Desmond Bagley - Flyaway / Windfall

We got out of the truck and I looked at the map. After a few minutes I said, ‘I’m surprised they’re not here by now. We were a fair time at the checkpoint and it doesn’t take long to walk three kilometres.’

‘More like eight,’ said Byrne calmly. ‘If I’d told him the truth he might have jibbed.’

‘Oh!’

Presently Mokhtar emerged on to the side of the road. He was carrying Billson slung over his shoulder like a sack. We put him in the back of the truck and made him as comfortable as possible, revived him with water, and then drove on.

We drove to the Aïr in easy stages, doing little more than a hundred miles a day. It was during this period that I got to know Paul Billson, assuming that I got to know him at all because he was a hard man to fathom. I think Byrne got to know him a lot better than I did.

In spite of his garrulity at Abalessa, he felt a lot less like talking after passing out while going around the checkpoint, but he was a lot better that evening when we made camp. We now had tents which were carried on a rack on top of the truck, and while Byrne and Mokhtar were erecting them I dressed Billson’s wound. It was clean and already beginning to heal, but I puffed some penicillin powder into it before putting on fresh bandages.

He was bewildered. ‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ he said pathetically. ‘Who are you?’

‘I told you – Max Stafford.’

‘That means nothing.’

‘If I said that I was responsible for security at Franklin Engineering would that mean anything?’

He looked up. ‘For God’s sake! You mean you’ve chased all the way out here because I left Franklin’s in a hurry?’

‘Not entirely – but you get the drift. There’s a lot you can tell me.’

He looked around. We were camped on the lee side of a ridge almost at the top. I had queried that when Byrne picked the spot; camping on the flats at the bottom of the ridge would have been better, in my opinion. Byrne had shaken his head. ‘Never camp on low ground. More men die of drowning in the Sahara than die of thirst.’ When I expressed incredulity he pointed to mountains in the northeast. ‘You could have a thunderstorm there and not know it. But a flash flood sweeping through the wadis could come right through here.’ I conceded his point.

Billson said, ‘Where are we?’

‘About fifty miles south-east of Tammanrasset.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Niger. We’re getting you out of Algeria; the police are looking for you. You bent the rules.’

‘Why are you doing this for me?’

I put the last knot in the bandage and snipped off the loose ends. ‘Damned if I know,’ I said. ‘You’ve certainly proved to be a bloody nuisance. Niger is probably the last place in the world I want to go to.’

He shook his head. ‘I still don’t understand.’

‘Have you remembered anything about the man who shot you?’

‘A bit,’ said Billson. ‘I stopped because one of the tyres was going soft and I thought I might have to change a wheel. I was looking at it when this other car came along.’

‘Car or truck?’ A car seemed improbable in Koudia.

‘A Range-Rover. I thought he might help me so I waved. He came up and stopped about ten yards away – then he shot me.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Just like that. I felt this blow in my shoulder – it knocked me down. It didn’t hurt; not then.’

I looked at Billson speculatively. This sounded an improbable story, but then, Billson collected improbabilities about him as another man might collect postage stamps. And I never forgot for one moment that I had been badly beaten up in a quiet street in Kensington.

‘Did you see the man?’

‘Yes. He – they chased me.’

‘How many?’

‘Two of them.’

‘Were they locals? I mean, were they Arabs or Tuareg?’

‘No, they were white men, like you and me.’

‘Didn’t he say anything before he shot you?’

‘No. As I said, the car just stopped and he shot me.’

I sighed. ‘So what happened then?’

‘Well, when I fell down they couldn’t see me because I was behind the Land-Rover. Close by there was a gap between two rocks and I nipped in there. I heard them getting out of their car so I went between the rocks and up a sort of cleft and ran for it.’

He fell silent so I prompted him. ‘And they chased you. Did they shoot at you again?’

He nodded. ‘Just the one man. He didn’t hit me.’ He touched his shoulder. ‘Then this started to hurt and I became dizzy. I don’t remember any more.’

He had collapsed and fortunately fallen out of sight down a cleft in the rocks. The men had probably searched for him and missed him, not too difficult in Koudia. But burning his Land-Rover was another way of killing him; I couldn’t imagine a man with a gunshot wound and no water walking out of Koudia.

‘How did you find me?’ he asked.

‘We were looking for you.’

He stared at me. ‘Impossible. Nobody knew where I’d gone.’

‘Paul, you left a trail as wide as an eight-lane motorway,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t difficult for me, nor for someone else, evidently. Do you have any enemies? Anyone who hates you badly enough to kill you? So badly that they’d follow you to the middle of the Sahara to do it?’

‘You’re mad,’ he said.

‘Someone is,’ I observed. ‘But it’s not me. Does the name of Kissack mean anything to you?’

‘Not a thing.’ He brooded a moment. ‘What happened to my Land-Rover? Where is it?’

‘They burned it.’

He looked stricken. ‘ They burned it! ’ he whispered. ‘But what about …’ He stopped suddenly.

‘How much money did you have in those suitcases?’ I asked softly. He didn’t answer, so I said, ‘My assessment is about £56,000.’

He nodded dully.

‘Whether they searched those cases before dousing them with petrol or not doesn’t matter. You’ve lost it.’ I stood up and looked down at him. ‘You’re a great big law-breaker, Paul. The British can nail you for breaking currency regulations, and now the Algerians are looking for you. If they find you with a bullet hole in you that’ll bring more grief to someone. Jesus, you’re a walking disaster.’

‘Sorry to have been the cause of trouble,’ he mumbled. His hand twitched, the fingers plucking at his jacket.

I contemplated that piece of understatement with quiet fury. I bent down and stuck my finger under his nose. ‘Paul, from now on you don’t do a single thing – not a single bloody thing, understand, even if it’s only unzipping your fly – without consulting either me or Byrne.’

His head jerked towards Byrne. ‘Is that him?’

‘That’s Byrne. And walk carefully around him. He’s as mad at you as I am.’

They had finished putting up the tents and Mokhtar had a fire going. I told Byrne what I had got from Billson, and he said contemplatively, ‘Two Europeans in a Range-Rover. They shouldn’t be hard to trace. And they shot him just like that? Without even passing the time of day?’

‘According to Paul – just like that.’

‘Seems hard to believe. Who’d want to shoot a guy like that?’

I said tiredly, ‘He was driving around with 56,000 quid in British bank notes packed in his suitcase. I shouldn’t think it went up in flames in the Land-Rover. He probably opened his mouth too wide somewhere along the line, and someone got greedy.’

‘Yeah, you could be right. But that doesn’t explain Kissack.’

‘I don’t believe he exists.’

‘If Hesther says he was looking for Paul Billson, then he exists,’ said Byrne firmly. ‘Hesther don’t make mistakes.’

We had mutton that night because Mokhtar had bought a sheep that morning from a passing Targui at Abalessa. He grilled some of it kebab-style over the fire and we ate it with our fingers. It was quite tasty. Byrne pressed Billson to eat. ‘I’m trying to fatten you up,’ he said. ‘When we get to Fort Flatters you’ve got to walk some more.’