The Power of Five Oblivion

and now they’ve got nowhere else to go. There are tons of supplies stockpiled in the royal palace. He controls the electricity supply and he’s even got his own desalination plant for water. Provided they play ball and try not to say anything that will get them killed, they’re probably more comfortable in Dubai than they would be anywhere else. So why rock the boat? Maybe some of them have even managed to persuade themselves that the streets are busy and the shops are full. That’s one of the reasons they keep the traffic lights running. It’s all part of the illusion. The point is, nobody steps out of line.”
    “What did Larry do?” Richard asked.
    “Larry was stupid. He and I had been talking together. Things are OK here. Apart from anything else, there’s still a certain amount of aviation fuel at the airport and we were doing plenty of jobs for Rasheed, running stuff up and down into Egypt. But at the same time, we were getting bored. It’s not much fun being the only sandwich at the picnic when everyone else is a fruitcake. So we agreed we were going to do a runner. We’d heard there’s a community doing OK in the Northern Territory in Australia, near Alice Springs, so we thought we’d fly out and join them. The trouble is, Larry got greedy. He decided to help himself to some of the sheikh’s very considerable treasure. You might wonder who needs diamonds the size of ping-pong balls when the whole world is slipping down the gutter, but maybe Larry was thinking ahead.
    “He sneaked into the palace one night while everyone was having dinner and broke into the royal vault – but of course he got himself caught in the act. You can imagine there was quite a song and dance about that. They weren’t angry. They were delighted! You see, it gave them something real to do. They were able to set up a whole series of courts – the Court of First Instance, the Court of Appeal, the Court of Cassation – with defence lawyers and prosecution lawyers and witnesses and all the rest of it. Rasheed took the role of chief judge and he had himself kitted out with a wig and a red coat, even though it must have been a hundred degrees in the courtroom.
    “Anyway, this lasted a couple of months and the upshot of it was – surprise, surprise – Larry was found guilty.”
    “What are they going to do with him?” Richard asked.
    “They haven’t decided yet. They may cut off his head. They may cut off his hands. Or they could just put him in front of a firing squad. It depends on Rasheed’s mood and that can change in the blink of an eye. One thing you can bet on is that they’ll make a big thing of it. Without TV, they’ve had to find other ways to amuse themselves.” Martins lit another cigarette. “Whatever happens, he isn’t going to be flying this Airbus any time soon.”
    “Can’t he give you the codes?”
    “I haven’t been allowed to see him. And anyway, it isn’t as easy as that. There’s no air traffic control any more. There’s no sat nav. If you want to fly one of these things, you more or less have to do it with maps and a compass. I’m not even sure I could find Alice Springs without him.”
    There was a long pause. The cabin was full of cigarette smoke but Martins didn’t seem to notice.
    In the end it was Scarlett who broke the silence. “Does Sheikh Rasheed speak English?” she asked.
    “They all do. English is the language of international business so they like to speak it all the time.”
    “If we were able to persuade him to release your friend, would you fly us to Antarctica?”
    The co-pilot shrugged. “You want me to be honest? I can’t answer that. Larry’s the one in charge.”
    “But if Larry agreed, you’d go along with it?”
    Martins thought for a moment. “I don’t really care where I go or what I do. It seems to me that the whole world has somehow got itself blown to infinity, and what difference does it make if I end up drinking myself unconscious in the outback or freezing my balls off on the ice?” He glanced at the tip of his cigarette. “Or dying of lung cancer here,” he added. “But you’re not going to persuade Sheikh Rasheed to let him go. He’s been found guilty – and that’s the end of it.”
    “We might be able to make him change his mind,” Richard muttered. “Can you get us in to see him?”
    Once again, Martins shook his head. “Sorry, mate. Right now I’m not Mr Popular at the palace. There’s a faint suspicion that Larry and