Page 123 of Never

Issa continued gazing at Tareq and just said: ‘Off.’

Hakim turned the key in the ignition and the engine stopped.

Tareq sat upright, lifted his backpack off the seat beside him, and scooted over, making room.

Issa simply pointed to the other double seat, the one occupied by Hamza.

Tareq got up, crossed the aisle with his backpack in one hand and his assault rifle in the other, and sat next to Hamza, both of them with their packs on their knees.

Issa looked at Hakim and said: ‘Go.’

Hakim once again started the engine.

It soon became clear to Abdul that this contest of wills had not merely been to establish who was the alpha male. Issa actually needed both halves of that front seat. He watched the road with unflagging concentration, often moving to the window seat to look out and back to the aisle seat to look ahead. Every few minutes he gave Hakim some direction or other, mostly using gestures, telling him where the road was when its edges were imperceptible, ordering him to steer to one side, making him slow down when the surface was strewn with stones, encouraging him to go faster when the road was clear.

In one place Issa guided him right off the road and onto rough ground in order to give a wide berth to a Toyota pickup that lay upside-down and burned-out at the roadside, presumably destroyed by a landmine. The Libya–Chad war was a long time in the past, but the mines were still operative, and where there had been one there might be more.

They stopped every two or three hours. The passengers got out to relieve themselves, and when they re-boarded Hakim doled out stale bread and bottles of water. The bus drove on through the heat of the day: there was no shelter outside, and they were less hot moving than staying still.

As the afternoon wore on and the bus neared the border, it occurred to Abdul that he was about to commit a crime for the first time in his life. Nothing he had so far done for the CIA, or in any other sphere of activity, had actually been against the law. Even when he had been posing as a vendor of stolen cigarettes, all of his stock had in fact been bought at full price. But now he was about to enter a country illegally, accompanied by other illegitimate migrants, escorted by men armed with illicit rifles, and travelling with several million dollars’ worth of cocaine. If things went wrong he would end up in a Libyan jail.

He wondered how long it would take the CIA to get him out.

As the sun slid down the dome of the western sky, Abdul looked ahead and saw a makeshift shelter like the ones in the last village: just a wall of sticks with a roof improvised from an old worn carpet. There was also a small tanker truck that Abdul guessed might contain water. Beside the road were stacked dozens of oil drums.

This was an informal filling station.

Hakim slowed the bus.

Three men in white and yellow robes appeared brandishing high-powered rifles. They stood in a line, stone-faced, menacing.

Issa got out of the bus, and the atmosphere was transformed. The armed men greeted him like a brother, embraced him, kissed him on both cheeks, and shook his hand vigorously, chattering all the time in an incomprehensible tongue that was presumably Teda.

Hakim got out next, and was introduced by Issa, whereupon he, too, was welcomed, though less demonstratively, being a collaborator but not of their tribe.

Tareq and Hamza followed.

The water tanker was evidence that there was no oasis here. What then was the reason for there to be a gas station, or, for that matter, anything at all, here in the middle of nowhere?

Abdul murmured to Kiah: ‘I think we have arrived at the border.’

The passengers got off the bus. It was evening, and clearly this was where they would spend the night. There was only the one building, and that hardly worthy of the name.

One of the Toubou men began to refuel the bus from a metal drum.

The passengers went into the shelter and made themselves more or less comfortable for their stay. Abdul himself could not relax. They were surrounded by heavily armed men, all of whom were violent criminals. Anything was possible: kidnapping, rape, murder. There was no law here. Nobody was safe. And who would care if every passenger on the bus was murdered? The migrants were criminals too. Good riddance, people would say.

After a while, two teenage boys served a meal of stew with bread. Abdul thought the boys had probably done the cooking themselves. He suspected that the chewy meat was camel, but he did not ask. Afterwards the boys cleaned up in a perfunctory way, leaving scraps on the ground. Men without women were slobs everywhere, Abdul thought.

When it was dark he sneaked a look at the tracking device hidden in the sole of his boot. He checked it at least once a day to make sure the cocaine had not been removed from the bus and taken elsewhere. Tonight as usual the device reassured him.

When they all wrapped themselves in their blankets for sleep, Abdul sat up, eyes open, watching. He let his mind wander, and for hours he thought about his childhood in Beirut, his teenage years in New Jersey, his college career as a mixed-martial-arts fighter, and his failed romance with Annabelle. Most of all he thought about the death of Nura, his baby sister. In the end, he thought, she was the reason he was here, in the Sahara Desert, staying awake all night to avoid being murdered.

Men like this had killed Nura. The armies of the civilized world were trying to wipe these men out. And he was a crucial part of that effort. If he survived, he would enable the armies of the US and its allies to inflict a terrible defeat on the forces of evil.

In the small hours he saw one of the Toubou men go outside to piss. On coming back the man stood and looked contemplatively at the sleeping Kiah. Abdul stared until the tribesman felt his gaze and met his eye. They glared at one another for a long hostile moment. Abdul could imagine the calculations going on in that cruel brain. The man knew he would be able to overpower Kiah, and with luck she might not scream, for women were always blamed, and she would know that people were sure to think – or pretend to think – that she had lured him. But the man could see that Abdul was not going to look away. He could fight Abdul, but he was not sure of winning. He could fetch his rifle and shoot Abdul, but that would wake everyone.

In the end the man turned away and went back to his blanket.