“No,” he said, defensively. “This is my road. I got authorisation. Don’t need to speak to no one else.”

“That’s great. Can we go, then? I’ve got to start filming this tonight, and I need to scout a location. I could really do without the hold-up.”

He looked across the cab of the jeep to his mate, who was still wearing his dark glasses. The man shrugged back at him.

“Ah, shit, why not. But stay on the road, alright? There are plenty of minefields on either side. You go the wrong way, you’re liable to get blown to kingdom come.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

Faulkner put the jeep into gear again, and they left the two soldiers standing on the side of the road.

“They’re well equipped,” she assessed, “at least when it comes to gear. Maybe not the smartest soldiers on the planet.”

“They get better,” Faulkner assured her.

Chapter Seventeen

The closer they got to the oilfield, the more Beatrix could smell the money. It oozed from deep under the featureless expanse of desert where oil derricks and natural gas wells sprouted among sand and scrub. Flames gushed high above them, and the air was thick with smoke and the acrid stench of burning.

They passed through makeshift villages of narrow metal-sided buildings that rose from the dunes, temporary housing to accommodate the workers who were needed to exploit the largest claim of crude oil in recent history. Shiftless children were gathered on the street corners, staring at them as they drove by. Beatrix would have expected the townships to be prosperous places, but they were not. They looked dirt poor.

Faulkner slowed as they approached a huge compound surrounded by two-metre-high walls. A sign next to the gates declared that it was Iraq Energy City and that trespassers would be shot. There was a tall observation tower on stilts, and a soldier with a sniper rifle watched from the accommodation at the top.

Below him, a large crowd had gathered by the gate. It was composed of men and women, all of them yelling abuse at the thirty or so Manage Risk guards facing them on the other side of the gate. The guards were armed with sidearms and batons that they wore through loops on their belts.

“What is this?” Beatrix asked.

“The facility? They just finished building it. It’s offices for the companies with a stake in the field. Accommodation for the foreign workers, too.”

The protesters were chanting loudly. There must have been four or five hundred of them, and the mood was fraught and tense.

“You know what that’s about?”

“There’s been a lot of protests like this. The locals say they’re not getting a fair shake when it comes to the new jobs. They’re probably right. They’re bringing senior management over from the west, and the workers are transferring from fields in Libya, Saudi, Qatar. They prefer people they know. They don’t trust the locals. But these fields used to be owned by the people around here. They say they’re being driven out.”