So with one cardinal rule broken, he thought fuck it and broke another. There was enough dead wood around to build a fire in a nook among the rocks and set up a basic spit, over which he roasted hunks of his catch. Few things had ever tasted so good, and he ate until he was full. Whatever was left over would sustain him far better than dried rations for a few more days, until he reached – or hoped to reach – Rigby Cahill’s lost city of Zakara. He washed his meal down with fresh rainwater and sat back against a rock, deciding he’d rest here for an hour or two before moving on again.

Ben must have drifted off at some point as his exhaustion finally caught up with him. How long he slept he had no idea, except that evening had started to fall as he found himself suddenly jolted from a vivid and unsettling dream that was now instantly forgotten as his eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright, as startled as the goat he’d killed earlier.

Because there was a man standing there over him.

A man draped in Afghan mountain garb, with ammo bandoliers draped crosswise around his shoulders, a turban wrapped around his head and his face partly covered by a scarf to protect against the dust and wind. There was a Kalashnikov rifle in his hands, and it was pointed right at Ben.

Chapter 20

Ben’s mind was still swimming and foggy from his deep sleep. To be caught literally napping like this was something that had never happened to him before. Blinking, he threw a glance over at where his squad weapon lay propped against the rocks, too far out of reach to grab without the stranger firing first. Then Ben remembered his pistol, which he’d left resting on top of his pack to the other side of him. He instinctively darted out a hand to snatch it up.

But then he stopped.

The stranger gently shook his head as though to berate him. ‘Now, now,’ he said. ‘Is that any way to greet an old friend?’

The stranger spoke perfect English. And now that Ben’s wits were coming back to him, he saw that the man’s eyes watching him with a kind of amused sparkle were the palest grey-blue in colour. Most Afghans were of Pashtun origin ethnically, with brown eyes. But more than that, even before the man spoke Ben had sensed there was something oddly familiar about him.

Ben stared, his outreached hand still hovering halfway to his pistol. Trying to place where he’d seen the stranger before. Who was this person who’d suddenly appeared, as though out of nowhere, out here in the middle of the wilderness?