The truck came over the rise two hundred yards away, travelling fast and trailing a long plume of dust which was blown to one side by the wind. As it approached it slowed, and then drew to a halt abreast of us. The driver was obviously not a European but the man who got out of the front passenger seat was. He was as Byrne had described him, fairly big and with dark hair. His eyes flickered towards Byrne and me, then he looked at Paul in the front seat and said, ‘Are you in trouble? Perhaps I can help.’
I didn’t hear what Paul answered because I took half a pace to one side and knocked over the oil-can with a metallic clatter. Byrne raised his voice. ‘Yeah, you can say we’re in trouble. Lousy differential’s bust.’
Lash turned his head and stared at Byrne, then came to the back of the truck. ‘You an American?’ He filled his voice with well-simulated incredulity.
‘We get around.’
‘You don’t look like one,’ said Lash in an amused tone. He nodded at me. ‘I suppose he’s American, too.’
‘Nope,’ said Byrne. ‘He’s British like you.’
Lash raised his eyebrows but said nothing. I suppose Byrne had done the right thing. Lash knew I was around and there was no point in me hiding; and it would be difficult to maintain the deception unless I pretended I was deaf and dumb.
He stooped and looked under the Toyota, then said, ‘Yes, I’d say you’re in trouble.’ He straightened. ‘By the way, my name is Lash—John Lash.’
‘I’m Luke Byrne. This here is Max Stafford and the feller up front is Paul Billson.’ I was afraid that Lash would offer to shake hands which would have been difficult with me holding the pistol, but he merely nodded. Byrne said, ‘The differential don’t matter—I have a spare; but I’d sure appreciate a tow out of this sand and a few kilometres up the road.’
‘That shouldn’t be too difficult,’ said Lash, and turned away and began to talk to the men in his truck. From the intonation he was speaking French although I didn’t get the words. I noted he did not introduce them.
Byrne took his right arm from his
gandoura
and his hand was empty. If he was willing to take a chance then so was I, so I unobtrusively holstered the pistol and did the same. He said, ‘We’ll put in the sand ladders before we let the jacks down; it’ll be easier with them.’
Lash’s two companions got out of their truck. I walked to the cab of the Toyota. Paul said in a low voice, ‘That’s the man who was at Dirkou.’
‘So?’
‘So wasn’t Byrne suspicious of him?’
‘Hell!’ I said. ‘He’s just a Good Samaritan come to get us out of trouble. Don’t be paranoiac, Paul. Get out and help.’
We put the sand ladders under the rear wheels, then let the Toyota down on to them and took away the jacks. Lash didn’t have a towing chain but Byrne did, and we were
ready to go within ten minutes. It was then I noticed that one of Lash’s men had disappeared.
Lash and the other man got into their truck and the engine fired. In a low voice I said to Byrne, ‘Where’s the other thug?’
‘Gone back over the rise—and I know why.’
‘Why, for God’s sake?’
‘It ain’t because he’s shy of exposing himself,’ Byrne said sardonically. ‘My guess he’s gone back to flag down Kissack and stop him. The Range-Rover won’t be far behind.’
It made sense. Lash wouldn’t want us to see Kissack. I said, ‘One thing—don’t talk about Lash while we’re being towed or you’ll spook Paul.’
‘I’ll watch it.’ He raised his voice. ‘Paul, you stand on this side and Max on the other. If you think we’re getting deeper into trouble, then yell.’ He got behind the wheel and waved at Lash, who revved his engine.
There was no trouble. Lash’s truck was more powerful than it looked and pulled us out of the sand easily, though what it did to one of the sand ladders was indescribable. Byrne threw away that twisted bit of junk as being unusable and we collected the few tools that were lying around. As we did so, the missing man came walking at a smart pace up the road. He saw us looking at him and zipped up the fly of his trousers. Byrne looked at me and grinned faintly.
So the man who was going to kill us towed us into Seguedine, which wasn’t much of a place, but there was a ruin with three standing walls and a decrepit roof which was enough to shelter the Toyota from the wind. Lash helped us push it in. ‘Mind if I stay the night here with you?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps I could help you strip the transmission.’
