“Would it matter to you?”
She shrugged. “I do not believe you are simply here on business.”
“Well, you’d be wrong because unfinished business is the only reason I’m here.”
Nash caught himself and prayed he had not just made a big mistake. He stared at Amrita, trying to read her reaction to his statement.
“You Americans are very. . .different,” Amrita said slowly.
To change the subject, he asked, “Where did you learn your English? It’s excellent.”
She smiled at the compliment and it made her look less hopeless. “In India. Many there want to learn English so they can go to America.”
“Doyouwant to go to America?”
“Will you take me?”
He gaped. “I’m not sure how that would work, Amrita.”
“You could make it work,” she said.
“Let’s see how things turn out.”
“Which means, no, you will not take me.”
She turned away from him and went to sleep.
CHAPTER
13
ANOTHER DAY OF BODY-SLAMMING DIRT-BIKINGthat was even more arduous than the first gave way to the horses on the third day. The horses were sturdy beasts, Thura told them, and possessed sure footing.
He said this was most critical due to the rugged terrain they would be encountering, where even nimble dirt bikes would not work. Plus, he said, even with the extra gas tank they did not have enough fuel for the bikes to make the full journey.
“Horses find their own fuel in the grass,” Thura said with a grin.
He and Zeya gave Nash a tutorial on riding while the horses were still in the corral. After an hour Thura pronounced him good enough. They set off, and for the first few miles the land was relatively flat. Then the ground started to rise rapidly, with more towering mountains ahead.
Thura looked at Nash and Temple and said, “Those are the Northern Mountains of Burma, the eastern ends of the Himalayas really. Hkakabo Razi is the highest peak here, butonlytwenty thousand feet tall.” He grinned. “Luckily, we do not have to cross it to get to where we’re going. Breathing up there would be very hard without oxygen,” he added with a smile. He spurred his horse in the ribs and said, “Come, let us head to the clouds!”
For the most part the horses moved methodically with a rocking motion that kept making Nash drowsy. But as the heights advanced he felt his adrenaline pick up, and he kept a tight grip on the reins. However, the horses seemed to know what they were doing and where they were going. He rode next to Temple for a while until Amrita let her mount slow down to where she roughly paralleled Nash. Temple, after giving Nash a curious glance, moved up to take her spot in the column.
“Forget what I said the other night,” Amrita told Nash in a fierce tone. “I was tired and not thinking clearly.”
“You didn’t say anything wrong,” noted Nash. He wondered if Thura might have overheard the conversation between them and given her hell about it later.
To supply proof for this theory, she aimed an angry glance in Thura’s direction and whipped her head around, sending her long black hair flying in the stiff swirling wind coming off the mountain ridges.
“Forget all about it. Forget aboutme. This is just a job. For us both!”
She spurred on her horse and moved in front of Nash.
As Nash headed along the narrow trail, he reflected, and not for the first time, how extraordinary it was that he was currently on a horse with three strangers and his former boss crossing over mountains in Myanmar on a mission to free the mother of a global criminal from her prison.
Five years ago I went to Fiji with Judith and sat by the pool reading a book and having a daiquiri. And I thought that was adventurous.
They camped that night on a reasonably flat plain amid the shadows of far higher ground. It had become still colder as they had risen in elevation, and they built a small fire and ate around it, and afterward slept close to it for warmth.
