if anyone discovered his secret. Gooseflesh pebbled his skin. Amu probably wouldn’t kill him. But there were other things Amucoulddo. None would be pleasant.

Please, don’t betray me, please.Poya pressed the cell to his chest.Please hold off just a little bit longer.

If his body cooperated, if he could just hold on until spring…well, then, he just might have a chance.

JOHN: GUYS WITH SECRETS

November 2023: Reza Garm-Chashma, Tajikistan

1

“Cepha…ow.”Wincing, Davila gritted his teeth against a groan but managed not to snatch his bad arm out of the medic’s grasp. “Take iteasy,” he said, the small muscles of lower jaw jumping. “There was a bullet in there not so long ago, you know. It reallydoeshurt.”

“Yeah, and that infection’s not doing you any favors.” A tall man with the muscular build of a swimmer, Harvey stripped off a pair of latex surgical gloves then checked the fluid level in an IV bag which hung from a coat tree John had found in the hot spring’s office. “Think we caught it in time, though. Lucky I decided to bring along a couple bags of cepha-gets-them-all.”

“What?”

“A flavor of cephalosporin,” John translated. That the medic waspacking bags of the stuffwaslucky. In the time since Driver had given John the shock of his life by showing up alive, Davila had gone downhill. He was pale, his skin shiny with new sweat, and the skin beneath his eyes was the color of used coffee grounds. That faint whiff of decay John had detected a few hours ago seemed stronger, too. “They’re a class of broad-spectrum IV antibiotics.”

Harvey grinned. “Never leave home without it.”

“Okay, so what does this mean?” Davila asked.

“The same thing it did…” John checked his watch. “Two hours ago. Even if the infection wasn’t an issue, you trying to hike your way out of here is a non-starter. We take you back to Dushanbe in the van, you have a better shot of your lung staying inflated and doing its job—and speaking of which.” He turned to Driver, perched on a rolling office chair near Matvey, the boy John had rescued. “What are you guys doing here? And don’t tell me you happened to be passing through.”

“Not exactly, no,” Driver said. “We parachuted in.”

“Seriously? Inwinter? Around all these mountains?”

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