by Gordon Kent
He tottered back down the field and threw the machete into the slash. He dropped and lay there, hurting all over.
“When do I get my money?” the woman said. Harry had tied her to a tree near the aircraft.
“You’ll get it.” The rain was falling on his face. He didn’t want to move, ever again. But he had to move.
“Let’s gas it,” he said to O’Neill. Harry had to help him up, then help him get up on the wing so he could fill the tanks. The forty-pound jerry cans tried to tear his arms off each time he lifted one. Eighty-eight-gallon capacity—except they didn’t have eighty-eight gallons. They had about sixty. Well, he’d deal with that when the time came.
He slid off the wing, staggered, and poured the drops from all the cans into one, holding them until his arms and back screamed for him to stop. He wanted every drop. Then he screwed the cap down on that one and threw the others to the side and walked back to the Grand Super-Store A Go Go. It was getting dark by then. There were three small children there, frightened of him, missing their parents, and he tried to get them to go with him, but they stood by the edge of the forest and wailed. He took a dozen cans of food and four cans of Coke and carried them back, showing the woman and dropping some of his American bills in her lap.
“Not enough!” she cried. “You are cheating me!”
“Yeah.”
“Give me more dollars!”
“Dream on.”
He opened a can of beans and a can of spinach, and they ate that, leaning against the plane. They each drank a Coke. He opened two more cans and put them down by the Nigerian and her husband; when they wouldn’t eat, he dumped the food out because it was the cans he wanted. He poured some motor oil in each one and set them in a row by the aircraft, crawled up into the plane and tried to sleep. “Call me at four,” he said to O’Neill.
“What am I, the night watchman?” O’Neill said.
“You got it.”
He couldn’t wait. He was awake at three, lay across the seats with things jabbing him, miserable and wanting to go, but he was afraid to take off in the dark. At four he climbed down from the aircraft, smelled the sweet night air. Harry was awake, singing to himself, touching Djalik’s forehead, whistling. The tied man and woman were more or less asleep. The children had found their way here and were asleep around them.
He poured the dregs of the gasoline into the cans with the oil and then tore up the woman’s head scarf and put a piece in each can, then walked the length of the airstrip with only his little flashlight to comfort him against the dangers of the African night. He kept thinking of snakes, but there were no snakes. There was something big that went crashing away, caused his heart to pound. The refugees would wipe out the wild life, when they came. Down to the mice and the shrews.
He put four cans at the far end of the runway, in a line across it. He put a can on each side at two places where the runway actually rose and then fell, because the airstrip was not level but was a very shallow V with these two bumps in it.
There were puddles and mud.
Harry bandaged the blisters on his right hand. Alan put antibiotic on Harry’s dead eye, and together they cleaned pus from Djalik’s hand and put on antibiotic and injected him with penicillin. He didn’t wake. Alan’s hands were trembling with anxiety and the desire to go.
At quarter of five, a little breeze came up, and, as if the sun was pushing that puff of air ahead of it, the first graying of the east.
“Let’s do it,” he said. He couldn’t wait any more. He felt it as an urgency, a pressure, and he thought that if he didn’t go now he would explode. O’Neill tried to slow him down, and he lashed out. “We’re going! Nobody’s coming to get us; there are no helicopters, there’s no extraction! It’s us! Nobody else! Let’s go!”
“But Jesus, Alan—they said to wait, maybe—”
“I didn’t walk across fucking Africa to die of old age waiting to be lifted out! I’m going! You’re coming with me!”
“Yeah, but—it’s dark. Why can’t you wait?”
“Because I’m not going to leave Djalik face-down in goddam Africa! Because I’m a glory hound! Because I’m a fucking action junkie!” He turned away, suddenly empty. “Take your pick.”
O’Neill grabbed him. “Jesus, don’t you think I’m grateful?”
He hugged O’Neill’s neck. “It’s just all so screwed up. All so screwed up.”
He grabbed his lighter from his helmet bag and strode down the field, then started to run. At the far end, he lit the four cans, the gasoline hitting with a puff and a flash, and then ran back down the field, going back and forth to light the other cans, not even thinking of snakes now, sliding, sprinting back. In the east, there was a line of gold.
