'Don't look out.'
'How do you know I want to?'
'You want to see for yourself who they are. A bit slower. But you wouldn't see them anyway, it's only a couple of cars parked under the trees.'
'You said there were four.'
'The other two are at the back of the building.'
'I see. It's giving me gooseflesh, knowing they're watching me now.'
'Don't worry.'
The trembling was still in her arm, under my hand. 'Why are we doing this?'
'They know you're with me here, because you must have passed this window a few times before I told you to stay clear of it. They could even have been outside when you drove up. I want to remind them, as late as possible before we leave here, that you're wearing blue.'
We reached the wall and turned round and started going back, the window on my side now. She said:
'Why did you tell me to keep clear, before?'
'I thought there was a chance they'd shoot you.'
'Why don't you think so now?'
'Because I'm still alive.'
The other window wasn't important because from the Fiat and the Citroen they couldn't see the ambulance. She was still trembling and I said: 'You'll feel all right once we get going; it's only the delayed action affecting your nerves. Can you drive a DS 90?'
'Yes. We've got one at the Embassy.'
'Fair enough. There's a DS ambulance outside. I want you to go and start it up and bring it over to the front steps.' We were clear of the window now and put on the white linen coats. 'Keep that thing tucked well in: I don't want them to see any blue. All right, we'll take the lift.'
There was nobody in the main hall. Posters about inoculation against cholera, preventive hygiene to fight sandfly trachoma: a pair of sandals lying in a corner near the door, artificial flowers on the reception desk with a faded ribbon on them. Sand gritted under our feet; there is sand everywhere in Kaifra, even inside the buildings.
'Take off your bandeau and put it in your pocket.'
'All right.'
'See the ambulance?'
'Yes.'
'I'll wait for you here on the steps.'
She went down them and I stood watching her.
There wasn't anything else we could do but this; nothing that had as much hope of working out smoothly, provided they didn't get too close a look at us. I wanted to keep the action down because she had all her life in front of her and we had a mission to run and I wasn't in fit condition to risk a major mistake.
She walked nervously, her step springing a little, but she wasn't looking around her though I knew she must be wanting to. They couldn't see her yet: it would only be when she crossed the gap made by the gates that they might see her. I could think of no reason why they should shoot. It was just that she looked small and vulnerable out there where there wasn't any cover and I wished I'd gone with her but it was too late and anyway impractical because this was part of the whole set-up: a change of image as convincing as we could make it.
She got into the ambulance and the sidelights came on and the engine started up and the pennant gave a couple of lazy flaps as she locked over and came towards the steps.
'I'll drive.'
She slid across and I got behind the wheel as quick as I could because one of the voices I'd heard on the ground floor would belong to the ambulance driver and he'd know the sound of this vehicle and wonder what was going on. I would have preferred to let her drive: she'd already established the image behind the wheel and now we'd altered it but if they weren't satisfied with what we were giving them they'd tuck in behind and we'd have to lose them and she wasn't trained for that.
'Seat-belt,' I said.
She pulled it across and buckled it.
The fuel was at three-quarters. I turned the facia-lamp rheostat to medium power, getting enough of a glow to show up my white coat but not to light my face. Then I put the heads full on and drove through the gates and turned left so that if they decided to follow us up they'd have to make a half-turn first. I could see the blue flash of the roof emergency lamp in the mirror-frames and thought about using the hee-haw but there was no traffic and it might be overdoing things.
There was a slight clang from behind us, probably the chrome-armoured tube of the oxygen unit against the cylinder because we were leaning in a close turn; and there was another sound, fainter and underlying the first and not easy to identify: possibly a piece of equipment shifting.
'You all right?'
'Yes thank you.'
'Don't worry.'
'No.'
I really thought they'd accepted the image and then some lights swung from behind us and I knew the sound I hadn't been able to identify had been the first of them starting up.
'Keep low in the seat.'
'All right.'
I kicked the throttle to bring the ratio down and the rear tyres lost traction on the sand but we weren't even picking up useful revs before the lights showed me the Citroen GT moving broadside across the road in front of us. There wasn't anything I could do because this was an avenue of close-standing palms and there was no point in trying a slide U-turn because there were lights in the mirrors now.
Their orders hadn't been to tag us. They'd been told to set up a pincer trap for anything that moved, and we were in it.
16: HASSAN
No, this is Angela, with Robert.
They'll be coming over to see us while you're here and I'm longing for you to meet them.
Yes, aren't they? And always hand in hand — they weren't posing like that for the photographer. Deeply in love, and we're so very happyfor them.
On Tuesday, coming down from Cambridge. They're just dying to meet you — of course we've told them all about you.
No, that's our youngest. She — she was a lovely child.
Yes, I'm very sad to say. It happened in North Africa, one of those mysterious and dreadful things that sometimes happens to people when they're abroad.
We never really found out. It was sort of — hushed up, and even our own Embassy advised us to let the enquiries drop. Yes, all very strange.
Murdered. But no one was ever accused. They say there were just some Arabs, and it was night-time, and — well we don't let ourselves think too much.
Oh not a bit, no. That's why we keepher picture here, with the rest of our little family. She was such a lovely girl and it sort of helps, to talk about her to people. It makes her seem — well — still a little bit alive.
The Citroen GT was backing and turning.
The term in the personnel files is 'an assault on the person designed to extract intelligence'. If you've held out against it you get the 9 suffix to your code name but it's not exactly an award for meritorious duty or anything: it just means they can give you some of the high-risk jobs in the hope that you'll do the same again, refuse to expose the mission or the cell or the Bureau even though the light blinds and the flesh burns and the scream is private inside your skull, for pride's sake.
An assault on the person. Your own person. No one else's.
Backing and turning and coming in this direction, no longer blocking the road entirely, leaving me enough room to go through if I wanted to. But there wasn't any point: the Fiat was farther along the avenue with a muzzle poking out of a side window. The lights of the Citroen came on, full heads, and most of the scene was blacked out because of the glare.
'Shall I shoot at them?'
'No'
'Why not? They — '
'When you're outnumbered, the thing is to think, not shoot.'
I turned my head sideways to avoid the glare. She was looking at me, her skin silvered by the brightness of the light, her eyes exaggeratedly blue because of the contracted pupils. She would have made a good photograph.
'What will they do?' she asked me.