The Seventh Pillar (5 page)

"I'm thinking air. Rent a plane and pilot here. We spot the truck, we can track it again. We don't find it, we come back and think out our next move. We find it, we come back and figure how to take it out."

"I don't know, Nick..."

"You have a better idea?"

He heard her sigh. "No. I don't. You're on the scene. It's your call."

Right, he thought. "How are Ronnie and Lamont?"

"Lamont took a round right through the bone and he lost a lot of blood. His upper arm is smashed to bits. He's lucky to be alive. He almost lost the arm. They patched it back together with plates. Ronnie's got a bad hand where he cut himself. Might make it stiff when he heals up."

"Tell them I said some people will do anything to get off work."

Stephanie laughed.

Carter ended the call.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nick asked around at the airport and tracked down an American pilot named Harmon. Harmon set up a meet in a bar. According to him, the only bar in town that served cold beer. Mali practiced a tolerant Islam, the kind the fanatics wanted to consign to the flames. There weren’t many bars in this Muslim nation, but there were a few.

The place felt like a time warp from the 30s. It was half full with a mix of foreigners and locals. The bartender wore a white jacket that had seen better days. The back bar featured spotted mirrors, a dozen bottles and arched wooden grillwork. Wooden ceiling fans pretended to stir the stifling air. Scarred tables were scattered about the room. An old upright piano stood next to a small stage. A fat white man in a white suit and a panama hat sat draped over a stool at the bar.

The only thing missing was Humphrey Bogart and someone playing Cole Porter tunes. Behind the stage Nick saw a faded curtain. Carter half expected Marlene Dietrich, or maybe Amelia Earhart, to step through that curtain and give them a song.

Over in the corner four Americans in civvies with solid builds and buzz cuts talked among themselves. He knew the look. Special Ops, probably Army Rangers. The US had advisors here. Mali was another new front in the so-called war on terrorism.

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."

"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."