Judas Country

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.

I took the bottle back to the table. Nina glanced at the label and confirmed her private opinion of us, airline tycoonwise. But she sipped a glass politely enough and asked: 'Are you staying at the Castle here?'

"That's right,' Ken said. 'My associate seems to have gone into the hotel business as well.'

I grinned at Suzie's blank look. 'It figures: allttíe big airlines are getting into the hotel racket – Pan Am, BEA and all. Just keeping in fashion.'

Nina said coolly: 'Didn't I hear that the Castle was closing down?'

Ken said: 'Just going broke, dearie. It isn't always the same thing.'

Suzie sighed. 'Well, I just hope Sergeant Papa doesn't lose his job; he's such anice man.'

All three of us stared at her; whatever we each thought of the Sergeant, the word 'nice' certainly didn't come into it. At last Nina said: 'Never mind, darling – the Sergeant is sure to manage somehow.'

'He could always go back into the army,' Ken suggested. 'Armies have still got generals, and generals have still got-'

'Ken! ' I snapped. He grinned at me, a little loosely, and with a faint glitter of sweat on his forehead. The steady drinking had suddenly begun to grip. Just as suddenly, he realised it. He turned to Suzie.

'Tell you what: let's you and me go for a little stroll in the moonlight.'

'Moonlight?' Nina snorted. 'It's probably raining like a drain out there. It was thundering when we came in.'

Down in the Atlantis we wouldn't have heard World War Three get started.

'Hell,' said Ken; neither of us had brought coats. 'Well, it's only a few yards to the Castle.'

Suzie said plaintively: 'But I was going to have some icecream.'

Ken stood up. The nice Sergeant Papa will find us some icecream,' he said in a controlled voice. She sighed and stood up, and then sort of rubbed herself against Ken the way a big cat might except not exactly the same way. Ken twanged like a guitar.

Suzie said: 'Ooooh,' in an interested tone for once. 'Come on, dear,' and grabbed his hand and hauled him away between the tables.

Nina gave a dramatic sigh. 'Your friend-' but then I was on my feet and taking several fast steps towards the bar and colliding with the man in the spectacles and natty suit.

'Why, if it isn't Mr Ben Iver. Shalom.'

'Shalom,' he answered automatically, and then tried to ease past me. I leant against him like neither cat nor Suzie. His glasses gleamed as he cocked his head, and his hand dipped towards his pocket. I slapped downwards and his hand and jacket swung aside; the pocket clunked as it hit the bar stool.

By then my own hand was in my own pocket and pointing. 'It's raining up there, they tell me, and I expect you've forgotten your umbrella. Sit down and have another milk-and-honey. It'll clear soon.'

He looked down at my pocket. 'Shoot through your pocket and it jams,' he said softly. 'If it's a revolver you won't even get off one shot.'

'Not if you use a Smith Bodyguard, the one with the enclosed hammer. Get off all five, most likely.'

'Only five?' he said, slightly mocking.

'I don't suppose I've got more than five enemies left in the world.'

A silly conversation, but it had already achieved all I wanted. He shrugged and lifted himself back on to the bar stool. 'You're right, I did forget my umbrella.' By now, Ken and Suzie would be well out of sight.

'I'm sure you're doing the right thing.' As I turned away I took my second pipe out of my pocket and shoved it in my mouth. Maybe I heard a sharp little hiss behind me.