But as he stepped outside, he noticed brighter lights at the other side of the compound. This was where the vehicles were stored overnight, a garage that was built into the corner but was actually open on two sides. Richard heard the slam of metal against metal, the bonnet of a car being closed. The main lights were turned off. Then three men walked out, two of them carrying torches. Richard recognized the one in the middle. It was Tarik.
They hadn’t seen him. The three of them walked across the compound and went into the military wing. There was a part of Richard that didn’t want to know what they had been up to. After all, he had been told that they were planning a journey at six o’clock the next morning. What could be more natural, or more sensible, than to make sure the vehicles were well maintained?
Except that they hadn’t even turned over the engines.
And Samir had told them that Tarik was coming the next day. Why would the leader of the rebellion be involving himself with the maintenance of the jeeps?
Richard glanced at the accommodation block and tried to imagine Scarlett playing her part, writhing on the bed, surrounded by soldiers and doctors. How long did he have? It didn’t matter. He had to know. Staying close to the walls, he edged round the compound then ran across, making as little noise as possible. Nobody saw him enter the garage. Everything here was silent.
There were two jeeps parked next to each other, the same vehicles that had brought them here on the day they had arrived. The keys were still in the ignition. The jeeps were almost identical – apart from the number plates and the fact that one had a bead necklace dangling from the steering wheel and a photograph of Tarik taped to the dashboard. In addition, there were three motorbikes, a dusty Land Rover and two other cars so beaten about that Richard doubted they would even start. He didn’t dare turn on the main lights but fortunately there was a slight glow in the sky, perhaps the moon on the other side of the sand, that provided just enough light for him to see.
He examined the first of the jeeps, still with no idea of what he might find. There was nothing in the front or the back, just torn seats and the residue of sand. He opened the bonnet and glanced at the engine, then closed it softly. He still didn’t know what he was expecting to find but he had heard the bonnet close so there must have been something about the engine that had interested Tarik and his men. He did the same for the second jeep, even though he was certain that he was wasting his time. What was he even looking for? He was being ridiculous.
He opened the bonnet and peered inside.
No.
It wasn’t possible. He didn’t believe what he was looking at.
Richard knew that he had to make the most difficult decision of his life. He lowered the bonnet again but very, very slowly. For a moment he stood there, his hands resting against the metal. He looked through the window at the bead necklace dangling from the steering wheel. He thought about the photograph stuck to the dashboard. Yes. It could be done. But was it the right thing to do?
He made up his mind. There was no other way. He moved away from the jeep, searching for a screwdriver.
Thirty minutes later, Richard returned to the building where he and Scarlett were staying. He arrived just as Samir was leaving and the second-in-command looked at him suspiciously.
“What have you been doing outside?” he demanded.
“I’ve just been waiting here,” Richard said, innocently.
“I told you that you were not to leave your room.”
“I had to leave the room because Scarlett was ill. How is she?”
Samir scowled. “There is nothing wrong with her. She complains of stomach pains but the doctor has examined her and he can find nothing wrong.”
“Well, you can’t be too careful,” Richard muttered. “All this foreign food…”
Samir wasn’t amused. “You must go inside now.” The guard who had been there from the start had reappeared and Samir addressed a few words to him in Arabic. “It is late now,” he said to Richard. “We will see you tomorrow.”
“Six o’clock,” Richard said. “I have to say, I’ll be glad to get out of here.”
Samir didn’t reply. He walked off into the night.
Scarlett was waiting for Richard when he arrived back. “Did you find anything?” she asked. “I made a great fuss. I had a whole load of them down here. I was groaning and rolling my eyes and they made me drink some foul medicine and then I pretended I was better. I didn’t know how long you’d be.”
“I’m afraid it was a waste of time,” Richard said.
“So you were wrong.”
“It looks like it. Maybe we had better get a bit of sleep…”
He couldn’t tell her what he had found. Nor could he tell her what he had done. Richard had decided he just had to go along with it and hope that it all worked out the way he wanted.
