'I don't want a foul-up,' said Mann. He tucked a napkin into his collar, and leaned forward over the table, sniffing at the mezze and pushing the dishes aside until he came to the platter of hot lobster. He speared a large piece of it.
'Nothing will go wrong,' said Percy. He gave the servant the emptied tray, and indicated that he would serve the coffee himself. The boy withdrew. 'I'll drive,' said Percy. 'I know these roads. I've spent the best part of twenty years going into the desert. But the roads over the mountains are dangerous and narrow, with hairpin bends, crowded villages and bus-drivers who know only the horn and accelerator. If a man is young enough and reckless enough…' Percy paused,'… to say nothing of frightened enough, he'll outstrip any car that follows him.'
'Or get killed himself,' said Mann, with a large piece of lobster in his mouth.
'Or get killed himself,' said Percy, as he picked up a knife and fork. 'There's local beer or ouzo, or you can continue with the Jack Daniels.'
'And when you get over the mountains?' asked Mann. He leaned back in the delicate chair until it creaked, and then held a speared chunk of lobster aloft, chewing pieces from it and nodding approval at the flavour.
'The high plateau and then more mountains — the Ouled Nail — before you reach Laghouat, where the real desert begins: about 400 kilometres in all.'
'By that time they will know they are being followed,' said Mann.
'My dear fellow,' said Percy. He chuckled. 'He'll know he's being followed before you're in the hills, before you're out of the suburbs even. If you were hoping to be inconspicuous, forget it. At this time of year there will be hardly any private cars down there in the desert. He'll see your dust for a hundred kilometres.'
Mann prodded at some cubes of grilled cheese before putting one into his mouth. They were very hot. He tried not to show his discomfort, although tears came into his eyes.
'I think Percy should drive,' I said.
Mann clamped a napkin to his mouth, nodded, looked up to see if anyone was watching him, and finally swallowed the burning-hot cheese.
'That's settled then,' said Percy and reached for the same grilled cheese cubes. He put three of them into his mouth and chewed impassively. I realized then that it was the similarity of their upbringing that made them so antagonistic. Exchange Percy's public school for the Mid-West military academy where Mann's estranged parents had sent him, and each would have become the other.
It was the small hours before the Algerian jet arrived at Algiers Airport. Mrs Bekuv must have known that we'd be waiting for her on the other side of the barrier. Whatever kind of deal the men from the Russian Trade Delegation made with the authorities, it included permission for her to leave the airport on the far side. We almost missed her altogether — but Percy's pal in Immigration tipped us off, and we gave chase.
They were in a Landrover: the two Bekuvs, Red Bancroft and the driver who had delivered the vehicle. It was that dark hour before dawn that you read about in books, and the windscreen was awash with rain and the car ahead of us no more than a blurred dribble of yellow headlights, with a couple of red dots when the driver stabbed the brakes.
We didn't speak much, the noise of the engine, the heavy rain and the thrash of the wipers made it necessary for Percy to shout. 'This bloke's damned good, and I'll tell you that for nothing!'
We were climbing. The villages were shuttered and silent. As we roared through them, there came the answering bellow of our reflected sound. All the time the rain continued. The tyres were uncertain on the steep, twisting road. Percy clawed at the steering-wheel as each hairpin revealed another hairpin, and soon the windscreen flashed pink with the raw light of dawn.
'We've got him on speed,' said Percy, 'but he's got the better traction. Damn you!' He blasted the horn as a man on a mule swayed out into our path. 'It's like that game that children play — stones, paper and scissors — there's no telling yet what will prove the most important.'
They know we're behind them,' said Mann.
'A driver like that,' said Percy with unconcealed admiration, 'has already calculated our tyre pressures and how much I had to drink last night.'
The sun came up very quickly, its light intermittently extinguished by the black clouds that were racing across the sky, and its almost horizontal rays shafting into our eyes, and twisting with every movement of the car. Percy slammed the sun visor fully down but it didn't help much.
They began to force the pace now, and the road became more difficult. On one side there were steep banks, pine trees and outcrops of vertical rock; on the other a sheer drop over an unmarked edge. And not all the road was hard. More than once, a sudden patch of loose surface hammered the metal underside, sent the car sliding and made the wheels spin.
Percy stared ahead, concentrating on the road's nearside edge, hitting the accelerator as soon as a curve could be seen as nothing more than a kink. He used the camber of the road too, steering up it — at an angle to the road's direction — to get maximum traction and the burst of acceleration that it provided. For one section of the road we were actually leaping into the air from one camber to the next.
'Christ,' said Mann the first time Percy did it, but the jarring crash as the car landed back on the road caused him to bite his tongue and fall sideways across the back seat.
'Hold tight,' said Percy and gave a fruity chuckle. Mann swore through his teeth.
Ahead of us, the Landrover disappeared in a fountain of spray as it hit a rain-filled ridge and was jolted up into the air. Percy pumped the brakes releasing the pressure each time the car's front dipped on its suspension. By the time we reached the ridge our speed was down to forty. The other car had spilled enough of the rainwater for us to see the ragged series of potholes. Percy flicked the steering, to hit it on a curving path and so bring the outer wheels — with the lighter loading — over the deepest hole.
In spite of all his skill we landed with a brain-shattering thump, and a terrible groan of metal. Mann clasped his hands upon his head in an effort to save himself more pain.
But the Landrover was also having problems. There were four of them crowded into it and the big bump must have shaken them up for they had slowed enough for us to be eating their spray.
'Grab her ass,' said Mann. Percy moved-up close and now we could see that Mrs Bekuv was the driver.. For a couple of miles we raced along together.
'It's in the soft sand where they will laugh at us,' said Percy. 'With that four-wheel drive they can crawl off into the desert and come back to the macadam again while we're still digging.'
'You brought sand-mats?' said Mann, all ready for a row.
'What are sand-mats?' said Percy, tilting his head to see Mann's reaction in the mirror. Mann gave a humourless smile and said nothing.
Although the sun was up, the rain cloud obscured it. A few yellow lights high on the road ahead of us fast became a village. The Landrover's horn echoed in the narrow street. Scarcely slowing, we followed them through the twisting alleys. A sudden scream of brakes told us that Mrs Bekuv had seen a huge desert bus, parked in the middle of the road, but the Landrover raced on, its speed scarcely checked. Avoiding a head-on collision by only the narrowest of margins, the Landrover lurched as it climbed on to the footpath and screamed through the narrow gap. Percy followed. Men and women scattered. There was a snowstorm of chicken feathers, as hens broke loose from the roof-rack of the bus, and flailed through the air, and a sickening thump as one of them struck the side of the car. Then we were through, and on the mountain road again. The surface was loose gravel and Percy dropped back as some of it hit our windscreen.