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Russians were not honest with me. I have my honour to think of.'

'What about the other guards?'

'Gone to supper. All this I discovered from friends in the kitchens. The one whose place I took has suffered a severe bump on the head on the way here, by arrangement, of course. But come, Hamid awaits on the edge of the base with camels.'

They went out. He bolted the door and they followed him along the passageway quickly and moved outside. The Fasari airbase was very quiet, everything still in the moonlight.

'Look at it,' Salim said. 'No one cares. Even the sentries are at supper. Peasants in uniform.' He reached behind a steel drum which stood against the wall and produced a bundle. 'Put these on and follow me.'

They were two woollen cloaks of the kind worn by the Bedouin at night in the intense cold of the desert, each with a pointed hood to pull up. They put them on and followed him across to the hangars.

'No fence around this place, no wall,' Villiers whispered.

The desert is the only wall they need,' Levin said.

Beyond the hangars, the sand dunes lifted on either side of what looked like the mouth of a ravine. Salim said, The Wadi al Hara. It empties into the plain a quarter of a mile from here where Hamid waits.'

Villiers said, 'Had it occurred to you that Kirov may well put two and two together and come up with Salim bin al Kaman?'

'But of course. My people are already half-way to the Dhofar border by now.'

'Good,' Villiers said. That's all I wanted to know. I'm going to show you something very interesting.'

He turned towards the Sandcruiser standing nearby and pulled himself over the side while Salim protested in a hoarse whisper. 'Villiers Sahib, this is madness.'

As Villiers dropped behind the driving wheel, the Rashid clambered up into the vehicle, followed by Levin. 'I've a dreadful feeling that all this is somehow my fault,' the old Russian said. 'We are, I presume, to see the SAS in action?'

'During the Second World War, the SAS under David Stirling destroyed more Luftwaffe planes on the ground in North Africa than the RAF and Yanks managed in aerial combat. I'll show you the technique,' Villiers told him.

'Possibly another version of that bullet in the back you were talking about.'

Villiers switched on and as the engine rumbled into life, said to Salim in Arabic, 'Can you manage the machine gun?'

Salim grabbed the handles of the Degtyarev. 'Allah, be merciful. There is fire in his brain. He is not as other men.'

'Is that in the Koran, too?' Villiers demanded, and the roaring of the no horsepower engine as he put his foot down hard drowned the Arab's reply.

The Sandcruiser thundered across the tarmac. Villiers swung hard and it spun round on its half tracks and smashed the tailplane of the first MIG, continuing right down the line as he increased speed. The tailplanes of the two helicopters were too high, so he concentrated on the cockpit areas at the front, the Sandcruiser's eight tons of armoured steel crumpling the perspex with ease.

He swung round in a wide loop and called to Salim. 'The helicopters. Try for the fuel tanks.'

There was the sound of an alarm klaxon from the main administration block now, voices crying in the night and shooting started. Salim raked the two helicopters with a continuous burst and the fuel tank on the one on the left exploded, a ball of fire mushrooming into the night, burning debris cascading everywhere. A moment later, the second helicopter exploded against the MIG next to it and that also started to burn.

'That's it!' Villiers said. 'They'll all go now. Let's get out of here.'

As he spun the wheel, Salim swung the machine gun, driving back the soldiers running towards them. Villiers was aware

of Kirov standing as the men went down on the other side of the tarmac, firing his pistol deliberately in a gallant, but futile gesture. And then they were climbing up the slope of the dunes, tracks churning sand and entering the mouth of thewadi. The dried bed of the