He took the coins from his helmet bag, a heavy weight in his hand. He threw coins in the woman’s lap, and she scrabbled for them. O’Neill tossed the cartridges from their guns in one direction, the Star and the rifle in the other. The kids started crying.
“Let’s get Djalik in.”
“He’s in.”
O’Neill had loaded Djalik in by himself. Alan felt ashamed that he blew up—and why, at the man who was the reason for his being here in the first place?
He went around the little aircraft, checking with the flashlight, trying to remember the three flying lessons he had actually had. Mostly remembering doing these pre-flights with other pilots—Rafe, Surfer, Skipper Parsills. Computer simulations didn’t include this part. No chocks, so he put rotten logs in front of the wheels and was startled when a scorpion crawled out of one into the flashlight glare, a semi-transparent, skinny thing four inches long.
“When I tell you, pull those logs away from the wheels, then jump the hell in, because I’ll be rolling. I just saw a scorpion on one.”
O’Neill stood outside the plane, smiling foolishly. Alan hit the ignition and the prop slowly turned, the whine of the starter rising, and then it coughed and caught and roared into life. He tried to adjust the mix, had the wrong lever, couldn’t see anything because the only light was the flashlight; then he got it, and he listened for the hard-edged roar that meant the mix was right, and the engine settled and he advanced the throttle.
He looked back once to check Djalik. He looked dead, but he was there.
“Chocks!”
Harry was under the plane, and Alan had a stab of fear because he had forgotten to warn Harry about the prop, stay away from the prop—but Harry was smart, and he scrambled aboard and slammed the door, and Alan rolled the plane forward and turned it down the runway, and he wondered what direction the breeze was coming from or if it even mattered, because he was going now and nothing was going to stop him.
Harry was looking back. “That bitch is looking for her gun,” he said. “That money-grubbing bitch!”
Alan ran the engine up to full power. The plane wanted to go. He checked gauges, switches, cursed because he couldn’t read the French terms for the gauges and wasn’t sure whether the measurements would be meters or feet, kilometers or miles. Find out when we’re up there.
He was hyperventilating. His heart was beating as if he was going to do something terrifying and final—propose to a woman, go before a court. It was terrifying and final. He reached for the throttle.
“You want to share with me where we’re going?” O’Neill shouted.
“Rangoon,” he answered, and he pushed the engine up to a roar and released the brakes and they leaped toward the distant torches.
Before dawn, near Cannes.
Two big Renault sedans pulled up to the gate of Lascelles’s villa in the darkness, the headlights out, the lead one putting its bumper right against the gate. The halogen light that always burned over the gate was not on; it had burned out, it seemed.
A flashlight blinked inside the gates; an answering blink came from the lead vehicle. The gates swung inward, and the dark car moved forward as if drawn by the gates themselves, accelerating as it went, and the man who grabbed the car’s door and swung hims
elf up was almost too slow to get a good hold before both cars were purring up the gravel drive, their tires crunching the little stones with a noise like rain. The guard dogs were not to be seen (all four were full of drugged meat behind the house); the two human guards were in the garage, watching a new pornographic video.
One car swung wide and went around through the porte-cochère and into the courtyard beyond, its doors opening and men in dark clothes jumping out. The lead car stopped at the front door; one man slammed a wad of adhesive plastique against it, jumped away, and the door blew in, the sound astonishing, to be followed by a stun grenade only seconds later, and then they were in.
Belloc came more slowly behind them. Hamy was up ahead, directing his men. Belloc heard some confused voices toward the back, one gunshot.
“Upstairs.”
Hamy nodded. “LaGrange and Bejart are already up there.” His hoarse whisper sounded conspiratorial, almost frightened. Was he in awe of Lascelles, after all, Belloc wondered?
Belloc moved up the stairs with more speed than his bulk would have seemed capable of. He was met at the top, conducted along as if he was being quick-marched to a cell. Lights were on everywhere now; he took in the signs of luxury—marble, memories of Louis Seize, paintings—and dismissed them.
