Abdul went out of the compound just before going to sleep. He washed his hands and face with water from the well. As he returned he passed the bus, where Hakim was standing with Tareq and Hamza. ‘You’re not from this country, are you?’ Hakim said, as if it was a challenge.
Hakim had been looking forward to his hand job and was disappointed to get sixty bucks instead, Abdul assumed. He had probably noticed Esma hugging and kissing Kiah, and guessed that Kiah had given her the money. Kiah might have a secret stash of her own, of course, but if she had got it from someone else, then Hakim figured Abdul was the likely source. Sly crooks sometimes had good instincts.
Abdul said: ‘What do you care where I come from?’
‘Nigeria?’ Hakim said. ‘You don’t sound Nigerian. What is that accent?’
‘I’m not Nigerian.’
Hamza took out a pack of cigarettes and put one in his mouth – a sign that he was getting nervous, Abdul thought. Almost automatically, Abdul took out the red plastic lighter he had always used with customers, and lit Hamza’s cigarette. He no longer needed the lighter, but he had kept it with a vague feeling that one day it might be useful. In return, Hamza offered him a cigarette from the pack. Abdul declined.
Hakim resumed the attack. ‘Where was your father from?’
This was a trial of strength. Hakim was challenging Abdul in front of Hamza and Tareq. ‘Beirut,’ Abdul said. ‘My father was Lebanese. He was a cook. He made very good sweet cheese rolls.’
Hakim looked scornful.
Abdul went on: ‘He’s dead now. To God we belong, and to God we all return.’ This pious saying was the Muslim equivalent of Rest in peace. Abdul noticed that Hamza and Tareq heard it with approval.
He continued, making his voice slow and serious. ‘You should be careful what you say about a man’s father, Hakim.’
Hamza blew out smoke and nodded agreement.
‘I’ll say what I like,’ Hakim blustered. He looked at the two guards. He relied on them to defend him, but he realized that Abdul was weakening their loyalty.
Abdul spoke to the guards rather than to Hakim. ‘I was a driver in the army, you know,’ he said conversationally.
Hakim said: ‘So what?’
Abdul ignored Hakim pointedly. ‘I drove armoured cars first, then tank carriers. The tank carriers were difficult on desert roads.’ He was making this up. He had never driven a tank carrier, never served in the National Army of Chad or indeed any other military force. ‘I was in the east, mostly, near the Sudan border.’
Hakim was bewildered. ‘Why are you saying this?’ he said in a voice shrill with frustration. ‘What are you talking about?’
Abdul jerked a thumb rudely at Hakim. ‘If he dies,’ he said to the guards, ‘I can drive the bus.’ It was a thinly disguised threat on Hakim’s life. Would Hamza and Tareq react?
Neither guard spoke.
Hakim seemed to recall that the guards’ job was to protect the cocaine, not him, and he realized he had lost face. Feebly he said: ‘Get out of my sight, Abdul,’ then turned his back.
Abdul felt he might have brought about a subtle shift of loyalties. Men such as Hamza and Tareq respected strength. Their allegiance to Hakim had been undermined by his failed attempt to bully Abdul. It had been an effective stroke to say: ‘To God we belong, and to God we all return.’ As jihadis in Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, the two guards must often have murmured those words over the bodies of slain comrades.
They might even have begun to think of Abdul as one of them. At any rate, given a choice between him and Hakim they might at least hesitate.
Abdul said no more. He went into the compound and lay down on the ground. Waiting for sleep to come, he reflected on the day. He was still alive, still accumulating priceless intelligence for the war against ISGS. He had deflected Hakim’s challenging questions. But his position was weakening. He had begun this trip as a stranger to everyone, a man about whom they knew nothing and cared less. But he had not sustained that role, and now he saw that it had been impossible, given the length of time for which this group had remained intimately close. He was a person to them now, a foreigner and a loner, yes, but also a man who helped vulnerable women and one who was not afraid of bullies.
He had made a friend in Kiah and an enemy in Hakim. For an undercover officer, that was two mistakes.
*
The Toubou guide was there in the morning.
He came into the compound early, while the day was still cool, as the passengers were having a breakfast of bread and weak tea. He was a tall dark-skinned man in white robes and a white headdress, and he had an aloof look that made Abdul think of a proud Native American. Under his clothes, on his left side between his ribs and his hip, was a bulge that might have been a long-barrelled revolver, perhaps a Magnum, in an improvised holster.
Hakim stood with him in the middle of the yard and said: ‘Listen to me! This is Issa, our guide. You must do everything he tells you.’
Issa spoke briefly. Arabic was evidently not his first language, and Abdul recalled that the Toubou spoke a tongue of their own called Teda. ‘You do not have to do anything,’ Issa said, enunciating carefully. ‘I will take care of it all.’ There was no warmth in his tone, he was coldly factual. ‘If you are questioned, say that you are prospectors going to the gold mines in the west of Libya. But I do not think you will be questioned.’
Hakim said: ‘Right, you’ve got your instructions, now board the bus quickly.’
Kiah remarked to Abdul: ‘Issa seems reliable, at least. I’d trust him more than Hakim, anyway.’
Abdul was not so sure. ‘He has a competent air,’ he said. ‘But I can’t tell what’s in his heart.’
That made Kiah thoughtful.
Issa was the last to board, and Abdul watched with interest as he surveyed the interior and saw that there was no spare seat. Tareq and Hamza were as usual sprawled over two seats each. Seeming to make a decision, Issa stood in front of Tareq. He said nothing and his expression was impassive, but he stared unblinkingly.
Tareq stared back as if waiting for him to say something.
Hakim started the engine.
Without turning around, Issa said calmly: ‘Engine off.’
Hakim looked at him.
Issa continued gazing at Tareq and just said: ‘Off.’
Hakim turned the key in the ignition and the engine stopped.
Tareq sat upright, lifted his backpack off the seat beside him, and scooted over, making room.
Issa simply pointed to the other double seat, the one occupied by Hamza.
Tareq got up, crossed the aisle with his backpack in one hand and his assault rifle in the other, and sat next to Hamza, both of them with their packs on their knees.
Issa looked at Hakim and said: ‘Go.’
Hakim once again started the engine.
It soon became clear to Abdul that this contest of wills had not merely been to establish who was the alpha male. Issa actually needed both halves of that front seat. He watched the road with unflagging concentration, often moving to the window seat to look out and back to the aisle seat to look ahead. Every few minutes he gave Hakim some direction or other, mostly using gestures, telling him where the road was when its edges were imperceptible, ordering him to steer to one side, making him slow down when the surface was strewn with stones, encouraging him to go faster when the road was clear.
In one place Issa guided him right off the road and onto rough ground in order to give a wide berth to a Toyota pickup that lay upside-down and burned-out at the roadside, presumably destroyed by a landmine. The Libya–Chad war was a long time in the past, but the mines were still operative, and where there had been one there might be more.