Flyaway

I tried to lever myself up, but I used the wrong arm and got a jolt of pain. When I finally sat up and looked around I saw the bodies of Zayid and Kissack and Lash, who was screaming just as Bailly had screamed in the Tenere. The other two had vanished. It had all happened within, perhaps, twenty seconds.

Byrne yelled again. 'Come out, Paul. Show yourself.'

Paul came from behind a rock. His face was white as paper and his hands shook uncontrollably. Byrne stepped forward and caught the rifle as it fell. 'Did you fill the magazine?'

Paul nodded wordlessly..

'Any more ammunition?'

Paul dug his hand into his pockets and passed the cart-ridges over. He stared at Lash and then clapped his hands over his ears to shut out the endless screaming. I wanted to do the same but I couldn't lift my left arm. When a man is killed in the films he folds up decorously and has the decency to die quietly; in real life it's different.

Byrne pulled back the bolt of the rifle and an empty brass case flew out. He slammed the bolt forward and locked it and then, without warning, stepped over to Lash, put the muzzle of the rifle to his temple, and pulled the trigger.

The shot crashed out and after the echoes had died away the silence was shocking. Byrne looked at me and his face was drawn and haggard. 'My responsibility,' he said harshly. 'Three bullets — one in the belly. He wouldn't have lived. Best this way.'

'Okay, Luke,' I said quietly. So died a man who said he detested gratuitous violence but who would kill coldly to a plan. In my book Lash had been worse than Kissack.

Byrne was reloading the rifle. 'You hurt?'

'I caught one in the arm — I'm flying on one wing.'

He grunted. 'You two wait here,' he said, and went off without another word.

Paul walked over and looked down at Lash. 'So quick,' he whispered. Whether he was referring to what Byrne had done or to the entire action I didn't know. He turned his head. 'You all right?'

'Help me up.' My left arm was beginning to really hurt; it felt as though an electric shock: was being applied at irregular intervals. As he hoisted me to my feet I said, 'You did well, Paul; very well.'

'Did I?' he said colourlessly.

'These bastards were seriously considering burning me in the plane,' I said. 'And if I know Kissack he'd have liked to burn me alive — and so would Lash if he thought it would contribute to realism.' I paused; I was waiting for the sound of shots but all was silent.

Paul turned a puzzled face towards me. 'What was it all about, Max?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'But I'm going to find out. And now, for God's sake, will you cut me loose? But be careful with my arm.'

Byrne came back half an hour later. The rifle was slung over his shoulder and he was leading two pack camels. He leaned the rifle against a rock and said, 'No problem,' then held out his wrists. 'I don't remember breaking free,' he said. 'I just did it. You did well with that stone chopper.'

'The other two men?'

He indicated Lash. The paymaster is dead, so no pay — no fight. Trash from the Maghreb. I gave them three camels and water and told them to get to hell out of it. They won't bother us none.' He tossed the leading rein to Paul and un-slung a box from the pack saddle. 'Let's see your arm.'

He pronounced it to be broken, which I already knew, set it in a rough and ready way and put it in an improvised sling. 'We'd better get you back to civilization,' he said.

But there was much to do before that. Paul helped him load the three bodies on to the camels and they went away. Where they went I don't know but they came back two hours later without the bodies. In that time I had finished rebuilding the cairn over Billson's body. Byrne laid the aluminium plaque on top. 'No propeller,' he said wryly. 'Can't shift it again.'

We cleaned up around the cave, picking up spent cartridge cases and other evidence, then went back to Flyaway, and Paul looked at the blackened wreckage and shook his head. 'Why?' he asked again.

No one answered him.

'We leave tomorrow at dawn,' said Byrne. 'But this time we ride.'

And so we did, with Byrne grumbling incessantly about the damnfool way the Chaambas rigged their camels for riding.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

As Edward FitzGerald might have put it, 'Djanet was Paradise enow'. Four days later Byrne saw me settled comfortably in a hotel room, then went away, probably to see Atitel and to tell him that his broken leg was worth ten camels, after all — delivered to Bilma at the beginning of next season. I wondered how much a broken arm was worth.

When he came back he had done that, and more. He had also gone to the telegraph office and cabled Hesther Raulier. I don't know exactly what he'd put in the cable but it was enough for Hesther to promise to send a chartered aircraft to Djanet to return Paul and me to Algiers. 'I'd like for you to get that arm fixed,' he said. 'But not here. Hesther knows the right people in Algiers — it can be arranged quietly.'

I nodded. Then we've got things to do,' I said, 'Is there such a thing as a Commissioner for Oaths in Djanet?'

'Huh?'

'An American would call him a Notary Public.'

His brow cleared. 'Sure there is. Why?'

'I want to put down in writing everything we found wrong with Flyaway — all about the compass and the stuff in the bottom of the main fuel tank. And I want you to sign it before an official witness. I'll sign it too, but we'll keep Paul out of it. Do you think you can find a typewriter anywhere?'

'There's one in the hotel office,' he said. 'I'll borrow that.'

So I spent half a day typing the statement, with many references to Byrne to elucidate the more technical bits. I did it one-handedly but that was no hardship because my typing is of the hunt-and-peck order, anyway. Next morning we went to the notary public and both of us signed every page which also had the embossed seal of the notary public. It didn't matter that he couldn't understand the content; it was our signatures he was witnessing.

Then I brought out my plastic shaving-soap container and that was put into an envelope and sealed and Byrne and I signed our names across the flap. I watched Byrne laboriously writing his name in an unformed handwriting, his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth like that of a small schoolboy. But it came out clear enough — Lucas Byrne.

As we left the official's office Byrne said, 'You got ideas?'

'Some — but they're pretty weird.'

'Could be nothing but. It figures. If you find any answers let me know.'

'I'll do that,' I said.

The three of us lunched at a restaurant and inhaled a few beers and then Byrne drove us back to the hotel to pick up our bags and then the few miles to In Debiren where the airstrip was and where a Piper Comanche awaited us. Paul, who once didn't have the grace to thank anyone for anything, positively embarrassed Byrne, who adopted a 'Shucks, 't' warn't nuthin'' attitude.

I said, 'Paul, get in the plane — I want a couple of last words with Luke.' Once he was out of earshot I said, 'He's right, you know; thanks aren't enough.'

Byrne smiled. 'I hope to God you're right.' He produced an envelope, sealed and with my name on it. 'This is for you. I told you I'd bill you. You can settle it with Hesther.'

I grinned and tucked it in the pocket of my gandoura unopened. 'What will you do now?'

'Get back to the Air and my own business — go back to leading the quiet life. Give my regards to Hesther.'

'I'll give her your love,' I said.

He looked at me quizzically. 'You do that and she'll laugh like a hyaena.' He took my hand. 'Look after yourself, now. From what I hear, the big cities can be more dangerous than the desert.'

'I'll bear that in mind,' I promised and got into the Comanche.

So we took off and, as the plane circled the airstrip I saw that Byrne hadn't waited. The Toyota was trailing a cloud of dust and heading south to Bilma and, from there, to the Air.