Lascelles was standing by a bed big enough for six people. He was wearing silk pajamas, from which his feet projected like roots. They were very old feet, Belloc thought, with something sad about them.
“This is an outrage!” Lascelles screamed. “This is an insult to the people of France! I demand—!”
Belloc slapped him, right hand to left cheek. The old man tottered and would have fallen if one of Belloc’s men hadn’t held him up. “No demands,” Belloc said. “It’s over.” He turned to Hamy. “Get the medevac helo down here. That doctor had better be ready with his magic potions; I want to start working on him on the way.”
“No—no—!” Lascelles screamed. “I am a citizen of the French—”
Belloc slapped him again, and he shut up.
“Check him for weapons and poisons—teeth, asshole, between the fingers and toes—Hamy, see it’s done right. I don’t want him dying on us.” Belloc went out to a balcony as the first helo descended toward a grassy space beyond the garages. The grass looked a livid green in the aircraft’s lights. Somebody called up to him from below: everything was secure; none of theirs hurt, one of Lascelles’s men down. Should he go in the medevac?
“No. He can wait.”
He left the bedroom and went down to the ground floor. Lascelles followed, carried by two big men. He was moaning, then weeping, but they paid no attention. As they reached the bottom of the wide staircase, the medical team trotted in the blown front door, and the two men deposited Lascelles in a chair and held him as a doctor prepared a syringe. Lascelles began to howl.
“Shut him up!” Belloc shouted.
“Oh, he’ll shut up,” the doctor said mildly. He plunged the syringe into Lascelles’s arm. He was right; the old man stopped in mid-howl, staring at his arm. The doctor started the litany of drug-effect response: count backward from a hundred, please, now, please do it, sir—
“Local police are coming!” somebody shouted.
“Oh, fuck them. Hamy! Tell them to stay the fuck out of it.” Belloc sat in a chair that was too delicate for him and watched the old man. His eyes had changed, no longer terrorized, almost childlike now, wide. “How long?” Belloc said.
“Give him three minutes.”
“Get him in the helo.” Belloc lumbered toward the door, stood back so they could carry Lascelles out. When he reached the stone steps, a tall man was waiting for him and handed him a headset. “Message from Paris, Chef.”
“Belloc,” he growled into the microphone.
“Belloc, Martin-Poisoneuve here.” The boss. The big boss. “It went?”
“It went, it went. Now the hard part.”
“Yes, your responsibility. This just in, Belloc: another message from the Libyans. In the interest of furthering international peace, they’re putting this man, Zulu or whoever he is, on a commercial flight out of Tunis.”
“They can’t! We’re to have him!”
“Well, there wasn’t a formal arrangement—you’ve put all this together so fast, Belloc, there is this potential for surprises. Your responsibility.” The minister sounded sleepy but pleased. “Anyway, they’re putting him on the next flight out of Tunisia to his homeland.”
“Shit! Excuse me, Minister. Well, yes, a surprise, but not unlike the Libyans. Trying to have it both ways, I suppose. Well, we’ll work this out. Thank you for your concern.” He managed to say the last words without irony, or he hoped he did. He handed back the headset, made sure that the interrogation team were on the helo and told them to get going. Moments later, Hamy was at his side and he told him about the Libyans’ latest move.
“Shit,” Hamy said.
“My response exactly. All right, here’s what we’re going to do. Get on to Pigoreau in Sarajevo. Tell him to contact Milintel in the French Zone, they are to select an unused airfield and provide a company of tough ones—say I prefer Légion étrangère if he can get them. How long does it take to fly from Tunis to Belgrade? Four hours? Six? Anyway, this has to go down very fast. Tell Pigoreau to get his man, this boss of his, the American—this is the bone we’re throwing, Hamy, and it matters; we have to wipe the slate clean with the Americans—and when it comes together, they’re to be in on it. Then—no, do this first—get to the Air Force, tell them to pick up the aircraft—Oh, Christ, we don’t know the aircraft. All right, let me go backwards. Check Tunis and Tripoli and get the flight, the make of aircraft, the line—everything. You know what to do. Then get to the Air Force. We’ll need at least four jet fighters, two out of Bosnia and two out of, oh, I suppose Marseille. Here’s what we do—”
Wind rattled the dead leaves of the beautiful old trees above their heads, and both men looked up. The helos were already gone, the stars brilliant and hard. The gust caused the branches to sway like dancers, and then, as suddenly as it had come, it was gone.
