The older man said: ‘But why are you here? Where do you think you’re going?’
‘There’s a village up ahead, isn’t there?’ said Abdul. ‘I can’t see it yet, but a man in a café told me I would find customers there.’
‘A man in a café.’
‘I’m always looking for customers.’
The older man said to the younger: ‘Search him.’
The young man slung his rifle across his back, which gave Abdul a moment’s relief. But the older man drew a 9mm pistol and pointed it at Abdul’s head while Abdul was patted down.
The young man found Abdul’s cheap phone and handed it to his companion.
The older man turned it on and pressed buttons confidently. Abdul guessed he was looking at the contacts directory and the list of recent calls. What he found would support Abdul’s cover: cheap hotels, car repair workshops, currency changers, and a couple of hookers.
The older man said: ‘Search the car.’
Abdul stood watching. The man began with the open trunk. He picked up Abdul’s small travelling bag and emptied its contents onto the road. There was not much: a towel, a Koran, a few simple toiletries, a phone charger. He threw all the cigarettes out and lifted the floor panel to reveal the spare wheel and the toolkit. Without replacing anything, he opened the rear doors. He thrust his hands between the back and the flat of the seats and bent to peer underneath.
In the front he looked under the dashboard, inside the glove box, and into the door pockets. He noticed the loose panel in the driver’s door and removed it. ‘Binoculars,’ he said triumphantly, and Abdul felt a chill of fear. Binoculars were not as incriminating as a gun, but they were costly, and why would a vendor of cigarettes need them?
‘Very useful in the desert,’ Abdul said, beginning to feel desperate. ‘You’re probably carrying a pair yourselves.’
‘These look expensive.’ The older man examined the glasses. ‘Made in Kunming,’ he read. ‘They’re Chinese.’
‘Exactly,’ said Abdul. ‘I got them from the Sudanese captain who sold me the cigarettes. They were a bargain.’
Again his story was plausible. The Sudanese armed forces bought a lot from China, which was their country’s biggest trading partner. Much of the equipment ended up on the black market.
The older man said shrewdly: ‘Were you using these when we came along?’
‘I was going to, after my prayers. I wanted to know how big the village is. What do you think – fifty people? A hundred?’ It was a deliberate underestimate, to give the impression that he had not looked.
‘Never mind,’ said the man. ‘You’re not going there.’ He gave Abdul a long, hard stare, probably making up his mind whether to believe Abdul or kill him. Suddenly he said: ‘Where’s your gun?’
‘Gun? I have no gun.’ Abdul did not carry one. Firearms got an undercover officer into trouble more often than they got him out, and here was a dramatic example. If a weapon had been found now, they would have felt sure Abdul was not an innocent vendor of cigarettes.
‘Open the hood,’ the older man said to the younger.
He obeyed. As Abdul knew, there was nothing hidden in the engine compartment. ‘All clear,’ he reported.
‘You don’t seem very scared,’ the older man said to Abdul. ‘You can see we’re jihadis. We might decide to kill you.’
Abdul stared back, but allowed himself to tremble slightly.
The man nodded, making a decision, and handed the cheap phone back to Abdul. ‘Turn your car around,’ he said. ‘Go back the way you came.’
Abdul decided not to look too relieved. ‘But I was hoping to sell –’ He pretended to think better of his protest. ‘Would you like a carton?’
‘As a gift?’
Abdul was tempted to agree, but the character he was playing would not have been so generous. ‘I’m a poor man,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry . . .’
‘Go back,’ the jihadi repeated.
Abdul gave a disappointed shrug, pretending to give up hope of sales. ‘As you wish,’ he said.
The man beckoned his comrade, and the two of them returned to the truck.
Abdul began to pick up his scattered possessions.
The truck roared away.
He watched it disappear into the desert. Then at last he spoke, in English. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ he breathed. ‘That was close.’
*
Tamara had joined the CIA because of people like Kiah.