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Roberts picked up another, similar binder. ‘This is a list of classified site locations around the country where you could take refuge in an emergency.’

Next was a manila folder with a dozen or so stapled pages. ‘This details the Emergency Alert System that would enable you to speak to the nation on all television and radio stations in the event of a national emergency.’

This item was almost obsolete, Pauline thought, in the age of 24/7 news.

‘And this phone calls only one number: the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon. The Center will pass your instructions to missile launch-control centres, nuclear submarines, bomber airfields, and battlefield commanders.’

‘Thank you, major,’ she said. She left the group and returned upstairs. At last she could go to bed. She took off her clothes and slid gratefully between the sheets. She lay with her eyes closed, and in her mind she saw that leather-clad briefcase. What it really contained was the end of the world.

In a few seconds she was asleep.

CHAPTER 35

Tripoli was a big city, the biggest Kiah had ever seen, twice the size of N’Djamena. The downtown area had skyscrapers overlooking a beach, but the rest of the place was crowded and dirty, with a lot of bomb-damaged buildings. Some of the men wore European-style clothes but all the women had long dresses and headscarves.

Abdul took her and Naji to a small hotel, cheap but clean, where none of the staff or guests were white and no one spoke anything but Arabic. Kiah had been intimidated by hotels at first, and when the staff were deferential she had suspected them of mocking her. She had asked Abdul how to deal with them, and he had said: ‘Be pleasant, but don’t be afraid to ask for what you want, and if they seem curious about you, and they ask where you come from and so on, just smile and say you’re too busy to chat.’ She had found that it worked.

When they got up on their first morning there, Kiah began to think about the future. Until this moment she had not quite believed that they had escaped from the mining camp. As they had travelled north through Libya, driving on gradually improving roads and sleeping in more comfortable places, she had nursed a secret fear that the jihadis would somehow catch them and enslave them again. Those men were strong and brutal and they usually got their way. Abdul was the only man she had ever known who could stand up to them.

The nightmare was over now, God be praised, but what were they going to do next? What was Abdul’s plan? And did it include her?

She decided to ask him. He responded with a question of his own. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘You know what I want,’ she said. ‘I want to live in France, where I can feed my child and send him to school. But I’ve spent all my money and I’m still in Africa.’

‘I may be able to help you. I’m not sure, but I’m going to try.’

‘How?’

‘I can’t tell you now. Please trust me.’

Of course she trusted him. She had put her life in his hands. But there was an underlying tension in him, and her questions brought it to the surface. He was worried about something. It was not the jihadis: he seemed no longer to fear that they might be following him. He still looked behind him occasionally and checked out other cars, but not all the time, not obsessively. So what caused his tension? Was it thinking about their future together – or apart?

She found this frightening. Ever since she had first met him, he had given the impression of being in control, ready for anything, afraid of nothing. But now he admitted he did not know whether he could help her finish her journey. What would she do if he failed her? How could she go back to Lake Chad?

He adopted a bright tone and said: ‘We all need some new clothes. Let’s go shopping.’

Kiah had never ‘gone shopping’ but she had heard the phrase, and she knew that wealthy women strolled around stores looking for things to buy with their surplus money. She had never imagined herself doing the same. Women like her spent money only when they had to.

Abdul got a taxi and they went to the city centre, where shady arcades were lined with shops that put half their wares out on the pavement. Abdul said: ‘Plenty of French Arabs wear traditional dress, but you might find life easier in European clothes.’

They found a shop specializing in children’s wear. Naji revelled in the whole process of choosing colours and finding his size. He loved putting on a new shirt and looking in the mirror. Abdul was amused. ‘Such vanity in one so young!’ he said.

‘Like his father,’ Kiah murmured. Salim had had a touch of vanity. Then she glanced worriedly at Abdul, hoping he would not be offended by the mention of her late husband. A man did not like to be reminded that his woman had lain with another. However, Abdul was smiling at Naji and seemed not to mind.

Naji got two pairs of shorts, four shirts, two pairs of shoes, some underwear and a baseball cap that he insisted on wearing right away.

At a nearby store Abdul disappeared into the changing room and came out wearing a dark-blue cotton suit with a white shirt and a plain narrow tie. Kiah could not remember the last time she had seen a man wearing a tie other than on TV. ‘You look like an American!’ she said.

‘Quel horreur,’ Abdul said in French. ‘How dreadful.’ But he smiled.

Then it occurred to Kiah that he might really be American. It would explain all the money. She would ask him, she decided. Not now, but soon.

He returned to the back of the store and reappeared in his usual grey-brown robes, carrying his new clothes in a bag.

Finally, they went to a store for women. ‘I don’t want to spend too much of your money,’ Kiah said to Abdul.

‘I tell you what,’ he said. ‘Choose two outfits, one with a skirt and one with pants, and get underwear and shoes and everything to go with each one. Don’t worry about the price, nothing here is expensive.’