The Quest: A Novel (46 page)

Mercado thought about that, then asked, “Are you saying that we’re leaving the aircraft in Gondar?”

“Well, it’s not going to fly itself back.” He assured Mercado, “I’ll telex Signore Bocaccio from the Goha and let him know he can pick up his plane in Gondar, and keep our security deposit.”

Neither Mercado nor Vivian replied.

“I don’t think we’ll be needing Mia one way or the other after we leave Gondar on our journey.”

Again, no one responded.

Purcell further explained, “There is no reason for us to return here. We don’t need any more photographs developed, and it is time we moved forward—before we get shut down by the authorities or by something outside our control.” He looked at Mercado and Vivian. “Caesar crossed the Rubicon and burned his bridges behind him. And that is what we will do tomorrow.”

Mercado said, “We should see what Sir Edmund has written to us. That may influence what we do next.”

“Let’s first have our own plan.”

“All right, Frank. We have a plan. Now please open the envelope.”

Purcell glanced around to see if anyone was paying too much attention to them, then tore open the envelope. He extracted a single piece of paper and looked at it.

Vivian asked, “What does it say?”

“It is… a poem.” He smiled, then said, “Titled, ‘The Explorer.’ ”

Mercado said, “That’s Kipling, if you don’t know.”

“Thank you.” He read, “Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges—Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!”

He looked up at Mercado and Vivian.

They stayed silent, then Vivian asked, “Is that it?”

“That is it—except for the signature.”

Mercado asked, “Did Sir Edmund sign it?”

“Actually, no, and neither did Rudyard Kipling.” He glanced at the signature and said, “It is signed, I. M. N. Sloan.”

“Who?”

“You gotta say it fast, Henry.”

Vivian said, “I am in Shoan.”

Purcell passed the note to her. “You win.”

She looked at it, then gave it to Mercado.

Purcell said, “We will join Sir Edmund in Shoan.”

Mercado had a dinner date and left them in the lounge. They sat without speaking for a while, then Vivian said, “I don’t want dinner. Let’s have a bottle of wine sent to our room.”

Purcell replied, “You can have one sent to your room.”

She didn’t reply.

He stood and said, “Good night.”

“Frank…”

He looked at her in the dim light and he could see tears running down her face.

She looked at him. “Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We will all stay friends, until we leave Ethiopia.”

She nodded.

He turned and left.

T
he Navion was available the next day for an overnight stay in Gondar and a return to Addis on the following day. Signore Bocaccio met them at the airport at noon to collect his rental fee and deliver the news. “This is unfortunately your last flight.” He explained, “This is causing me worry.”

“I’m the one flying this thing.”

Signore Bocaccio smiled, then said seriously, “I want no trouble with the government.”

“I understand.”

He advised, “You, too, should be careful with the government. They will be curious about your flights to Gondar.”

“We are journalists.”

“There is a commercial flight once a week. So perhaps they will want to know why you need my aircraft.”

“We don’t want to spend a week in Gondar.” Purcell asked, “How does that sound?”

“To me, it sounds good. To them… who knows?” He motioned toward Vivian and Mercado, who were standing near his aircraft. “You are nice people. Please be careful.”

“We’re not actually that nice.” Purcell paid him in dollars for the two-day rental and informed him, “Some of your coffee was stolen in Gondar.”

“It is there to be stolen.”

“Right.” He suggested to Signore Bocaccio that he meet them at the Hilton for dinner on their return from Gondar so that the Signore Bocaccio could release their security deposit.

“But you must let me buy you dinner, and I will keep the security deposit for the down payment on Mia.” He smiled.

Purcell returned the smile and suggested, “Seven
P.M.
, but check
at the desk for a telex from us in case we are delayed getting out of Gondar.”

The Italian looked at him. “Be careful.”

“See you then.”

Signore Bocaccio would actually be dining alone, but he had their two-thousand-dollar security deposit to keep him company—and also to pay for his commercial flight to Gondar to retrieve his aircraft.

Purcell was about to say
arrivederci
, but then said to Signore Bocaccio, “I have seen expats and colonials all over the world waiting for the right time to leave a place that has become unfriendly.” He advised him, “That time has arrived.”

Signore Bocaccio, the owner of coffee plantations and other things in Ethiopia, nodded. “But it is difficult. This is my home.” He told the American, “I love Africa.”

“It doesn’t love you anymore.”

He smiled. “It is like with a woman. Do you leave the woman you love because she is having difficulties with life?”

Purcell did not respond.

Signore Bocaccio informed Purcell, “My wife is Ethiopian. And my children. Would they be happy in Italy?”

“I saw many Ethiopians in Rome.”

“Yes, I know.”

“At least take a long vacation.”

“As soon as I leave, the government will take all I have.”

“They’ll take it anyway.”

“This is true… so perhaps a long vacation.” He smiled. “I will fly to Rome with my family in Mia.”

“Bad idea.” He suggested, “Bring your wife to dinner.”

“That is very kind of you.”

They shook hands and Signore Bocaccio wished them, “Buona fortuna.”

“Ciao.”

