might have used the last of the battery's power when he made the test: the final chance of firing might have gone.
He fell back, the launcher resting on his body.
It all depended on the boy, on the freshness and youth of Ghaffur's ears. Without his hearing – if the Predator's eye was above him – he would not succeed in the last leg of his journey back to his family.
He had had to know that the missile would fire, would eject from the launch tube, would seek out a target.
Caleb lay on his spine. The exertion of lifting the Stinger's tube had brought back the throbbing pain to his leg.
He rested, was relaxed. What had disturbed him was not what he would do in the morning after the light came when he would stand and hobble to the guide, Rashid, and take his rifle: what had churned in his mind was that the battery powering the Stinger had lost its life.
They had Carnival Girl up over the track that ran north to south. On the map boxes, she would fly from Al Ubayiah at the northern point and down above Bir Faysal and At Turayqa to Qalamat Khawr al luhaysh in the south.
Because they tracked a lorry they were both awake. Marty brought Carnival Girl down to the low limits of loiter speed and they kept pace with the lorry and its trailer. The infra-red real-time picture had the lorry as a clean dark shape on the screen. They might have been ready to doze, might have needed more caffeine to keep them upright, but the lorry diverted them from drooping. It wasn't the first . lorry on the track, but all of the others had been going south to north, which was pretty much a straight line running through the centre of the map boxes. What was a lorry with a trailer carrying?
Marty said, 'It's refrigerated and it's got a load of iced root beer.'
'I wish.'
'Or it's got Big Macs, and ketchup and chillies and fries.'
'Dumb-ass.'
Marty said, 'My last go, it's got fans and air-conditioning units.'
'I tell you what it's got,' Lizzy-Jo chuckled, 'it's got sand. There's not enough sand here so they're hauling it down from the north what you think?'
In the dulled light inside the Ground Control – easier to see the screens – George's entry was not noticed. They were both laughing: Lizzy-Jo thought they needed laughter as a distraction to stay awake, keep working.
George said, 'What you got is a visitor.'
He told them. The laughter went cold. She snapped upright, listened to all of it, then she called up Langley. Oscar Golf was on the headsets. George hadn't the authority to challenge a visitor. Marty was flying Carnival Girl. Lizzy-Jo said she'd do it, the challenge, and Oscar Golf would take over the sensor operator's controls via the satellite link. Effortless transition. Oscar Golf told her to take the guy on the perimeter-gate bar with her.
'Lizzy-Jo, go careful. Don't start a war, and don't give a yard.'
'Hearing you, Oscar Golf. Out.'
She took a swig from the water bottle, did up a couple of the lower buttons of her blouse and followed George down the steps, into the night. He'd been working on First Lady. The wings were off, and the engine was being stripped, the camera units already taken out.
By the time it was daylight, First Lady would be ready for her coffin.
The transport plane was due in at ten hundred and was scheduled for lift-off at twelve ten hours, and for Carnival Girl to be stashed and loaded in time for lift-off, then her sister craft had to be packed and crated in the coffin. George's people swarmed round First Lady.
George left her when they reached the armourer, who had a stubby rifle hanging across his spine from a strap, but his hand was hooked back and had hold of it.
The armourer pointed up past the gate in the razor wire, then handed Lizzy-Jo his night-sights. The binoculars were heavy in her hand, and she took a moment to get the focus right. A Mercedes was parked two hundred yards up from the gate bar, with a chair by the front passenger door. On it sat an Arab. He was middle- aged, had an austere, thin face and trimmed moustache, wore a dark outer robe, an under-robe of white brilliant enough to flood her glasses, and a headcloth held in place with woven rope. Around his neck, hanging from straps, were his own binoculars. Behind his chair the Mercedes' rear doors were open and three men stood close to the body of it. She gave the night-sight glasses back to the armourer.
'You reckon they've got hardware?'
'In the back – yes, Miss. An arm's reach away.'
'What you got?'
'An M4A1. We call it a close-quarters battle weapon, Miss. It uses ball ammunition and it has an attached M203 grenade launcher. And I got – '
'Jesus, is this going to be fucking Dodge City?'
'It's their call, Miss, what it gets to be.'
'Where are you going to stand?'
'I'll be, Miss, right behind you.'
'Don't mind me saying it, but I'd prefer you a yard to the right or lo the left. Wouldn't want to be in the way of a close-quarters battle weapon,' Lizzy-Jo said, dry.
The armourer lifted the bar for her. She walked forward. Lizzy-Jo was a sensor operator, not a diplomat, a negotiator or a soldier. She felt the cool of the night air, a little wafting wind, on her bared thighs and shins, on her arms and face. The man stood as she approached and the guys with him seemed to inch closer to the open doors. She heard, against the tread of her footsteps, very soft, the click of oiled metal behind her and knew the armourer's weapon was armed. The man moved a little aside from his chair and motioned that she should sit.
'No, thank you, sir.'
'Would you like water?'
'Sir, no, thank you. What I would like to know is why, at seventeen minutes past three in the morning, you have binoculars on us.'
'You should button your blouse. In the night cold it is possible to contract influenza or a headeold if one is insufficiently covered. I am a prince of the Kingdom, I am the deputy governor of this province.
Each time I am in Shaybah, since you came, I watch you, but before from a distance. I have a question for you too: why are you flying at seventeen minutes past three in the morning?'
She said, parrot-like, 'We're doing mapping and evaluation of flying performance over desert lands, as we stated when permission was granted us.'
She heard the mockery in his voice. 'With a military aircraft?'
Lizzy-Jo might have been a corporate recorded message. 'The General Atomics MQ-1 Predator has dual purpose military or civilian use.'
'For mapping and for evaluation of performance do you need to carry, without the Kingdom's authorization, air-to-ground missiles?'
In the darkness he would not have seen her rock. 'I think you must have mistaken the additional fuel tanks carried under the wings for missiles.'
'When you came the fuselages of your two aircraft were without markings. Yet the one being dismantled now carries a skull-and-crossbones – once the symbol of a pirate, now a warning of death or danger – on the forward fuselage. I ask, why would such a symbol be on an aircraft preparing maps and evaluations?'
'Sir, I can only refer you to our embassy in Riyadh.'
'Of course.'
'And I am sure that, inside office hours, any query you have will be answered. Actually, sir, we will be gone in less than nine hours.'
'With your mapping finished, your performance evaluation completed?'
'No, sir,' Lizzy-Jo flared – should not have done, but did. 'Not completed – because some jerk shoved his nose in, and screwed things for us.'
He stared at her. She heard the hiss of his breath between his lips.
In the darkness, his body seemed to shake.
The words were chill. 'Maybe you are from the Air Force, maybe from Defense Intelligence, maybe from the