‘No call for that,’ said Byrne. ‘I can manage.’
Lash smiled. ‘And I don’t feel like driving on in a sandstorm. A man could lose his way. I have a feeling that could be bad.’
‘Sure could,’ Byrne agreed. ‘You could get dead. You want to stay, you stay. It’s a free country. Thanks for your help, Mr Lash; you got us out of a nasty hole, but there’s no call for you to get your hands dirty.’
But Lash helped us anyway. I suppose he thought it in his own interest to put us on our way as fast as possible. His henchmen disappeared, probably to tell Kissack what was happening. Lash wasn’t all that much of a help, though, and his aid was confined to handing over tools when asked, as indeed was mine. Byrne could have done the job quite handily himself and, for a man who professed hatred of ‘stinkpots’ he was American enough to understand them well.
Paul came and went restlessly. Once, in Lash’s absence, Byrne said to him enthusiastically, ‘Lash is a real nice guy, don’t you think? Him getting us out of the sand and helping us like this and all.’
I said, ‘Yes; a Good Samaritan, Paul.’ I looked over Byrne’s shoulder and saw Lash come slowly out of the shadows, and wondered if Byrne had known that Lash was behind him, listening. Probably he had known; there were no flies on Luke Byrne.
We finished the job in the glare of a pressure lantern after nightfall, then cleaned up and prepared a meal just as Konti showed up. Byrne talked to him for a moment then said to me, ‘He walked as far as here, found no one, so he went up the track a long ways with no success. Walking fools, these Teda.’
Lash contributed a bottle of whisky for after-dinner drinks. I accepted a tot, and so did Paul, but Byrne refused politely. ‘Where are your friends, Mr Lash?’
Lash raised his eyebrows. ‘Friends? Oh, you mean…They’re just showing me around. Professional guides.’ I glanced at Byrne who didn’t bat an eyelid at that preposterous statement. ‘They prefer to eat their own food.’ Lash looked around in the darkness. ‘What is this place?’
‘Seguedine? Used to be people here—three or four families of Kanuri. Must have moved out since I was here last. The Tassili Tuareg come from the north when the feed gives out there. Where are you heading?’
Lash shrugged. ‘Nowhere in particular. Just looking around.’ That was supposed to give him an excuse for popping up out of nowhere at any time and occasioning no surprise, but it was a stupid thing to say. Even a tyro like myself had observed that desert crossings were most carefully prepared with times and distances collated and fuel and water carefully metered. No one in his right mind would flutter hither and yon like a carefree butterfly. To risk running out of fuel or water was dangerous.
Lash sipped his whisky. ‘And you?’
‘Pretty much the same,’ said Byrne uninformatively.
I would have thought Lash might have pursued the subject of our further travels, but he didn’t. He made desultory conversation, telling us he was the managing director of a firm in Birmingham which specialized in packaging and that this was the first real holiday he’d had in seven years. ‘I decided to do something different,’ he said.
He tried to draw me out on what I did in England so I told him the truth because he knew all about me anyway and to lie would arouse his suspicions. ‘Recuperating from an illness,’ I said, then added, ‘and getting over a divorce.’ Both statements were true; he’d probably been the cause of the ‘illness’ and the bit about Gloria could confuse him by its truth. The truth can be a better weapon than lies.
After a while he excused himself, after getting nowhere with Billson, and went to his truck where he bedded down. Soon thereafter Konti came out of the darkness and spoke to Byrne, who questioned him closely. Paul said to me, ‘Inquisitive, isn’t he?’
‘Not abnormally so. Chit-chat between ships that pass in the night.’
‘I don’t like him.’ Paul pulled his
djellaba
closer about him. ‘I don’t think he’s what he says he is.’ I
knew
it, but Paul was showing an acuity which surprised me. Perhaps it was the sixth sense of the hunted animal.
A few minutes later, out of Paul’s hearing, Byrne said, ‘Kissack is camped about a mile from here. I sent Konti to scout him out.’ He chuckled. ‘I don’t think Kissack will be comfortable out there. The wind’s still rising.’
