Declare

barrel?—widely enough to blow Hale’s face off? And then—the djinn would die? What ferocities might that involve? If he had to shoot more than twice, he would have to reload, and then aim. What would the Spetsnaz commandos make of that? Short work was what they’d make of him . And he had to save one round to fire into Philby’s back.
    He took a big mouthful of Philby’s gin, and let it sting his mouth for a few seconds before swallowing it.
    “Thanks,” he whispered more sincerely, handing the water bottle back to Philby.
    “Up,” said Mammalian, slapping his hands onto his thighs. “Fuad and Umit will stay here—we take up our rifles and… ascend!”
    The big Armenian was cheerful as he stood up again and began refastening the snaps of his parka; and Hale remembered coming to the conclusion, on the St. Georges Hotel terrace eighteen days ago, that Mammalian’s loyalties in this operation were to the djinn themselves, and not to the Rabkrin.
    Hale got to his feet, glad that the climbing pants were so thick as to hide the shaking of his knees, and he pulled the snow-goggles down over his eye sockets and the bridge of his nose. His crampons were slung at his belt beside the head of his ice-axe, and he shuffled to the corner of the tent and picked up one of the white-painted Kalashnikovs. It weighed about ten pounds with the full thirty-round magazine attached in front of the trigger guard, but its weight was comfortable when he had slung it over his shoulder Bedu-style. Five spare magazines clicked in his pockets as he shifted to tug the leather mittens on over his liner gloves.
    The tent had been cold, but he shivered when he had stepped out onto the snow and the icy wind found the gaps at his throat and wrists. Ice dust was sweeping down over the snowpack from the peak like the ghost of a fast, shallow stream, and he was glad that their route would not be taking them higher than the 14,000-foot level. Even under clouds the white glare of the snow field was dazzling, and the cornices of the Abich I glacier to the west glittered like diamonds.
    He sat down on the trampled area of ice outside the tent to strap the steel-spiked crampons tightly onto the soles of his boots. Under the trampled snow the surface of the Cehennem Dere glacier was black, impregnated with lava dust—and he remembered the black glass beads he had found at Wabar, and then he thought of the oval shot pellets in his derringer.
    The thought that he would be firing at least two shells of those pellets today made his belly flutter so loosely that he was afraid he might wet his pants; but he felt an aching tightness in his chest, as if his lungs were struggling against his closed throat for fresh air while he was submerged far under water. I’m forty-one years old, he thought as he took deep breaths of the frigid air to try to dispel the feeling. I didn’t die at Ain al’ Abd three weeks ago—will I really finally do it today?
    Pot’s right, no more bets, showdown.
    He remembered his dismay at finding himself committed to a hand of cards without having honestly looked at the stakes, fourteen years ago. Had he been doing it again? But if the stakes were too frightening to consider, and the game was already lost, what value could there be in clear comprehension?
    “All I can do is play out the hand,” he whispered. “I can’t change anything at forff-forfeit-forty—at my age.”
    He stood up, still breathing deeply of the thin, icy air, and used his teeth to tug tight the wrist strap of the left mitten. The ten Spetsnaz commandos had filed out of their larger tent, and for the moment Hale avoided looking at them. Even seen peripherally they did look bulky, and he had to assure himself that a 7.62-millimeter round would easily penetrate even the thickest layers of leather and nylon weave and kapok fiber. He tugged his bulky parka hood over his head and trudged forward behind the rocking white rifle-barrels slung on the backs of Philby and Mammalian.
    One of the Spetsnaz commandos pointed at Hale and barked some syllables in Russian. Hale forced himself simply to pause, and not to shuck his right hand free of its mitten to grab the Kalashnikov stock.
    Mammalian turned around to face Hale—his black beard below the gleaming snow-goggles was already powdered with ice dust, but was still a conspicuous spot in this white sky world—and he called, “He says you will kill someone accidentally, holding your gun that way. Sling it the