"Africair is an air transport company that owns one old ex-RAF Hercules,
flown by Jannie and his son Fred. They use Malta as their base. It's a
stable and pragmatic little no country African politics, no corruption -
and yet it is the door to most of the destinations in the Middle East
and in the northern half of Africa where Jannie and Fred do most of
their work. His main employment is smuggling booze into the Islamic
countries, where of course it is prohibited. He's the Al Capone of the
Mediterranean.
Bootlegging is big business in that part of the world, but he does take
on other work. Duraid and I flew into Libya from there with Jannie on
our little jaunt to the Tibesti Massif.
Jannie will be taking us down to the Abbay."
"Nicky, I don't want to be a killjoy, but you and I are now undesirable
immigrants to Ethiopia. Had you over looked that little fact? How do you
propose to get back in there?"
"Through the back door," Nicholas grinned, "and my old pal Mek Nimmur is
the gatekeeper."
"You have been in contact with Mek?"
"With Tessay. It seems that she is now his go'between.
I imagine it's very convenient for Mek to have her on board. She has all
the right connections, and she can slip in and out of Khartoum or Addis
or places where it might be awkward or even dangerous for him to be
seen."
"Well, well!" Royan looked impressed. "You have been busy."
"Not all of us can afford a holiday in Cairo whenever the fancy takes
us," he told her tartly.
"One more little question." She ignored the jibe, although she realized
that despite his easy smile her absence must have irked him. "Does Mek
know about Taita's game?"
"Not in detail." Nicholas shook his head. "But he has some suspicions,
and anyway I know I can rely on him." He hesitated, and then went on.
"Tessay was very cagey when I spoke to her on the phone, but it seems
that there has been some sort of attack on St. Frumentius monastery. Jah
Hora. and thirty or forty of his monks were massacred, and most of the
sacred relics from the church were stolen."
"Oh, dear God, no!" Royan looked stricken. "Who would do a thing like
that?"
"The same people who murdered Duraid, and made three attempts to wipe
you out."
"Pegasus."
"Von Schiller," he agreed.
"Then we are directly responsible," Royan whispered.
"We led them to the monastery. The Polaroids they captured from us when
they raided our camp would have shown them the stele and the tomb of
Tanus. Von Schiller wouldn't have to be a clairvoyant to guess where we
had taken them. Now there is more blood on our hands."
"Hell, Royan, how can you take responsibility for von Schiller's
madness? I am not going to let you punish yourself for that." Nicholas's
tone was sharp and angry.
"We started this whole thing."
"I don't agree with that, but I admit that von, Schiller is the one who
must have cleaned out the maqdas of St. Frumentius and that the stele
and the coffin are now almost certainly part of his collection."
"Oh, Nicky, I feel so guilty. I never realized what a danger we were to
those simple devout Christians."
"Do you want to call off the whole thing?" he asked cruelly.
She thought about it seriously for a while, then shook her head.
"No. Perhaps when we go back we will be able to compensate the monks for
their losses with what we find in the bottom of Taita's pool."
"I hope so," he agreed fervently. "I do hope so."
The giant Hercules -Mkl four-engined turbo, prop aircraft was painted a
dusty nondescript brown, and the identification lettering on the
fuselage was faded and indistinct. There was no Afticair legend
displayed anywhere on the machine, and it had a tired and scruffy
appearance that spoke eloquently of the fact that it was almost forty
years old and had flown well over half a million hours even before it
had fallen into Jannie Badenhorst's hands.
"Does that thing still fly?" Royan asked, as she looked at it standing
forlornly in a back corner of the Valletta airfield. Its drooping belly
gave it the air of a sad old streetwalker who had been put out of
business by an unexpected and unlooked-for pregnancy.
Jannie keeps it looking that way deliberately," Nicholas assured her.
"The places that he flies to, it's best not to draw envious eyes."
"He certainly succeeds."
"But both Jannie and Fred are first-rate aero-engineers, Between them
they keep Big Dolly perfect under her engine cowlings.
"Big Dolly?"
"Dolly Parton. Jannie is an avid fan." The taxi dropped them and their
meagre luggage outside the side door of the hangar, and Nicholas paid
the driver while Royan thrust her hands -into the pockets of her anorak
and shivered in the cold wind off the Mediterranean.
"There's Jannie now." Nicholas pointed to the bulky figure in greasy
brown overalls coming down the loading ramp of the Hercules. He saw them
and jumped down off the ramp.
"Hello, man! I was beginning to give up on you," he said as he came
shambling across the tarmac. He looked like a rugby player, as he had
been in his youth, and the slight limp was from an old playing-field
injury.
"We were late leaving Heathrow. Strike by French air traffic control.
The joys of international travel," Nicholas told him, and then
introduced Royan.
"Come and meet my new secretary," Jannie invited.
She may even give you a cup of coffee."
He led them through a wicket in the main hangar door and into the
cavernous interior. There was a small office cubicle beside the entrance
with a sign over the door saying Africair' and the company logo of a
winged battleaxe.
Mara, Jannie's new secretary, was a Maltese lady only a few years
younger than himself. What she lacked in youth and beauty she fully made
up for across the chest.
"Jannie likes them mature and with plenty of top hamper," Nicholas
murmured to Royan from the side of his mouth.
Mara gave them coffee, while Jannie went over his flight plan with
Nicholas.
"It's a little complicated," he apologized. "As you can imagine, we will
have to do a bit of ducking and diving.
Muammar Gadaffi is not wallowing in affection for me at the moment, so
I' rather not overfly any of his territory.
We will be going in through Egypt, but without landing there." He
pointed out their flight path on the maps spread over his desk.
"Bit of a problem over the Sudan. They are having a little civil war
there." He winked at Nicholas. I However, the northern government are
not equipped with the most up-to'date radar in the world. Lot of old
Russian reject stuff. It's an enormous bit of country, and Fred and I
have worked out their blank spots. We will be keeping well clear of
their main military installations."
"What's our flying time?" Nicholas wanted to know.
Jannio pulled a face. "Big Dolly is no sprinter, and as I have just told
you we will not be taking any short-cuts."
"How long?"Nicholas insisted.
"Fred and I have rigged up bunks and a kitchen, so that during the
flight you will have all the comforts of home." He lifted his cap and