He could only think of one thing, now that there was time enough to spare a thought that was anything other than the basic next step to survive. Last night’s desperate scramble through that town, the fire-fight, and watching that young lieutenant dying on the road leading out of town . . . all of that had, through necessity, sucked his thoughts away from those he cared about.

He’d tried his phone several dozen times since then, in the vain hope that the mobile system out in Iraq was still up and running. Not a thing, no signal. And the local radio stations still running in the country were no longer broadcasting news that could be considered reliable; instead it was a mishmash of religious sermons, calls to arms and incitement to sectarian violence.

They had managed to pick up some moments of the BBC World Service earlier in the day, and it made for grim listening; riots and looting in every city in the country, an emergency ruling authority, and nothing from the Prime Minister or government now for a while.

It was all as Andy thought it would be - a fucking mess.

But somehow, he’d retained a residual hope that things might have held together in the UK just a little longer. They were Brits right? The blitz spirit an’ all that? Whilst the rest of the world might have descended to looting and pillaging, he’d hoped the Brits would have at least resorted to some sort of vigorous queuing for a while.

With more time to think, and having heard even more snippets of news, Andy was certain now that in some contributory way, his work of eight years ago had led to this. In that report he had focused on eleven specific nodes in the global oil distribution web; nodes that were vulnerable to the sort of hit-and-run tactics favoured by terrorist groups. So far he’d heard news of seven of those nodes being hit. That alone was suspicious, but the fact that they’d been hit within twenty-four hours of each other . . . that was the clincher. Because that was the very point he had made near the end of the report . . .

Recalling those words - he shuddered.

It meant that once upon a time he had briefly dealt directly with the people who were responsible. But far worse - Leona had seen them. She could identify one or more of them. He wondered whose face she had recognised on the TV. Someone in the public eye, someone newsworthy? His mind paraded possibilities - a politician, a national leader? A pivotal member of Al-Qaeda? The spokesperson of some kind of hardcore eco-pressure group? An industrialist or an oil baron? Some eccentric billionaire?

He had a fleeting vision of some stereotypical Bond bad guy, complete with an evil chuckle and a long-haired Persian cat perched on his lap. He was reminded of all the weird and wonderful 9/11 conspiracy theories he’d allowed himself to get sucked into for a while after the event. The kookiest one he’d heard was that an alien craft had crashed into the Pentagon and the US authorities had smothered it with the terrorist cover story so they could research all the lovely alien technology at their leisure.

He shook his head and laughed quietly to himself. People will believe any old crap if you show ’em a fuzzy photograph, or some shaky CCTV footage.

‘What is make you laugh?’

Andy looked across the truck at Farid who seemed to be awake, studying him intently.

‘Oh nothing, just a little wool-gathering.’

‘Wool-gath . . .?’

Andy shook his head, ‘Never mind. It’s a saying. Look I wanted to talk to you . . . we’ll be over the northern border into Turkey soon.’

Farid nodded, still gazing out at the desert. ‘Yes.’

‘So, what do you want to do?’

Farid turned to look at him. ‘What you mean?’

‘I mean, do you want us to put you down some place inside Iraq, before we go over the border line?’

Andy saw the Iraqi’s tired half-smile by the silvery light of the stars and the moon. ‘You drop me up here? Amongst the Kurds? I last only five minutes.’

‘I’m sorry Farid. This whole fucking mess has screwed everyone up, left a lot of people hopelessly stranded.’

‘Yes. Anyway,’ the old man replied, ‘borders no longer, it all gone for now.’

Andy nodded, he wasn’t wrong. It was unlikely there would be anyone manning the roadside barrier, on either side of the border. The Turkish police, just like civil law enforcement in every other country in the world, would no doubt be fighting a losing battle to maintain order amongst their own people.

‘Now there nothing left in Iraq for me,’ added Farid, after a while.

‘No family?’

‘No. Not any more.’

He sensed the tone in the old man’s voice revealed more than those few words.

‘I lose son to militia and wife to American bomb.’

