Oath Bound - Book V of The Order of the Air

by Melissa Scott

  “We don’t have time to make a report,” Mitch said bluntly. “We promised the tower we would be in the air before the regular flights left.”

  “That’s so,” another of the tower workers said. “It was all arranged, lieutenant.”

  The lieutenant looked at him, and then back at Mitch. “It is your civic duty —”

  “We’re under charter, and that puts us under a deadline,” Mitch said. “I’m sorry, lieutenant.”

  The lieutenant sighed. “As you wish. I will merely point out that under the circumstances we cannot hold these men, and you may well find on your return that the matter is not settled…”

  He let his voice trail off suggestively, and Alma smiled widely.

  “Thank you so much for understanding, lieutenant! And now we have to start loading.”

  She turned away, and the rest of them trailed behind her, Mitch pausing only to pick up the bags he had dropped. Alma had sounded strangely like someone there, he thought — like Stasi, in fact. And that was almost as disconcerting at the attack itself. He shook his head, and followed her on into the warehouse.

  Alma took a deep breath as she came into the lights of Claudet’s warehouse and heard the door close solidly behind her. Claudet was shaking his head, exclaiming in French; Iskinder answered him in the same language, and then they both switched to English.

  “You’re not hurt, Madame? Or any of you?”

  Alma gave them a quick once-over, but aside from Tiny looking pale and Mitch rubbing the knuckles of his right hand, everything seemed normal. “We’re fine. Have you had any trouble? Is the Cat all right?”

  “We have seen no one,” Claudet answered. “And Paul — my son — he watched the plane himself all night.”

  “There was nothing and no one,” the younger man said. He looked startlingly like his father, Alma thought, though his English was almost unaccented. “It was very quiet.”

  “It would be wise to check it over thoroughly anyway,” von Rosen said. “No disrespect intended to M. Claudet or his son.”

  “We’d do that anyway,” Alma said briskly. It was definitely time to take matters in hand. “M. Claudet, were you able to arrange the fuel I requested?”

  “Indeed I was.” Claudet straightened slightly. “All tanks are full and you are ready to go. Also I have the forecast for the south.” He produced the flimsy with a flourish, and Alma took it.

  “Thank you. All right, gentlemen, let’s get aboard. The tower’s waiting on us.”

  They took a little extra time with the checklists and with the walk-around, then sounded and sampled the fuel tank to be sure it was still full and that nothing had been slipped into the tanks while everyone was watching the fight. And that was all they could do, Alma knew. There wasn’t time to break down every system, check every cable; they had to assume that Paul Claudet had done his job, and take their chances. The sky was lightening, the eastern horizon showing sharply now, and she settled herself into the pilot’s position, fitting her headphones to her ears.

  “Tiny, let the tower know we’re ready to start engines.”

  “Yes’m.” There was a little silence. “Ok, Tower says we can start up. They’ll clear us to taxi once we’re running.”

  “Roger.” Alma glanced at her instruments, checking that all the auxiliary systems were up and running. “Lewis. Let’s start her up.”

  “Roger.” Lewis’s voice was reassuringly relaxed. “Left and right valves on.”

  Alma set the propellers to their highest rpms, and opened the throttle to the first notch. “Propellers and throttle set.”

  “Engines ready. You can set the ignition.”

  Alma flipped both switches. “Ignition on.”

  The starter rumbled, the big plane shivering slightly as engines began to turn. The starboard engine caught and steadied, and then port, and Alma eased the throttles back to their lowest position.

  “We’ve got oil pressure,” Lewis reported. “Temperature’s rising nicely.”

  “Roger.” Alma watched her gauges, waiting for the oil temperature to hit the minimum, her eyes flicking across the rest of the instruments. Everything was normal, perfect — as it should be, they’d had plenty of time to baby the Cat while they were in Italy. Everything should be in ideal shape for the flight.

  “Oil temperature is at 104 and steady,” Lewis said.”

  “Roger.” Alma adjusted the throttle again, feeding a bit more power to the engines.

