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"That's good. Better than flying blind."

He reached over to her. She was ready for him.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Carter waited for Harmon on the porch. The Hotel de Colombe fronted Timbuktu’s version of Times Square. Two wide boulevards of hard packed sand came together in a Y forming an unpaved plaza in front of the hotel. Several tall trees grew in the triangle between the streets. Flat roofed houses and shops of mud brick lined both sides. A scrawny cow stood motionless and head down in the road. A long row of wooden poles carried power in from the hazy distance. Tiny dust devils swirled in the heat. The sun beat on his head.

A tall, thin man in a dark brown robe and white skull cap stared mesmerized at a pile of mud bricks in the middle of the street. An old Mercedes car sagged on its springs down the way. The place was really jumping.

A dented white Peugeot bounced toward the hotel, churning clouds of dust behind. It pulled up where he stood. A young, dark skinned man got out of the car, smiling. He wore a long robe and a simple head covering.

Carter came down the steps as Harmon got out of the car. "Where's your friend?"

"She's not coming."

"This is Moussa." Harmon gestured at the driver. "Moussa, this is the man who wants to rent your uncle's plane."

"My uncle will be very happy." Moussa’s voice was rich and friendly. They squeezed into the car. Moussa threw it into gear. The smile became a grim, focused look, the look of a Kamikaze. They roared through town, past potholes and animals and a shouting policeman who threw his baton after them.

Twenty minutes later they pulled up in front of a large, three story mud brick structure on the edge of the desert. The bricks were stamped with a simple geometric pattern that repeated over and over. Carter uncurled his hands from a death grasp on the seat. The front door of the building was made of weathered wood and studded with intricate metal designs. An enormous, polished brass ring formed an impressive knocker.

Moussa knocked, opened the door and bowed them in. The interior was cool and dark. They were in an anteroom with low benches and cushions and a small wooden table. Heavy curtains of deep red cloth partitioned off the rear.

The curtains parted for a small, dark man. Carter guessed him to be in his seventies. His face looked as if it had been chiseled from a weathered tree. He had close-cropped gray hair under a white skull cap. His beard was neatly trimmed. His eyes were milky white.

Carter looked at his hands. Broad fingers and thick, square cut nails, the knuckles marked with white scars and gnarled with arthritis. The hands of an old mechanic.

"Salaam aleikum, Uncle."

"Aleikum salaam, Nephew. You have brought your new friends." He spoke English with a strong accent.

"Yes, Uncle." He introduced them.

"I'd like to see the plane," Carter said. Moussa’s uncle looked away for a moment and Moussa looked down at the floor.

"Of course. Please, follow me." Ibrahim disappeared through the curtain.

"You’re being rude," Harmon whispered.

"What do you mean?"

"No one begins a conversation with business here," he said. "First talk, tea or coffee. Then business." They went through the curtain.

They were in a small, open courtyard. Water trickled into a tiled basin bordered with red flowers. Doors opened off three sides. Moussa and Ibrahim waited. Carter walked over to the old man.

"Please excuse my poor manners," he said. "I don’t know your customs. Thank you for welcoming us into your home."

Ibrahim visibly relaxed. He touched his chest with his right hand. "There is no offense. My house is your house. Perhaps some tea before we look at the plane?"

Harmon gave Carter a warning look. "We would be honored," he said.

After a half hour of sweet mint tea and small talk they went through another door into a cavernous room at the back of the building. Two large doors stood open to the outside. The plane made a black silhouette against the glare of the sun.

Harmon looked at the distinctive shape of cantilevered wings. "God damn. It's a Mousquetaire."

"Mouseketeer? What’s that?" Carter asked.

"Mousquetaire. It means Musketeer in French. It’s a Jodel D-140, made out of wood. They were used as air ambulances back in the sixties and seventies. Short landing and take off. Seats four or five, with a decent cargo area. I knew a guy in the States that restored one of these. I flew it once. It's a good plane. Good for the desert."

Ibrahim nodded, pleased.

French military markings were just visible where they’d been painted over. The fixed landing gear had been modified for desert use by adding bigger tires and stripping away the nacelles that once surrounded the wheels. It would be possible to set down on sand.

They walked around the plane. The tires were old and weather checked and full of dry rot. They held pressure but it would be worth your life to take off or land on them. The big turtle canopy reflected tiny pits from the sand. Once the plane had been white, but now the paint was streaked and faded, starting to peel in places. Harmon opened the canopy and looked inside. The cabin looked clean and neat. The leather seats were cracked and dull. The cargo area contained a rolled up stretcher strapped above a rectangular metal box with a red cross marked on it. A medical kit, at least forty years old. Harmon opened it. Empty.

"Let’s look at the engine."

The old man said something in Arabic and Moussa went over to the side of the hanger and rolled a wooden platform toward the plane. Carter gave him a hand and they set it next to the plane. Harmon climbed up and opened the cowl.

The opposed four cylinder Lycoming engine had no oil leaks that he could see. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make it that way. Ibrahim, the blind mechanic.

Ibrahim sighed. "It is an old plane but the engine is good. Perhaps a bit tired, but good. The controls are good, although I never flew the plane." There was a trace of sadness in the old man’s voice. "It belonged to a Frenchman who had a business here, years ago. I maintained it for him. We often traveled together over the desert. When he died this was his gift to me. No one has flown it in almost twenty years, but I have kept it ready."

Twenty years. A long time. Harmon thought about five hundred dollars a day.

"Let’s start her up," he said.

The old man climbed into the cockpit with the ease of long practice. He would never pilot a plane but he knew what he was doing. Nick heard the whine of fuel pumps. Thirty seconds later the engine cranked over and came to life. The wash from the wooden propeller blew eddies of dust around the room. A burst of black and white smoke and the engine settled down to a steady, throaty idle.

Ibrahim worked the pedals and the stick. Everything moved like it should.

Harmon spent the next half hour checking the plane over. The dry climate had done a good job of preservation. Except for the tires, the plane seemed airworthy. They wouldn’t know for sure until they took her up.

"So," Carter asked him, "What do you think?"

"The tires are no good. We need new ones. They'll have to come out of Bamako. It'll take a day or two. I'll need a thousand Euros, maybe more, maybe less."

Carter didn't have to think about it. "Go ahead and get them."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Late the next afternoon Harmon met Carter and Selena in the bar.

"We’ve got the tires. Ibrahim and Moussa will install them. Then I can check her out."

"Never thought I’d be flying in something called a Mouseketeer." Carter sipped his beer.

"Musketeer. Like D’Artagnan and the other guys."