by Alex Lukeman
The only thing missing was Humphrey Bogart and someone playing Cole Porter tunes. Behind the stage Nick saw a faded curtain. Carter half expected Marlene Dietrich, or maybe Amelia Earhart, to step through that curtain and give them a song.
Over in the corner four Americans in civvies with solid builds and buzz cuts talked among themselves. He knew the look. Special Ops, probably Army Rangers. The US had advisors here. Mali was another new front in the so-called war on terrorism.
French Euro Rock assaulted their ears from scratchy speakers in the ceiling. No one danced. The bar was colorful. It was loud. It was exotic. It was depressing. A waiter took their order.
The drinks came.
Carter took a swallow and looked at the label. Castel, self-proclaimed as the "Queen of Beers".
"Not bad."
"Want a sip of this?" Selena had an Amarula, African liquor that tasted like Bailey’s and Khalua mixed with chocolate. Like an alcoholic milkshake.
"No thanks. Here comes our pilot."
A man came through the doors of the bar, silhouetted against the glaring sunlight. He wasn't tall. He walked with confidence. He had black hair cropped close to his skull, the look of a military man not too long out of the service. He wore non-descript Khaki that could have come out of army surplus or L.L. Bean. His name was Joe Harmon. Carter had asked Stephanie to check him out.
He was a pilot without a plane. The burned out hulk they'd seen when they arrived at Timbuktu International had been his last aircraft. Harmon had been army, a chopper pilot, a WO-3 before he got out. Combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nick's kind of person.
Carter raised his hand and Harmon came over and sat down.
"Selena, Joe Harmon."
"My pleasure." Carter caught the quick once over Harmon gave her. He didn't mind. Any male who saw Selena and wasn't dead gave her the once over. He signaled the waiter and Harmon ordered a beer.
"Bad luck with your plane."
"Yeah. I ran right into a haboob. The engines ate sand and down she went."
"What's a haboob?" Selena asked.
"A bitch of a sandstorm. Worst one I'd ever seen. I'd come out of Burkina Faso with a load of welding supplies. I didn't have enough fuel to turn back. Almost made it."
He shrugged, as if it were no big deal. But Carter knew he was stranded here.
"Your insurance company won't pay. Must put you in a hard spot."
"How do you know that?"
"We had you checked out."
"You CIA?"
"No. But we have connections. We've got a proposition for you."
Harmon drank from his bottle. "Let's hear it."
"We need someone to fly us up north, toward Algeria. We just want to do a little recon, see if we can find a certain vehicle."
"That's AQIM country."
"This vehicle might be part of an Al-Qaeda op." Carter wanted to give Harmon enough information to get him interested. He had a good military record. Nick figured he cared about his country.
"You're Agency," Harmon said.
"No. Something different. It's important we find this truck. We don't need to do anything except try and spot it. We'll never find it on the ground. We need an aerial view. I don't want to use some local tour guide."
"They wouldn't take you anyway."
"Can you get a plane?"
"As a matter of fact, I can." He made rings on the table with the beer bottle, thinking. Carter waited. Selena watched the two men. This is like a male ritual, she thought. Two lions circling around one another. She kept quiet.
"There's an old French plane I heard about here in town. The man who’s got it is a mechanic. I haven't seen it yet. He says it’s in good shape, but he can’t fly. He’s blind from some kind of infection he got in the river years ago. He’ll rent me the plane. It seats four."
"A blind mechanic."
"That’s right."
"An old four-seater French plane."
He nodded.
Carter thought. An old plane and a blind mechanic. It appealed, somehow.
"What's the proposition?" Harmon waved at the waiter for a round.
"Five hundred a day, starting today. You fly us up there. We look around. We come back. That's it."
"Euros or dollars?"
"Dollars."
"What about the plane, fuel, supplies? That costs money."
"We'll pay for all of it."
Harmon toyed with the bottle. "Maybe you can help me with something. With your connections."
