CHAPTER 17

Monday 14th February

"Yeah," said Raf, "I already know . . ."

A life of brain-rotting boredom awaited Tunisia's last bey, who took with him into exile his wife, his German mistress (standard Thiergarten -issue, one), a dozen, French-educated ministers, most of his children and a 392-piece set of china made in the Husseinite colours by Noritake.

And while the brave speech made from the door of his departing train was enough to make some doubt the probity of supporting Colonel al-Mansur's plot to overthrow the government, the convenient discovery two days later of an empty beyical treasury was enough to make those same people realize how right Colonel al-Mansur had been to propose himself for the new position of Emir.

"You done now?" Raf asked.

Inside his head, Tiri nodded and smiled, glad to be back. Raf's refusal to talk had lasted a whole bus trip and half a train journey. So now the fox was sticking to easy thoughts and simple facts. Which was why it didn't mention what was happening up ahead.

The secret police were waiting for Raf on platform three of Gare de Tunis. It was nothing personal. They were waiting for everyone. Although, to be honest, Raf didn't care. He was being someone else for the day, maybe longer.

Maybe forever.

Slung under the arms of each mubahith was a new-model HK7, the complete works right down to Zeiss laser scope and double-length magazine. Since Ifriqiya was on the UN embargo list for weapons sales and the ministry in Berlin responsible for overseeing HK shipments obeyed the ruling when it suited them, shipping must have been via false end-user certificates. Presumably the same applied to the military-issue BMW bikes parked on the concourse behind.

Their black uniform wasn't one Raf recognized but whatever force they represented it seemed to require them to wear steel-capped eighteen-rivet boots cut from shiny leather. Always a bad sign. For his part, Raf still wore sandals cut from an old tractor tyre and a filthy jellaba. His skull was hidden under a cheap Dynamo's cap and three-day stubble accentuated rather than hid the scar on his jaw; he looked rough, made worse by the fact that seventy-six hours of not eating had hollowed his cheeks and put dark circles round his naked eyes.

The smile on his face was that of an idiot savant. Or maybe just an idiot.

That the mubahith wore aviator shades went without saying, since mirror shades and big boots went together across most of North Africa like midsummer riots and tear gas. Raf's own dark glasses were missing and in their place he wore cheap contacts that turned his eyes brown and overlaid the world with a haze of ghostly smoke.

"You." A hand clipped his shoulder, sending him stumbling. "Can't you read?" A soldier with corporal's stripes was pointing to a sign. A dozen soldiers and an officer in khaki were there to do the actual work. The mubahith just stood around in black uniforms looking bored.

Raf shook his head mutely and the corporal sucked his teeth.

"Into line," he ordered and indicated a row of barriers set up to funnel passengers through one of two metal arches. Men, who made up the bulk of the crowd, jostled and pushed their way towards one arch, where a bored soldier sat off to the side, chain-smoking in front of a bank of screens.

The few women alighting from Raf's train had their own arch with no screens visible. All results of their strip scans were hidden within the walls of a tall black tent and seen only by trained nurses. Sécurité's gesture to common decency.

"Come on."

Most of those who passed through the arches raised little interest. Although a few of the men were pulled out of line and made to turn out their pockets just for show.

"Your turn," said the fox and Raf nodded, dropping his bidi to the platform and grinding it under heel. Raf had no real idea why he did that. Unless it was meant to be polite.

Shuffling forward with the felaheen gait of those too poor to own correctly sized shoes, Raf passed under the arch. And all might have been well if he hadn't looked up and stared straight into the eyes of Sergeant Belhaouane, recently promoted to the mubahith.

"You," the man jerked his heavy chin. "Come here."

Raf did what he was told.

"Look at me."

Reluctantly Raf raised his head then looked away. He stank of sweat and his jellaba was rotten beneath the arms from lack of washing.

"Your papers." The order was barked out. It didn't take the fox to tell Raf that the security man was enjoying himself, which didn't stop the fox from telling him anyway.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing." Raf shook his head. "Nothing, Captain."

Sergeant Belhaouane looked almost mollified by his sudden promotion. Although that didn't stop him from clicking his fingers loudly to hurry Raf along.

"Come on . . ."

Raf hurried. Scrabbling in his jellaba pocket, then in all the pockets of the tattered trousers he wore beneath. Finally, when the sergeant's patience was almost gone he found his wallet.

"Your Excellency," said Raf, producing it.

The mubahith flipped open the battered square of leather and looked inside. Then he checked the pocket behind the empty slots where credit cards would have been were this felah the kind of man to have credit cards.

A hundred US dollars hid there, in tatty green ten-dollar notes. One month's wages to the sergeant, three months' wages to someone like Raf. About as much as a family might scrabble together to send one of them to the city to find work.

"These your identity papers?"

Raf shuffled his feet.

"Thought so." The man pocketed the notes with a twist of the wrist as deft as any magician making cards disappear. "Right," he said when that was done. "What's your business in Tunis?"

"Work," said Raf. "I came to find a job."

"Doing what?"

"Unloading ships . . . There's a strike."

Sergeant Belhaouane snorted. Work at the docks passed from father to son, strike or no strike. The only way an outsider like Raf could ever get dock work was to marry the daughter of a stevedore and hope that, when the time came, the jetty bosses were open to bribes and the man about to retire didn't already have a son.

"What's your village?"

Raf named a place so small it didn't occur on most maps.

"Where?"

In reply he named a town nearby not much larger. Although the sergeant appeared to have heard of it this time, probably because Segui was known as a place of annual pilgrimage for Soviet nasrani who spurned UN sanctions and raced the salt lakes with sail boards on wheels.

It was obvious from the sergeant's dismissive gaze that he held out little hope of Raf finding work enough to send money back to his village. The concrete-stained sandals and filthy jellaba identified Raf as a man mostly used to casual graft. And construction in Tunis was run by one family. If you didn't pay for an introduction, you didn't work. Life was that simple. And since the last thing Tunis needed was another itinerant from the south Sergeant Belhaouane decided his best course of action would be send the idiot back to Segui on the next train.

Unfortunately the fox disagreed.

"Run," suggested the fox. But Raf was already running through a crowd that didn't so much move out of his way as trip over their own feet in their haste to let him get to the exit on Rue Ibn Kozman. A woman screamed, Raf noticed, freezing an image of the chaos around him. An old man burst into tears and a boy put a hand to his mouth like he was about to vomit.

"Ditch that gun."

"What gun?"

"Heckler & Koch, fifty-two-shot magazine. Laser targeting. Night sights . . ."