Andy squinted at the line of vehicles in the weakening light of the early evening. They were motionless, none of them with their lights on. The only light was a muted, flickering torch coming from beneath the bonnet of the front vehicle. They looked like Land Rovers to him, at least the silhouettes did.

‘British,’ muttered Farid.

‘Brits?’ echoed Mike. ‘Yeah, probably. Those definitely aren’t Hummers.’

Andy watched as the torchlight flickered around, catching the movement of several men standing outside the front vehicle.

‘Bloody suspicious,’ Andy offered after a while.

‘What? Like us?’

As the light had begun to fail, they had elected to drive on with the lights of their two vehicles off. With the police escort’s sudden departure earlier in the day, they had felt dangerously exposed, and as the shadows of the late afternoon had lengthened and given way to twilight, they had decided not to advertise their presence any more than they had to.

The engine of their Land Cruiser idled with a steady rumble as Andy took a couple of steps away from the open door and studied the short column of vehicles, three - four hundred yards away.

Mike climbed out and followed him. ‘You know, if we can see them—’

‘They can see us. I know.’

Andy found himself hoping they were British, and not a trigger-happy US patrol. Over the last year, it had been the American troops that had policed the worst of the growing chaos the Iraqi government still refused to call a ‘civil war’. There were a lot of battle-weary and frightened young US ground troops out there carrying some very powerful weapons and ready to fire at any vehicle that moved, especially at night, especially if its lights were off.

‘I think you’re right,’ said Mike, clearly guessing what Andy was thinking. He nodded towards them, ‘I know our boys are pretty strung out right now, and liable to loose off first, and apologise after. Maybe we should stick our lights on and hope they’re British.’

Andy nodded. ‘Yeah.’ He turned to Farid. ‘Let’s put ’em on.’

Farid nodded silently, and spoke in whispered Arabic to Amal. A moment later their headlights flicked on and cast twin fans of light along the pitted tarmac road towards the parked convoy of vehicles.

Immediately Andy could see they were army vehicles. Not American, not the fledgling Iraqi army, but were, as they suspected, British troops.

They watched as a section was issued a barked order, and began to approach them warily in two flanking groups of four - spreading out as they closed the distance, their weapons raised and aimed.

Andy cupped his hands and called out, ‘We’re civilian contractors! ’

A reply came out of the gloom from one of them. ‘Don’t bloody care! Everyone out of the vehicles where we can see you!’

Andy turned to nod at Farid, Amal and to the second car where the other two contractors had already begun to climb out. He wanted to assure their old translator that the worst of the day was over and they were now safe. But watching the eight young lads approach, caught in the glare of their headlights, meeting their eyes along the barrels of their weapons and through their weapon sights, Andy wondered how much trigger weight was already being applied to their SA80s.

‘That’s it. Outside, all of you!’ one of them shouted.

Andy kept his eyes on the nearest of the soldiers. The lad closed the last few yards alone, whilst the rest of his section held their position in a spread-out semi-circle. The young soldier - a lance corporal, Andy noticed by the chevron and scrawled name and rank on the front of his combat body armour - lowered his gun slightly, and after a moment spent silently studying them, offered a relieved grin.

‘Sorry about that gents, we’ve had one fucking shit day today.’

Erich, the French contractor, spoke for the first time today with heavily accented English. ‘What is going on?’

Lieutenant Carter looked surprised. ‘You don’t know?’

‘We heard a little about some bombs in Saudi, and some riots,’ added Mike.

‘Oh boy, are there riots. It started with bombs in Mecca, Medina and Riyadh this morning. Someone blew up the Ka’bah, or at least detonated somewhere near it. If you wanted to start a holy war, that’s the way to do it. It’s spread right across Saudi Arabia, a full-scale civil war; Wahhabis, Sunnis and Shi’as. And it’s spreading like bloody bird flu. There are riots in Kuwait, Oman, the Emirates.’

‘All this over one bombing?’ asked Mike.

Carter shook his head. ‘The Holy Mosque in Mecca? You couldn’t pick a worse place in the world to target. It’s the centre of the Muslim universe. It seems like some radical group of Shi’as immediately announced they were behind it.’ The officer shook his head. ‘If you want to trigger a global Sunni versus Shi’a civil war . . . I guess that’s how you’d go about doing it. From what I’ve heard, Riyadh is a slaughterhouse, Saudi’s a mess, there are explosions, pitched battles, riots everywhere, and it’s spreading like wildfire right across the Middle East.’

