JOHN CARR WAS jolted awake by an elbow to the ribs and Geordie Skelton telling everyone to wake up.

He glanced at his watch: gone two.

‘Checkpoint, mate,’ said Geordie, out of the corner of his mouth.

Carr was instantly wide awake and alert, and feeling suddenly very vulnerable without a weapon.

Up ahead, he could see a pickup parked next to a bi-lingual sign which read ‘Mareth’.

A guy in dark clothing was standing in the middle of the road, an AK47 over his right shoulder and his left hand signalling them to stop.

Three others were leaning against the vehicle, smoking and holding their weapons casually.

‘This looks dodgy,’ he said.

He glanced out of the side window: through the darkened glass, under a blue sky that stretched forever, he could see a flat expanse of desert, picked out with regimented rows of palm trees fed by some unseen oasis, and then the beginnings of the small town.

‘Everything okay, mate?’ said Geordie, to the driver. ‘Not fucking militia, are they?’

‘No,’ said Firas, over his shoulder. ‘Army border patrol.’

‘Are we not a bit far from the border yet for that, man?’ said Geordie.

‘They operate all the way up and down this road,’ said Firas. ‘It should be okay. Everybody be cool.’

‘Who’s he think he is?’ said Fred West, under his breath. ‘George fucking Clooney?’

The VW Transporter was slowing, and it rolled to a stop ten feet or so short of the guy in the road.

That forced him to walk towards the vehicle, creating a little separation between him and his oppos.

Good drills, thought Carr.

Maybe Firas had been trained better than he’d thought.

The guy with the AK was spinning his hand, indicating that the window should be lowered.

Firas complied.

‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he said, in Arabic, with a genial smile.

‘Where you going?’ said the guy.

Carr saw now that he was wearing a dusty uniform shirt with a name tag which said ‘el Jaziri’.

‘Down to Ksar,’ said Firas, with a shrug, and a weary shake of the head. ‘These people. Their movies.’

‘You’ve left it late. It’ll be dark before you get there.’

‘We got caught behind a big pile-up by Haffuz,’ said Firas. ‘We were there a couple of hours. I told them we should try again tomorrow, but…’ He tailed off.

El Jaziri poked his head in and looked at the four men. He had a hooked nose and piercing eyes, which ran quickly over them all.

‘Star Wars?’ he said, dismissively. ‘It’s for kids, isn’t it? These are grown men.’

‘Westerners,’ said Firas, with another shrug. ‘You know what they’re like.’

‘Show me their passports,’ said el Jaziri.

‘They left them back at their hotel,’ said Firas. ‘Only their second day here. They don’t know the rules.’

El Jaziri stood back.

‘Get out of the vehicle,’ he snapped.