  They moved smoothly through the rest of the checklist as the sky grew lighter beyond the cockpit. Along the lakefront, the buildings grew more distinct: plenty of light to take off in, Alma thought, particularly with an entire lake to work with. At last Tiny reported the last gear stowed, and Alma looked at Mitch.

  “All right. Call the tower, please, we’re ready to go.”

  Mitch reached for the radio, switching himself to the tower’s frequency. “Tower, this is Gilchrist Aviation. We’re ready to taxi.”

  The tower’s answer was reassuringly prompt. “Roger, Gilchrist. You are clear to leave your dock.”

  Alma slid back the cockpit’s side window and waved to Tiny, perched on the chine rail to release the last mooring rope. She couldn’t see him wave back, but a moment later, the Cat’s motion changed, and then the hatch slammed shut as Tiny pulled himself aboard.

  “All clear,” he shouted, and Alma worked throttles and rudder, steering the Cat toward the main taxiway. The sun wasn’t up yet, but it was light enough to see the buoys and the markers, the boats and occasional plane still at their moorings. The lake stretched clear ahead of them: plenty of room, she told herself again, and no fishing boats to get in the way.

  “Gilchrist Aviation, this is the tower. You are clear to enter the taxiway.”

  There were the buoys, unlit at the moment, but clearly visible, standing tall out of the calm water. Alma lined the Cat up between them, checking the control settings one last time, rudder and elevator and aileron tabs, floats locked solidly in the down position.

  “Roger, Tower,” Mitch said. “We’re in the taxiway.”

  “We confirm that, Gilchrist. You are now clear for take-off.”

  “Roger, Tower, clear for take-off,” Mitch repeated. “Thanks.”

  Alma advanced the throttles, feeling the big engines rev up to full speed. The Cat lumbered forward across the water, heavier than she was used to with the full cargo in the back, but not so different from the Terrier after all. She took her time, letting the speed build, and at last felt the lift catch the Cat’s massive wing. She eased back the control yoke and the Cat rose gracefully, shedding water from her sleek hull. She climbed easily, toward the rising sun, the horizon now showing a clear line of light.

  “Floats are up and secure,” Lewis reported.

  Alma checked her own instruments. “Confirmed. I’m turning to heading one-four-seven. Our bearing to Cairo, right, von Rosen?”

  “That’s correct. As the sun comes up, you’ll see the delta under your port wing.”

  “Confirmed.” Alma put the Cat into a gentle climbing bank, bringing them onto the new heading. “Very good, gentlemen. We’re on heading one-four-seven, outbound for Cairo.”

  She let the Cat climb slowly, not pushing the engines, until they settled into their cruising altitude at 10,000 feet. That was high enough to keep them above any weather — though Claudet’s weather report was promising clear skies most of the way south — but would still give them a decent view of the landmarks below. Or at least it would once the sun came up; at the moment, she could see the horizon plainly, but nothing more than shadow on the ground. At least Jerry was right about one thing: it would be very hard to miss the Nile.

  The sun rose as they passed Cairo, the light spilling white-gold over the lush green of the delta and the pale sand beyond. Cairo itself was a tangle of buildings to the east of their line of flight, pale stone new and old, and Alma touched the intercom button.

  “Tiny. I think we’re going to be passing o
ver the pyramids — take a look to port and tell me if you see them.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tiny answered. There was a little silence, the engines droning on, and then Tiny gave a startled yelp. “There they are! Just like you said, off to port. It really is them.”

  Alma grinned, and Mitch covered his mic.

  “That was nice of you.”

  She covered her own mic as well. “It seemed a shame for him to come all the way to Egypt and not see a pyramid or a mummy.”

  Past Cairo, they turned more or less due south, following the Nile. It was impossible to miss, as both Jerry and von Rosen had promised, a brilliant line of green against the sand. Alma had flown over the desert before, but this was different — bigger, emptier, nothing but sand, the contrast between the green and settled land and the desert as sharp as if it had been cut by a giant knife. This was the Egypt of her childhood Bible stories, a book she’d carried from posting to posting until it disappeared on the way to Colorado when she was nine. This was Jerry’s Egypt, land of Pharaohs and animal-headed gods, the source of a hundred photographs he’d shown her, empty valleys and ruined temples no more than a few scattered columns, faded paintings on the walls of underground tombs. They seemed more real than this, the sharp line between arable and desert, life and death.

