Brute Force

He had a back-up mobile for emergencies. I didn't want him to know that I knew – not yet, anyway. I called Lynn up from the wadi. He joined me, still looking like his head was somewhere in ancient Rome.

'Has he been on his own at all while you've been down there?'

'Why?'

'Has he?'

'Yes . . . He needed to relieve himself. He went round the corner, but not for long.'

I showed him the empty space next to the charger. 'Did he have long enough to make a call?'

'Maybe, but I would have heard him.'

'A text, maybe?'

'There can't be a signal out here.'

'Wrong, mate.'

I showed him the phone I'd taken from Mansour's bedroom. Three bars registered on the left-hand side of the screen – a nice, fat signal.

'You can pick up a signal in the depths of fucking Afghanistan. Polar bears can get a fucking signal . . .'

'Well, maybe . . .'

Confronted by some old bricks, a few pillars, some shattered pieces of pottery and a two-thousand-year-old mystery, Lynn had abandoned any idea that Mansour might represent a threat – and had taken his eye off the ball.

'He's giving us the fucking run-around. That business about him trying to call you is bullshit. He's bullshitting about the Russians, too, and all this antiquities trading. And as for all his old enemies being his new best friends . . .'

Lynn's face flushed a deep shade of red. 'You know what, Nick? All your suspicions of Mansour are born of your myriad prejudices. They have a term for it; they call it paranoid projection. Any half-decent psychologist will tell you all about it if ever you have the good sense to go and see one.'

He paused for a moment, checking that Mansour was still out of earshot. 'There is no mobile phone, Nick. If Mansour had been bullshitting, there would have been nothing to see out here – no ruins, no imperial palace. We passed through that checkpoint because he bluffed it with the Kata'eb Al-Amn. I know. I listened to every word. What he told us about the Russians exactly matched what he told the officer at the checkpoint. He is trying to help us and I'm damned if I'm going to let you ruin everything with your paranoid delusions.'

He strode off downhill to collect his mate.

I closed the tailgate and jumped back behind the wheel. I signalled I was ready to leave by firing up the engine.

When Mansour appeared, he beamed at me like a cat that had swallowed not just the cream, but a whole fucking dairy farm.

He opened the door, ready to hoist himself into the passenger seat. I was tempted to grab him, spin him round and frisk him to within an inch of his life. But he wouldn't still have it on him. He was too clever for that. And besides, I knew I couldn't risk alienating him any more than I had already; he was the only one who could identify the Palestinian's house.

I put my foot down and we accelerated away in a shower of grit. Paranoid projection, my arse. I wasn't the one who needed the shrink here.

101

As the Audi bounced back onto tarmac I checked the sat nav. Ajdabiya was a little under 300 kilometres away – less than two hours.

I had no idea what we'd find when we got there. I had to hope that Mansour's line about Layla and Lesser wasn't just another king-size helping of bullshit.

All along, I'd operated on the assumption that the Chinese pigtails had been Lesser's signature, but if Layla had taught him, then Layla was the connection to the bomb under my car. Ghosts didn't make bombs. If Layla was real, she'd either be the bomb-maker, or know where I could find him. Then I'd keep following the trail until I knew who'd set us up.

If, if and when.

I checked the fuel gauge as another filling station loomed out of the desert. Masses; no need to stop. A BMW 4x4 sat by the pumps. We weren't the only gas-guzzler in this neck of the woods.

Mansour eyed the vehicle. He was probably reassuring himself he'd made the right choice in the Q7. He shifted in his seat and turned to face Lynn. 'Al-Inn, I would like you to share something with me . . . in the spirit of cooperation and friendship that exists between us.'

Lynn nodded. 'Shukran, ya siddiqi.'

'Afwan, y'effendi.'

In the spirit of cooperation and friendship that existed between me and Mansour, I offered my own little contribution.

'No fucking Arabic!'