It seemed strange that he was also the vendor of cigarettes. That man had been easy-going, garrulous, talking to everyone, touching the men on the arm, winking at the women, lighting everyone’s cigarettes with a red plastic lighter. This man, by contrast, was quietly dangerous. She felt a bit afraid of him.
He gave full details of the route followed by the consignment of cocaine. It had passed through the hands of several gangs and had been transferred to different vehicles three times. As well as the paramilitary base he had located two smaller encampments and several city addresses for ISGS groups.
‘This is gold dust,’ Tab said. Tamara agreed. The results were more than she had hoped for, and she felt jubilant.
‘Good,’ said Abdul briskly. ‘Did you bring my stuff?’
‘Of course.’ He had asked for money in local currencies, pills for the gastric ailments that often afflicted visitors to North Africa, a simple compass – and one thing that had puzzled her: a yard of narrow-gauge titanium wire, fixed to wooden handles at each end, the whole ensemble sewn inside a cotton sash of the type worn by men as a belt around a traditional robe. She wondered if he would explain that.
She handed everything over. He thanked her but made no comment. He looked around, studying the view in every direction. ‘All clear,’ he said. ‘Are we done?’
Tamara looked at Tab, who said: ‘All done.’
Tamara said: ‘Have you got everything you need, Abdul?’
‘Yes.’ He opened the car door.
‘Good luck,’ said Tamara. It was a heartfelt wish.
Tab said: ‘Bonne chance.’
Abdul pulled his scarf forward to shade his face, then got out, closed the door, and walked back into the village, the carton of Cleopatras still in his hand.
Tamara watched him go and noticed his gait. He did not stride out the way most American men would, as if they owned the place. Instead, he adopted the desert shuffle, keeping his face down and shaded, using minimum effort to avoid generating heat.
She was awestruck by his courage. She shuddered to think what would happen to him if he were caught. Beheading would be the best he could hope for.
When he had disappeared from sight she leaned forward and spoke to Ali. ‘Yalla,’ she said. Let’s go.
The car left the village and followed the track to the road, where it turned south, heading back to N’Djamena.
Tab was reading his notes. ‘This is amazing,’ he said.
‘We should do a joint report,’ Tamara said, thinking ahead.
‘Good plan. Let’s write it together when we get back, then we can submit it in two languages simultaneously.’
They seemed to work together well, she thought. A lot of men would have attempted to take charge this morning. But Tab had not tried to dominate the conversation with Abdul. She was beginning to like him.
She closed her eyes. Slowly her elation subsided. She had got up early and the drive home would take two to three hours. For a while she just saw visions of the nameless village they had visited: the mud-brick homes, the pathetic vegetable gardens, the long walk to the water. But the drone of the car’s engine and the tyre noise reminded her of long trips in her childhood, driving in the family Chevrolet from Chicago to St Louis to see her grandparents, slumping next to her brother in the wide back seat; and eventually, now as then, she dozed.
She fell into a deep sleep and was startled awake when the car braked sharply. She heard Tab say: ‘Putain,’ which was the French equivalent of ‘Fuck’. She saw that the road ahead was obstructed by a truck parked sideways. Around it were half a dozen men wearing odd articles of army uniform mixed with traditional garments: a military tunic with a cotton headdress, a long robe over army pants.
They were paramilitaries, and they all had firearms.
Ali was forced to stop the car.
Tamara said: ‘What the hell?’
Tab said: ‘This is what the government calls an informal roadblock. They’re retired or serving soldiers making money on the side. It’s a shakedown.’
Tamara had heard of informal roadblocks but this was her first experience of one. She said: ‘What’s the price?’
‘We’re about to find out.’
One of the paramilitaries approached the driver’s window, yelling fiercely. Ali rolled down his window and yelled back in dialect. Pete picked up his carbine from the floor, but kept it low in his lap. The man at the window waved his gun in the air.
Tab seemed calm, but to Tamara this looked like an explosive situation.
An older man in an army cap and a denim shirt with holes in it pointed a rifle at the windscreen.
Pete responded by bringing his carbine to his shoulder.
Tab said: ‘Easy, Pete.’
‘I won’t fire first,’ Pete said.
Tab reached over the back of the seat into the rear of the car and pulled a T-shirt out of a cardboard box. Then he got out of the car.
Tamara said anxiously: ‘What are you doing?’
Tab did not answer.
He walked forward, with several guns trained on him, and Tamara put her fist in her mouth.
But Tab did not seem scared. He approached the denim shirt, who pointed his rifle straight at Tab’s chest.
Speaking Arabic, Tab said: ‘Good day to you, captain. I am with these foreigners today.’ He was pretending to be some kind of guide or escort. ‘Please allow them to pass.’ Then he turned back to the car and shouted, still in Arabic: ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! These are my brothers!’ Switching to English, he shouted: ‘Pete, lower the gun.’
Reluctantly, Pete moved the rifle butt from his shoulder and held the gun diagonally across his chest.
After a pause, the denim shirt lowered his rifle.
Tab handed the T-shirt to the man, who unfolded it. It was dark blue with a red-and-white vertical stripe, and after a moment’s thought Tamara figured it was the uniform shirt of Paris Saint-Germain, the most popular soccer team in France. The man beamed delightedly.
Tamara had wondered why Tab had brought that cardboard box with him. Now she knew.
The man took off his old shirt and pulled the new one over his head.
The atmosphere changed. The soldiers crowded around, admiring the shirt, then looked expectantly at Tab. Tab turned to the car and said: ‘Tamara, pass me the box, please?’
She reached into the rear and picked up the box then handed it through the open car door. Tab gave them all a shirt.
The soldiers looked thrilled and several of them put the shirts on.
Tab shook the hand of the man he had called ‘captain’, saying: ‘Ma’a as-salaama,’ goodbye. He returned to the car with the nearly empty box, got in, slammed the door, and said: ‘Go, Ali, but slowly.’
The car crept forward. The happy gangsters waved Ali to a prepared route along the verge of the road, skirting the parked truck. On the far side Ali steered back to the road.
As soon as the tyres touched the concrete surface, Ali floored the pedal and the car roared away from the roadblock.
Tab put his box into the rear.
Tamara let out a long breath of relief. She turned to Tab and said: ‘You were so cool! Weren’t you scared?’
He shook his head. ‘They’re scary, but they don’t usually kill people.’
‘Good to know,’ said Tamara.
CHAPTER 2
Four weeks earlier Abdul had been two thousand miles away in the lawless West African country of Guinea-Bissau, classified a narco state by the United Nations. It was a hot, wet place with a monsoon season that poured and dripped and steamed for half the year.
Abdul had been in the capital city, Bissau. He was in an apartment with a room overlooking the docks. There was no air-conditioning, and his shirt clung to his sweaty skin.
His companion was Phil Doyle, twenty years older, a senior officer of the CIA, a bald guy in a baseball cap. Doyle was based at the American embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and was in charge of Abdul’s mission.
Both men were using binoculars. The room was in darkness. If they were spotted they would be tortured and killed. By the light coming in from outside Abdul could just about make out the furniture around him: a sofa, a coffee table, a TV set.