  After the third hour, they began to see a few wisps of cloud above them — about 15,000 feet, Alma estimated — and she kept a wary eye on them. The weather report had promised good weather all the way to Ethiopia, but she’d learned long ago not to rely on the forecasts. The clouds spread as they bored on to the south, but there was still plenty of blue sky between the patches, and the clouds themselves were thin, like sheets of pearl between her and the sun. Nothing to worry about yet, she decided, and checked her heading yet again. On her line, and the Nile was still off to starboard, a green line impossible to miss.

  The intercom clicked. “Would now be a good time for me to get a feel for the controls?” von Rosen asked.

  Alma glanced at Mitch. “Ready for a break?”

  He shrugged. “Sure. I’ll make some coffee, if Tiny hasn’t already.”

  “Good idea. Ok, von Rosen, come on up.”

  He and Mitch traded places with a minimum of confusion, and then von Rosen had belted himself into the co-pilot’s seat. He studied the instruments in silence for a moment, and then looked over at Alma. “Very well. What do I need to know?”

  Alma walked him through the basics, trying to remember everything that had surprised her when she first got behind the Cat’s wheel. After an hour or so, she let von Rosen take the controls, and slowly relaxed as he proved steady and competent. Mitch brought coffee, sweet and milky, and she drank most of it while von Rosen tried a few slow turns, getting the feel of the Cat.

  “What do you make of the weather?”

  “It should be all right. There’s often cloud like this along the route, it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Good.”

  “In a bit — a little less than an hour, I make it — we have to make a choice,” von Rosen said. “The Nile veers south and west. It loops back again, like a giant letter S. We can either follow the river, which is longer but sure, or stay on this heading and pick up the Nile again as it comes back north and east.”

  Alma reached for the map she had torn from the tourist guide. It wasn’t nearly as good as she was used to working with, but it showed the Nile’s broad bends clearly enough. As von Rosen had said, the river bent southwest, then curved back to the northeast; to cut across the top of the curve would cut hundreds of miles off the trip. And yet. She measured with her fingers, hoping the map’s scale was roughly accurate. “I make it about three hundred miles straight through?”

  “About two-fifty,” von Rosen said. “Or you can follow the Nile to Wadi Halfa and then cut southeast. That makes it about two hundred miles.”

  “What do you usually do?”

  “I make the cut — I’m usually trying to save fuel, I don’t usually have the range of this beast. But also — I’m not in a flying boat.”

  Meaning that he could put down in desert and have a remote chance of taking off again, Alma thought. They could probably put the Cat down on sand and not kill everyone on board, but they’d never be able to take off again. On the other hand, the further south they went, the less suitable the Nile was as a landing site. As long as her instruments were accurate, and they had been good all along, it shouldn’t be too hard to make the jump. There wasn’t enough of a crosswind to have to worry about that. “Wadi Halfa and then across.”

  Von Rosen glanced at her, one eyebrow lifted. “You’re not going to consult your partner?”

  “The Cat’s my baby.” Alma kept her tone completely matter-of-fact. She looked at the map again. “Then follow the river to Khartoum?”

  “The Nile splits at Khartoum,” von Rosen said. “We should follow the Blue Nile, the eastern tributary. We can use that as a landmark as far as Wad Madani. After that, the most direct route is overland. There are a few landmarks, some bare hills and towns, but the better course is to home in on the radio station at Bahir Dar.”

  Alma glanced at the map again, running the calculations. They’d be passing Wad Madani a little before sunset. That meant three hours and more flying through the dark over completely unfamiliar ground, relying on instruments and the tower at Bahir Dar to bring them in safely to Lake Tana. But it was the only way. At least the Cat had a direction finder, unlike the Terrier or the Frontiersman. She’d hate to try following a signal purely by whether it was getting stronger or not. “We’ll have to do it by radio.”

