Not far away there was something black showing in the sand: my feet had brought it to the surface; it lay at the edge of my tracks. It was plumage and as I pulled it upwards the wing rose, scattering sand, and then the gross black body with its bald head dangling, the hooked beak agape. The bird, like the man, had died screaming.

There was another, so near the man that in moving his body, turning it over, I had exposed part of its wing. The heat didn't seem so bad now and I was moving more quickly, a sense of purpose reviving the organism. I made a direct line to the end of the dune where his feet had pointed, and tripped again, dislodging a peaked cap from a man's head. His body was in the same attitude: he'd been running away from the freighter. His face had the same expression.

A third vulture was lying at the foot of the dune. I was kicking into the thing before I knew it. I didn't stop to examine it because the renewed strength in me was pushing me onwards and the fourth time I drove the tube into the sand it struck metal.

Distance 485 yards. Bearing 200°. Longitude 8°3′ by Latitude 30°4′.

Tango Victor.

I used the tubing like an oar, bringing the sand away but only enough to guide me. This was the leading edge of the tailplane and I moved across the flank of the dune and began probing again. It was already clear that the bodies had been lying only just below the surface because they were to the north of the freighter, in the lee of the dune: it had been the south wind that had done this, theGhibli.

The sand fell away as I worked at the area aft of the trailing edge, port mainplane. It was where the door of the cabin was likely to be. For a while I missed it because it had been left wide open and I was actually digging through the drift of sand that had formed in the cabin itself between the pilot's compartment and the freight section. The heat was intense because the fuselage had become a quartz-coated oven and I gave it a couple of minutes and came away.

It seemed twice as far to the canopy and I drank some water and dropped prone and let the muscles go but the hammering didn't stop, must do better than this, body had to keep going because there was work for the mind, still had a mission running and we'd found the objective, not long now. The hammering shook me, colours throbbing behind the eyes and the skin perfectly dry, rather worrying, the bout of renewed energy had been dangerous, keep still, just keep still.

Tango.

I didn't answer, didn't move, you want to live, you've got to keep still. Breathing difficult, the weight of the shoulders compressing the lungs, roll over, over and lie still, a thin cackling from somewhere, unearthly sound, coming again, a high cackling above the canopy, they'd seen the two bodies.

Tango.

Don't move. Don't even think, brain function heat-productive.

The spread nylon bluish above me and motionless, the air totally calm, my arms melting into the sand, my legs dissolving, the nerves inert, the pain of the bruises ebbing, the body cradled in euphoria, control it, stay just this side of unconsciousness, the hammering fainter and less insistent, the lungs filling of their own accord, the healing process taking over from the stress syndrome, lie still and all will be well.

Moisture gathering on the skin, the skin cooling, the heart-rhythm slowing, the colours receding from the optic nerve, order restored.

Tango.

I opened up the transmit.

Hear you.

A sound from someone farther away, obviously Diane, a soft intake of breath. I suppose they'd been getting edgy because I hadn't answered for a while.

Loman asked:

Have you a problem?

Not now. I've found the plane.

Three or four seconds.

Congratulations.

Poor little bastard, saved by the bell, the whole bloody mission back in his hands, quite overcome. He was asking me for a report.

1 can't tell you much yet; I've only just started. Thing's covered with sand. Both crew were running away from it when they died.

Please take photographs.

I'm going to. Oh you mean of the crew?

Yes.

I thought for a bit.

I've moved them.

That doesn't matter. Photograph their faces.

I didn't like it at all.

Loman, have you any idea what's inside that plane?

No. I am merely passing on instructions from London.

I believed him because there couldn't be any reason for him to withhold information at this stage: his executive was going into a hazardous area and wanted all the help he could get. The blackout on this cargo was so total that Control wouldn't even tell the director in the field, a man of Loman's status.

Play it by the book for a change and consider demanding information from London before proceeding. Loman would have to signal if I asked him: executive requests details as to type of hazard, so forth. It wouldn't be unreasonable because commercial aircrews are not timorous men and these two had run clear of Tango Victor with the fear of Christ in them and I was expected to go in there and find out why.

Loman.

Hear you.

Have you any idea of the risk, I mean how big?

He thought about that.

No. You say the crew were running away from the aeroplane when they died. Do they look as if they were frightened?

Terrified.

It was perfectly clear to us both that London had an idea what had killed Holt and his navigator: the instructions had been for me to take photographs of their expressions.

Do you want me to signal Control about this?

I thought that was rather civil of him.

Because he didn't fancy it at all. He'd got his ferret right up against the quarry and ready for the kill and he didn't want to disturb it. The moment I went off the air he'd switch channels and send to London through the Embassy in Tunis: Q Quaker now destin objiv point. It's theonly signal that makes any kind of bang throughout the departments concerned withthe specific mission and it would give Loman a lot of joy to send it. Toask for additional information would just cause delay and he knew we couldn't afford it but he was still ready to do it if I insisted.

From here I could see the dark hole in the dune and all I had to do was walk over there and go inside and complete the mission: all they wanted was a batch of pictures and a taped report on Tango Victor's cargo and it probably wouldn't take more than half an hour and then Loman could pull me out and we'd go home, a crash-priority operation at PM level completed inside seventy-two hours of Tilson's briefing me in London.

Not really the time to tell them the executive in the field had got goosefiesh,

Loman.

Hear you.

They realize this cargo could be dangerous,

Yes.

They probably know what it is,

Yes.

Why would they decide to keep us uninformed on this, even though it's going to wreck the whole mission if I'mkilled?

He answered almost at once and I knew he'd been waiting for this question and had prepared the reply.

I can only think that the area is so sensitive that the risk might be greater if their knowledge were passed on to us,

I'd expected that.

You're talking about implemented interrogation.

Yes.

At any phase?

At every phase, including this one.

I was going to ask him how he worked that one out but it was simple enough when I gave it a second thought and I was suitably warned: brain function wasn't satisfactory, the heat and everything, and the worry about what was inside that black hole over there. What he meant was that in Kaifra he was exposed to the risk of capture and interrogation by an opposition cell and that if it was implemented by the usual pain-stimulus methods he would probably give them information. The info he already possessed was lethal if it got into the wrong hands but without it he couldn't have taken over as director: it was just that London was scared of adding to it unless they had to.