CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

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 like 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 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 things 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.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Paradise was built partly on the desert floor and partly on a rocky hillside and provided more amenities than most oasis towns. The hotel was spartan but clean and better than most; bedroom accommodation was in zeribas, grass huts with the walls hung with gaily-coloured blankets, and there were showers which actually worked. As I sponged myself down I reflected that Byrne had been right – the desert is a clean place and a man doesn't stink. This was the first shower I'd had in nearly a month.

Byrne had left the Toyota in the hotel compound and had gone looking for his informant, the putative lucky winner of ten camels. He came back some time later with two Tuareg whom he introduced as Atitel and his son, Hami. 'Have you got those photocopies of the Northrop?'

'Sure.' I dug into my bag and gave them to him.

He unfolded them. 'Where did you get these?'

'The Science Museum in London – they're from Jane's All the World's Aircraft, 1935 edition.'