Liberation Day Read Free Page B

there’ll be one Algerian fewer for you to govern when you get back. But don’t worry, he was a bad guy.”
    As the sound of the vehicle faded in the direction of Oran, we all raised our heads slowly above the lip to scan the rock and sandy ground. The constant noise of crickets, or whatever they called them here, rattled into the night.
    The fuel compound was an oasis of yellow light and bright enough to make me squint until my eyes adjusted. It was just under two hundred yards to my half-left. From my perspective the tanks were sitting side by side, surrounded by the bung. To the right of them was the not-so-neat row of fuel trucks.
    The perimeter of the compound was guarded by a ten-foot-high chain-link fence, sagging in places where the trucks had backed into it over the years.
    In the far corner of the compound, by the gate that faced the road, was the security hut. It was no more than a large garden shed. The security was for fire watch just as much as for stopping the trucks and fuel disappearing during the night; the depot had no automatic fire system in the event of a leak or explosion. Lotfi told us there was a solitary guy sitting inside, and if the whole thing ignited it would presumably be his job to get on the phone.
    That was good for us, because it meant we didn’t have to spend time neutralizing any fire-fighting apparatus or alarms. What was bad was the police barracks. A complete fuck-up on our side was only a phone call and three miles away. If we got caught it would be serious shit. Algeria wasn’t exactly known for upholding human rights, no one would be coming to help us, no matter what we said, and terrorists were routinely whipped to death in this neck of the woods.

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    T he target house was to the right of us, and closer than the compound. The wall that surrounded it was a large, square, high-sided construction of plastered brick, painted a color that had once been cream. It was built very much in the Muslim tradition of architecture, for privacy. The main door faced the fuel tanks, and we knew from the satellite that it was rarely used. I couldn’t even see it from where I was, because the lights in the compound weren’t strong enough. From the shots Lotfi had taken during the CTR, I knew it consisted of a set of large, dark, wooden double doors rising to an apex, studded and decorated with wrought iron. The pictures had also shown a modern shutter-type garage door at the side, facing away from us toward the road. A dirt track connected it with the main drag.
    Inside the high protection was a long, low building. It wasn’t exactly palatial, but showed that the fuel and teabag business paid Zeralda well enough for him to have his own little playground.
    Double doors from quite a lot of the rooms opened onto a series of tiled courtyards decorated with plants and fountains, but what the satellite photographs hadn’t been able to show us was which room was which. That didn’t really matter, though. The house wasn’t that big and it was all on one floor, so it shouldn’t take us long to find where Zeralda was doing his entertaining.
    The paved road flanked the far side of these two areas and formed the base of the triangular peninsula.
    Lotfi moved back down into the dead ground and started to scramble along in the darkness to his left, just below the lip. As we followed, two cars raced along the road, blowing their horns at each other in rhythmic blasts before eventually disappearing into the darkness. I’d read that eighty percent of men under the age of thirty were jobless in this country and inflation was in high double figures. How anybody could afford fast cars was beyond me. I could only just about afford my motorbike.
    We got level with the tanks and moved up to the lip of the high ground. Hubba-Hubba took off his bergen and fished out the wire cutters and a two-foot square of red velvet curtain material, while we put on and adjusted the black-and-white-check shemags that would hide