They had been driving in a convoy for three days, following a wearisome trail that seemed as old as time and probably was, their destination Timbuktu. The lead vehicle paused as the column emerged in a flat valley, and Daniel Holley called a water stop. He stood up beside the driver of the front vehicle and focused his binoculars on the desolation. He wore a Bedouin cloak of blue called a burnous, the hood hanging behind, and the dark blue turban of a Tuareg, the face veil hooked back. His only concession to modernity was a Glock seventeen-round pistol at his belt, whereas the weapon hanging from his shoulder was a Lee Enfield bolt-action, single-round .303 rifle, standard issue to the British Army in two world wars. The men in all five Sand Cruisers dressed in a similar way, varying only by their choice of weapons, and an air of general menace radiated from them. There was a murmur from some of the men as they drank, but otherwise silence, and then two riders appeared, spaced well apart, on the rim of a vast sand dune some two hundred yards away.