“Winter,” Belloc said.
35
December 9
Zaire.
He had started with full wing tanks and a partly full reserve, enough, he figured, to go more than twelve hundred miles at max conserve. The first hour in the air had blown the calculations. What the hell was the problem? He was above five thousand feet, he had got the plane level, his fuel mixture was not too rich—One hour’s flying, and the gauge showed him a quarter down. Either the tanks had a leak or he was misreading the gauge, or had he figured wrong?
Because of the fuel problem, he couldn’t settle down and fly. He tried altering the aircraft’s angle of attack to see if it changed the fuel reading. He tried tapping the fuel gauge. Being French, it’ll be different from every other one in the world, he thought. Still, it flew pretty much like a 182.
Harry was flaked out in the seat next to him, his dark face slack in the sleep of exhaustion. The takeoff had scared the shit out of them both; Harry was coming down from that by sleeping.
Djalik was even farther down. Alan couldn’t get a good look at him because he was lying down with his head behind the pilot’s seat, and every time Alan turned around, the plane would begin a gradual turn to the right. The turn to the right would lose airspeed and the plane would begin to descend, so that Alan had to get the nose up, increase the throttle, coax the plane back to altitude and then slow her down again, get back on course, and find the settings that kept her at constant speed and altitude. He found himself cursing the corrections and he found himself over-compensating. He had to fight the sine-wave effect that pushed the plane through gradual ascents and descents of about two hundred feet, wasting fuel. He knew, deep in his mind, that the sine wave was caused by his over-control on the yoke. For two harrowing minutes, he could not fix it.
He wanted to wake one of the sleepers, for the company. The reassurance that he was not
alone. What he wanted most of all was to get there. The landing would be the worst. He wanted to do it now—right now, get it over with.
Nothing helped. He swung between wrestling with the yoke and brief periods of nodding off. Sleep was waiting for him, very close, even though he’d had as much sleep in the last twenty-four hours as he’d been getting on the boat.
He tried to sit straighter, to think of Rose, to play mind games that had kept him alert in the S-3. He squirmed and fidgeted and burned his energy and his nerves for two hours.
Then he found the auto-pilot, which was located in an unfamiliar place and labeled with French he didn’t know. Worse, he’d forgotten to look for it.
Over the Med.
Far to the north and east of Zaire, an Air Libya 737 made the turn north that would take it out of Libyan air space. It had come from Tunis, the nearest airport to its own country where it could land because of sanctions. Completing its turn, it started across the Mediterranean toward the European mainland.
Three thousand feet above, two SEPECAT Jaguar As of the French Escadron de Chasse 4/11 swung into position as the airliner crossed out of Libyan air space. They rode there like two guardian angels.
Sarajevo.
Far to the north of Libya, Sarajevo was coming to. Dukas, waking in his chilly flat, tasted the bitterness of a hangover and put his hand on the ringing telephone. He had meant to unplug it last night and had been too drunk to do it. Now he paid.
“Dukas.”
“Michael, it’s Pigoreau. Get dressed and meet me in fifteen minutes downstairs.”
“What the hell for?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you.”
The line went dead. Dukas got up, drank three glasses of water and stared at his bloated face in the mirror. He really felt like hell. However, you don’t die of a hangover, he knew from long experience; you just wish you did. He took four aspirin and a handful of vitamins and dressed as slowly as he dared—shirt without a tie, flannel pants, beat-up old tweed jacket with two buttons missing. Took the jacket off and put on his shoulder rig with the .357, wriggled back into the jacket, picked up his raincoat and went downstairs.
