Brute Force

99

Twenty minutes after we filled the Q7 with fuel, costing all of about $8, Mansour's site loomed up on the sat nav, ten kilometres from the main road.

I turned off the highway. The terrain changed from flat as a billiard-table to rocky and undulating. After just ten minutes, the ground fell away dramatically and we drove down into a wadi. I swerved to miss a rock the size of a basketball and didn't see the pothole waiting to swallow the nearside tyre.

The Audi lurched and I heard the axle crunch. I put my foot down and powered out of it, but, with the car rearing, gave another huge boulder a glancing blow. As we grounded again the Q7's nose dipped and slewed. I braked to a halt.

'We've blown a tyre.'

I switched off the engine and got out. Our only piece of good luck was that the edge of the wadi kept the Audi below the level of the horizon, in case anyone happened to be playing I-spy from the road.

I opened the boot and the doors to allow what little breeze there was to blow through the car. 'You two need to get out while I jack it up.'

I took the .38 from Lynn. I didn't want him to hand it to Mansour on a plate while I changed the tyre.

The Libyan fucked around in the boot for a moment or two and came up with a foam-filled toolkit with cut-outs for the adjustable spanner, the screwdriver, the torch . . . all the things you'd need if you were unlucky enough to break down in the middle of nowhere.

'No point us getting in your way,' he said cheerfully. 'We might as well stretch our legs . . .'

They moved further down the wadi towards the clearly visible foundations of a house.