Tamara looked at her through eyes full of tears. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I wish you luck.’
Kiah became brisk again. ‘It is kind of you to answer my questions.’
Tamara stood up. ‘I need to get going,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Thank you for the beer. And please try to find out more about the people smugglers before you give them your money.’
Kiah smiled and nodded, responding politely to a platitude. She understands the need to be cautious about money better than I ever will, Tamara thought ruefully.
Tamara went outside and found Tab heading back towards the car. It was close to noon, and the villagers were no longer in sight. The livestock had found shade under makeshift shelters evidently built for that purpose.
When she stood close to Tab she noticed a light aroma of fresh sweat on clean skin, and a hint of sandalwood. She said: ‘He’s in the car.’
‘Where was he hiding?’
‘He was the cigarette vendor.’
‘He fooled me.’
They reached the car and got in. The air-conditioning felt like an Arctic sea. Tamara and Tab sat either side of the cigarette vendor, who smelled as if he had not showered for many days. He held a carton of cigarettes in his hand.
Tamara could not contain herself. ‘So,’ she said, ‘did you find Hufra?’
*
The cigarette vendor’s name was Abdul John Haddad, and he was twenty-five years old. He had been born in Lebanon and raised in New Jersey, and he was an American citizen and an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Four days ago he had been in the adjacent country of Niger, driving a battered but mechanically sound off-road Ford up a long hill in the desert north of the town of Maradi.
He had worn thick-soled boots. They were new, but they had been treated to look old, the uppers artificially worn and scratched, the laces mismatched, and the leather carefully stained to appear much-used. Each deep sole had a hidden compartment. One was for a state-of-the-art phone, the other for a device that picked up only one special signal. Abdul carried in his pocket a cheap phone as a diversion.
The device was now on the seat beside him, and he looked at it every few minutes. It confirmed that the consignment of cocaine he had been following seemed to have come to a halt somewhere ahead. It might simply have stopped at an oasis where there was a gas station. But Abdul hoped it might be at an encampment belonging to ISGS, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.
The CIA was interested in terrorists more than smugglers, but they were the same people in this part of the world. A string of local groups, loosely associated as ISGS, financed their political activities by the lucrative twin businesses of drug smuggling and people smuggling. Abdul’s mission was to establish the route taken by the drugs in the hope that it would lead him to ISGS hideouts.
The man believed to be the leading figure in ISGS – and one of the worst mass murderers in the world today – was known as al-Farabi. This was almost certainly a pseudonym: al-Farabi was the name of a medieval philosopher. The ISGS leader was also called ‘the Afghan’ because he was a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. His reach was long, if the reports were to be believed: while based in Afghanistan he had travelled through Pakistan into the rebellious Chinese province of Xinjiang, where he had made contact with the East Turkestan Independence Party, a terrorist group seeking autonomy for the ethnic Uighurs, who were predominantly Muslim.
Al-Farabi was now somewhere in North Africa, and if Abdul could find him, it would strike a blow at ISGS that might even be mortal.
Abdul had studied fuzzy long-distance photographs, artists’ pencilled impressions, Photofit composites and written descriptions, and he felt sure he would know al-Farabi if he saw him: a tall man with grey hair and a black beard, often described as having a piercing gaze and an air of authority. If Abdul could get close enough he might be able to confirm identification by al-Farabi’s most distinctive feature: an American bullet had taken away half his left thumb, leaving a stump he often showed off proudly, telling people that God had protected him from death but at the same time warned him to be more careful.
Whatever happened, Abdul must not try to capture al-Farabi, just pin down his location and report it. It was said the man had a hideout called Hufra, which meant Hole, but its location was not known to anyone in the entire intelligence community of the West.
Abdul came to the top of the rise and slowed the car to a halt on the other side.
In front of him a long downward slope led to a wide plain that shimmered in the heat. He squinted against the glare: he did not wear sunglasses, because local people thought of them as an unnecessary Western accessory, and he needed to look like one of them. In the distance, some miles away, he thought he could see a village. Turning in his seat, he removed a panel in the door and took out a pair of field glasses. Then he got out of the car.