Andy nodded. This was one of the things he’d written about eight years ago, in that report. A brief chapter on how easily religious sensibilities could be used as a tool to destabilise the region; a small act of leverage . . . damaging or destroying somewhere sacred, like the Holy Mosque, the Ka’bah, yielding maximum impact - civil war.

‘Jesus,’ muttered Mike.

‘Yup. And of course Iraq was one of the first countries to get into the spirit of things. It’s seriously screwed up out here,’ the lieutenant replied. ‘There have been multiple contacts going on all day in virtually every town and city. The Iraqi police and the army are joining in the bloodletting, of course. God knows how many casualties we’ve had in the battalion. Our boys have been caught out all over the place.’

Andy nodded towards the Rover at the head of the six-vehicle convoy. ‘You got a problem?’

Carter nodded. ‘Yup. It’s looking like we’ve got a sheared drive-shaft.’ The officer cast a glance out at the flat arid plain, dotted with the darker shapes of date palms, clustered in twos and threes. ‘We put out a call a few hours ago for a vehicle recovery team to pick us up. No bloody sign of it yet.’ He looked at Andy. ‘To be honest, I don’t think they’ll send out a reccemech tonight. Not into the shit that’s going on out there.’

Lieutenant Robin Carter looked to be in his mid-twenties.

‘Take a look over there.’ The Lieutenant pointed to the horizon in a south-westerly direction. The sky, finally robbed of the last afterglow of the sun, was showing the faintest orange-red stain.

‘Al-Bayji. I guess there’s some buildings on fire over there. I’m sure the locals right now are tearing into each other. Our boys are all hunkered down in battalion HQ, the other side of the Tigris. The only way to us by road is via the bridge at Al-Bayji. So I’m guessing nobody’s coming out for us tonight.’

Mike looked at Andy. ‘Great.’

‘You’re staying out here tonight?’ Andy asked. He studied the officer, biting his bottom lip for a moment, weighing up God knows how many factors.

‘That Rover’s going nowhere without a lift. And frankly, I don’t fancy driving through Al-Bayji, or any other town, this evening. I think we’ll be better holding up here until first light, and then make a go of it in the early hours. Hopefully things will have died down by then, and we can sneak back home whilst they’re all fast asleep.’

‘Do you mind if we hook up with you?’ asked Mike. ‘Our goddamned IPS escort bailed on us.’

‘You’d be stupid not to.’ Lieutenant Carter offered a lopsided grin. ‘Anyway, the more pairs of eyes and hands the better.’ He cast a glance at Farid and the two young Iraqis. ‘Do I need to spend men watching them?’

Andy shook his head. He didn’t think so. After all, they had stayed on course when the police had decided to casually break off and abandon them. But the gesture was lost in the gloom. It was Mike who answered aloud.

‘You probably want to relieve them of their guns, Lieutenant. They’re carrying AKs in the drivers’ compartments.’

Carter considered that for a moment and then nodded. ‘Yes, maybe that’s a prudent measure, for now.’

Andy turned round to look at Farid, who shook his head almost imperceptibly, before turning to the two young drivers and explaining to them in Arabic that they were going to have to surrender their weapons.

Lieutenant Carter summoned over a lance corporal and instructed him to retrieve the assault rifles from the drivers of the two Land Cruisers.

Andy studied the reactions of the three Iraqis. The drivers, both much younger men, answered Farid in an animated, yet wary tone. Clearly they were unhappy at having to hand over their guns, casting frequent and anxious glances at the British soldiers gathered at the roadside beside the stationary convoy of vehicles. Farid carried an expression of caution in his manner, speaking softly, seemingly offering them some kind of reassurance.

‘All right,’ said Lieutenant Carter, clearing his throat and raising his voice for the benefit of the platoon as well as the four internationals before him, ‘let’s pull these Rovers round into a defensive circle - those two Cruisers as well. Sergeant Bolton?’

A hoarse voice - with a northern accent Andy couldn’t quite place - barked a reply out of the darkness.

‘Sir?’

‘See to that will you? Post some men to stand watch and establish a vehicle control point down the road. Everyone else can stand down and get some rest. We’ll be moving out again at 05.00. There’s another two hours’ drive ahead of us. We should get back to battalion HQ just in time to catch the first trays of scrambled egg.’

None of the men laughed, Andy noticed.

He’s new to these men. He sensed the jury was still out amongst Carter’s platoon.