Shots from somewhere, from behind or from a new source of attention, and another tyre burst and the tread began howling against the underneath of the wing and the stink of burning rubber came into the car and as we swerved again and hit something and span full circle the whole thing took off and I smashed my hand down on the gun to my left and it roared and I felt for the man's throat and made the kill as the other man brought his gun up and fired wild and I went in very close and used a heel-palm and drove the nose bone upwards into the brain as Ibrahimi screamed something and I saw the flash of a blade and blocked it and started forming a tiger claw but the car was barrelling now and everything span across the vision-field and we smashed into something again and the doors burst open and I hit ground and rolled with Ibrahimi on top of me, forced him away and began dragging him clear as the tank went up and the whole of the night caught fire.

Chapter 21: SAHARA

'Where is it?'

He began falling again and I jerked him upright.

'Twenty-six degrees three minutes north,' I said, 'by zero two degrees one minute west. Where is it?'

He didn't answer.

The light of the burning limousine coloured the wall of the hangar. Smoke was rolling, black smoke, and the emergency vehicles were moving in it, becoming lost in it. The smell of burning rubber was on the air, a sickening smell. The limousine, the mess, wasn't close: I'd run with this bastard for what had seemed a long time, possibly minutes, dragging him sometimes when he fell, pulling him up again, running again, cursing him in French, Ibrahimi, my last link with Nemesis, with the mission, with any hope of doing something to stop the headlines.

'What?

I thought he'd said something, wasn't sure, there was a certain amount of dizziness coming and going, pain everywhere, understandable.

Centre knuckle to the median nerve.

'Where is it?

The fix.

It was all I had left.

He reacted to the nerve strike, opened his eyes and looked at me, but didn't see me, his eyes not focusing. Then I saw the blood: it had started dripping from the edge of his padded jacket, and when I pulled the zip down I saw it had been pooling inside, black in the moonlight, soaking. I suppose it had been friendly fire: the wild shot from the hit man on the right, opened an artery. I put my mouth close to his ear and asked him softly, 'Where is that position, Ibrahimi? It's in the desert somewhere, isn't it? In the Sahara?'

Gunshot.

They hadn't been able to get one of the guards out of the Mercedes, then, perhaps neither of them, and their bullets were blowing up in the heat.

'Tell me, Ibrahimi, where it is.'

His head lolled as consciousness slipped, then he jerked it up again and opened his eyes and looked at me with more focus, with a lot of effort. Then he spoke, but it was nothing to do with the fix.

'Help me to pray.'

Bastard. He was dying, knew where that position was, perhaps knew something I could do to save a lot of other people from dying, stop the headlines.

Was he going to pray for them!

A night breeze was moving the smoke still rolling from the Mercedes, bringing it across the huge mouth of the hangar, some of it clouding inside and bringing the sickening reek of rubber.

'Help me,' Ibrahim! said.

'What?

'I must pray.'

So must we all. But I got him by the shoulders and lowered his body until he was doubled over with his hands on the concrete in front of him and his brow resting between them. I think he was too far gone to worry about facing east or west. He began speaking in Arabic, while the blood formed a pool around his spread fingers.

Making his peace with Allah. A luxury. I will tell you this – it was a luxury. We don't all get the chance to make what peace we can before it comes.

I got my handkerchief and held it against my face, but the stink of the smoke came through. I wondered how long he'd be, Ibrahimi, I hadn't got all night. There was blood on my hands, I noticed, but didn't know whether it was mine or his.

Then Ibrahimi rolled sideways, and I got him onto his back and put his hands across his chest and went along to the end of the hangar where I'd seen some sort of office when we'd come in here, not with doors or windows or anything, just some desks and a lot of paper and coffee mugs and a black plastic telephone on the wall.

I tried dialling direct but it didn't work. God knows what the problem was but it took minutes and the girl got stuffy and I had to keep my patience and it wasn't easy, because I didn't think I could do anything but I knew that if I could do anything it would have to be fast.

'Yes?'

This was the board for Solitaire: I hadn't had to go through the link unit because I was alone.

'Give me Control.'

They knew who I was. Only the executive for the mission ever signals the board direct: it's his, it belongs to him.

'Control.'

Shatner.

'Need' – I tried again, straightening up, getting things clear – 'I need a DIF.'

It was the bang on the head I'd got in the underground garage at Tegel Airport, I suppose, plus coining out of the limousine like that, pig out of a barrel, left me dizzy.

'He's in Algiers,' Shatner said.

'Cone?'

'Yes.'

It followed. The only information London had had when I'd broken off communication with my DIF last night in the stolen Volvo was that I'd be at the rendezvous in Algiers, so that was where they'd sent him.

I got one of the plastic ball-points and used the back of a lading bill printed in French.

'Number?'

Shatner gave it to me and I repeated it and wrote it down in big figures because there was only moonlight here, coming in through the open doors, moonlight and the glow of the fire from the other end of the hangar.

'We're still running,' I said, and put the receiver back on the hook.

He'd have liked to debrief me but I hadn't got time; he'd have to wait until Cone signalled his report after I'd talked to him.

A yellow-painted jeep went hounding past the far end of the hangar with its emergency lights going. I wouldn't have thought there'd be any more need for rushing about; there were some bodies to get out of the Mercedes, that was all. But perhaps it was in the way or something, and they'd have to shift it. I wasn't worried that they'd start looking for me: they hadn't known how many people there'd been in the limousine and no one had seen me getting clear with Ibrahimi or they would have followed us into the hangar before now.

Local calls should work and I dialled the number direct again.

Three rings.

'Yes?'

'Executive.'

He was at a safe-house, then, not a hotel: we hadn't gone through a switchboard. A safe-house or a sleeper's place, somewhere secure. That would help.

'Debrief?' Cone asked me.

'No. Write this down.' I gave him the fix. 'It's somewhere in the Sahara. I want you to have me dropped there. Can you do that?'

'When?

'As soon as you can. It's fully urgent.'

It meant he'd got to break every rule in the book if he had to, just get me the plane. Cone would do that. I'd been right, I'd been so right to get rid of that clown Thrower.

'Where are you?

I told him.

'Can I phone you there?'

I gave him the number, got it wrong, not easy to read under the scratched plastic cover, gave it to him again, made sure, because this was the lifeline now for Solitaire.

I've got that,' Cone said. 'Give me the picture.'

'It's not a Lockerbie thing. It's much bigger. There are two Iranian pilots involved. I don't know what this fix means. It could even be a target zone but I can't think why. If it is, you'll know what happened to me, be in the papers, headlines, have – you'll have to -'