The Code War (14 page)

Hangars bearing logos and corporation
names in both English and Israeli alphabets stood next to each
other. A control tower was visible far off.

'What's this aerodrome
called?' Nancy's professional interest had
overridden her fear. 'It's not on the map. Do charter flights come
here?'

'Now
,
Nancy', he began. He had discovered her name and a lot more about
her as she had written the letter he'd dictated. 'There's no reason
to be afraid. If you do exactly as I say you will be back in a
couple of days, three at most.' He had ignored her question. 'Then
you can resume your holiday and the police will forget about the
drugs.' Habib was all charm now. Nancy looked at him in
awe.

'You will get on an aeroplane and take a
flight. Quite a long flight. When you get off you will be in West
Africa. You will be met by a man called Lafi. Lafi will ask you to
drive a lorry. You can drive, yes?'

His face descended aggressively on hers,
forcing her to jerk her head back.

'Yes,' she replied reactively
before thinking
why didn't I
say no
? 'But I don't have a driving
licence. I'm not legal. Not legal to drive.'

'Don't worry,' he smiled
condescendingly, 'you won't need a driv
ing licence where you're going. Lafi has to transport some
medicines,' he continued with barely a break in his flow 'for the
UN. United Nations. Medicines that will save lives, to another area
away from his home. But it is, how do I say, difficult.'

He looked down at her with the
face of a frustrated saint. He was just a good man trying to bring
hope to the suffering and all around him were selfish people
getting in the way of his and his friends' noble actions. Nancy was
impressed by Habib's ability to paint himself with a halo. A
natural manipulator.

'Those people, you see,' he went on with
a knowing look to Nancy, 'are tribal. They are not like us.'

'
Us,'
exclaimed Nancy. Who are 'us'?'

'So Lafi, who is bringing
medicines across a border,' Habib ignored her again, 'is being
stopped because he is one tribe and the other people are another
tribe.'

Nancy leant back against the car
and put her head in her hands. She stared down at the tarmac in
front of her and at the planes around.
She could see Habib was watching her closely. He didn't
pause for a moment.

'So this is where you can help,
Nancy. You can drive the lorry. For the UN. And deliver the
medicines. And then you come home. OK? Nice girl like you, in
Africa. They will let you go through. You aid worker, OK? You
pretend you aid worker, OK?'

'I don't want to do it. I can't.
I'm just a girl. I'm a travel agent. On holiday.' Nancy felt she
had to fight back, somehow. Plead uselessness. Play the girly card.
Anything.

Habib was relentless.
'If you don't help me, your friends, I can't
help them. They go to jail. Get criminal record. Go back to England
with criminal record. OK? What happen to them then? What happen,
Nancy? They get 'international drug dealer' stamped in passport.
That's what happen. By Israel court. Then no job forever.' He
stared at her until they both realised she had no answer. 'You help
me and the UN. Then I help your friends. OK Nancy?'

Nancy still held her hands on the side
of her head. She swayed slightly side to side, rocking against the
car.

He raised his voice. 'OK Nancy?'

'OK,' she said
eventually, her voice as quiet as the night.
Defeated.

'Good girl, I know you come
through this Nancy. You got spirit. You got…' He thought for a
moment. 'True grit. I can feel it.'

Nancy
didn't feel very gritty. She felt tired, forlorn and
beaten.

'Look.' One last try. 'You must
have someone else. You surely can't be sending a plane all the way
to Timbuktu just to take me there. Isn't there someone else more
local you can use? Someone who knows the area? A real aid worker
maybe?'

She was clutching at straws and Habib
knew it.

'The plane is already going there.
It's taking a very important cargo to our friends. Israel's friends
that is. In Africa. They call it the Flying Hippo. It's just
there.' He indicated a 4-engined transport about 200 yards away.
'Then you came along Nancy and I saw you and it was like a gift.'
Gloating filled his smile like a Barbary pirate greeting
newly-captured slaves. 'You appeared at just the right moment. You
were the last piece of the jigsaw and I knew you had been sent. It
was an act of Providence.'

Nancy's face was expressionless.
She felt like a ladybird trapped in a matchbox.

'Now walk down there,' ordered Habib
pointing again at the 4-engined plane. The covers were open on two
of its engines and several mechanics were inspecting them.

'Go to the plane and wait for
Ilan. He will tell you where to sit. Do exactly as he says. Now go.
I have matters to attend to.' But Habib was looking about him, a
little nervously. Nancy set off in the direction of the plane. She
scuffed her feet on the tarmac and kicked a small stone.

When she
turned to look back at the bully Arab, he was talking with
another man. They both glanced in her direction from time to time.
She threw Habib a look of disgust. He ignored her.

Nancy arrived at the plane. Its
huge loading ramp was down. The dark interior was like a vast
stomach that would swallow her up. The two mechanics on the wing
ignored her and passed each other spanners and wrenches. They
replaced a panel and screwed it tight.

She walked up the ramp. Its
immense hold was filled with a variety of military equipment. There
was a field gun on wheels and a jeep and a half-track with a
machine gun pointing rearwards. There were also stacks of wooden
boxes piled on top of each other and roped to the plane's ribs on
either side so they wouldn't topple over if it were buffeted in a
storm.

A voice behind her.
'Nancy, I am Ilan.' It was the other man Habib
had been talking to. 'Any friend of Habib is a friend of mine.
Pleased to meet you,' he declared proudly.

Friend of mine? Is he
kidding?

Ilan didn't look like an
Arab
. He had a pale complexion and looked
like a westerner.

'Look, I'm being kidnapped,' she
blurted. 'Habib, he gave us drugs. Me and my friends. He gave us
drugs and then trapped us. Ilan, please call the
police.'

'It's OK, I'm going to get you out of
here,' smiled Ilan.

