He squinted, watching a big cat a few hundred metres along the dry river valley; the cat was tawny and gracile, with tufted ears and a long pert tail, prowling between the camelthorns. A caracal.

Further down the shallow canyon, he could make out large moving black shapes. Desert elephants. Making their unique pilgrimage, across all the thirstlands of Namibia, searching for water.

He wanted to cry. Because he was about to die. And the world was so beautiful. Cruelly beautiful. Savage and deathly and beautiful. He had never felt so vividly aware of everything. Every beetle, ebony black on the golden sand, every chirp of every desert bird that trilled in the soft green acacias. And he was about to die.

Miguel’s voice echoed across the camp.

‘OK. Come on. It is fucking cold. We need to burn him. Come on! Egun on denoi! Wake up.’

Suddenly the clearing was alive with people. Shivering men waiting for their orders.

‘We need wood, Miguel?’

‘Get them to do it.’ Miguel barked at his men. ‘Use Amy and Nairn. Let them gather the firewood to roast their friend. We can brew coffee on his brains.’

‘Alright.’ Alan was nonchalantly pointing a pistol at them. ‘As he says. Don’t see why we should sweat. You go and gather some wood. We’ll be right behind you.’

Amy and Angus were unchained. A jabbing motion of the pistol gave them the direction. David watched from his bonds. The two prisoners shuffled down the canyon; Amy bent and picked up a small dead acacia branch. The men were smoking and laughing, swapping obscene jokes about the upcoming execution.

He noticed that Angus was talking to Amy. Whispering. Alan barked across the dust at the toiling captives: ‘Shut the fuck. Just collect the wood.’

Angus turned, and apologized, then stooped to the sand and wrenched at a small dead tree, with a few remaining green leaves. Amy copied him: wrenching at a similar tree, a few yards away.

The day and the task had begun. Angus and Amy did their slow and sombre duty, piling the wood high in the clearing; a chilly breeze was kicking across the wastes, the sun was already shining, but it was still cold.

Miguel’s voice was loud in the dawnlight.

‘Alan, get the fire lit. It’s freezing. Put our friend in the middle.’

‘Yes, Mig…’

David felt himself torn apart by the accumulating horror. Even though he had been preparing himself all night, the reality was too appalling to bear. This mustn’t be. This mustn’t be. But now they came for him. He fought and writhed, but he was one and they were many; he tried to bite one of his captors, but they slapped him into silence. Inevitably and inexorably, he was dragged across the dust to the waiting heap of wood.

‘Got the ropes?’

With brutal force he was half lifted, half shoved – hoisted into the middle of the firewood. For a moment his hands were unlashed and he tried to use his fists to hit out, hit someone, anyone – but the men grabbed his flailing fists: he felt them knotting his wrists behind the stake, and then the same happened to his ankles: they were roping his ankles too. Roping him to the big wooden stake.

Wood was stacked all around him, he was knee deep in distinctive grey desert wood. Dry and waiting.

He stared at Amy; she stared at him. Tears were running down her face, yet she was silent. David sought out her blue eyes: he was searching, in his final moments, for a confirmation, some proof that she loved him. And there was something in her expression, something distantly gentle, and wistfully pure. But what was it?

‘Basta!’ said Miguel. ‘Let’s go. Breakfast. Torrijas. Kafea.’

‘Wait.’ Amy spoke: ‘Let me kiss him goodbye.’

Miguel looked at her, sceptical and wry – almost laughing. The sun was up and David could feel the first real warmth on his face. Soon he would be boiling, the blood would boil in his veins.

‘Aii. Why not? Kiss him goodbye. Say agur. Taste him one more time. And I shall watch.’

Amy nodded, subserviently. She walked to the bonfire. And she stepped over the wood and she leaned to kiss David, softly, on the lips, and as she did she whispered, very quietly, and very clearly.

‘Try not to breathe the smoke. Euphorbia wood. Just try.’

David was biting back his own terrified sadness. He nodded. Mute. He accepted a second kiss, then Amy retreated and Alan stepped forward.

‘Gas mark five?’

Someone laughed.

‘Who’s got the lighter?’

The Frenchman, Jean Paul, was chucking petrol from a can on the dry firewood. David felt the cold splash of the gasoline on his ankles, the heady smell of raw petrol rose to his face and then Enoka took the lighter. The squat Basque man clicked and cupped the lighter flame with a hand, protecting it from the desert breeze, like a little bird, like a baby chick, and then he knelt and tended the lighter and he stepped back slowly, inquiringly, carefully – and then with a polite woooof of an explosion, the gasolined firewood burst into flame.

It was really happening. Here. Now. In the yellow Damara riverlands. With the Lanner falcons wheeling over the wistful Huab. He was going to burn alive.

The desert timber was so dry it burst into vivid flame at once: big roaring yellow flames. Angus and Amy were crouched around the fire, warming their hands. Miguel laughed.

‘That’s good. Warm your hands on your cooking friend! Me too.’ Miguel flashed a glance at his colleagues, and snapped an order. ‘Keep a gun on them.’

Miguel stepped near to watch his victim’s ordeal. David’s eyes were watering in the smoke; his feet were hot; he could feel the heat on his own legs, flames crawling up his body, like the arms of loathsome beggars. He tried not to breathe the smoke. Euphorbia. Was there some plan? He was almost passing out with fear. He was going to die. His mind swam with terror and tiny hope. What were they doing? Amy and Angus were upwind of the thick oily smoke issued by the dead, crackling branches. Glancing at Miguel, who was downwind.

Miguel was inhaling the smoke. Breathing in and smiling serenely.

‘The smell. Smell of the meat, like lamb. A little like lamb, no? You can smell the wood and soon the meat? Yes? Ez? Bai? Amy? You can smell? That is…that is your friend…burning – and -’ Miguel began to mumble, through the fire-heat and the smoke – ‘Yess…Marmatiko…he will be…’

David gazed from his own lashed and burning execution: astonished.

Miguel was stumbling, sideways. He was slurring and toppling – and then Miguel fell to his knees, half conscious.

The ETA terrorist was down.

And now Angus was on him like a predator; before anyone saw a chance to respond, Angus had leapt round the fire, grabbed Miguel by the neck; at the same time he snatched Miguel’s own pistol – and put it to Miguel’s lolling head.

The killer slurred a mumbled curse, barely conscious.

His guards were frozen with shock. Angus snapped: ‘Stop! Or I kill him!’

The moment jarred. Hands on guns. Men half out of cars.

Now Amy grabbed the knife lying in the dust, the knife Miguel had used to slice the human flesh. Diving into the rising flames, she slashed the ropes that tied David to the stake; as the cords fell into the fire, he leapt away, Amy pulling him free. Angus was shouting:

‘I will kill Miguel. Don’t move!’

No one moved. Apart from Amy: who slapped at David’s clothes, his smoking jeans and boots. The fire roared, as if in anger, denied its food. Amy put a hand to his face.

‘You’re OK?’

‘I’m OK – I’m OK -’ He could barely hear her, over the blaze of the flames and the sound of his own choking coughs: he was spitting the vile taste of his own burning clothes.

A few yards away, Angus was dragging the semi-conscious Miguel through the dirt – as Miguel’s men threw glances at each other. But their faces, in the clear morning light, flashed with extreme confusion. What to do, without Miguel? Without their commander?