French Euro Rock assaulted their ears from scratchy speakers in the ceiling. No one danced. The bar was colorful. It was loud. It was exotic. It was depressing. A waiter took their order.
The drinks came.
Carter took a swallow and looked at the label. Castel, self-proclaimed as the "Queen of Beers".
"Not bad."
"Want a sip of this?" Selena had an Amarula, African liquor that tasted like Bailey’s and Khalua mixed with chocolate. Like an alcoholic milkshake.
"No thanks. Here comes our pilot."
A man came through the doors of the bar, silhouetted against the glaring sunlight. He wasn't tall. He walked with confidence. He had black hair cropped close to his skull, the look of a military man not too long out of the service. He wore non-descript Khaki that could have come out of army surplus or L.L. Bean. His name was Joe Harmon. Carter had asked Stephanie to check him out.
He was a pilot without a plane. The burned out hulk they'd seen when they arrived at Timbuktu International had been his last aircraft. Harmon had been army, a chopper pilot, a WO-3 before he got out. Combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nick's kind of person.
Carter raised his hand and Harmon came over and sat down.
"Selena, Joe Harmon."
"My pleasure." Carter caught the quick once over Harmon gave her. He didn't mind. Any male who saw Selena and wasn't dead gave her the once over. He signaled the waiter and Harmon ordered a beer.
"Bad luck with your plane."
"Yeah. I ran right into a haboob. The engines ate sand and down she went."
"What's a haboob?" Selena asked.
"A bitch of a sandstorm. Worst one I'd ever seen. I'd come out of Burkina Faso with a load of welding supplies. I didn't have enough fuel to turn back. Almost made it."
He shrugged, as if it were no big deal. But Carter knew he was stranded here.
"Your insurance company won't pay. Must put you in a hard spot."
"How do you know that?"
"We had you checked out."
"You CIA?"
"No. But we have connections. We've got a proposition for you."
Harmon drank from his bottle. "Let's hear it."
"We need someone to fly us up north, toward Algeria. We just want to do a little recon, see if we can find a certain vehicle."
"That's AQIM country."
"This vehicle might be part of an Al-Qaeda op." Carter wanted to give Harmon enough information to get him interested. He had a good military record. Nick figured he cared about his country.
"You're Agency," Harmon said.
"No. Something different. It's important we find this truck. We don't need to do anything except try and spot it. We'll never find it on the ground. We need an aerial view. I don't want to use some local tour guide."
"They wouldn't take you anyway."
"Can you get a plane?"
"As a matter of fact, I can." He made rings on the table with the beer bottle, thinking. Carter waited. Selena watched the two men. This is like a male ritual, she thought. Two lions circling around one another. She kept quiet.
"There's an old French plane I heard about here in town. The man who’s got it is a mechanic. I haven't seen it yet. He says it’s in good shape, but he can’t fly. He’s blind from some kind of infection he got in the river years ago. He’ll rent me the plane. It seats four."
"A blind mechanic."
"That’s right."
"An old four-seater French plane."
He nodded.
Carter thought. An old plane and a blind mechanic. It appealed, somehow.
"What's the proposition?" Harmon waved at the waiter for a round.
"Five hundred a day, starting today. You fly us up there. We look around. We come back. That's it."
"Euros or dollars?"
"Dollars."
"What about the plane, fuel, supplies? That costs money."
"We'll pay for all of it."
Harmon toyed with the bottle. "Maybe you can help me with something. With your connections."
Carter waited.
"There's a cop named Samake. He's security, intelligence, out of Bamako."
"We met him."
"I had two hundred tanks of oxygen and acetylene in the cargo bay when I went down. The plane caught fire. I ran like hell and it blew up. Samake thinks I had something for the terrorists. Explosives, whatever. He's got my passport. Pending investigation, he says. You get it back, get me out of this shithole, we've got a deal."
"I think we can arrange that. We need to see the plane first."
"Fair enough. How about I meet you in front of the Hotel de Colombe tomorrow and we'll take a look at it. You know where the Colombe is?"
"That's where we're staying."
Harmon drained his beer. "Seven in the morning. Before it gets hot." He gestured at the empty bottles. "Your round."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They returned to the hotel and got something to eat. They were in Carter's room.
"I want to go back to the library tomorrow." Selena sat on one of the beds. She ran her fingers through her hair.
"You don't want to check out the plane?"
"You don't need me for that. There's a sixteenth century copy of a trader's journal written during the time of Muhammad at the Institute that I want to examine."
Selena poked at the thin mattress where she sat. "These beds are pretty narrow."
Nick stood near her. Her loins flooded with heat and moisture. "Maybe not too narrow." She grabbed him at the waistband and pulled him toward her. "Come over here," she said.
Selena unbuckled his belt and slid his pants down over his hips. No shorts. Nick never wore shorts.
She loved looking at him erect like this, close up. She loved the anticipation. She reached up and cupped him, squeezed, rolled him in her palms. He reached down. She batted his hand away. After a while she stood and unbuttoned her blouse and pulled off the rest of her clothes. He held her close and ran his hands over her. His hands were strong, hard. She felt her heart beat hard against his, his breath, the heat of him. She felt the ripples of scar tissue along his side, his hip, on his back.
She wanted him. "Watch the ribs," she whispered. They kissed, a hungry, devouring kiss. She bit his lip.
They moved to the bed.
"On your back, Johnny."
Selena pushed him down on his back and lowered herself onto him. She held him there, squeezing him, raised herself up and began working him. Then she threw back her head and thrust against him, faster until he shouted and let go, driving up inside her. She uttered a guttural cry and climaxed with him.
She rolled off him, slick with sweat. She lay against him, waiting for her pulse to stop pounding. Her mind shied away and began thinking about the library. She stirred.
"That manuscript I want to look at?"
Carter turned toward her on the pillow. "What about it?"
"The original was written in the seventh century. Muhammad gave one of his commanders a box. He told him to take it far away and hide it. The manuscript says it’s in a large cave up north. It could be where they've stashed that truck. Where AQIM has a base."
"What's in the box?"
"Nobody knows. But the Jihadists would want anything associated with Muhammad. A relic would lend them authority, credibility."
"They’d have to find it, first. If it exists."
"It might not exist. If it did, and if it were found, that could be seen as a sign. Maybe it's been found. Maybe that's what brought the assassins into the open."
"How are we supposed to locate this cave?"
"The manuscript gives landmarks. It talks about salt mines. That means it has to be near Taoudenni. Steph said that's where they lost the signal. If we can spot those landmarks, we might find the cave."