He just prayed that he hadn’t made a terrible mistake.
SIXTEEN
It was still dark at six o’clock. If the sun was up, it didn’t yet have the strength to break through the clouds. The wind had risen and the sand was more vicious than ever, chasing along the ground, whipping into any exposed flesh, blinding anyone who dared look the wrong way.
Richard and Scarlett were wearing the clothes they’d had on when they first arrived – washed and even ironed for them the night before. Richard had his backpack strapped to his shoulders. Albert Rémy had appeared in a crumpled safari suit, the sort of thing an archaeologist might have worn forty years ago, carrying a travel case tied with leather straps. He had been living here in Cairo for a very long time and Richard wondered what was so valuable that he needed to carry it with him. Maybe the bag was filled with sand, a souvenir of his time in the desert. The Frenchman seemed both nervous and excited. This was the day he had been waiting for. After ten long years he had finally found Scarlett and he was taking her with him to continue the fight.
Richard watched as both jeeps were reversed out of the garage and left with their engines ticking over. At the same time, Tarik came marching across the compound with Samir and three more rebel soldiers, all of them armed. He was more cheerful than he had been when they last saw him. He was holding what looked like a mobile phone in his right hand but as he approached, he slid it into his pocket.
“Good morning!” he exclaimed. “I heard you were ill last night, Scarlett. I hope you’re feeling better.”
“I think it was just nerves,” Scarlett said.
“You have every right to be nervous. You are about to begin a long journey – two thousand kilometres. It will take you a week but the road is a straight one. It will mainly pass through Saudi Arabia, which is quiet now. The war there has been lost. There were very few survivors.” Perhaps the words were meant to be pointed but Tarik seemed genuine enough. He took off his glasses and wiped them on his sleeve. “Are you all ready?”
“Just one question,” Richard said. He gestured at the jeep. “Are we driving all the way to Dubai in one of those?”
“Oh no.” Tarik smiled. “I have arranged something much more comfortable. I will explain everything on the way. We have a meeting point about one hour’s drive from here.”
“And who are we meeting?”
“The man who will take you to Dubai. I will drive with you, Scarlett and Mr Rémy. Samir and the others will follow in the second vehicle. I would advise you to keep your heads down and well away from the window. It’s too early in the morning for a sniper and the sand will provide us with cover. But you never know…”
The eight of them split up and moved towards the two jeeps. Richard paused. This was the moment of truth. The jeep with the beads and the photograph was on the left. This was the second vehicle that he had examined the night before. Quite deliberately, he made for the other jeep. But Samir stopped him.
“You go in this one,” he said. “It’s more comfortable.”
“That’s very considerate of you,” Richard said.
Tarik climbed into the driver’s seat with the bead nec
klace hanging from the steering wheel and almost touching his lap. Richard sat next to him in the front. Scarlett and Rémy went behind. As soon as everyone was ready, one of the guards gave a signal from the watchtower and two men ran forward and slid open the metal gate. Tarik crunched the jeep into gear and for the first time in more than two weeks, Richard found himself being driven out of the compound. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach and he knew that he was full of anxiety about what lay ahead. He still couldn’t be sure that he had done the right thing. In the next hour, everything could go horribly wrong. Even so, he wasn’t sorry to leave the compound behind.
They drove slowly through the Cairo streets, the two vehicles staying close together, constantly on the lookout for government forces on foot or travelling in convoys of their own. The sand was howling around every corner and it was hard to distinguish between the walls that rose up and down in front of them and the ones that stood there permanently. In fact there was so much sand being thrown against the window that Richard was surprised Tarik could see the way ahead – but perhaps he knew these streets by instinct as much as anything else. As they rumbled forward, Richard remembered the journey coming here. It had struck him then that there wasn’t very much left of this city that was actually worth fighting for. He thought the same now. Cairo had long since abandoned any sense of life or vitality. There was nobody in sight. It was as if the desert had decided to come in and bury it in a gigantic grave.
