“You’ve got to be kidding me?”
Veyron smiled. “Says there’s a guy there who robs him blind, but what’s he supposed to do? He has to refuel his plane somewhere in the Sahara. And there aren’t a lot of suppliers you can trust.”
Genevieve lowered the collective, which reduced their altitude and started their descent. “All right I’m going to land next to the runway. Anywhere in particular I need to put us down?”
“Anywhere will do,” Veyron said. “Our contact guy will drive out to refuel us.”
Genevieve hovered just above the ground and then lowered the collectively fully to the ground, placing the skids firm in the sand. The rotor blades whined to an idle. She ran her eyes along a cluster of instruments. Confident everything was in working order, she flicked the power switch to off and shut down the engines.
Elise unclipped her seatbelt and stared up at the muddy and higgledy-piggledy town. “Why would anyone want to live out here?”
Genevieve laughed. “I don’t think many people planned it. They were born into it and never quite worked out a way of escaping.”
Elise slid the helicopter door open and was the first to climb out. Veyron followed and Genevieve was the last out. She watched the rotor blades whine to a stop before carefully walking around the aircraft, checking for any damage taken during the long flight. If they needed to get out in a hurry, she wanted to make certain their ride was sound.
She noticed Elise attempting to tie her tesirnest, a traditional piece of cloth worn by Tuareg women over a light dress. She intricately ran the indigo blue robe around her body, finishing with it carefully wrapping around her head, while leaving her face open. Tuareg people, Genevieve recalled, were the only Islamic culture in the world where the men wore the veils inside town and the women wore headdresses with their faces exposed. Both Tuareg men and women traditionally wore indigo-blue robes. The dye used in coloring the cloth would leak over time and become absorbed in the wearer’s skin, giving a slight bluish tinge to their faces. Due to this the nomadic desert people acquired the name of the Blue Desert People, which had persisted for centuries until present day.
Genevieve checked the rotor tail for any chips, oil leaks, sand, or damage caused during the flight. She ran her hand, lovingly, along the helicopter’s tail and back to the opening where Elise finished tying the last of her cloth across her shoulders by applying a special knot.
Tuareg women were also recognized for their seniority in the social structure of society, with men being beneath the females in the order of the family household. Women were allowed to divorce their men and were unconditionally entitled to their household savings, while men were not allowed to divorce.
Elise turned to face her. “What do you think?”
The deep blue robe, delicately left open to expose her face and the dark blue make-up applied to her face accentuated the deep purple of Elise’s eyes. If it were possible, the image made Elise even more stunning than she ordinarily appeared.
Genevieve smiled. “I think if I had any inclination of being gay, I’d ask you to marry me.”
“Thanks.” An awkward upward crease formed at the corner of Elise’s lips. “I think. I’m more interested in whether or not you think we’ll pass as Tuareg nomads?”
“Hell no. I think they’ll take one look at you and wonder which empress has arrived.”
Elise closed her eyes. She looked like she was imagining an empress coming to town. She nodded and said, “That will do, so long as they give us the information we need.”
“About that. How do you think we go about this? You think a couple of Tuareg women can just walk up to a public place in Bilma and someone will tell us where Sam and Tom ended up?”
Standing outside the helicopter Elise placed a metallic briefcase on the floor of the Sikorsky. She typed in a code and the weapons case opened. Inside was an Israeli Uzi, a Glock 19, and two German made grenades. “Yeah, I think we can do something like that.”
Elise removed the Uzi and stripped it. She then checked the firing mechanism and reassembled it before starting again with the Glock. She was quick. Always had been. It was part of her inner psyche. She had a naturally sharp, systematic and analytical mind, and completed the entire process in under a minute.
Genevieve watched as Elise glanced over to see how far she had gotten with her weapons. It was a challenge. It made her smile. For Elise it was still a game. One she played well, and for a newcomer had developed an expert proficiency in a relatively short space of time.
But Genevieve had spent her life with weapons. For her, it wasn’t a game. It was a part of life. Genevieve blinked without saying a word. She had already stripped her weapons and reassembled them in nearly half that time. Then again, she had done little else than work with military hardware for a lifetime before joining the Maria Helena.
Chapter Fifty
Elise slipped the Uzi into a holder built into her robes. The Glock, she nestled into an ankle strap on her right leg and attached two grenades to a weapons belt beneath her robe. If General Ngige’s army of rebels were still searching the city, the last thing she wanted to do was get caught in a firefight under equipped.
She watched as Genevieve finished tying her tesirnest. She’d brought a similar array of weapons with one addition — a razor sharp, 13 inch hunting knife. At a glance, the blade was Damascus steel. Elise wasn’t an expert in knives, but recognized the hardened metal from its distinctive patterns of banding and mottling, reminiscent of flowing water. Such blades were reputed to be tough, resistant to shattering and capable of being honed to a sharp, and resilient edge, popular among hunters. The handle was made of Karelian birch, turned a well-worn brown color. At the base of the blade was a single word, written in Russian.
“What’s the blade say?” Elise asked
Genevieve grinned. “Some secrets I’d rather keep.”
“Sure.” She pulled her robe over her shoulder to conceal the Uzi. “All right. Shall we go bring our boys home?”
Genevieve nodded and said nothing.
They left Veyron to mind the helicopter and test the quality of the fuel before he purchased any. Elise and Genevieve entered the squat town through its first opening. It looked less like a gate and more like a crack in the poorly constructed wall. There were no other openings visible along the southern side of the town. The air was hot to breathe. The mercury was well above a hundred and ten Fahrenheit and a strong smell of goat manure mixed with squalor wafted from inside. Elise heard some children playing in the distance, and the sound of the moldings of salt-cones being cracked at the saline pans. She analyzed every sound she heard and then relaxed. There were no sounds of large groups of men yelling, or weapons firing, as expected if General Ngige’s army was present.
She took a deep breath and stepped inside.
The temperature dropped immediately. At least twenty degrees at a guess. The opening led to a small semi-covered adobe, which was a mud-piled array of buildings, leading to more of the same structures. Three goats were tied to an iron ring protruding from the clay wall. The animals made no reaction as they entered.
They breached deep into the desert city through a series of narrow laneways, corridors, and tunnels. Further inside was a swathe of mud homes. Nothing quite as ordered as mudbrick, but simply mud piled upon mud to make up the primitive protection provided by an adobe. There were no doors for privacy. Only openings, where the mud had either collapsed or been left intentionally free.