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score, boy. I came up through the ranks in Hereford and I know what it’s like to lose someone in the field.’ He turned again to get his eyes back on the road. ‘Remember, he’s no good to anybody dead. That’s what gives us a bit of time.’
    A pause. Then Triggs gave a low hiss. Danny looked sharp-eyed through the windscreen. Headlamps facing them. Distance: about 200 metres.
    ‘Company,’ Triggs said.
    ‘Military?’ Danny asked tensely. ‘Or Rashaida?’
    Whoever it was, they spotted Danny and Triggs. There was open ground all around. No place to run hide.
    Triggs slowed the vehicle down to a halt.
    ‘Let’s find out, shall we?’
     

7
     
    Danny’s fingers felt for his weapon. It was cocked and locked.
    ‘Go,’ he said.
    The vehicle crawled forward. After twenty seconds, over a distance of 100 metres, Danny could make out figures. Three of them, standing directly in front of the headlamps. The backlighting distorted the shape of their bodies, but Danny could make out that they were each carrying assault rifles.
    ‘They outgun us,’ Triggs breathed. But he didn’t stop moving forward.
    They came to a halt twenty metres from the other vehicle – an old truck of some sort. Danny saw another figure behind it: a woman in colourful clothes, the bottom part of her face and her nose covered by a veil, her eyes and wild woolly hair on show.
    ‘If they’ve brought a bird with them, that’s good,’ Triggs said. ‘It means they’re travelling, not looking for a fight.’
    Danny wasn’t so sure. The three guys with rifles were walking toward the Land Cruiser, and they had a kind of swagger that Danny recognised. But they’d already made their first mistake, because they’d left their weapons hanging from their neck slings rather than holding them in the firing position, ready to go.
    ‘Are they likely to speak English?’
    ‘Some of them  do.’
    Danny tucked his Browning into his pocket. ‘Get out of the car,’ he said. ‘If things go to shit, we can’t fight from in here.’
    Both men opened their doors and stepped outside.
    The Rashaida guys were simply dressed: plain white smocks and headdresses. Their weapons, Danny now saw, were Kalashnikovs. Old ones. The component parts of each weapon differed in colour, which suggested that each one was cobbled together from a number of different originals. But that didn’t mean they didn’t know how to use them. Danny examined their faces carefully. Two of the guys were walking toward Triggs, one toward Danny. The gaze of each of them, though, flickered toward the vehicle. It was the Land Cruiser, Danny sensed, that they were interested in.
    Danny’s guy was two metres from him. Triggs’s pair were closer: a metre.
    ‘Keys,’ one of them said, and he held out his palm.
    Triggs laughed in a comradely sort of way. The Rashaida looked momentarily uncertain. Danny seized his moment. Leaning forward, he grabbed the Kalashnikov that was slung round his neck, yanked the guy toward him, then spun him round and wrapped a strong arm around his neck. The guy made a strangled sound as, with his free hand, Danny pulled the Browning, unlocked it and pressed the barrel to his captive’s head. At exactly the same time, Triggs pulled his own handgun and aimed at the head of the nearest Rashaida.
    ‘OK fellas,’ Danny called across the bonnet of the Land Cruiser. ‘Let’s lose the rifles.’
    Triggs’s two Rashaida exchanged a worried look. All the swagger had gone out of them. They slowly brought their slings over their heads. Danny saw that Triggs’s finger was resting lightly on the trigger of his handgun, ready to fire at any sudden movement. But there was none. The two Rashaida laid their weapons obediently on the ground, then stood up straight again. Danny checked the position of the woman: he couldn’t see her any more, so he figured she was hiding behind the Rashaida vehicle.
    Danny needed to get them away from their vehicle – it provided cover and