On deck, they sprawled exhausted. 'For God's sake,' Hal Stone said. 'What went on down there? The Third World War? I looked over the stern rail.

I could see.'

'We were attacked,' Dillon said. 'A guy named Kelly, ex-SAS. Head of security for the Rashids. The other two seemed Arab.'

'Jesus,' Harry Salter said. 'It must be the bird, that Lady Kate Rashid.'

'Oh, I think you can count on that, Harry. We're an encumbrance, a serious one.'

'Which means only one thing,' Hal Stone said. 'Whatever they're up to here, it's still something that could fail.'

'Yes, I'm inclined to agree with you.' Dillon got up. 'Let's get a shower, Billy, and clean clothes, then we'll go and book dinner at the Excelsior. Who knows who might be there?'

Hal Stone stayed on board as Dillon, Harry, and Billy went to the Excelsior. The bar was not all that busy, and the restaurant was almost empty, Arab workers standing waiting. There were white linen tablecloths, silver, crystal, just like the old days.

They sat in deep chairs by the bar. Dillon ordered a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, then called Villiers on his mobile.

Villiers said, 'Still with us, Dillon?'

'Only just.' Dillon filled him in.

Villiers said, 'It reinforces what I said. Whatever is going on is damned important. Keep me posted.'

They sat talking, and Lady Kate Rashid drifted into the bar, Bell with her. Dillon got up. 'Watch my back, Billy, Costello's out there on the terrace.' He walked to the bar, Billy leaned on the other end and looked toward Costello, then he took out his Browning and put it on the bar.

Dillon said, 'They tell me the food's not bad here.'

'It's not Le Caprice, but it's okay.' 'Aidan here would be happier with Irish stew, but you can't have everything. I hope you're not looking for Kelly?' She went very still. 'He rather foolishly attacked Billy and me down on the freighter. It got very nasty. Knives, air hoses being slashed, quite messy. The last I saw of him, he was on the bottom, very dead indeed, along with two Arab divers. Rather stupid, Kate.' 'You shite, Dillon,' Bell said. 'Oh, come on, Aidan, did you want me to roll over and die?'

Bell smiled reluctantly. 'You'd never do that.' 'Never, so if you don't mind, Billy and I will go back to the diving now.'

Bell burst into laughter and turned to Kate. 'And if you believe that, you'll believe anything.'

The next day, Bell and his three friends crammed into a Cessna 310 and flew up to a landing strip near Shabwa Oasis, where they were met by George Rashid, who was dressed as a Bedu.

'I'll take you to the road to the Holy Wells,' he said. 'We want you to know the situation exactly.'

He led the way to a triple-benched Jeep, sat in the front with a driver, and Bell and his men got in behind. They drove through the heat, the dust rising.

Costello said, 'What a bloody country.'

'It separates the men from the boys,' George Rashid said. 'And one other thing that's very important for you to understand – this area here, where Hazar borders the Empty Quarter? It's always been disputed territory, which means no one has legal jurisdiction. You could kill the Pope here and no one could do anything about it.'

'Well, that's useful,' Bell said.

They stopped at the main Rashid camp at Shabwa Oasis to refuel and renew water supplies, and took the opportunity to eat.

Costello said, 'What is this?'

'It's goat stew with rice,' George Rashid told them.

Costello said, 'Excuse me.' He went some little distance away and was sick behind a palm tree.

When he returned, George Rashid said, 'Are you all right, Mr Costello?'

'Not really. On the other hand, when you worked South Armagh with One Para, I'll lay odds you ate pub food in every village.'

'Absolutely.' George grinned. 'Irish potatoes and bread and cabbage in season.'

'Screw you,' Costello said. 'You're making it worse.'

Bell said, 'Come on, let's go and look at the site, then we can go back to Hazar and get you an egg sandwich, Pat.'

The road ran through a defile between shallow stone outcrops, and beyond it sand dunes marched away to the horizon. The Jeep pulled in on a slope and George got out.

'That one spot there, below where the road is, is not in the open. It's the obvious place for an ambush. The Holy Wells are ten miles east.'

'Let's take a look.'

Bell led the way into the defile, followed by George and the others. It was quiet down there, the sides of the defile rising three hundred feet.

Bell said, 'We'll make it a line bomb, boys, one side of the road to the other. I'll do it up with Costello. You two can set up with a light machine gun on that ridge. Lay down covering fire. Take out anyone left.'

George said, 'Well, that looks pretty damned good to me.'

'So – we'll go back to Hazar and check on the supplies you have to offer.'

'Whatever you need, you get,' George said and led the way back to the Jeep.

Hal Stone called Dillon, Harry and Billy to the stern deck of the Sultan under the awning.

'I've been checking with my local contacts, and George Rashid, Bell and his friends flew up-country in a Three-Ten. Landed near Shabwa, stayed a couple of hours and came back.'

'And we don't know why?' Dillon said.

'I'm afraid not. I have my boys sniffing around for rumours, but nothing's come up.'

Dillon thought about it, then said, 'If we flew up to Shabwa, would it make a difference?'

'As regards finding things out? I'm not sure, and what do you mean by we?'

'Well, for starters, I can fly anything. I don't need a pilot, just a plane.'

'That's interesting. Ben Carver, who owns Carver Air Transport, has two Three-Tens and a Golden Eagle, just for local flights.'

'Fine, so hire me a plane. Harry, Billy, and I will fly to Shabwa and nose around.'

'Well, if that's what you want to do,' Stone said, 'I'll arrange it.'

At the villa, Kate Rashid was working on company papers when her mobile rang. George said, 'I've had word from a source in Hazar, Dillon and the Salters are flying up to Shabwa in one of Carver's Three-Tens. Dillon's piloting.'

'I sometimes think he has a death wish,' Kate said.

'What do we do?'

'I'm getting tired of him, brother. Shoot Dillon and his friends out of the sky.' 'A pleasure,' George Rashid said.

Later in the day, the 310 coasted toward Shabwa, Billy and Harry sitting behind Dillon, the sky a deep blue, the sand dunes, some three hundred feet high, stretching to infinity. Dillon throttled back, eased the control column, slid over an enormous dune and saw below him a column of three vehicles, all crammed with men. The next thing he knew, they were firing at him.

The windscreen and a side window shattered, and Harry cried out as a splinter sliced his right cheek. A burst of machine-gun fire cut into the port wing. Dillon hauled back, banked away, and boosted speed. The column disappeared behind them, but the engines coughed angrily, and then first the port, then the starboard engine, cut out. Silence enveloped them, broken only by the wind.

The sand dune in front was five hundred feet high. Billy said, 'Christ, Dillon, I've never seen anything like it.'

'Well, Brighton Beach it isn't, Billy. Hang on, you two.'

Dillon hauled back on the column, scraped across the ridge and drifted down to a soft sand plain below. The plane bounced a couple of times, wheels up, then ploughed to a halt. Dillon switched off.

'You two okay?'

Salter said, 'That's it. No more foreign holidays. After this, I won't even do a day trip to Calais.'

Dillon got the door open and scrambled out over the wing. Billy and his uncle followed. Harry said, 'What happens now?'

'They'll come looking,' Dillon said. 'If you want my opinion, they knew it was us, if you follow me.'