The Tango Briefing

It wasn't instinct alone that made me want the lights off: we were a hundred and fifty minutes from take-off and. London was sending us panic directives and the base phone was dead and this whole region was a red sector and all Chirac could do was add up his life insurance and if there'd ever been a time when I didn't mind being seen making rdv contact along a lonely road it wasn't now.

His face turned silver and our shadows lifted and swung under the roof of the Renault as the light came flooding from the road.

Heavy diesel. Canvas sides: PETROCOMBINE S-5.

Fine sand falling as the dark came down.

'That is a bum outfit, you know? They don't pay so good and the air-conditioning is alwaysen panne, you should hear the drillers talk about that!' He turned the lamps on again. 'When I quit mercenary work I fly mostly for the big American companies here, looking for oil. That is how I come to know the desert, every square kilometre from Oran to Ghadamis, and that is why they chose me,your associes. You want anaviateur who knows the Sahara, you send for Chirac.'

He dropped the butt of his Gauloise and heeled it out.

'I start giving it up now,hein?' Without changing his tone he said: 'You are looking for oil in that place?'

'That's right.'

He laughed amiably.

'You will be there for maybe three days?'

'Maybe.'

He'd been told how much water he'd have to take on board.

'That is not long, if you are careful.' He drew the map off the seat and folded it. 'I will brief you on the actual flight when we rendezvous with the pilot of the airplane. Is there anything you would like to know right now?'

'Just one thing: where can I get a gun?'

'Hein?You don't have one?'

'No.'

He leaned into the Renault and slid the map into the glove pocket, slamming it shut and reaching underneath.

'You can borrow this,mon ami.'

I took it and found it heavy, a couple of pounds or more, a Colt Official Police.38 six-shot with a six-inch barrel and chequered grips.

'When do you want it back?'

'When you come back from the desert.'

The twin dark lines were drawn finely across the firmament from Andromeda through Cygnus to Vega, then they struck into the black cloud of palm-leaves above my head.

The night was soundless.

Diffused light glowed against the cupolas on the far side of the trees but I couldn't be sure where it came from. On this side there was nothing and I moved again, disturbing the flight of insects below the rotting leaves and moving on as far as the wall, looking up.

There was no need to examine their whole length, but only those sections where they could be reached easily and cut. The hall was unlit and when I passed inside I waited for the blind man's voice but he wasn't here: that was certain because he would have challenged me.

I used the pen-torch and found the junction-board with the connections exposed and thick with dust, the knurled knobs green with oxidization, one of them missing and the wire held with a paper-clip. I cleaned the end and the thread of the terminal and reconnected it.Mais it ne sonne meme pas, m'sieur, it est en derangement. Youdon't say.

A sound and I held still and counted a hundred seconds but it didn't come again, one of those unpleasant sounds that had no particular feature so that you had to identify it according to your fancy: contracting timber or a door in the draught or a distant shot.

A group of wires ran horizontally and then upwards, ending in a hole where loose plaster was plugged. I crossed in the dark to the stairs and used the torch and saw the right ones, tracing them higher and stopping to listen and climbing again until I came to the top floor. They hadn't been cut.

She was pointing the bloody thing at me and I said don't do that and she put it down and I shut the door.

— Hi pry Q Quaker dation minim -

— Hold on, Embassy.

'All right,' I told her.

Repeat please from 'big flash'.

Hi pry Q Quaker dation minim lady point ops one hundred proxy point all red vigil out. Do you want to reply?

She looked at me and I said: 'Tell them to stop bellyaching.'

Please send: Understumble point willing relay. Tango out.

She cut the switch and stopped the tape and pushed her hair back from her face: it was like an oven in here and she looked beat.

'Where's Loman?'

'At the hotel.'

'The Royal Sahara?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'He wanted to talk to you, but the phone doesn't work.'

'Try it now.'

Acetone on the air, been doing her nails.

The venetian blind was still down and they'd put the base transceiver on the other side of the room where it couldn't be seen from any of the windows even if they weren't covered.'Jen' veux pas de numero. On etait en panne ici, mais maintenant ca marche.'

I played the tape back to catch the first bit they'd sent but it was only another hurry directive: I'd never known London get so hysterical, what the hell did they think we were doing all this time if it wasn't trying to get me to the destination with the minimum delay?

I gave her Chirac's.38 and she nearly dropped it because compared with her own it weighed a ton.

'Have you had any small-arms training?'

'No. There wasn't time to — '

'D'you know what the phrase means, "to stop a man"?'

'Not exactly.'

'It means to stop him coming towards you. If a man were running towards you and you fired that gun of yours at him he'd just keep on coming, and unless you'd hit him in the brain or the heart there'd be time for him to kill you or smash up the radio, or both. But if you use this one you'll stop him short, and at the range from here to the doorway you'd actually throw him back.'

'I see.'

God, it was awfuclass="underline" the thing was nearly bigger than she was.

'Hold it with both hands if you want to, and be ready for the recoil and the noise. Safety-catch here, load like this, fire, the usual thing, all right?'

'Yes.'

'It gives you six shots, and don't forget to count'

'All right.'

'Have you got enough drinking-water here?'

'Yes.'

'Salt tablets?'

'Yes.'

I went over to the telephone and picked it up and listened for bugs, all red vigil yes but we knew that, although I suppose it was encouraging to know also that Control was obviously monitoring the opposition's movements rather closely. Say that for London: they were warning us that the heat was on down here before we'd had time to report it.

'J'ecoute.'

Negative bugs.

The line's perfectly okay now so will you cancel that request for repairs, and I'd like 113.

Be awkward if Loman were smack in the thick of a hot signals exchange on the 200 °CA and a man called to mend the telephone.

'Yes?'

He'd taken my key and gone up.

'Tango.'

'Quaker, yes?'

I listened for bugs again.

'There was a tag tonight.'

"What happened?'

'He had an accident.'

'Where are you?'

'That's right.'

'I'll see you.'

'No. Things are getting difficult. I'll spell it out for you, all right? And leave there now, can you?'