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neck, spread its wings and called again, ‘Kiy-ee, kiy-ee.’ It was a female, almost six years old. Females generally made better hunters than males. They were larger, had keener eyesight and were better suited temperamentally to the task. They were patient: a male would rush in and waste its energy chasing anything that moved, but the females watched and waited until sure of making a kill. It was one of the few instances in male-dominated Saudi life when the male was regarded as inferior to the female.
    Macgregor only gave the falcon water once a week. The bird took enough liquid otherwise from the blood of its prey. All the birds were weighed twice a day, first thing in the morning and last thing at night. The key to keeping a falcon alert was to make sure it wasn’t too well fed. Overfeeding led to laziness, but underfeeding made it resentful and testy. The trick was to keep it just hungry enough to make it a determined hunter. The Saker hunted every day under Macgregor’s watchful eye, and the old man flew it several times a week, as he did all his hunting birds. The falcons were trained in the cool air of the early evening, but hunted best in the hours between sunrise and midday. Othman had been driven out into the desert as the sun was edging over the horizon, smearing the black sky with a reddish glow. Macgregor had prepared the birds as the sun had climbed higher and now, an hour into the day, a slight breeze was blowing from the west, ruffling the falcon’s feathers.
    Macgregor lowered his binoculars. ‘Two o’clock, sir,’ he called. ‘About four hundred metres.’
    Othman turned towards the two o’clock position. A small bird was flapping purposefully, heading towards the town in the distance. The old man raised his arm in the direction of the prey and pushed his gloved hand forward. As the falcon spread its wings, the old man opened his fingers wide, releasing the jesses. The falcon climbed into the air. The old man shielded his eyes with his gloved hand.
    The falcon was heading directly for its prey. The Saker did not kill by dropping from a great height, it built up speed and attacked from behind and to the side, ripping at the victim’s throat with its talons and following it to the ground to finish the kill with its beak. As Othman watched it gain on the small bird, he held his breath, eyes burning fiercely. ‘Go on, pretty one,’ he muttered. ‘Kill for me.’
    The falcon hit the bird hard, then veered to the left as the shattered ball of feathers tumbled to the ground. It cried in triumph as it glided in a full circle, then landed on its prey and began to feed.
    Macgregor hurried across the sand to retrieve the falcon before it ate too much.
    Othman heard an engine buzz in the distance, sounding like an angry wasp. He narrowed his eyes. A quad bike with large tyres was heading his way, spurts of sand spraying up behind it. Othman had been expecting its driver. His name was Muhammad Aslam – Servant of the Kind One. It was an appropriate name, Othman knew, because Muhammad Aslam was a fixer. Not a fixer in the way that Othman himself acted as a facilitator, organising multi-million-dollar deals and overseeing complex financial transactions. Muhammad Aslam operated at the other end of the spectrum, arranging violence for those who did not want to get their hands dirty. He could make bad things happen – at a price – his ability to do that enhanced by his employment with al-Shurta, the Saudi public security police.
    Othman’s two bodyguards reached for their handguns but Othman nodded at Masood, who called that the visitor was expected. The men took their hands from their weapons but kept their eyes on the quad bike as it slowed and came to a standstill close to the Range Rovers.
    As Muhammad Aslam climbed off it, a bodyguard went over and patted him down, then motioned for him to join Othman. Aslam was forty-two years old, but two decades with the Saudi police had aged him. There were dark