Carter waited.
"There's a cop named Samake. He's security, intelligence, out of Bamako."
"We met him."
"I had two hundred tanks of oxygen and acetylene in the cargo bay when I went down. The plane caught fire. I ran like hell and it blew up. Samake thinks I had something for the terrorists. Explosives, whatever. He's got my passport. Pending investigation, he says. You get it back, get me out of this shithole, we've got a deal."
"I think we can arrange that. We need to see the plane first."
"Fair enough. How about I meet you in front of the Hotel de Colombe tomorrow and we'll take a look at it. You know where the Colombe is?"
"That's where we're staying."
Harmon drained his beer. "Seven in the morning. Before it gets hot." He gestured at the empty bottles. "Your round."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They returned to the hotel and got something to eat. They were in Carter's room.
"I want to go back to the library tomorrow." Selena sat on one of the beds. She ran her fingers through her hair.
"You don't want to check out the plane?"
"You don't need me for that. There's a sixteenth century copy of a trader's journal written during the time of Muhammad at the Institute that I want to examine."
Selena poked at the thin mattress where she sat. "These beds are pretty narrow."
Nick stood near her. Her loins flooded with heat and moisture. "Maybe not too narrow." She grabbed him at the waistband and pulled him toward her. "Come over here," she said.
Selena unbuckled his belt and slid his pants down over his hips. No shorts. Nick never wore shorts.
She loved looking at him erect like this, close up. She loved the anticipation. She reached up and cupped him, squeezed, rolled him in her palms. He reached down. She batted his hand away. After a while she stood and unbuttoned her blouse and pulled off the rest of her clothes. He held her close and ran his hands over her. His hands were strong, hard. She felt her heart beat hard against his, his breath, the heat of him. She felt the ripples of scar tissue along his side, his hip, on his back.
She wanted him. "Watch the ribs," she whispered. They kissed, a hungry, devouring kiss. She bit his lip.
They moved to the bed.
"On your back, Johnny."
Selena pushed him down on his back and lowered herself onto him. She held him there, squeezing him, raised herself up and began working him. Then she threw back her head and thrust against him, faster until he shouted and let go, driving up inside her. She uttered a guttural cry and climaxed with him.
She rolled off him, slick with sweat. She lay against him, waiting for her pulse to stop pounding. Her mind shied away and began thinking about the library. She stirred.
"That manuscript I want to look at?"
Carter turned toward her on the pillow. "What about it?"
"The original was written in the seventh century. Muhammad gave one of his commanders a box. He told him to take it far away and hide it. The manuscript says it’s in a large cave up north. It could be where they've stashed that truck. Where AQIM has a base."
"What's in the box?"
"Nobody knows. But the Jihadists would want anything associated with Muhammad. A relic would lend them authority, credibility."
"They’d have to find it, first. If it exists."
"It might not exist. If it did, and if it were found, that could be seen as a sign. Maybe it's been found. Maybe that's what brought the assassins int
o the open."
"How are we supposed to locate this cave?"
"The manuscript gives landmarks. It talks about salt mines. That means it has to be near Taoudenni. Steph said that's where they lost the signal. If we can spot those landmarks, we might find the cave."
"That's good. Better than flying blind."
He reached over to her. She was ready for him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Carter waited for Harmon on the porch. The Hotel de Colombe fronted Timbuktu’s version of Times Square. Two wide boulevards of hard packed sand came together in a Y forming an unpaved plaza in front of the hotel. Several tall trees grew in the triangle between the streets. Flat roofed houses and shops of mud brick lined both sides. A scrawny cow stood motionless and head down in the road. A long row of wooden poles carried power in from the hazy distance. Tiny dust devils swirled in the heat. The sun beat on his head.
A tall, thin man in a dark brown robe and white skull cap stared mesmerized at a pile of mud bricks in the middle of the street. An old Mercedes car sagged on its springs down the way. The place was really jumping.
