Daffadar Habib Khan heard the tiny click through the sinister blanket of night. It could have been nothing, a stone dislodged by the wind, the noise made by a nocturnal animal, but Habib Khan was instantly alert. Born and bred to Pakhtunwali, the Pashtun way of life, he touched the shoulder of the sowar to his right, nodding in the direction of the sound. Immediately understanding, the sowar passed on the message until every man of the Guides patrol was alert.
A chill wind blew from the unseen heights of the Spin Ghar, the range of mountains otherwise known as the Safed Koh. Here, in Pakhtunkhwa, the unstable North-West Frontier between British India and the independent land of Afghanistan, every sound could mean danger.
When Habib Khan heard the slither of cloth on rock, he knew that a
