'What thing?'

'That gun. Hasit got a full magazine?'

'Yes.'

'Is the safety-catch on?'

She had to look, tugging the thing out of her pocket as if someone had said give me that bag of toffees, I've told you before. Then she nodded.

'Yes. It's on.'

She was pleased because she'd got her lessons right and I thought oh you bastards if you rope in a child again to help us in the kind of work we do I'll have your thumbs off first and then mind your eyes.

'Do you want it?'

She was holding it out to me.

'No. Put it away.'

'All right.' She got it back into her pocket and looked up at me again and the fear was still in her eyes, I suppose because I'd made her think we were getting ready for some kind of trouble. I'd only wanted to check on the safety-catch because she might have to run and if she tripped and the thing fired it'd blow her leg off. I would have taken it away from her altogether and dropped it into a waste-bin before we left but it was just possible she could save herself with it if things got rough.

'Diane.'

'Yes?'

'We're going.'

'All right.'

'There won't be much trouble.'

'I see.'

Light eyes and a firm mouth and her bright hair in a bandeau and out there in the night a bunch of thugs who'd do what their orders were to do, shoot her down or take her somewhere and put her through forced interrogation, anything they were told to do, anything they wanted to do. I'd say her chances were fifty-fifty, the same as my own.

But the alternatives I'd come up with were riskier still and I wanted to try the break-out before the opposition control decided to send them in for us. We'd be better off in the open, with room to move.

So I told her to find a couple of white coats, the linen things the doctors used, and she drew blank in the cupboards here and had to go out and across the landing and try her luck over there. I could still hear voices from somewhere below in the building but they weren't loud. It was almost midnight and activity in the clinic was at a low level.

She came back.

'Will these do?'

'Yes. Leave them here for a minute. We're going to walk across the room, past that window. Just slowly, talking.'

'All right.'

'No, this side of me.' I took her arm. 'I want them to see you closely. But don't look out of the window.'

We got moving and before we reached the window she'd begun trembling.

'Do I do all of the talking?'

'No. We're just in conversation. The main thing is not to look out of the window. This wayabit, a few inches this way.'

If she passed too near the window she'd only present an almost black silhouette and if she were too far from it the reflected light from the walls would strike her face. I didn't want them to see her face but only the pale blue windcheater.

'Don't look out.'

'How do you know I want to?'

'You want to see for yourself who they are. A bit slower. But you wouldn't see them anyway, it's only a couple of cars parked under the trees.'

'You said there were four.'

'The other two are at the back of the building.'

'I see. It's giving me gooseflesh, knowing they're watching me now.'

'Don't worry.'

The trembling was still in her arm, under my hand. 'Why are we doing this?'

'They know you're with me here, because you must have passed this window a few times before I told you to stay clear of it. They could even have been outside when you drove up. I want to remind them, as late as possible before we leave here, that you're wearing blue.'

We reached the wall and turned round and started going back, the window on my side now. She said:

'Why did you tell me to keep clear, before?'

'I thought there was a chance they'd shoot you.'

'Why don't you think so now?'

'Because I'm still alive.'

The other window wasn't important because from the Fiat and the Citroen they couldn't see the ambulance. She was still trembling and I said: 'You'll feel all right once we get going; it's only the delayed action affecting your nerves. Can you drive a DS 90?'

'Yes. We've got one at the Embassy.'

'Fair enough. There's a DS ambulance outside. I want you to go and start it up and bring it over to the front steps.' We were clear of the window now and put on the white linen coats. 'Keep that thing tucked well in: I don't want them to see any blue. All right, we'll take the lift.'

There was nobody in the main hall. Posters about inoculation against cholera, preventive hygiene to fight sandfly trachoma: a pair of sandals lying in a corner near the door, artificial flowers on the reception desk with a faded ribbon on them. Sand gritted under our feet; there is sand everywhere in Kaifra, even inside the buildings.

'Take off your bandeau and put it in your pocket.'

'All right.'

'See the ambulance?'

'Yes.'

'I'll wait for you here on the steps.'

She went down them and I stood watching her.

There wasn't anything else we could do but this; nothing that had as much hope of working out smoothly, provided they didn't get too close a look at us. I wanted to keep the action down because she had all her life in front of her and we had a mission to run and I wasn't in fit condition to risk a major mistake.

She walked nervously, her step springing a little, but she wasn't looking around her though I knew she must be wanting to. They couldn't see her yet: it would only be when she crossed the gap made by the gates that they might see her. I could think of no reason why they should shoot. It was just that she looked small and vulnerable out there where there wasn't any cover and I wished I'd gone with her but it was too late and anyway impractical because this was part of the whole set-up: a change of image as convincing as we could make it.

She got into the ambulance and the sidelights came on and the engine started up and the pennant gave a couple of lazy flaps as she locked over and came towards the steps.

'I'll drive.'

She slid across and I got behind the wheel as quick as I could because one of the voices I'd heard on the ground floor would belong to the ambulance driver and he'd know the sound of this vehicle and wonder what was going on. I would have preferred to let her drive: she'd already established the image behind the wheel and now we'd altered it but if they weren't satisfied with what we were giving them they'd tuck in behind and we'd have to lose them and she wasn't trained for that.

'Seat-belt,' I said.

She pulled it across and buckled it.

The fuel was at three-quarters. I turned the facia-lamp rheostat to medium power, getting enough of a glow to show up my white coat but not to light my face. Then I put the heads full on and drove through the gates and turned left so that if they decided to follow us up they'd have to make a half-turn first. I could see the blue flash of the roof emergency lamp in the mirror-frames and thought about using the hee-haw but there was no traffic and it might be overdoing things.

There was a slight clang from behind us, probably the chrome-armoured tube of the oxygen unit against the cylinder because we were leaning in a close turn; and there was another sound, fainter and underlying the first and not easy to identify: possibly a piece of equipment shifting.

'You all right?'

'Yes thank you.'

'Don't worry.'

'No.'

I really thought they'd accepted the image and then some lights swung from behind us and I knew the sound I hadn't been able to identify had been the first of them starting up.

'Keep low in the seat.'

'All right.'

I kicked the throttle to bring the ratio down and the rear tyres lost traction on the sand but we weren't even picking up useful revs before the lights showed me the Citroen GT moving broadside across the road in front of us. There wasn't anything I could do because this was an avenue of close-standing palms and there was no point in trying a slide U-turn because there were lights in the mirrors now.