The pit guard called out: ‘Mohammed, watch out behind you!’
Mohammed turned, his gun swivelling with him. Abdul leaped at him and kicked his legs from under him, and Mohammed fell into the pool of gasoline.
Kiah knelt down with her blazing cigarette packet and set fire to the fuel.
It flared up with terrifying speed. Abdul backed away fast. Mohammed rolled over and aimed at him, but he was off balance and shooting one-handed, and he missed. Mohammed struggled to his feet but the flames reached him before he was upright. His clothes were soaked in gasoline and they blazed instantly. Mohammed screamed in fear and agony as he turned into a human torch.
Abdul ran. He could feel the heat, and he feared he might have left it too late to escape the inferno. He heard a shot, and guessed that the pit guard was firing at him. He dodged between the cars, for cover, and ran for the gate. He reached the car and leaped in.
Kiah was already there.
He put the car in gear and drove.
As he sped away he looked in his rear-view mirror. The flames had spread all over the car park. Would all the cars be immobilized? At a minimum all their tyres would be destroyed. And the keys were melting as the guard hut burned down.
He turned on the headlights. They and the moonlight helped him to locate the road. He saw the pile of stones that marked the junction, and turned north. After two miles he came to the hill where he had earlier hoped to jump into the back of Yakub’s candy truck. He stopped at the top of the rise, and they both looked back.
The blaze was tremendous.
He checked his phone but, as he expected, there was no signal. From the other boot he took the tracking device, but Hakim and the cocaine were far out of range.
He opened the storage bin in the centre console and found, as he hoped, a phone-charging connection. He plugged in the better of his two phones.
Kiah was watching him. Before now she had not seen the special compartments in his shoes and the devices hidden there. Now she gave him a cool, intelligent look and said: ‘Who are you?’
He looked back to the camp. As he did so there was a terrific boom and a huge gout of flame shot up into the air. He guessed the gasoline tanker had heated up and exploded. He hoped none of the slaves had been foolish enough to go close to the fire.
He drove on. The car’s heater warmed the interior. With no fear of pursuit, he could afford to go slowly and take care that he did not wander away from the track.
Kiah said: ‘I’m sorry I asked you that question. I don’t care who you are. You saved me.’
‘You saved me, too,’ he said. ‘When Mohammed was pointing his gun at me.’
But he could not help thinking about her question. What was he going to tell her? What was he going to do with her and her child? He had to report to Tamara as soon as he got a phone signal, but he had no further plans, now that he had lost the signal from the cocaine shipment. And what would she want to do? She had paid for passage to France but she was a long way from there and out of money.
However, there was an upside. For now Kiah and Naji were an asset. Hostile tribesmen, suspicious army patrols and officious policemen would see the three of them as a family. While he was with them, no one would imagine he was an American CIA officer.
In Tripoli there was a station of the French DGSE, Tab’s outfit, thinly disguised as a trading company called Entremettier & Cie. Abdul could dump Kiah and Naji there, and make them someone else’s problem. The DGSE could return them to Chad – or, if they were feeling generous, they could easily get them to France. He knew which Kiah would prefer. Yes, he decided, he would drive to Tripoli.
It was about seven hundred miles.
After a while the moon went down, but the powerful headlights illuminated the road ahead. The strain on Abdul began to lift when a line of light appeared on the horizon to his right and day came to the desert. He was able to increase speed a little.
Soon afterwards they came to an oasis where a makeshift store offered gasoline in cans, but Abdul decided not to stop. The fuel tank was still three-quarters full. He was driving slowly and not covering much ground, so fuel consumption per hour was low.
Naji woke, and Kiah gave him water and some bread from the big canvas bag. Soon he was lively. Abdul found the switch that activated the child locks, which prevented the rear doors and windows from opening, so that Kiah could let Naji romp on the spacious back seat. She produced his favourite toy, a yellow plastic pickup truck, and he played with it contentedly.
As the sun rose higher the car’s air-conditioning came on automatically, and they were able to continue driving through the heat of the day. At the next oasis they bought food and filled the tank. Abdul checked his phone but there was still no signal. The three of them ate flatbread and figs and yoghurt as they drove on. Naji went quiet, and Abdul glanced back and saw that the little boy was stretched out on the back seat, asleep.
Abdul was hoping they would reach a real road and find some place where they could get beds for the night, but the sun began to go down and he realized they would have to sleep in the desert. They came to a flat plain where geological activity had thrown up jagged rocky hills. Abdul checked his phone and saw that he had a signal.
He immediately sent Tamara the reports and photos he had prepared during his ten days at the slave camp. Then he phoned her, but she did not pick up. He left a message to supplement his reports, saying that he had disabled the jihadis’ transport but they would get hold of fresh vehicles sooner or later, so the military should attack the place in the next day or two.
Leaving the road, he drove cautiously to one of the rocky hills and stopped behind it, so that the car could not be seen from the road.
‘We can’t run the heater all night,’ he said. ‘We’ll all have to sleep together in the back for warmth.’
Abdul and Kiah got into the back seat with Naji between them, sucking his thumb. Kiah covered all three of them with the blankets.
Abdul had now been awake for thirty-six hours and driving for half that time, and he was exhausted. He would probably have to drive all day tomorrow. He turned off his phone.
He sat back with the blanket over his knees and closed his eyes. For a while he seemed still to be scrutinizing the road ahead, trying to discern its edges and at the same time scanning for sharp rocks or anything else that might puncture a tyre. But when the sun disappeared and the desert went dark he fell fast asleep.
He dreamed about Annabelle. It was the happy period before her narrow-minded family poisoned their relationship. They were in a park, lying on a lawn of lush grass. He was on his back, and Annabelle was beside him, propped up on one elbow, leaning over him, kissing his face. Her lips caressed him gently: his forehead, cheeks, nose, chin, mouth. He luxuriated in her touch and the love it expressed.
Then he began to understand that he was dreaming. He did not want to wake up, the dream was too delicious, but he found he could not remain asleep, and Annabelle and the green grass started to fade. However, when the dream vanished the kissing went on. He remembered he was in a car in the Libyan desert, he reckoned that he had slept for twelve hours, and he realized who was kissing him. He opened his eyes. It was early, and the daylight was still pale, but he clearly saw the face of Kiah.
She looked anxious. ‘Are you angry?’ she said.
In some distant corner of his mind he had been longing for this moment for weeks. ‘Not angry,’ he said, and kissed her. It was a long kiss. He wanted to explore her in every possible way, and he sensed that she felt the same about him. He thought he had never had a kiss like this before.
She broke away, panting.
Abdul said: ‘Where’s Naji?’
She pointed. He was in the front seat, wrapped in a blanket, fast asleep. She said: ‘He will wake in an hour.’
They kissed again, then Abdul said: ‘I have to ask you.’