Page 10 of Never
‘We’re about to find out.’
One of the paramilitaries approached the driver’s window, yelling fiercely. Ali rolled down his window and yelled back in dialect. Pete picked up his carbine from the floor, but kept it low in his lap. The man at the window waved his gun in the air.
Tab seemed calm, but to Tamara this looked like an explosive situation.
An older man in an army cap and a denim shirt with holes in it pointed a rifle at the windscreen.
Pete responded by bringing his carbine to his shoulder.
Tab said: ‘Easy, Pete.’
‘I won’t fire first,’ Pete said.
Tab reached over the back of the seat into the rear of the car and pulled a T-shirt out of a cardboard box. Then he got out of the car.
Tamara said anxiously: ‘What are you doing?’
Tab did not answer.
He walked forward, with several guns trained on him, and Tamara put her fist in her mouth.
But Tab did not seem scared. He approached the denim shirt, who pointed his rifle straight at Tab’s chest.
Speaking Arabic, Tab said: ‘Good day to you, captain. I am with these foreigners today.’ He was pretending to be some kind of guide or escort. ‘Please allow them to pass.’ Then he turned back to the car and shouted, still in Arabic: ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! These are my brothers!’ Switching to English, he shouted: ‘Pete, lower the gun.’
Reluctantly, Pete moved the rifle butt from his shoulder and held the gun diagonally across his chest.
After a pause, the denim shirt lowered his rifle.
Tab handed the T-shirt to the man, who unfolded it. It was dark blue with a red-and-white vertical stripe, and after a moment’s thought Tamara figured it was the uniform shirt of Paris Saint-Germain, the most popular soccer team in France. The man beamed delightedly.
Tamara had wondered why Tab had brought that cardboard box with him. Now she knew.
The man took off his old shirt and pulled the new one over his head.
The atmosphere changed. The soldiers crowded around, admiring the shirt, then looked expectantly at Tab. Tab turned to the car and said: ‘Tamara, pass me the box, please?’
She reached into the rear and picked up the box then handed it through the open car door. Tab gave them all a shirt.
The soldiers looked thrilled and several of them put the shirts on.
Tab shook the hand of the man he had called ‘captain’, saying: ‘Ma’a as-salaama,’ goodbye. He returned to the car with the nearly empty box, got in, slammed the door, and said: ‘Go, Ali, but slowly.’
The car crept forward. The happy gangsters waved Ali to a prepared route along the verge of the road, skirting the parked truck. On the far side Ali steered back to the road.
As soon as the tyres touched the concrete surface, Ali floored the pedal and the car roared away from the roadblock.
Tab put his box into the rear.
Tamara let out a long breath of relief. She turned to Tab and said: ‘You were so cool! Weren’t you scared?’
He shook his head. ‘They’re scary, but they don’t usually kill people.’
‘Good to know,’ said Tamara.
CHAPTER 2
Four weeks earlier Abdul had been two thousand miles away in the lawless West African country of Guinea-Bissau, classified a narco state by the United Nations. It was a hot, wet place with a monsoon season that poured and dripped and steamed for half the year.