'You are?'

'Sure, in about half an hour
you'll be heading out across the apron and getting ready for
take-off,' he was laughing at his own clever irony. Then seeing her
alarm he became serious. 'Look, Habib said you'd be a bit panicky.
But it'll be fine. Habib has it all organised down to the last
detail. You'll be back here in no time. You'll be back with your
friends after you've helped him out. Thanks for what you're
doing.'

'So who are you? Who do you work for?'
pleaded Nancy.

'Let's just say I work for an
organisation that fills in where government leaves off. Governments
are weak. They need difficult things done but can't do them. That's
where we come in. Me and my friends do things no-one else can. And
sometimes we work with Habib's group. They're people I respect.
They do what they say they will.' Ilan was calm and pleasantly
spoken but the look in his eyes showed he was as open to persuasion
as a prison door. He was not about to let Nancy go free.

'Now if you'd like to get aboard, I'll
show you around the bird and you can meet the pilot. Would you like
some coffee?'

Nancy knew that she was out of
options and that escape was unlikely. Even if she managed to run
away, the boys would be like grasshoppers in a lizard's cage. Habib
was as close to a human reptile as she could imagine and the area
around Eilat was his dominion. He could hurt the boys a lot. She
reluctantly continued her walk up the ramp into the hold while Ilan
followed her. He showed her to a pull-down seat built into the ribs
of the plane, sat her in it and pulled down another seat beside
her.

'Now, listen carefully,' he said,
checking that she was paying attention, 'while I explain what you
have to do and how you are going to get back here safely.'

Ilan took out a map of West Africa and
spread it across his knees.

For the next
quarter hour he explained to Nancy in detail what her
mission would be when the plane arrived in Gambia.

'So in summary,' he concluded,
'Lafi will meet you at Banjul airport. You are going to help him
rescue a consignment of urgent medical supplies that is stuck in
Senegal because of a tribal conflict. Together you will drive an
empty UN lorry on the outbound journey. There is a border crossing
to pass through. But here your skin colour will help. Your pale
complexion will help you pass unhindered across the border without
many difficult questions being asked. When the supplies are loaded
you'll drive them back into Gambia and deliver them to other people
in the capital. Once that's done your mission is accomplished. They
will take them and distribute them where they are needed.
OK?'

'Medical supplies,' said Nancy
sarcastically. 'Really?'

Ilan didn't
try very hard to convince her that the aid imperative
behind the mission was genuine. It was obvious that Habib and
whoever else he was working with were involved in something
dangerous and illegal.

'So why me?
' Nancy demanded bitterly. 'Why fly me all the way across a
continent just to drive a lorry a few miles?'

She had asked Habib the same question
but she now asked Ilan, just to see if she got the same answer.

'You were in the right place at the
right time. This plane was scheduled for Gambia anyway so it was
easy to put you on it. You turned up just when Habib needed you and
it sounds crazy but it was easier to fly you out there and back
than to try and source someone local in the time available. These
'medical supplies', Ilan emphasised the words, all pretence at
innocence long since gone, 'are extremely valuable to Habib's
organisation and the short journey you'll be taking them on has
been the one weak link in the chain. Once you've delivered them to
Banjul the rest of the supply chain kicks into gear. Now, no more
questions.' His tone had abruptly altered as though he regretted
having said too much.

At that moment a man in a flight suit
emerged from the cabin at the front of the plane and came towards
them. He spoke briefly to Ilan and then returned where he had
come.

Ilan turned towards Nancy. 'Show
time, little lady,' he announced as if he'd learnt his English from
watching movies. He reached across her and took hold of her seat
belt buckle, pulled it back towards him and clipped it into its
socket. 'You're clear for take-off. I'll see you in a day or
two.'

With that he stood up
and walked out and down the ramp and strode off
as if he was heading for a day at the office. Seconds later Nancy
heard the sounds of engines coughing and firing as the four
propeller turbines kicked themselves into life, one after the
other. Diesel fumes swirled into the rear of the plane. A grinding
sound followed sending vibrations through the hull and up through
her seat. The ramp slowly drew itself up and closed with a hollow
metallic clunk. There was near darkness inside the hull. Nancy felt
sudden panic and unhooked her safety belt to stand up. The plane
had started to taxi but she walked around the space close to her,
holding on to the vehicles and boxes to steady herself. As she
walked beside a jeep she noticed wing mirrors protruding from the
side and stooped down to look at herself in the reflection. It was
the same old Nancy looking back at her, just a little more sweat
streaked than usual. Somehow she found her own image oddly
comforting. Then she looked in the jeep's door window at something
that caught her eye.

'
Not
again,' she gasped to herself.

A large lower case letter e was clearly
visible hanging in the air just the other side of the glass, a
black shadow edged in white. She looked behind her for its source.
Nothing. As she looked back at the e again its sharply defined
edges turned slowly red, glowed hot, then seemed to burn for a few
seconds and went out leaving no trace. The inside of the jeep
looked back at her.

Nancy stood up, breathing deeply,
holding onto the roof of the jeep. She looked about her at the
shadows, at the vehicles, at the fume-laden air. 'What do you
want?' she screamed 'What do you WANT?'

Heaven's
Shore

All was quiet. Completely and
totally quiet. Jabez picked up a stone and threw it down the shore.
It hit
the sand with a soft thud. The
deafening silence folded back in immediately.

No wind blew the grass. No birds
sang. Nothing moved. There were no distractions. There was no
Music.

Across the divide Inferno was dark. No
light of lava shone up from below.

There were no friends dropping in
either, distracting him with talk of exciting projects or audiences
with the Lamb.

The Lamb. He could solve this
whole issue right now with a wave of his hand if he wanted to. Why
didn't he? Why were bosses always there when they wanted to give
orders but never around when there was work to be done?