‘Do we stand watches?’
Byrne shook his head. ‘Konti will watch all night.’
‘Bit hard on him, isn’t it?’
‘Hell, no! He’ll sleep in the Toyota tomorrow. For a Teda to sleep while on the move is sheer unaccustomed luxury.’
Next morning the storm had blown itself out and Lash had gone together with his truck. ‘Went just before dawn,’ said Byrne. ‘Sudden guys, these friends of yours. Kissack shoots folks without saying a word and Lash goes, just like that. Unneighbourly, I call it.’
‘So what now?’
‘On to Chirfa and Djanet.’
Chirfa was nearly a hundred and fifty kilometres north of Seguedine and consisted of a Tuareg camp and one deserted Foreign Legion fortress which might have stood in for Fort Zinderneuf in
Beau Geste
but for one thing—there was an anchor carved above the main gate. Because we were about as far away from the sea as a human being can get on this planet I stared at this improbable emblem and asked Byrne about it.
‘I wouldn’t know. Maybe it was built by French marines.’
The Tuareg seemed different from those I had met before, being more shabbily dressed. Byrne said they were of the Tassili Tuareg. From them he bought a donkey, which he gave to Konti. ‘This is where he leaves us,’ he said. ‘He’ll go east, past Djado and on to the Tibesti.’
‘How far to the Tibesti?’
‘Maybe five hundred kilometres; it’s over in Chad.’
‘Walking all the way?’
‘Yeah. But the donkey’ll help.’
‘My God!’ I watched Konti walk out of sight, towing the donkey.
As he walked back to where the Toyota was parked Byrne said, ‘We’ve been followed most of the way here, but I lost sight of them about an hour ago. Two trucks.’
‘Lash and Kissack.’
‘I guess so. Wish I hadn’t lost them; they’re a couple of guys I like to keep my eye on.’
About ten kilometres out of Chirfa we climbed the pass that is called the Col des Chandeliers for no apparent reason because I didn’t see anything that looked like a candlestick. At the top Byrne stopped under a cliff on which was a huge engraving about twenty feet high of a barbaric figure holding a spear. He ignored it, having seen many rock engravings before, and climbed up a little way to where he could get a good view of the way we had just come.
Presently he came down again. ‘No one in sight.’ He seemed disappointed. ‘I’d just as lief know where that bastard is.’
‘I knew it,’ said Paul. ‘You mean Lash.’
Byrne shrugged. ‘You’re a big boy now, Paul. Yeah, I mean Lash.’
‘Who is he? I felt there was something wrong with him.’
I sighed. ‘He might as well know, Luke.’ I looked at Paul and said deliberately, ‘Lash is Kissack’s boss.’
He was hurt. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘Because we didn’t know how you’d take it,’ I said. ‘You’re apt to go off half cock. We found out about him back in Bilma.’
‘But who is he?’
‘I don’t know, but he’s in the packaging industry like I’m a candidate for the
Playboy
centrefold. My guess is that he’s a big noise in the London underworld.’
‘Why would anyone like th—’
‘For God’s sake, Paul! I don’t know. Stop asking unanswerable questions.’ I turned to Byrne. ‘Let’s go.’
He shook his head. ‘Either they’re behind us or they’re ahead of us. If they’re ahead, then we’ll run into them sooner or later. If they’re behind, I’d just as soon know it. We’ll wait here awhile. Paul, climb up there and keep watch.’
Paul hesitated, then nodded briefly and climbed up to where Byrne indicated. Byrne said, ‘We’ll give them an hour.’ He turned and walked away and I fell into step beside him. ‘You wouldn’t be holding out on me, would you, Max? I mean, there isn’t anything you haven’t told me.’
‘You know as much as I do.’
‘Then maybe it’s Paul. We may have to talk to him seriously.’
I shook my head. ‘I’ve done that—filleted him. He knows nothing.’
Byrne gave a soft exclamation, then stooped and picked up something. He examined it then handed it to me. ‘A souvenir of the Sahara.’
