Flyaway

out how genuinely he wants to help. Keep your veil up and your mouth shut.' He stooped and put an oil-can upright on the ground. 'If you recognize his voice kick that over, accidental like.'

We waited, the hot desert wind driving at us and nicking grains of sand into our faces. It was as much to protect my face as to hide it when I drew up and tightened the veil in the way Byrne had shown me. Then I stood with my arm inside my gandoura hanging straight down with the pistol in my hand; it couldn't be seen and I would waste no time in drawing it from the holster.

The truck came over the rise two hundred yards away, travelling fast and trailing a long plume of dust which was blown to one side by the wind. As it approached it slowed, and then drew to a halt abreast of us. The driver was obviously not a European but the man who got out of the front passenger seat was. He was as Byrne had described him, fairly big and with dark hair. His eyes flickered towards Byrne and me, then he looked at Paul in the front seat and said, 'Are you in trouble? Perhaps I can help.'

I didn't hear what Paul answered because I took half a pace to one side and knocked over the oil-can with a metallic clatter. Byrne raised his voice. 'Yeah, you can say we're in trouble. Lousy differential's bust.'

Lash turned his head and stared at Byrne, then came to the back of the truck. 'You are American?' He filled his voice with well-simulated incredulity. 'We get around.'

'You don't look like one,' said Lash in an amused tone. He nodded at me. 'I suppose he's American, too.'

'Nope,' said Byrne. 'He's British like you.'

Lash raised his eyebrows but said nothing. I suppose Byrne had done the right thing. Lash knew I was around and there was no point in me hiding; and it would be difficult to maintain the deception unless I pretended I was deaf and dumb.

He stooped and looked under the Toyota, then said, 'Yes, I'd say you're in trouble.' He straightened. 'By the way, my name is Lash – John Lash.'

'I'm Luke Byrne. This here is Max Stafford and the feller up front is Paul Billson.' I was afraid that Lash would offer to shake hands which would have been difficult with me holding the pistol, but he merely nodded. Byrne said, 'The differential don't matter – I have a spare; but I'd sure appreciate a tow out of this sand and a few kilometres up the road.'

'That shouldn't be too difficult,' said Lash, and turned away and began to talk to the men in his truck. From the intonation he was speaking French although I didn't get the words. I noted he did not introduce them.

Byrne took his right arm from his gandoura and his hand was empty. If he was willing to take a chance then so was I, so I unobtrusively bolstered the pistol and did the same. He said, 'We'll put in the sand ladders before we let the jacks down; it'll be easier with them.'

Lash's two companions got out of their truck. I walked to the cab of the Toyota. Paul said in a low voice, 'That's the man who was at Dirkou.'

'So?'

'So wasn't Byrne suspicious of him?'

'Hell!' I said. 'He's just a Good Samaritan come to get us out of trouble. Don't be paranoiac, Paul. Get out and help.'

We put the sand ladders under the rear wheels, then let the Toyota down to them and took away the jacks. Lash didn't have a towing chain but Byrne did, and we were ready to go within ten minutes. It was then I noticed that one of Lash's men had disappeared.

Lash and the other man got into their truck and the engine fired.. In a low voice I said to Byrne, 'Where's the other thug?'

'Gone back over the rise – and I know why.'

'Why, for God's sake?'

'It ain't because he's shy of exposing himself,' Byrne said sardonically. 'My guess he's gone back to flag down Kissack and stop him. The Range-Rover won't be far behind.'

It made sense. Lash wouldn't want us to see Kissack. I said, 'One thing – don't talk about Lash while we're being towed or you'll spook Paul.'

'I'll watch it.' He raised his voice. 'Paul, you stand on this side and Max on the other. If you think we're getting deeper into trouble, then yell' He got behind the wheel and waved at Lash, who revved his engine.

There was no trouble. Lash's truck was more powerful than it looked and pulled us out of the sand easily, though what it did to one of the sand ladders was indescribable. Byrne threw away that twisted bit of junk as being unusable and we collected the few tools that were lying around. As we did so, the missing man came walking at a smart pace up the road. He saw us looking at him and zipped up the fly of his trousers. Byrne looked at me and grinned faintly.

So the man who was going to kill us towed us into Seguedine, which wasn't much of a place, but there was a ruin with three standing walls and a decrepit roof which was enough to shelter the Toyota from the wind. Lash helped us push it in. 'Mind if I stay the night here with you?' he asked. 'Perhaps I could help you strip the transmission.'

'No call for that,' said Byrne. 'I can manage.'

Lash smiled. 'And I don't feel like driving on in a sandstorm. A man could lose his way. I have a feeling that could be bad.'

'Sure could,' Byrne agreed. 'You could get dead. You want to stay, you stay. It's a free country. Thanks for your help, Mr Lash; you got us out of a nasty hole, but there's no call for you to get your hands dirty.'

But Lash helped us anyway. I suppose he thought it in his own interest to put us on our way as fast as possible. His henchmen disappeared, probably to tell Kissack what was happening. Lash wasn't all that much of a help, though, and his aid was confined to handing over tools when asked, as indeed was mine. Byrne could have done the job quite handily himself and, for a man who professed hatred of 'stinkpots' he was American enough to understand them well.

Paul came and went restlessly. Once, in Lash's absence, Byrne said to him enthusiastically, 'Lash is a real nice guy, don't you think? Him getting us out of the sand and helping us like this and all.'

I said, 'Yes; a Good Samaritan, Paul.' I looked over Byrne's' shoulder and saw Lash come slowly out of the shadows, and wondered if Byrne had known that Lash was behind him, listening. Probably he had known; there were no flies on Luke Byrne.

We finished the job in the glare of a pressure lantern after nightfall, then cleaned up and prepared a meal just as Konti showed up. Byrne talked to him for a moment then said to me, 'He walked as far as here, found no one, so he went up the track a long ways with no success. Walking fools, these Teda.'

Lash contributed a bottle of whisky for after-dinner drinks. I accepted a tot, and so did Paul, but Byrne refused politely. 'Where are your friends, Mr Lash?'

Lash raised his eyebrows. 'Friends? Oh, you mean… They're just showing me around. Professional guides.' I glanced at Byrne who didn't bat an eyelid at that preposterous statement. 'They prefer to eat their own food.' Lash looked around in the darkness. 'What is this place?'

'Seguedine? Used to be people here – three or four families of Kanuri. Must have moved out since I was here last. The Tassili Tuareg come from the north when the feed gives out there. Where are you heading?'

Lash shrugged. 'Nowhere in particular. Just looking around.' That was supposed to give him an excuse for popping up out of nowhere at any time and occasioning no surprise, but it was a stupid thing to say. Even a tyro like myself had observed that desert crossings were most carefully prepared with times and distances collated and fuel and water carefully metered. No one in his right mind would flutter hither and yon like a carefree butterfly. To risk running out of fuel or water was dangerous.

Lash sipped his whisky. 'And you?'

'Pretty much the same,' said Byrne uninformatively.

I would have thought Lash might have pursued the subject of our further travels, but he didn't. He made desultory conversation, telling us he was the managing director of a firm in Birmingham which specialized in packaging and that this was the first real holiday he'd had in seven years. 'I decided to do something different,' he said.

He tried to draw me out on what I did in England so I told him the truth because he knew all about me anyway and to lie would arouse his suspicions. 'Recuperating from an illness,' I said, then added, 'And getting over a divorce.' Both statements were true; he'd probably been the cause of the 'illness' and the bit about Gloria could confuse him by its truth. The truth can be a better weapon than lies.