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My uncle no longer knew which saint to appeal to. He clapped his hands in impotence and apologised abjectly to the people who complained about my behaviour.

Until I was eleven years old, people treated me like a disturbed child. There was talk of confining me in the psychiatric clinic, but my parents were too poor. In the end, to restore some calm to the village, the clan all had to chip in to send me to school.

It was there, in front of a mirror in the school toilets, that the Voice started speaking to me. It assured me that my status as an orphan was nothing for me to be ashamed of, that the prophet Muhammad had not known his father, and nor had Isa Ibn Maryam.7 It was a marvellous voice: it soaked up my pain like blotting paper. I spent most of my time just listening to it. Sometimes I went out into the desert on my own just to hear that voice and no other. I could talk to it without fear of being mocked by gossips. That was when I understood I was destined to become a legend.

At school in Sabha, then in Misrata, my classmates drank in my words to the point of intoxication. It was not me who bewitched them with my speeches, but the Voice that sang out through my being. My teachers could not bear me. I defended the dunces, objected to the low marks they gave me, started strikes, cried foul, turned the poor kids against the well-off ones, openly criticised the king; none of the schools’ suspensions and expulsions made any difference.

When I entered the Military Academy my vocation as a troublemaker only intensified. In spite of the regulations and charges. I quickly started to infiltrate various secret protest groups and began to dream of a great revolution that would elevate me to the level of a Mao or a Gamal Abdel Nasser.

‘Brotherly Guide,’ a voice calls from the other side of the door. ‘The general requests you to join him. He is waiting for you downstairs.’

7 Jesus Christ in the Koran.

9

‘The first section of the convoy has just arrived,’ Abu-Bakr announces as I come downstairs.

‘How many vehicles?’

‘Twelve. With fifty well-equipped troops.’

‘What about my son?’

‘He won’t be long, according to Lieutenant-Colonel Trid.’

At the mere mention of his name I feel myself reviving.

‘Is Trid here?’

‘In the flesh, Brotherly Guide,’ a voice to my left thunders.

The lieutenant-colonel gives me a regulation salute. I am so happy to see him that I feel like hugging him. Brahim Trid is the youngest lieutenant-colonel in my army. He is only thirty, but has countless acts of bravery to his credit. Short, handsome, his moustache looking almost out of place on his adolescent features, he embodies the qualities I have wanted to instil in all my officers. If I had a hundred men of his calibre, I could outwit any army in the world. With his noble demeanour, uniform without a crease and freshly polished boots, he appears to float above the war and its chaos. The dust on his battledress sparkles like fairy dust. Intrepid, of extraordinary intelligence, Lieutenant-Colonel Brahim Trid is my own personal Otto Skorzeny. I have tasked him with several missions impossible and he has carried out every one of them with rare panache. It was Trid I entrusted with the training of the Azawad Malian dissidents, the recruitment of the Mauritanian revolutionaries, my destabilisation manoeuvres in the Sahel. With the evacuation of part of my family too, taking them to safety in Algeria. Not once has he let me down. His keenness, tenacity and valour set him apart from the officers of his generation. His mere presence among us is a relief. Even Mansour, to his surprise, is smiling.

‘You were rumoured to be dead,’ I tell him, careful not to let my pleasure show too much.

‘Well, the rumours are mistaken,’ he says, spreading his arms to show that he is fighting fit.

‘How did you manage to find us?’

‘He who loves will eventually find, Brotherly Guide. Your aura is my pole star.’

‘Seriously.’

‘The Benghazi rebels are so disorganised, any group could slip through without being discovered. I followed them to the city and sneaked between two roadblocks to get to District Two. Colonel Mutassim’s men escorted me to point 36, and I made it the rest of the way with my eyes closed.’

‘You have seen my son?’

‘Yes, sir. He is doing a fantastic job. He has repelled an attack from the east and destroyed our munitions dumps. I left him regrouping. He supplied the eleven vehicles I’ve brought with me.’

‘How is he?’

‘Extremely well. He asked me to tell you that he will be an hour or two late, but that he has the situation in hand.’

He clears a table of the glasses standing on it, lays out a staff map and gives us his briefing.

‘The situation is complicated but not insurmountable.’

He draws circles on the map with a coloured pencil to show our position and those of our enemies.

‘The bulk of the rebel forces is stationed to the west. This sector is occupied by the Misrata militia. One section is advancing along the coast, the other is moving up from Sidi Be Rawaylah on the ring road in the direction of intersection 167. On that side everything’s sealed by Al-Qaeda and the February 17th Martyrs Brigade … In the east the ungodly mob from Benghazi are advancing along the Abu Zahiyan road. The two groups are trying to join up at intersection 167 to isolate Bir Hamma.’

‘Do they know our position?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘What is your plan?’

‘We’ve got two options to try to break the blockade. The first is to punch through to the east. The dogs from Benghazi are more interested in destroying and looting than consolidating their front.’

‘No,’ the defence minister says, ‘it’s too risky that way.’

‘Everything is risky, General, and everything is feasible.’

‘Not when the rais is with us.’

The lieutenant-colonel acquiesces.

He moves on to his plan B.

‘This afternoon a tactical withdrawal was observed along this thick line, which marks the rebels’ initial front line. The enemy has pulled back by two or three kilometres towards the south-east and south-west, which leaves us a no man’s land wide enough for us to move through as we wish. According to my reconnaissance units, the line from Bir Hamma to Khurb al-Aqwaz can be taken.’

‘It may be an ambush,’ Mansour objects. ‘The gap is too obvious for it not to be a trap. If we let ourselves be drawn into a funnel, the enemy could take us in a pincer movement and destroy us. We wouldn’t even be able to retreat if the Misrata militia has taken intersection 167.’

‘We aren’t facing a regular army,’ the lieutenant-colonel insists. ‘It’s just a human flood overturning everything in its path. To the west the Islamists are going through the city with a fine-tooth comb. To the east, despite the anarchy in the Benghazi ranks, stragglers could intercept us all the way and we don’t know the exact numbers of their forces. There are thousands of them roaming the streets looking for convoys to loot. The south is the only breakout route left to us.’

I approve of the lieutenant-colonel’s choice — not because his arguments are irrefutable but because my intuition does not let me down. It was I who opted for the southerly withdrawal this morning. If I did not recall doing so earlier, it proves that it was the Voice who spoke for me. What I decide is what God wants. Did I not escape the bombing that targeted my residence at Bab al-Azizia the night I was celebrating my beloved grandson’s birthday with my whole family, a raid that cost the lives of my sixth son Saif al-Arab and his three sons? I emerged from the debris without a scratch. The perils I have faced during my reign, the non-stop plots and assassination attempts, would have got the better of anyone else. God watches over me. I do not doubt it for a second. In a few hours the blockade will open before me like the Red Sea before Moses. I shall pierce the enemy lines as easily as a needle pierces cloth.