A dented white Peugeot bounced toward the hotel, churning clouds of dust behind. It pulled up where he stood. A young, dark skinned man got out of the car, smiling. He wore a long robe and a simple head covering.
Carter came down the steps as Harmon got out of the car. "Where's your friend?"
"She's not coming."
"This is Moussa." Harmon gestured at the driver. "Moussa, this is the man who wants to rent your uncle's plane."
"My uncle will be very happy." Moussa’s voice was rich and friendly. They squeezed into the car. Moussa threw it into gear. The smile became a grim, focused look, the look of a Kamikaze. They roared through town, past potholes and animals and a shouting policeman who threw his baton after them.
Twenty minutes later they pulled up in front of a large, three story mud brick structure on the edge of the desert. The bricks were stamped with a simple geometric pattern that repeated over and over. Carter uncurled his hands from a death grasp on the seat. The front door of the building was made of weathered wood and studded with intricate metal designs. An enormous, polished brass ring formed an impressive knocker.
Moussa knocked, opened the door and bowed them in. The interior was cool and dark. They were in an anteroom with low benches and cushions and a small wooden table. Heavy curtains of deep red cloth partitioned off the rear.
The curtains parted for a small, dark man. Carter guessed him to be in his seventies. His face looked as if it had been chiseled from a weathered tree. He had close-cropped gray hair under a white skull cap. His beard was neatly trimmed. His eyes were milky white.
Carter looked at his hands. Broad fingers and thick, square cut nails, the knuckles marked with white scars and gnarled with arthritis. The hands of an old mechanic.
"Salaam aleikum, Uncle."
"Aleikum salaam, Nephew. You have brought your new friends." He spoke English with a strong accent.
"Yes, Uncle." He introduced them.
"I'd like to see the plane," Carter said. Moussa’s uncle looked away for a moment and Moussa looked down at the floor.
"Of course. Please, follow me." Ibrahim disappeared through the curtain.
"You’re being rude," Harmon whispered.
"What do you mean?"
"No one begins a conversation with business here," he said. "First talk, tea or coffee. Then business." They went through the curtain.
They were in a small, open courtyard. Water trickled into a tiled basin bordered with red flowers. Doors opened off three sides. Moussa and Ibrahim waited. Carter walked over to the old man.
"Please excuse my poor manners," he said. "I don’t know your customs. Thank you for welcoming us into your home."
Ibrahim visibly relaxed. He touched his chest with his right hand. "There is no offense. My house is your house. Perhaps some tea before we look at the plane?"
Harmon gave Carter a warning look. "We would be honored," he said.
After a half hour of sweet mint tea and small talk they went through another door into a cavernous room at the back of the building. Two large doors stood open to the outside. The plane made a black silhouette against the glare of the sun.
Harmon looked at the distinctive shape of cantilevered wings. "God damn. It's a Mousquetaire."
"Mouseketeer? What’s that?" Carter asked.
"Mousquetaire. It means Musketeer in French. It’s a Jodel D-140, made out of wood. They were used as air ambulances back in the sixties and seventies. Short landing and take off. Seats four or five, with a decent cargo area. I knew a guy in the States that restored one of these. I flew it once. It's a good plane. Good for the desert."
Ibrahim nodded, pleased.
French military markings were just visible where they’d been painted over. The fixed landing gear had been modified for desert use by adding bigger tires and stripping away the nacelles that once surrounded the wheels. It would be possible to set down on sand.
They walked around the plane. The tires were old and weather checked and full of dry rot. They held pressure but it would be worth your life to take off or land on them. The big turtle canopy reflected tiny pits from the sand. Once the plane had been white, but now the paint was streaked and faded, starting to peel in places. Harmon opened the canopy and looked inside. The cabin looked clean and neat. The leather seats were cracked and dull. The cargo area contained a rolled up stretcher strapped above a rectangular metal box with a red cross marked on it. A medical kit, at least forty years old. Harmon opened it. Empty.
