‘Where the hell are we, anyway?’

‘About three days’ drive from where we need to be. So walk a little faster.’

An hour later, Ben was sitting in a shady back office over a tall glass of lime juice with his new friend, Mohammed, and shelling out Egyptian currency for what he hoped was their ideal ticket to the wilderness of the Sudan. Mohammed had three off-road vehicles for sale, and the one Ben had picked out was an ex-Libyan military Toyota. It was ancient and primitive, and large areas of its matt-green bodywork had been badly dented and restraightened with a hammer more than once; but it was all set up for desert driving with high-level suspension, new sand tyres, a spare wheel on the back and another on the bonnet, a full toolkit including a military folding shovel, and eight large metal jerrycans. You could never carry enough spare fuel in the desert, and Ben had Mohammed fill them to capacity as well as the tank.

It took another hour to gather together as many supplies as Ben could find-plastic litre bottles of Baraka mineral water and two belt canteens, compass, firelighting kit, a compact solid fuel stove, two small aluminium pots and two tin mugs, and goatskins for the cold desert nights. A spice merchant sold him some small vials of geranium and lavender oils to deter mosquitoes and other insects-an old trick Ben had learned in the army, just as effective as any chemical repellent. Lastly he bought a pair of loose-fitting cotton tunics and two Bedouin headscarves for them to wear.

‘I’ll look like a tit in that,’ Kirby complained.

‘You already do. And you don’t want to be in the desert sun with your head exposed.’ Ben loaded the last of the stuff into the back of the truck and slammed the tailgate shut.

‘I’d kill for a cold pint of beer,’ Kirby said mournfully.

‘This is a Muslim village. Try finding a bar. Also, you don’t want to be drinking alcohol in the heat. You’ll dehydrate in seconds. And watch your piss. If it starts to turn deep yellow, you’re not drinking enough water. Remember, if you get sick, I’m not carting you back to civilisation. I’ll leave you where you drop, and the sand spiders will have you.’

‘Thanks a million, friend.’

‘It was your decision to come along.’ Ben climbed into the Toyota, slammed the door and fired up the engine. Kirby hauled himself up into the passenger seat.

It was midday-the worst time for setting off into the desert. In an ideal situation, Ben would have waited another four hours-but this wasn’t an ideal situation. Kamal already had a long head start on them and there was no time to waste.

Ben pointed the Toyota southwest and they set off. It wasn’t long before they left the verdant Nile corridor behind and were heading into the wilderness. They drove along with the windows wide open, but the air blasting in was impossibly hot. Kirby constantly fanned himself with the laminated map, slumped in his seat, his hair plastered and dripping with sweat. After a while he fell asleep, and Ben focused on driving.

For the first few hours, the road was metalled and quite busy in places with huge trucks that flew along, with scant regard for other traffic. Ben cautiously passed a couple of military patrols, but nobody stopped him.

Hours passed, Kirby slept on and Ben kept pushing the Toyota hard and fast. Later in the day, the road had thinned out to a track. An hour after that, Ben was driving on sand and forced to keep his speed down to reduce fuel consumption. Kirby drifted in and out of his doze, and they barely spoke. Only once every few hours did they see another vehicle passing the other way. The terrain was as flat as the sea, stretching out to infinity all around. It was more like navigating a ship than driving a car. With no visual references it was all too easy to drift off course, and Ben had to keep checking the compass to maintain their southwesterly bearing.

A tiny dot on the horizon. He watched as it grew larger, until the shape of the armed Land Rover was shimmering close in the heat haze. The vehicle flashed at them to halt. Soldiers climbed down, guns slung low.

‘Who are they?’ Kirby asked anxiously.

‘Egyptian army.’

‘What is this, a shakedown?’

‘Maybe.’

‘What’ll we do?’

Ben said nothing to that.

The officer in charge swaggered casually up to them and leaned on the door sill. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored aviator sunglasses. ‘Salaam Alaykum.’

‘Alaykum Salaam,’ Ben replied with a respectful bow of the head.

The officer smiled. ‘Where are you from?’

‘British nationals,’ Ben said. ‘Just touring.’

‘There has been terrorist activity to the north. It is dangerous for foreigners to travel alone in the desert. Do you require an escort to the nearest town?’

Ben replied politely that they didn’t. The officer shrugged, signalled to his men and they climbed back in their Land Rover and drove off. Ben let out a breath as he watched them go.

‘That was close,’ Kirby said, glancing behind him at the holdall full of weapons and ammunition.

‘It’ll get closer,’ Ben replied.

They travelled on, always southwest. The sun bore murderously down, a stark white ball of molten steel in the sky. Its glare played endless tricks with depth perception. As they entered a zone of huge, undulating sand dunes, Ben almost drove straight into a near-vertical slope thinking it was flat. A few minutes later, Kirby was convinced he could see a village in the distance. It turned out to be a discarded jerrycan just eighty yards away.

The dunes became a miniature mountain range of soft, crumbly sand. Cresting a dune at any kind of speed was dangerous, as the weight of the vehicle could cause a slipaway that would risk their overturning. If that happened and they were lucky, they might be able to dig out a trench to roll the Toyota upright. If they were unlucky, it meant they would cook out here.

Slowly, the landscape began to grow rockier, until Ben found himself lurching over sandstone ridges and tracks so rutted that the suspension bottomed out with a jarring thump every few yards. He drove in silence while beside him Kirby gripped his seat, letting out a loud groan every time they hit a bad bump or crashed down into a ditch. But it was the kind of rough work that the Toyota was made for. Ben forced it on mercilessly, knowing it would take more than a few bumps to test the military vehicle to its limits.

With the cruelly slow passing of time, the sun faded from white to gold and sank back down in the sky as the temperature dwindled from that of a blistering furnace to merely insanely hot. Evening fell. Ben finally let the Toyota roll to a halt and got out, stretching his stiff limbs. He took a long, long drink of water from the canteen on his belt, feeling it soothe his parched mouth. ‘We’ll stop here tonight,’ he said. He would have liked to keep going, but night driving in the desert wasn’t advisable and he badly needed to rest.

‘It gets cold so suddenly here,’ Kirby said. ‘It’s like someone turned off the heater.’

They unpacked some of the dry meat and fruit, and sat on the sand a few yards from the car to eat, listening to the silence. Ben kept the FN rifle nearby. When night descended fully and the temperature plummeted further, he lit the solid fuel stove and brewed up some tea in their tin mugs. Kirby had little to say for himself, rocking slowly back and forth, huddling under his goatskin and sipping his drink.

Ben allowed himself a few hours’ sleep. The first red and gold streaks of sunrise were in the sky when he awoke, long shadows cast over the dunes. It was cold, and he was shivering as he washed sparingly with their precious water supply. He nudged Kirby awake with a kick.

The historian stirred, grunted and squinted up at him.

‘I want to show you something,’ Ben said.

‘What?’

Ben tossed the little.38 revolver down on Kirby’s goatskin next to him. ‘I’m going to teach you to use it.’