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By Root 973 0

accident. Death by drowning in the desert seemed a fitting end to this farcical adventure. It has been a waste of friends from beginning to end. Prince Kalash, without turning his head, reached back and seized my arm with his huge hand. The helicopter made an abrupt turn, the horizon revolving beyond its perspex cabin. When it resumed course I looked downwards and saw Paul Christopher and Zofia Miernik standing on a bald hill. They were holding hands, calmly watching the helicopter as it settled to the ground, raising dervishes of sand around them. I learnt that Miernik was dead. Christopher had found him with Ilona’s Exakta beside him. That discovery answered the question as to the purpose of the homing device. Prince Kalash and I were left alone on the desert when the helicopter left to take Christopher and Zofia back to the palace. We found Miernik’s body not far from the place where the helicopter had landed. Prince Kalash gazed stolidly at the abused and bloated body of his friend. I said: “Odd that they should have killed only Miernik, isn’t it?” Prince Kalash shrugged. “Miernik was the one they found,” he said. “With how much help?” I asked. The prince went still like the future amir he is. “My dear Nigel,” he said at last. “Miernik was bound to be killed by his friends. Be glad you didn’t have to do it.” He took my arm and walked me away from the corpse.

85. FROM THE DEBRIEFING OF ZOFLA MIERNIK.

After we found my brother’s body, Paul made the only mistake I’ve known him to be guilty of. He took the wrong fork of the wadi. A few miles east of where we found Tadeusz, the dry stream branched off—one section led straight into Malha, where the road to El Fasher begins, and the other ran south, parallel to the road. Paul wanted to go to Malha but somehow we got off on the second wadi. Normally, Paul would have checked the route with the compass. I suppose he was not himself after finding Tadeusz. He omitted some of the precautions he usually took. By the time he realized his mistake, we were too far along to turn back. Besides, he was not anxious to drive in the direction of the bandits. He told me later he had seen their camp from the hilltop where my brother died. We decided to drive down the wadi, which joined the road forty or fifty miles to the south. It was the intelligent thing to do. I was in no condition to be intelligent. Had Paul suggested walking I would have agreed.

Q. Why didn’t you camp that night, instead of pushing on?

A. Because of Tadeusz. Neither of us was sleepy, you understand. The body was beginning to decompose. We didn’t discuss it. It was perfectly plain that we had to get back to the palace as quickly as possible. Actually, we would have been all right but the Land Rover kept overheating. We had to stop every few moments to let it cool off. Finally Paul did something to the radiator—removed the thermostat, I think—and after that it ran better. Nevertheless, we were still in the bed of the wadi when night fell. Darkness comes like the closing of a nursery door out there. We continued, but much more slowly, because the headlights were not much help. It’s not like a road, it’s like driving on the snow—you cannot see the difference between the road and its edges. Paul had to concentrate very hard to keep us in the stream bed. Otherwise I think he would have heard the water coming down the wadi behind us, or sensed that something was wrong. That’s how much faith I have in Paul Christopher—he would have needed a sixth sense to have saved us. A wall of water in the desert? Who could imagine such a thing? I didn’t even know it was the rainy season.

When the water did come, it was a total surprise. I was just seized by it and flung away. One instant I was sitting in the Land Rover and the next I was at the bottom of a river. I didn’t believe my senses. I thought I had gone insane. I expected to see Paul beside me at any moment, to be back in the Land Rover. I was astonished. Quite rationally I said to myself, “I didn’t know that Tadeusz’s murder and riding with his body behind me had such an