He flung open the door of the Polo, but it came away clean in his hand. The car had been caught in the crossfire as Porter and Hassad had opened fire with their AK-47s and been shot to pieces. The windscreen had been shattered and the petrol tank pierced, spilling its fuel out over the ground. It was a miracle the thing hadn’t gone up in flames.

‘Sod it,’ he muttered. ‘Now we’ve no transport.’

‘We can’t walk,’ snapped Hassad. ‘It’s still a hundred miles to the Israeli border.’

Porter nodded to the petrol station a mile up the road. He waved his AK-47, then slipped it over his shoulder, making sure he slipped a fresh mag of ammo into place as he did so. ‘Then we’ll just have to borrow one,’ he said. ‘And I reckon one of these could be pretty persuasive.’

He still didn’t have a watch on, but by now he reckoned it must be at least eleven on Saturday morning. The sun had risen in the sky, but it wasn’t especially hot: no more than a mild twenty degrees centigrade. He was still carrying Katie on his back, though. He was cut, bruised and exhausted. And he had no idea when, if ever, they were going to get home.

They paused a hundred metres short of the filling station. It was a small place. Four pumps on a dusty forecourt, with a back office and a repair shop. Porter reckoned the best plan was to wait for a driver to pull up, then hit him just after he’d paid for his petrol. If you’re going to nick a car, you might as well take one with a full tank, he told himself with a half-smile.

The mechanic glanced up at them suspiciously as he walked across the forecourt to the car he was working on. Maybe he’s seen the guns on our backs, thought Porter. Or maybe this is the kind of road where you don’t talk to strangers. He scanned the highway. A couple of trucks rolled by, then a van, but nobody was stopping for petrol. It was Saturday morning, and business was probably slow anyway.

Porter put Katie down at the side of the road. Hassad was sitting next to her, gripping the side of his shoulder with his hand. ‘I need a doctor,’ he said. ‘I’m hurt.’

Glancing towards him, Porter couldn’t see what the fuss was about. There was blood where the knife had cut into him, but it was only a field injury. ‘You’ll be OK,’ he snapped. ‘Once we get to the border, you can get yourself sorted.’

‘I need a doctor now,’ he said. ‘There a place nearby we can go. It’s safe.’

Porter shrugged. What we really need is a drink. But I suppose it isn’t going to do us any harm to get ourselves fixed up before we try to travel much further. God knows how many more people are going to attack us before we manage to get across into Israel.