However, as they left the metropolis behind them, the storm began to die down and Richard was able to see more details: halfbuildings with shattered windows and hanging doors, endless piles of rubble, a flyover that had been blown in half and jutted in the air like some grotesque concrete sculpture. They were more exposed now, following a six-lane motorway that must once have been jammed with traffic. If any of Akkad’s planes happened to fly overhead, they would be easy targets and, knowing this, the drivers accelerated, keen to be out of the city. They passed an open space contained behind what must have been a mile of barbed-wire fence. Scarlett tapped Richard on the shoulder and pointed. A plane, a Boeing 747, lay on its side with a buckled wing and a crumpled fuselage, half-buried in sand.
“Cairo airport,” Tarik said, the first words he had spoken since they had left.
“No flights to Dubai?” Richard asked.
“No flights anywhere.”
They drove another thirty minutes and all the time the weather improved until it was almost like a normal day, the sun hot in the sky and the sand lying still for once. Richard wondered if this was actually something to be grateful for. It made them more visible. But at the same time, at least it meant they could see where they were going, and if they were about to set off on the long journey to Dubai, they would need a clear road. Now they were travelling down a wide avenue, empty of other cars apart from the ones burnt out and abandoned along the side.
“I am taking you to meet the man who will drive you to Dubai,” Tarik said, speaking loudly so that Scarlett and Rémy in the back could hear too. “He is waiting for you with a Land Cruiser. It has a ninety-litre tank filled with diesel and he is carrying another hundred litres, which should be more than enough. The car is equipped with a compass and maps, water and basic rations. If you get lost in the desert, you will die. So I would advise you not to leave the road.”
“Who is this driver?” Richard asked.
“His name is Ali. He has done the journey many times. You have no need to worry. You will be safe with him.” Tarik brought the jeep to a halt. The other jeep drew up beside him. He pulled on the handbrake. “This is where we get out,” he said.
They had come to the crest of a slight hill, with nothing around them apart from a few stunted palm trees. Taking out a pistol which he held beside him, Tarik ran forward. He was keeping low – it was almost a habit – and threw himself down on the very edge of the hill so that he could look down without being seen. The others did the same. Ahead of them, the desert stretched out to the horizon with a single road, a surprisingly modern strip of pale-yellow concrete, forming a straight line all the way. The hill itself sloped down for about two hundred metres to a rubble-strewn area that contained a small, white building with arched windows and a domed roof. Scarlett wasn’t sure if it was a store house or some sort of miniature church. But that wasn’t what caught her eye. Just as Tarik had promised, there was a fairly new Land Cruiser parked next to it, with supplies and spare tanks of fuel strapped high on the roof. A single man stood waiting, wearing traditional Arab dress.
Samir had brought binoculars with him and scanned the area. “He is alone,” he said – in English, not Arabic. Richard noted the change. Normally, when the two men spoke together, they used their own language but Samir was obviously trying to make them feel more secure.
“So what happens now?” Richard asked.
“Now, you begin your journey. You can drive the jeep down and leave it there. We will collect it later.”
“You’re not coming with us?”
Tarik shook his head. “It is not in the agreement. The driver will meet with you and only you. If he sees more than three of you approaching, he will be gone long before you reach him.” Tarik saw the doubt in Richard’s face. “If you lived in my world, you would understand. Everyone is very careful. If they are not careful, they are dead. It is better for you to have us watching and to know that, in the unlikely event that you have been betrayed, we are here to help.”
Richard nodded. “All right. Anything you say.”
“Then leave us now. We will not waste time with goodbyes. We have lost too many friends in the last years to wish to hear that word. I will only say to you – good luck. I hope you will find what you are looking for in Dubai.”
Richard, Scarlett and Rémy walked back towards the jeep that had brought them this far. The other jeep was next to it but the driver was still standing at the front, as if warning them to keep away. That was when Richard knew for certain that he was right. There could be no more doubt.