It was a small blade carved from stone and about an inch long and half an inch wide. It was beautifully polished and the cutting edge was still keen. ‘A small chopper,’ he said.
‘Tuareg?’
‘Hell, no!’ He pointed upwards at the engraving of the giant with the spear. ‘His people. If you keep your eyes open you can find dozens of things like that around here. Three thousand years old—maybe more.’
I passed my finger over the polished stone.
Three millennia!
It seemed to put me and my doings into an oddly dwindled perspective. Three-quarters of an hour later when Paul
shouted I had found another, larger, axe-head and a couple of arrow-heads. I hastily pocketed them and ran for the Toyota.
Byrne was up on the cliff. ‘Maybe six kilometres back,’ he reported when he got down. ‘Both trucks—that suits me fine. Let’s go.’ So off we went, bouncing down the other side of the Col des Chandeliers and heading north-west.
I kept an eye to the rear and presently saw the faint dots trailing dust plumes like comet tails. They kept an even distance behind, not dropping back and not catching up, and we went on like that for perhaps a couple of hours. Then we came to a beacon by the side of the track. Byrne said, ‘Balise 593. Check the odometer—I want exactly fifty kilometres on top of what we’ve got now.’
I kept an eye on the odometer, watching the kilometres roll by. None of us talked much. Byrne because he was concentrating on his driving, me because I had nothing much to say, and Paul, I suspect, because his thoughts were occupied by the trucks behind. When fifty kilometres had been added on to the score I said, ‘This is it.’
‘Not quite,’ said Byrne, and drove on for another half kilometre before he stopped. He got out and swung himself up on top of the Toyota where he stood gazing back. Then he got back into the cab and remarked, ‘I wouldn’t want them to lose us now.’
‘Why not?’
He pointed off to the left. ‘That, believe it or not, is supposed to be a track, and that’s the way we’re going. We’ll soon find out how professional Lash’s guides are.’ He waited five minutes and then moved off, swinging on to the track which was hardly distinguishable.
The country changed and we lost sight of the mountains, being on an immense gravel plain as flat as a billiard table from horizon to horizon. ‘This is called
reg
,’ he said. ‘Not bad for travelling on if you don’t mind the monotony. I guess it was sea bottom at one time.’
Monotonous it certainly was and I began to become sleepy. I looked back at Paul and saw that weariness had conquered whatever terrors he had of Lash and Kissack. He was heavily asleep. The kilometres and miles flowed away beneath our wheels and still the view was unchanged. At one time I said, ‘This must be the biggest plain in the desert.’
‘Hell, no!’ Byrne said. ‘That’s the Tanezrouft—about as big as France. Makes this look like a postage stamp. It’ll be changing in a while—for the worse.’
And it did. First there were isolated barchan dunes, yellow crescents against the black gravel, then bigger patches of sand which Byrne avoided. Finally there was more sand than gravel and he couldn’t avoid it. He said conversationally, ‘In desert driving this is what separates the men from the boys. This is
fech-fech
—remember what I told you about it?’
I remembered the macabre tale of the big truck breaking through. ‘Now you tell me!’
He turned his head and grinned. ‘It’s okay if you keep up your speed—sort of skim along the surface. Trouble might come if you slow down. I’m betting that those goons of Lash’s don’t know that.’
‘You knew it was here?’
‘Yeah. I was stuck here myself once about twenty years back. There’s usually
fech-fech
here at this time of year.’
I said, ‘It looks like ordinary sand to me.’
‘Different colour. And if you look back you’ll see we’re not kicking up as much dust. One thing’s for certain—we don’t stop to find out for sure.’
Presently, after about an hour, he changed direction and soon after came to a stop. He climbed again on to the top of the cab and looked around, and when he got back he was grinning. ‘Not a sign of them. Mr Lash might have
helped us back at Seguedine but I don’t think we should help him now. We join the main track to Djanet over there. That’s Balise Berliet 21. Know what Djanet means?’
‘I don’t even know what Balise Berliet 21 means.’
‘The Berliet Motor Company tested their heavy trucks out here and signposted the desert. And Djanet is Arabic for Paradise.’