During the night he fretted that the flotilla was slipping past him, and
with the dawn they were in the air again. Fortunately the cloud had
broken up during the night. There was still some high cumulus overhead,
but they were now able to fly low along the river and search for any
sign of Mek Nimmur's flotilla.
They had first flown back along the river on the Ethiopian side of the
border, as far as the point where Mek Nimmur and Harper had been fired
upon. They had picked up no sign of the boats, so Nogo had forced the
pilot to turn back, cross the border and search the Sudanese stretch the
Nile. But Nogo had only been able to persuade his pilot to penetrate
sixty nautical miles along the Nile into the Sudan before the man had
rebelled. Despite the Tokarev pistol that Nogo held to his head, he had
banked the jet Ranger into a 180-degree turn and headed back low along
the river.
By now Nogo knew he had been defeated and ourwitd. He brooded unhappily
in the front seat of the helicopter ter beside the pilot, trying to
fathom out what had happened to his quarry. He saw the tall smokestack
of the abandoned sugar-mill at Roseires poking up into the early morning
sky, and he glowered at it angrily. They had passed the mill only a
short while before on their way downstream.
"Turn in towards the north bank," he ordered the pilot, and the man
hesitated and glanced at him before he obeyed..
They passed directly over the building, flying lower than the chimney.
The factory was roofless and the windows were empty rectangles in the
broken walls. The boilers and machinery had been removed twenty years
previously, and Nogo could look into the empty shell. The pilot hovered
the aircraft while Nogo peered down, but there was no place where anyone
could hide, and Nogo shook his head.
"Nothing! We have lost them. Head back upstream." The pilot lifted the
machine's nose and turned away towards the river, obeying the order with
alacrity. As the aircraft banked steeply, Nogo was looking down directly
into the overgrown canefields verging the river when a flash of bright
yellow caught his eye.
"Waid' he shouted into his mike. "There is something 9 there. Go back!'
The helicopter hovered over the field, and Nogo gestured urgently
downwards. "Down! Put us down."
As soon as the skids touched the earth, the stick of six heavily armed
troopers dived out of the rear cabin and raced out to take up defensive
positions. Nogo clambered out of the front door and ran into the
overgrown bed of tall cane. One look was all he needed. The yellow boats
had been deflated and folded and hastily covered. The earth around them
had been churned up by booted feet.
The tracks led away inland. The men who had made them had been heavily
laden, for they had trodden deeply into the soft, sandy earth.
Nogo ran back to the helicopter and thrust his head in through the open
cabin door. "Is there an airstrip near here?" he shouted at the pilot,
who shook his head.
"There is nothing shown on the chart,, "There must have been one. The
sugar'mill would have had a strip."
"If there was one, it must have been decommissioned years ago.
"We will find it,'Nogo declared. "Mek Nimmur's tracks will lead us to
it." He sobered immediately. "But I will have to bring up more men.
judging by his spoor, Mek Nimmur has at least fifty of his shufta with
him."
He left his men at the sugar-mill and flew back to the border with an
empty rear cabin to pick up the first load of reinforcements.
'ñDig Dolly! Come in, Big Dolly. This is Pharaoh.
Do you read?" Nicholas put out his first call an MD hour before sunrise.
"If I know the way jannie's mind works, and I should, he would plan to
make his approach flight in darkness and arrive here as soon as there is
enough light to pick up the strip and land."
7L 111.7- 7 -7
"If the Fat Man comes," Mek Nimmur qualified.
"He will come," said Nicholas confidently. "Jannie has never let me down
yet." He thumbed the microphone and called again: "Big Dolly! Come in,
Big Dolly."
The static hummed softly, and Nicholas retuned the set carefully. He
called again every fifteen minutes as they huddled around the set in the
dark under the acacia trees.
Suddenly Royan started to her feet and exclaimed excitedly, "There he
is. I can hear Big Dolly's engines.
Listen!'
Nicholas and Mek ran out into the open, and turned their faces upwards,
looking into the north.
Nicholas exclaimed sud
"That's not the Hercules, denly. "That's another machine." He turned and
faced southwards, towards the river. "Anyway, it's coming from the wrong
direction."
"You are right," Mek agreed. "That's a single engine, and it's not a
fixed wing. You can hear the rotors."
"The Pegasus helicopter!" Nicholas exclaimed bitterly.
"They are on to us again."
As they listened, the sound of the rotors faded.
Nicholas looked relieved. "They missed us. They can't have IR spotted
the Avons."
They trooped back under the cover of the acacias, and Nicholas called
again on the radio, but there was no reply from Jannie.
Twenty minutes later they heard the sound of the jet Ranger returning,
and they monitored it anxiously.
"Gone again," said Nicholas after a while, but then twenty minutes later
they heard it yet again.
"Nogo is up to something out there,'Mek said uneasily.
"What do you think it is?" Nicholas was infected by his mood. When Mek
worried, there was usually a damned good reason to worry.
"I don't know," Mek admitted. "Perhaps Nogo has spotted the Avbns and is
bringing up more men before he comes after us." He went out into the
open and listened intently, then came back to where Nicholas crouched
over the radio.
"Keep calling," he said. "I am going out to the perimeter to make
certain my men are ready to hold Nogo off if he comes., The helicopter
moved up and down the Nile at'short intervals during the next three
hours, but the lack of any further developments lulled them, and
Nicholas barely looked up from the radio each time they heard the
distant beat of the rotors. Suddenly the radio crackled, and Nicholas
started violently at the shock.
"Pharaoh! This is Big Dolly. Do you read?"
Nicholas's voice bubbled over with relief as he replied, "This is
Pharaoh. Speak sweet words to me, Big Dolly."
"ETA your position one hour thirty minutes." jannie's accent was
unmistakable.
"You will be very welcome!" Nicholas promised him fervently.
He hung up the microphone and beamed at the two women, "Jannie is on his
way, and he will-'
He broke off and his smile shrivelled to an expression of dismay. From
the direction of the river came the unmistakable rattle of AK-47 rapid
fire, followed a few seconds later by the crump of an exploding grenade.
"Oh, dammit to hell!" he groaned. "I thought it was too good to last.
Nogo has arrived."
He picked up the mike again and spoke into it expressionlessly. "Big
Dolly! The uglies have arrived on the scene. It's going to have to be a
hot extraction."
"Hang on to your crown, Pharaoh!" jannie's voice floated back. "I am on