"Let’s look at the engine."
The old man said something in Arabic and Moussa went over to the side of the hanger and rolled a wooden platform toward the plane. Carter gave him a hand and they set it next to the plane. Harmon climbed up and opened the cowl.
The opposed four cylinder Lycoming engine had no oil leaks that he could see. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make it that way. Ibrahim, the blind mechanic.
Ibrahim sighed. "It is an old plane but the engine is good. Perhaps a bit tired, but good. The controls are good, although I never flew the plane." There was a trace of sadness in the old man’s voice. "It belonged to a Frenchman who had a business here, years ago. I maintained it for him. We often traveled together over the desert. When he died this was his gift to me. No one has flown it in almost twenty years, but I have kept it ready."
Twenty years. A long time. Harmon thought about five hundred dollars a day.
"Let’s start her up," he said.
The old man climbed into the cockpit with the ease of long practice. He would never pilot a plane but he knew what he was doing. Nick heard the whine of fuel pumps. Thirty seconds later the engine cranked over and came to life. The wash from the wooden propeller blew eddies of dust around the room. A burst of black and white smoke and the engine settled down to a steady, throaty idle.
Ibrahim worked the pedals and the stick. Everything moved like it should.
Harmon spent the next half hour checking the plane over. The dry climate had done a good job of preservation. Except for the tires, the plane seemed airworthy. They wouldn’t know for sure until they took her up.
"So," Carter asked him, "What do you think?"
"The tires are no good. We need new ones. They'll have to come out of Bamako. It'll take a day or two. I'll need a thousand Euros, maybe more, maybe less."
Carter didn't have to think about it. "Go ahead and get them."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Late the next afternoon Harmon met Carter and Selena in the bar.
"We’ve got the tires. Ibrahim and Moussa will install them. Then I can check her out."
"Never thought I’d be flying in something called a Mouseketeer." Carter sipped his beer.
"Musketeer. Like D’Artagnan and the other guys."
Carter nodded at the door. "Here comes our friend from the airport."
Colonel Samake came through the entrance. He looked a
round the room and headed for their table. He rolled a little. The Colonel had been drinking.
"I will join you," he said. He smelled sour, of heat and sweat and too much alcohol. He pulled up a chair. The waiter appeared at his side before he could raise a hand.
"Whiskey." Samake belched.
The waiter scurried off and returned with a double shot of something amber. Samake looked at them through piggy, bloodshot eyes. Sweat rolled off his forehead. He drank off the whiskey in one gulp, gestured for another.
"You seem fortunate, Harmon," Samake said. "You have another plane, for the moment. Tell me, where do you plan to go?"
"We've hired Mister Harmon to take us up for a little sightseeing." Carter drank his beer. He remembered Samake's warning about the north. Fuck him. "We want to see what's happening up north."
The next whiskey came. Samake drank.
"I can tell you what is happening there." Samake put down his drink. His arm knocked a beer bottle off the table. "Poverty is happening there. Salt and heat is happening there. Terrorists and drugs are happening there. So why would you go?"
Selena spoke. "We want to visit the salt mines."
Samake turned a bloodshot stare on her. "I am not convinced your story is the reason you are here. How do you say to that?" His tone was hostile.
Carter didn't like his tone. "Wait a minute," he said. Samake turned. It reminded Carter of a snake.
"I was not talking to you. Do not interrupt me again."
Harmon laid a hand on Nick's arm. He shook his head, a small motion.
Samake saw the movement and smiled. There was no humor in it.
"Remember something. You are foreigners in my country. I make the rules here. You may leave the city during the day and return at night. You will not land in the desert. If you see vehicles on your flights, you will at once inform me of it. What type, where they were seen, where they were headed. Is that clear?"
"Very clear." Carter looked him in the eye. "You ever hear the expression about honey and flies?"
"Honey and flies?"
"You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Why don’t you think about that?"