Purcell had already filed his flight plan for Gondar, and as a repeat customer with fifty thousand lire clipped to the form, he got his red stamp without attitude. The duty officer had written 12:15 as
the departure time on the form, and that was fifteen minutes ago, so Purcell said to his flight mates, “Let’s hit it.”

Mercado and Vivian had loaded the luggage, which contained more than they needed for an overnight in Gondar, and most of what they needed for a few weeks in the bush, including a bottle of Moët for when they found the black monastery. Henry had also sent a hotel employee out early in the morning with three hundred dollars and a shopping list that included three backpacks, flashlights, and other camping equipment, all of which could be found in Addis’s many secondhand stores that were bursting with items sold by people who were getting out or who needed hard cash to buy food. The young hotel employee had found nearly everything on the list, including a compass. The only thing they needed now was food, which they could buy in Gondar, and luck, which could not be bought anywhere.

Purcell jumped on the wing and helped Mercado up, then took Vivian’s hand and pulled her onto the wing. They looked at each other a second, then she released his hand and climbed into the cockpit and over to the right-hand seat.

Purcell got in, hit the master switch, and checked his flight controls, then pumped the throttle and hit the starter. The engine fired up quickly, and he checked his instrument panel. Oil pressure still low.

Mercado said, “It’s a bit tight back here with the luggage.”

Vivian said to him, “Do not disturb the pilot when he is doing his pilot stuff.”

Purcell said, “Seat belts.”

He released the handbrake and brought the Navion around. He saw Signore Bocaccio standing beside his old Fiat, waving to them. He returned the wave, then slid the canopy closed and taxied toward the end of the longer runway, which was clear of traffic this afternoon.

Vivian asked him, “Do I need to pray to Saint Christopher?”

He didn’t reply.

Vivian had been trying to engage him in light banter all morning, but he wasn’t in the mood. She’d been good enough not to call him in his room last night, or knock on his door, and he was fairly certain she hadn’t spoken to Mercado about the new sleeping arrangement because Henry seemed himself.

Purcell ran the engine up, checked his controls and instruments again, then wheeled onto the runway. “Ready for takeoff.” He pushed the throttle forward and the Navion began its run.

The aircraft lifted off and Purcell began banking right, north toward Gondar. To his right lay Addis Ababa, a city he would probably never see again, or if he did, it would be from a prison cell—unless they gave him the same view of the courtyard and gallows.

Purcell steered the Navion between two towering peaks, then glanced back at what he hoped was his last look at Addis Ababa.

Henry, as it turned out, had not gone to the press office that morning, but he’d sent a telex from the hotel to
L’Osservatore Romano
telling his editors that the team was going to Gondar for a few days to report on the Falasha exodus.

Purcell, Vivian, and Mercado had spent the morning in Henry’s room, giving the photos a last look and marking the terrain maps with a few more suspected hiding places for the black monastery. The other suspicious thing in Mercado’s room, the strand of black hair, was still there. Henry should speak to the maid. But they would not be returning to their hotel rooms ever. It was time, as Colonel Gann suggested, to go and find it.

Regarding where to go next if they did find it, Colonel Gann, in the maps he’d sent them, had included contiguous terrain maps from Gondar and Lake Tana to French Somaliland on the coast. Clearly Gann was suggesting an exit plan for them.

So, with or without the Holy Grail, they would make their way to French Somaliland, the closest safe haven, where many Westerners and Ethiopians on the run had gone. The French officials were good about providing assistance to anyone who reached the border. All they had to do was get there.

Vivian said to him, in a soft voice, “You told me we would be friends.”

“We are.”

“You’ve barely spoken to me all morning.”

“I’m not good in the morning.”

She glanced back at Henry, who was concentrating on a photograph with the magnifier. She said to Purcell, “It will never happen again. I promise you.”

“Let’s talk about this in Gondar.” He added, “I’m flying.”

She looked at him, then turned her head and stared out the side of the canopy.

They continued on, and Mercado said, “We have reached the point of no return on our journey.”

Purcell replied, “Not yet. We have burned no bridges, and I can still fly back to Addis and say we had engine problems.”

Mercado did not reply, but Vivian said, “Avanti.”

P
urcell spotted the single-lane road and followed it north. Off to his right front, he could see Shoan about ten kilometers away. He banked right and began descending, saying to his passengers, “I want Colonel Gann to know we are on the way.”

As they got lower and closer, Mercado leaned forward with his binoculars. “I don’t see the vehicle.”

Purcell replied, “We don’t know if that vehicle had anything to do with Gann.”

Purcell flew over the village at four hundred feet and tipped his wings.

Mercado said, “I saw someone waving.”

“Did he have a mustache and a riding crop?”

“He was wearing a white shamma… but it could have been him.”

“Going native.”

They flew over the spa, then Purcell banked right, to the area east of the single-lane road where most of their photographs had been taken of the jungle and rain forests that lay between Lake Tana and the area around the destroyed fortress—an area that Purcell estimated at more than a thousand square miles.

Vivian had the large-scale maps on her lap, and Purcell asked her to hold up the one of the area below.

She held the map for him, and he glanced at the circled sites, then banked east toward the first circle on the map. He dropped down to three hundred feet and slowed his airspeed as much as he could.

Mercado was leaning between the seats, dividing his attention between the map and the view from the Plexiglas canopy.