“Listen to me,” Richard said, speaking in a low voice. “This is a trap. I don’t know how many men there are waiting for us in that building down there, but they’re not going to let us get anywhere near Dubai.”
“You are wrong,” Rémy began.
“Don’t tell me I’m wrong,” Richard snapped. “And please don’t give me any more lectures about your wonderful Mr Tarik. Because frankly I’ve had enough of it.” He stopped at the door and rounded on the Frenchman. “Just out of interest, did you know that those children in the hospital beds were soldiers?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Stop playing games with me. Did you know or didn’t you?”
Rémy said nothing. He looked ashamed.
“Yes.” Richard nodded slowly. “That’s what I thought. You knew all along – but you let Tarik have his way because, like everyone else, you’d do anything to support him. He’s a hero, isn’t he! The saviour of Cairo.” He jerked the door open. “Well, if you ask me, he’s as bad as Field Marshall Karim el-Akkad. I can’t say I know either of them personally, but I’m not sure I’d find it easy to choose between them.”
“Richard…” Scarlett sounded shocked.
The three of them climbed into the jeep.
“There’s something else you might like to know,” Richard continued. “It might not make this journey very pleasant, but right now we could be sitting on about ten kilograms of plastic explosive.”
“What are you…?” Rémy’s voice was a whisper. Next to him, Scarlett had gone very pale.
“Here’s how it works.” Richard started the car, then pushed it into gear and they jolted forward. There was a track leading down the side of the slope. It would take them a couple of minutes to reach the man who was waiting for them at the bottom. “Tarik wanted Scarlett to kill Akkad. As far as he’s concerned, killing the Field Marshall is like Christmas all over again – if they have Christmas out here.
She refused because, surprise, she isn’t a cold-blooded assassin. So Tarik came up with his Plan B. What is the one thing in this whole, wretched country that would bring Akkad out of cover? What could Tarik offer him that would make him risk his own neck?”
“Me…” Scarlett answered the question with a single word.
“Exactly.” Richard glanced at the black-and-white photograph of the resistance leader, taped in front of him. Tarik looked so young, so honest. Maybe he had been like that once. When he’d set out, he’d wanted to save the world. “Tarik didn’t need Scarlett any more,” he went on. “So he decided he would use her. He would turn her into a suicide bomber – and you and me with her, Mr Rémy. I’ll bet you any money you like that the man waiting beside that very tempting Land Cruiser is Field Marshall Karim el-Akkad himself. That’s the agreement he’ll have made. He can have us but he has to turn up and show his face first. And as soon as we get close enough, Tarik is going to press a button and blow us all to smithereens … you, me, Scarlett and Akkad too. Right now, we’re delivering the payload.”
“Why are you doing this?” Rémy asked. His voice was hoarse.
They were already halfway down the hill. They could see the man much more clearly now. He was middle-aged, paunchy, almost bald with a little grey hair. He was watching them intently.
“For two reasons,” Richard replied. “First of all, if there really is fuel in that car, I want it. Anywhere’s got to be better than Cairo, and maybe if we get to Dubai, we’ll be able to find a way out of this whole damned continent. And secondly, because the bomb is no longer in this car.”
“Where…?”
“I found it last night, when Scarlett was pretending to be ill. I lifted up the bonnet and there it was.”
“And you dismantled it?”
“Of course not. I couldn’t actually move the bomb. There were too many wires and I was afraid I’d only manage to blow myself sky-high. But I did the next best thing. I swapped over a photograph and a bead necklace that were in the other car. I even found a screwdriver and changed the number plates. Otherwise, the two vehicles were identical and right now, the one with the bomb is up there on the hill. So when Tarik presses the transmitter – and I’m pretty sure he’s the one holding it – everyone’s going to have quite a surprise. And that’s going to be the moment we start moving. Are you with me, Scar?