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Presumably our soldiers will be eating prepacked meals and drinking bottled water?”

“Yep, they are already,” said Sinclair.

“Then anthrax wouldn’t have much effect, unless they breathed the spores in. The disease has to enter humans by ingestion into the lungs or the food passages. Bearing in mind the gas hazard, I suspect they will be wearing gas masks anyway.”

“We plan on it, yes,” replied Sinclair.

“So do we,” added Sir Paul.

“Then I don’t really see why anthrax,” said Bryant. “It wouldn’t stop the soldiers in their tracks, like a variety of gases, and those who did catch it could be cured with powerful antibiotics. There is an incubation period, you see. The soldiers could win the war and then fall sick. Frankly, it’s a terrorist weapon rather than a military one. Now, if you dropped a vial of anthrax concentrate in the water supply on which a city depended, you might start a catastrophic epidemic that would overwhelm the medical services, But if you’re going to spray something on fighting men in a desert, I’d choose one of the various nerve gases instead. Invisible and fast.”

“So no indication, if Saddam has a germ warfare lab, where it might be?” asked Sir Paul Spruce.

“Frankly, I’d check with all the West’s veterinary institutes and colleges. See if there have been any visiting professorships or delegations to Iraq over the past ten years. Ask those who went whether there was any facility that was absolutely off-limits to them and surrounded by quarantine precautions. If there was, that will be it,” said Bryant.

Sinclair and Paxman wrote furiously. Another job for the checkers.

“Failing that,” concluded Bryant, “you could try human intelligence. An Iraqi scientist in this field who has quit and settled in the West. Researchers in bacteriology tend to be thin on the ground, quite a tight group—like a village, really. We usually know what’s going on in our own countries, even in a dictatorship like Iraq. Such a man might have heard, if Saddam has got this facility, where he put it.”

“Well, I’m sure we are deeply grateful, Dr. Bryant,” said Sir Paul as they rose. “More work for our governments’ detectives, eh, Mr. Sinclair? I have heard that our other colleague at Porton Down, Dr.

Reinhart, will be able to give us his deductions on the matter of poison gases in about two weeks. I shall of course stay in touch, gentlemen. Thank you for your attendance.”

The group in the desert lay quietly watching dawn steal across the sand dunes. The youngsters had not realized when they went to the house of the Bedou the previous evening that they would be away all night. They had thought they would get another lecture.

They had brought no warm clothing, and nights in the desert are bitter, even at the end of August. They shivered and wondered how they would explain their absence to their distraught parents. Caught by the curfew? Then why not telephone? Out of order ... it would have to do.

Three of the five wondered if they had made the right choice after all, but i

t was too late to go back now.

The Bedou had simply told them it was time they saw some action and had led them from the house to a rugged four-wheel-drive vehicle parked two streets away. They had been out of town and off the road into the flat, hard desert before curfew. Since entering the desert, they had seen no one.

They had driven south for twenty miles across the sand until they intercepted a narrow road that they suspected ran from the Manageesh oil field to their west toward the Outer Motorway in the east. All the oil fields, they knew, were garrisoned by Iraqis and the main highways were infested with patrols.

Somewhere to their south sixteen divisions of Army and Republican Guard were dug in, facing Saudi Arabia and the growing tide of Americans pouring in. They felt nervous.

Three of the group lay in the sand beside the Bedou, watching the road in the growing light. It was quite narrow. Approaching vehicles would have to swerve to the graveled edge to pass each other.

Extending halfway across the road was a plank studded with nails. The Bedou had taken it from his truck and laid it there, covering it with a blanket made from old Hessian sacks. He had made them scoop sand over the blanket until it looked just like a small drift of sand blown in from the desert by the wind.

The other two pupils, the bank clerk and the law student, were spotters. Each lay on a sand dune a hundred yards up and down the road looking for approaching vehicles. They had been told that if the vehicle was a large Iraqi truck or were several in number, they should wave in a certain way.

Just after six, the law student waved. His signal meant “Too much to handle.” The Bedou pulled at the fishing line he held in his hand. The plank slithered off the road. Thirty seconds later, two trucks crammed with Iraqi soldiers went by unharmed. The Bedou ran to the road and replaced the plank, the sacks, and the sand.

Then minutes later, the bank clerk waved. It was the right signal. From the direction of the highway a staff car came bowling down the road toward the oil field.

The driver never thought to swerve to avoid the bar of sand but still only caught the nails with one front wheel. It was enough. The tire blew out, the blanket wrapped around the wheel and the car swerved violently. The driver caught the swerve in time and steadied the car, and it rolled to a stop half on and half off the road. The side that was off the road bogged down.

The driver sprang out of the front and two officers emerged from the back, a major and a junior lieutenant. They shouted at the driver, who shrugged and whined, pointing at the wheel. The jack would never get under it—the car was at a crazy angle.

To his stunned pupils the Bedou muttered, “Stay here,” rose, and walked down the sand to the road. He had a Bedouin camel blanket over his right shoulder, covering his right arm. He smiled broadly and hailed the major.

“Salaam aleikhem, Sayid Major. I see you have a problem. Perhaps I can help. My people are just a short distance away.”

The major reached for his pistol, then relaxed. He glowered and nodded.

“Aleikhem salaam, Bedou. This spawn of a camel has driven my car off the road.”