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Alex used what was left of the water in the jug to wash themselves, then pulled on the freshly laundered gandourah and sirwal that had been laid out at the bottom of their camp beds. Finally, they pulled on their boots, automatically giving them a shake first to dislodge any scorpions.
    Amber, Li and Khalid were waiting for them in a vehicle compound, next to the landing strip that served the camp. The strip was where the big-bellied aid agency planes landed, bringing bags of flour, sugar and lentils for the camp dwellers. The food supplies were loaded into the dusty old lorries in the compound and then distributed amongst the darias.
    Paulo smiled fondly when he saw the huge, battered vehicle that Amber, Li and Khalid were leaning against. This was what Amber had nicknamed the Monster. It was an old, flat-bed Unimog, with a six-seater, double-crew cab. Paulo had spotted it in the compound when Alpha Force had first flown in on one of the aid agency planes and he had instantly fallen in love with it. Alpha Force were planning a few days of camping and dune driving after they had completed their mission and Paulo had decided that the Unimog was just what they needed for their trip. He had pestered John Middleton until he had agreed to hire it for them.
    ‘There she is,’ crooned Paulo, hurrying over to the Unimog. ‘Isn’t she a beauty?’
    ‘If you say so,’ said Li, rolling her eyes.
    ‘The ideal desert vehicle,’ continued Paulo. ‘Look at the ground clearance – we will not get bogged down in soft sand in this. And we can drive over rocks with no worries about cracking the sump.’
    ‘Yeah, right. Sump-cracking. That was number one on my worries list,’ said Amber.
    ‘Mine too!’ continued Paulo, completely missing the sarcasm. ‘And she has been converted to diesel, so she is lighter on fuel. Coil-sprung suspension,’ he added, patting one of the Unimog’s huge wheels. ‘Eight gears, tough transmission. She is the ultimate all-terrain vehicle.’
    ‘Paulo,’ sighed Hex, ‘we’re here to load the thing, not to have sex with it.’
    ‘And if we’re planning to leave at dawn, we need to get a move on,’ added Alex.
    ‘Sorry,’ grinned Paulo. ‘Let us load.’
    Three hours later they had just about finished. Two quads were in place and secure on the Unimog’s flat bed, their tents and camping equipment were stored on the rack above the cab and jerry cans of fuel were stacked in the space behind it. The sides of the flat bed were hung with sand ladders, shovels and ten goatskin girbas, each full of water. The girbas were shaped like fat bananas, and they were hung by the cord that tied the two ends closed. This was the traditional way of carrying water in the desert. Water evaporated through the goatskin, acting as a cooling device to stop the water inside heating up.
    ‘Is it going to cope with this load?’ asked Hex, eyeing the battered Unimog doubtfully.
    ‘Of course she will,’ insisted Paulo. ‘Let me tell you about her engine—’
    ‘No, please,’ begged Li, clapping her hands over her ears. ‘I can’t take any more!’
    Paulo folded his arms and grinned at her, then his grin faded as he spotted an open-topped jeep speeding towards them across the compound. The front-seat passenger in the jeep was Amber’s uncle, and his expression was grim.
    ‘What? What’s wrong?’ demanded Amber, as the jeep pulled up.
    ‘Bad news,’ said John Middleton. ‘We’ve been monitoring all the news channels and, well . . .’
    ‘Well what?’
    ‘Nobody’s picked up on the footage.’
    ‘Nobody?’ asked Hex, after a shocked silence.
    ‘Not one lousy news agency,’ sighed John Middleton. ‘I guess the guys here at the camp are right when they say they’re a forgotten crisis. The rest of the world doesn’t want to know.’
    ‘They are moving,’ called the jeep driver, pointing over to the transport plane that was taxiing across to the far end of the landing strip.
    ‘Gotta go,’