Flyaway

'Seguedine? Used to be people here – three or four families of Kanuri. Must have moved out since I was here last. The Tassili Tuareg come from the north when the feed gives out there. Where are you heading?'

Lash shrugged. 'Nowhere in particular. Just looking around.' That was supposed to give him an excuse for popping up out of nowhere at any time and occasioning no surprise, but it was a stupid thing to say. Even a tyro like myself had observed that desert crossings were most carefully prepared with times and distances collated and fuel and water carefully metered. No one in his right mind would flutter hither and yon like a carefree butterfly. To risk running out of fuel or water was dangerous.

Lash sipped his whisky. 'And you?'

'Pretty much the same,' said Byrne uninformatively.

I would have thought Lash might have pursued the subject of our further travels, but he didn't. He made desultory conversation, telling us he was the managing director of a firm in Birmingham which specialized in packaging and that this was the first real holiday he'd had in seven years. 'I decided to do something different,' he said.

He tried to draw me out on what I did in England so I told him the truth because he knew all about me anyway and to lie would arouse his suspicions. 'Recuperating from an illness,' I said, then added, 'And getting over a divorce.' Both statements were true; he'd probably been the cause of the 'illness' and the bit about Gloria could confuse him by its truth. The truth can be a better weapon than lies.

After a while he excused himself, after getting nowhere with Billson, and went to his truck where he bedded down. Soon thereafter Konti came out of the darkness and spoke to Byrne, who questioned him closely. Paul said to me, 'Inquisitive, isn't he?'

'Not abnormally so. Chit-chat between ships that pass in the night.'

'I don't like him.' Paul pulled his djellaba closer about him. 'I don't think he's what he says he is.' I knew it, but Paul was showing an acuity which surprised me. Perhaps it was the sixth sense of the hunted animal.

A few minutes later, out of Paul's hearing, Byrne said, 'Kissack is camped about a mile from here. I sent Konti to scout him out.' He chuckled. 'I don't think Kissack will be comfortable out there. The wind's still rising.'

'Do we stand watches?'

Byrne shook his head. 'Konti will watch all night'

'Bit hard on him, isn't it?'

'Hell, no! He'll sleep in the Toyota tomorrow. For a Teda to sleep while on the move is sheer unaccustomed luxury.'

Next morning the storm had blown itself out and Lash had gone together with his truck. 'Went just before dawn,' said Byrne. 'Sudden guys, these friends of yours. Kissack shoots folks without saying a word and Lash goes, just like that. Un-neighbourly, I call it.'

'So what now?'

'On to Chirfa and Djanet.'

Chirfa was nearly a hundred and fifty kilometres north of Seguedine and consisted of a Tuareg camp and one deserted Foreign Legion fortress which might have stood in for Fort Zinderneuf in Beau Geste but for one thing – there was an anchor carved above the main gate. Because we were about as far away from the sea as a human being can get on this planet I stared at this improbable emblem and asked Byrne about it.

'I wouldn't know. Maybe it was built by French marines.'

The Tuareg seemed different from those I had met before, being more shabbily dressed. Byrne said they were of the Tassili Tuareg. From them he bought a donkey, which he gave to Konti. 'This is where he leaves us,' he said. 'He'll go east, past Djado and on to the Tibesti.'

'How far to the Tibesti?'

'Maybe five hundred kilometres; it's over in Chad.'

'Walking all the way?'

'Yeah. But the donkey'll help.'

'My God!' I watched Konti walk out of sight, towing the donkey.

As he walked back to where the Toyota was parked Byrne said, 'We've been followed most of the way here, but I lost sight of them about an hour ago. Two trucks.'

'Lash and Kissack.'

'I guess so. Wish I hadn't lost them; they're a couple of guys I like to keep my eye on.'

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?'