  “There will be some moonlight,” von Rosen said. “Enough to see the hills, I think.”

  “We’ll see.” I’d rather rely on the radio, Alma thought. I just hope they have a flare path laid out when we get there. She put that worry firmly aside, and touched the intercom button. “Mitch. Want to spell me for a bit?”

  “Sure thing.”

  She gave Mitch the new plan, which he accepted with his usual calm, then climbed through the hatch into the navigator’s compartment. Iskinder was sitting at the navigator’s station, and to her pleased surprise, Lewis was sitting at the radio station eating a sandwich, a cup of coffee set into the inset holder. He smiled, and she came to join him, bracing one hand against the nearest interior strut to balance herself against the plane’s movement.

  “Tiny’s giving me a break,” he said. “There’s sandwiches in the galley.”

  “I’ll get one in a minute.” Alma stretched, arching her back to feel the muscles pull and loosen, then worked her shoulders from side to side. “How’re things running?”

  “The engines are good.” Lewis tapped the edge of the wooden table. “Fuel consumption’s a little better than I was figuring. I think we may have a bit of a tail wind helping us.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt,” Alma said, and touched wood herself. She fetched a sandwich from the galley, sliced brisket and mustard on coarse bread, and seated herself opposite Lewis to eat. It was strange being on a plane with him and not flying, not being in charge, and she thought from his expression that Lewis felt the same. She checked her watch: just past one. Not quite halfway there. She craned her neck to see out the nearest window, the Nile still a ribbon of green through empty sand. People lived there, somehow, she told herself, but didn’t really believe it.

  “Hey, Al.” Mitch’s voice crackled in her headphones. “Von Rosen says we’re coming up on Wadi Halfa. We still cutting across?”

  “As long as everything looks good to you.” Alma twisted to see out the other window. Yes, there were buildings visible along the river’s bank, a scattering of low houses much the same color as the sand, and then bigger buildings, pale stone mixed with dirty brick.

  “Everything looks good,” Mitch said. “Von Rosen makes our heading one-three-seven for about an hour and a half, and we should pick up the Nile again.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Shortcut?” Lewis asked, after a m
oment.

  “Sort of.”

  Iskinder lifted his head. “We’re cutting across the loop, then?”

  “That’s the plan,” Alma said. “Von Rosen says he’s done it before.”

  Lewis nodded. “He’s all right.” He gave a sudden wry smile. “Well, I don’t actually like him, but he’s what he says he is.”

  “He’s done well by our people,” Iskinder said.

  That was reassuring, Alma thought. “I’m going to try to take a nap while things are calm.”

  “Good idea,” Lewis said.

  For a moment, Alma considered asking him to join her — she wanted him fresh for the landing, too — but she knew better. Someone had to stay on the radio, just in case, and Iskinder wasn’t trained to handle it; Lewis could rest while he listened. She made her way back to the flight engineer’s compartment, where Tiny had unfolded a pair of what looked like Army-surplus cots. The blanket and pillows bore the Consolidated logo, but Alma couldn’t help wishing that they’d been able to leave the passenger bunks in place. The cots looked penitential by comparison. But she’d slept on worse. She stretched out gingerly, drawing a blanket over her shoulders, and composed herself to sleep.

  She’d done enough long flights to know the benefit of every minute of rest, but this time sleep wouldn’t come. The drone of the engines was usually soporific, but this time instead of drifting away on the noise, she jerked awake every time the Cat’s attitude changed. Finally she rolled onto her back, throwing her arm over her eyes. She was worried about finding the Nile again, she admitted. Jerry could remind her how big a river it was until he was blue in the face; the idea of crossing trackless desert with only the compass bearing to guide them made her stomach clench. And the desert was so different even from the deserts of the southwest, miles upon miles of wind-shaped sand, utterly featureless. If the compass wasn’t set right — but it was. She had set it herself before they left Alexandria — she had set it and Mitch had checked it. She looked at her watch and flung back the blanket. They should be coming up on the Nile again any minute. Once she was sure they were on course, she’d be able to sleep.