Judas Country

'Yes, there's that. What happened to Kingsley, by the way?'

'Nobody knows, but I get the general idea that he was last seen with a Montevideo brochure in one hand and the office safe in the other.'

That sounds likely. But he wasn't so stupid, was he? If you'd got picked up by the Lebanese or Cyprus cops-'

'You mean if I do yet.'

'Yes, but – with your reputation, who'd think of blaming Kingsley? He picked the right pilot for the job. You've got to admire the bugger.'

'Have I? Show me the law.'

A woman's voice asked over my shoulder: 'Mr Caviti and Mr Case?'

There were two of them, as ordered, and we scrambled awkwardly on to our feet and pulled and pushed chairs until we were all seated again, with the waiter almost perched on my shoulder like a parrot.

The smaller, darker, girl said: 'We seem to like champagne, these days.'

It's funny how long 'these days' have been going on. Ken gave her a quick sharp look and I knew she was mine. Well, it was his evening. So I just nodded over my shoulder and the waiter faded away.

The girl said: 'I'm Nina, this is my friend Suzie.'

The names fitted, but they'd probably been chosen for the fit. Nina was smallish but certainly not thin under her tight primrose sweater. Neat sharp features, big dark eyes, and hair that might have been jet black even in a good light, in a loose, silky pageboy bob. Her voice was just English English without any accent that I could spot.

I said: 'I'm Roy Case, the gentleman with the X-ray eyes is Ken Caviti.'

Suzie said: 'Charmed, I'm sure,' and smiled absently back at Ken's hot stare. She was another English girl – I suppose the Sergeant had chosen them deliberately – and while she might not have been a genuine blonde, she was certainly one at heart. She had a cheery open face, a pert nose, slightly chubby arms and hands and a powerful overdose of figure more or less inside a thin silk blouse. And she positively radiated sex of the simplest kind: just bouncing about in a bed with no hangover to come.

Ken was obviously getting the same perfume; his eyes were practically licking her.

I said: 'I must apologise for Ken: he just spent the last two years in a monastery.'

Suzie said: 'Ooooh, how interesting,' and went on smiling out of her big blue To Let eyes. Ken finally got his mind off her chest and back to his glass.

Then the waiter came back with the champagne and menus.

'What d'you recommend?' I asked Nina.

'Kebabs. Four shish kebabs.' Quite firmly. Ken looked disappointed – he'd obviously been dreaming of steak – but he had the sense to guess what it would taste like in a joint like this. A kebab is about the one thing no Cypriot could louse up.

I said: 'Right, four kebabs,' and it was the waiter's turn to look disappointed; he'd been thinking of steaks, too.

Nina lifted her glass. 'Well, here's to us.'

We all drank, and Suzie said: 'Ooooh, lovely,' in a practised way. Myself, I'm no connoisseur of champagne, but my guess is that if they'd aged this another twenty-four hours it would have made a big difference. I stirred my glass with a fork.

Nina asked: 'Don't you like champagne?'

'I prefer the taste to the bubbles. Somebody once gave me a glass of a 1911, I think it was, and that was exactly what the angels have for teabreaks. And it was practically flat.'

'I remember,' Ken said. 'It was that Portuguese mining man in Monte.7 thought the stuff tasted like mushroom soup.'

I shrugged and sipped; without the bubbles I'm not sure there was any taste at all.

Nina asked: 'Have you just arrived in Cyprus?'

I nodded.

'Have you been here before?'

Ken said: 'A few dozen times.'

She lifted her thin dark eyebrows. 'What business are you in?'

I said: 'We're pilots.'

Suzie said automatically: 'Oooh, how interesting.'

'In the RAF?' asked Nina.

I shook my head. 'Just civi L'

'Which airline?'

'Our own,' Ken said. 'From time to time.'

'Oooh,' said Suzie, almost waking up. 'Do you really have your own airline?'

'Sure. It's just that we can't remember where we put it.'

Nina was frowning slightly. Even if Sergeant Papa hadn't briefed her, she'd priced us pretty accurately. Ken had simply added a black uniform tie to his white shirt and twill trousers rig. I had on a white shirt, for once, and the trousers of my blue uniform. Not the jacket with its three stripes that mean nothing except impressing customers without quite annoying four-stripe airline captains. In fact the only expensive thing about us was our wristwatches: Ken's Rolex and my Breitling. You daren't skimp on the tools of your trade.

'What does – or did – your airline do?' she asked.

I said: 'Freight.'

'But no monkeys, no strawberries,' Ken added.

Suzie was looking more puzzled than asleep by now. 'Whatdo you mean?'

"Three cargoes most freight airlines don't like,' Ken said. 'Monkeys because they just plain stink.'

'Why would anybody want a load of monkeys?'

I said: 'Medical experiments.*

'Oooh.' She shuddered – or quivered. 'I don't think it's nice to think of things like that.'

'What's wrong with strawberries?' Nina asked.

Ken explained. 'They stink, too, only differently. Haul a couple of tons of them and the aircraft's left smelling like…' The usual phrase aircrew use is 'like a cheap whorehouse'

' but luckily Ken remembered who he was with. 'Well… you just can't describe it,' he finished feebly.

'And the third cargo?' Nina asked briskly.

By now Ken was wishing he hadn't mentioned three cargoes, and so was I. I sloshed some more carbonated wine into the girls' glasses and said: 'Anything you might describe as political.'

Nina cocked her eyebrows again. 'And you never carried strawberries or monkeys.' She had a pretty good idea of what a 'political' cargo might be; anybody who'd spent more than a couple of weeks out here would be able to guess.

That's right,' I said.

'But then, I don't suppose the pilots who carry strawberries and monkeys feel they have to spend two years in a monastery.'

I said: "They're less devout.'

Tmean, it must be so difficult to keep in flying practice in a monastery. You'd keep on bumping into those stone walls.'

Ken lowered his head slightly and stared very hard at her, and for a moment I thought he was going to launch her with the champagne bottle. So did she, but her reaction was to sit upright, chin and breasts sticking out defiantly.

Just then the waiter dumped our kebabs on the table. Either his timing was lucky or he had an instinct for interrupting trouble, and a place like the Atlantis would need such instincts. Anyway, Ken relaxed and for a few minutes we just listened to each other chewing.

Suzie fed as if she was going to hibernate the rest of the year; Ken worked slower, savouring each piece as if it was the best food he'd tasted in two years – which it likely was; Nina just filed it away as so much protein. In fact it wasn't too bad; just a bit burned.

Halfway through, Suzie remembered that a real lady drinks red wine with meat, so I spent a few moments trying to catch a waiter and then went over to the bar and asked for a bottle of Othello. The place had filled up in the last quarter of an hour, with a dozen little nightlights twinkling through the smoky gloom, waiters weaving about on instrument landings and sweating into the food. I couldn't see who the customers were, but their feet sounded mainly military.

I had to wait while the barman first tried to sell me a bottle of the classy Domaine d'Ahuera, then went to fetch what I'd asked for. The man alongside me at the bar seemed to be drinking alone: a broadish bloke in a well-fitting lightweight suit with those raised seams. His face was turned away from me; all I could see was the darkishhak thinning on top, the glint of spectacle earpieces.