A Hostile State by Adrian Magson (reading eggs books txt) 📗

end up with a wreck that would let us down after a few miles, but we were short of options and the risk was worthwhile.

He ushered us urgently into the car as if we might vanish in a puff of smoke, then drove out of the station. It was a small town and the journey took all of five minutes, with Djamel pointing out a few landmarks on the way such as a lycée, a few shops, a supermarket and a burger bar. I think he’d slipped into tourist-guide role out of habit and was giving us the benefit of his knowledge just in case, you know, we wanted to stay a while.

The garage was located on the edge of a small industrial park consisting of half a dozen large metal-clad units and one smaller one, all surrounded by a chain-link fence. Djamel stopped just inside the entrance to the park and turned in his seat with the engine still running. His eyes looked grave, like large black pebbles, and there was something very knowing in his gaze. I had my hand resting on the backpack, wondering if I hadn’t made a huge mistake.

‘You have no cause to be concerned,’ he said seriously, interpreting my thoughts. ‘Where I come from I have seen many people like you.’

‘What do you mean,’ Lindsay asked. ‘Like us?’

‘People being … pursued. There is a look in the eyes … and the way they move. I am willing to help if I can because I have been there also. And one day it could be me again. Only God can tell.’ He looked saddened by the thought and looked at me, lifting his chin. ‘You know Somalia.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘I do. It was a while ago, though.’ There really wasn’t much more I could say. There were too many factions over there and I had no idea to which one Djamel might have been allied, if at all.

He nodded. ‘I have been here two years. I have a good life now. I am safe. But the shadows of my memories follow me wherever I go.’ Then he turned and drove us up to the smallest unit and stopped outside. The roller shutter was down and there were no signs indicating what lay inside. He asked us to wait then hopped out and banged on a side door.

I was already reaching inside my backpack and fingering one of the guns. If this was a set-up by an entrepreneurial man with a good line of patter, I wanted to be prepared.

The door opened and there was a brief discussion, followed by a man in soiled overalls and a vest coming out to give us the once-over. He had welding goggles perched on his head and hands like claws. He was overweight, unshaven and very white, and came over for a closer look.

‘I am Rémi,’ he said in French, politely extending his two cleanest fingers to greet us.

‘My cousin,’ said Djamel, and smiled broadly.

I said hello back, even though thinking if he was Djamel’s cousin I was Santa Claus. But he seemed happy enough to meet us and beckoned us inside, closing the door behind us.

The interior was surprisingly clean and efficiently racked out with all manner of tools and a lift … and no suspicious heavyweights ready to jump us. The air smelled of burned metal and oil. Most of the space was taken up by three vehicles, one of which was basically a chassis on wheels surrounded by equipment and car parts which had either been cut off or were in the process of being welded on, I couldn’t tell which.

Rémi muttered something dismissive about that one and showed us over to the other two. They were an old Renault 19 and a white Citroën van, both of which had seen better days.

He climbed into each one in turn and turned over the engines, which sounded a little clacky but worked readily enough. Then he rummaged in a tray on a workbench and produced papers for both cars, followed by a brief conversation with Djamel who shook his head a couple of times in a mildly disapproving manner.

That’s when I discovered Rémi must have been distantly related to the guy in Tripoli who’d sold me the Land Cruiser. It turned out he didn’t do rentals either. It was buy or no deal. He shrugged and scribbled down a price on a piece of cardboard, which Djamel checked and seemed to think was acceptable. It was slightly eye-watering but I had no desire or room to argue. Three minutes later we were driving away in the Citroën van leaving Djamel and Rémi waving us off, deal done and all parties satisfied.

‘I bet he’s got some history,’ Lindsay commented, as we headed out of town. It was a keen observation and one I’d made myself many times in the past. We can never know everyone’s past, but nor should we enquire; their past belongs uniquely to them. But if you had any kind of imagination and human interest, you couldn’t help wondering.

‘Everyone has, over there,’ I said. ‘But you know a little of that.’ Lindsay had been my back-up and eye-in-the-sky a few years back, and I knew she had got to know the dangers of the country through our shared comms experience.

THIRTY-EIGHT

‘Where are we going?’ Lindsay asked, as we headed away from Courcelle on a quiet back road. I was avoiding hooking up with any of the motorways leading to Paris, but cutting straight across-country on a northwesterly heading. I was still formulating a plan but one that did not include any danger for Lindsay. That said, I was pretty sure she wouldn’t accept the plan without argument.

As I’d learned very quickly, she had courage enough and more, but there comes a point at which courage leads to one too many risks and you have to use the basic practicality of staying away from anything that might get you killed because it doesn’t help the