Andy studied the man and realised, at an instinctive or a subconscious level, that he had known that the old man carried a burden of sadness with him. He was a quiet man, not like the two younger drivers. He was reflective, thoughtful, the grief he carried with him so carefully locked away.

He wondered if the old man would open up to him.

‘What happened to your family, Farid. Do you want to tell me?’

He nodded. ‘I not talk about it much. It is my sadness alone.’

‘I understand. I’m sorry for asking.’

‘Is okay. I tell,’ replied Farid, shuffling a little closer to Andy so as to be able to talk more quietly against the rattling drone of the engine. ‘My son work for IPS . . . police. One day he and other men in station surrounded by militia. They take away police at gunpoint. His mother know he is dead, but I say he will be return. A good Muslim boy, they will let him go. He join police not for money, but for to . . . ahhh . . . rec . . . con . . .’

‘Reconstruction?’

Farid nodded, ‘Yes help recon . . . ah . . . rebuild Iraq.’ The old man remained silent for a good few moments. Andy sensed he wanted to continue, but was composing himself, working hard to keep something painful inside carefully boxed up where he clearly wanted it to remain, and only let out the little bit he was prepared to share.

‘We hearing three day later, they find bodies outside police building. My son was one of them. He was officer in IPS, the other men . . . below him, not officer. My son was in charge. So they make special example of him.’

Farid paused again.

‘They cut throat of all the men. But my son, they torture for two day, then cut his eyes out. Then cut his throat.’

Andy stopped himself from blurting out something useless and inadequate. Instead he reached across and placed a hand on the old man’s arm.

‘My son’s eyes they send to me in package later with message from leader that say, “Your son’s eyes have seen the work of God”. I know these men not doing Allah’s will. I know these men evil. They film what they do with camera, and I know it is seen by many like them on Internet, and they cheer as my son scream.’

Andy nodded, wishing he could think of something, anything to say, that wouldn’t sound blithe and clichéd. To lose a child is the end of things, to lose a child like that is beyond comprehension.

‘My wife, she die a week later when American bomb is drop on our town to kill this leader of these militia. They drop bomb they know will destroy many house in street. My wife visiting with her sister, they living in house nearby, all dead. They did not kill this leader, but they kill my wife, and twenty other people. The Americans find out this, they take away all the bodies and they say only two or three die. They took my wife body six month ago, I never see her again I know. She is gone. I will never see body.’

‘That’s a pretty shit deal,’ grunted Mike.

Andy thought the American had been asleep. Farid turned to look at him, and for a moment he thought the Iraqi would take Mike’s comment the wrong way. He wouldn’t blame him if he did, it was a clumsy intrusion on their private conversation.

‘Pretty shit deal,’ didn’t even come close.

‘Both your people and my people take from me all that I love. I have nothing left here.’

They rode in silence for a while, the rumble of the truck’s diesel engine producing a steady, reassuring drone.

‘Between us all we really fucked over this country pretty bad, didn’t we?’ said Mike.

Andy nodded. ‘It probably could have been handled better.’

‘Stupid, careless American soldiers and evil men who say they fight for Allah, but they are haram, outside of God . . . they all fuck my country.’

Mike sat forward. ‘Tell me Farid, how the hell do you still believe in God after all this shit has happened to you? And this stuff that’s happening now, Muslims killing Muslims . . . all of this crap in the name of God. How the hell do you make sense of all of that?’

‘I have the Qur’an. It is complete, it is correct. It is God’s word. What is happen now, what we see . . . is bad work of man, not of Allah.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Mike sighed. ‘Us humans seem pretty good at screwing most things up.’

Andy turned to look at the American. That seemed like an interesting step for someone like him to take.

‘So Farid,’ said Andy, ‘where do you want to go?’

‘I have brother who go to Great Britain many year back. He is all my family now. I join him.’

Andy reached over again and rested a hand on his arm. ‘We’ll get you there old man, I promise you that.’

He looked around the truck. The lads were all asleep. And there was Erich, watching quietly. He nodded courteously.