Acts of Faith Page 0,19

strong one when it came to building her offspring’s self-esteem.

“Well, shee-hit, and I could’ve sworn it was Anne-Marie,” Dare said. “Now where did I get that idea? Tell you where. Because you’re from Canada. Anne-Marie sounds sorta French, doesn’t it?”

“I’m from Manitoba, not Quebec. Mary English. Can’t get much more un-French than that, can you?”

“Hell, no! All right, Mary English”—dipping into his shirt pocket for a spare pair of gold-embossed epaulets—“wear these. We’ll be gettin’ off the aircraft while they off-load, and these’ll identify you as crew. Just in case.”

She unbuttoned the shoulder flaps on her khaki shirt, put the epaulets on, and asked, “In case of what?”

“In case of anything,” Dare said. “Somalia, darlin’.”

The sun rose without any gradual color-splashed ascent, just an abrupt burst of equatorial light. The ground crew finished loading, fifteen hundred and fifty kilos of bagged mirra piled on the floor secured with canvas straps tied to D-rings. Aside from Mary and Nimrod, the only passengers were the stockily built dealer, representing the big man behind the operation, and the dealer’s wife, gowned, veiled, her hands and arms displaying henna tattoos. Dare and Tony had flown together long enough to dispense with most preflight formalities; normally they gave the instruments, flaps, and rudder a quick check, fired the engines, and took off. This time, in the interests of providing Mary English with a proper introduction to the Gulfstream, they ran through the entire litany with the diligence of a commercial airline crew. She sat in the jumpseat directly behind the pedestal, looking earnest and attentive. Probably one of those girls who always listened in class and got her homework in on time.

“Generator on,” said Tony into his headset’s microphone. Dare started number-two engine, and they all three watched the prop blades paddle slowly for a couple of revolutions, then spin into invisibility except for the black tips that merged to draw a blurred, stationary circle in the air.

“Clear one.”

The other engine barked and revved up to a throbbing whine, and the plane shuddered as if she were excited, anticipating her release.

Dare got his taxi clearance from the tower—a UN-chartered Antonov would be ahead of them for takeoff.

“Let’s roll,” he said, feeling a mild impatience. “There’s money to be made.”

Mary asked how much, and he told her: thirty-five hundred U.S., plus six free drums of fuel, donated by the warlord in whose territory they would be doing business. The money had come not from the small fry in back but from his boss, a guy named Hassan Adid. He released the brakes and trailed the AN-28 toward the runway, past rows of idle aircraft, most beyond their prime. Sometimes Wilson Field looked like an airshow for used-up planes.

“Busy place, ain’t it, Margo?”

“Mary.”

“I mean Mary.” He gestured out his side window. “Yeah, one busy airport, and all do-gooders, too. See that Cessna yonder? The red and white one? Those folks are goin’ to save the elephant. And that other one, the old Fokker—they’re goin’ to save the rhino. And that Polish Let out at the end is another UN plane, so I reckon they’re goin’ to save people. Winston Churchill said that the UN isn’t here to bring paradise on earth, but to prevent everything from goin’ to hell entirely. But I ain’t sure it’s doin’ even that.”

“When did Churchill say that?”

“Hell, I don’t know, but he said it.”

Ahead, the Antonov swung off the taxiway, stood poised for a moment while her skipper throttled up, then lurched forward, an overbuilt assembly of collective-factory steel riveted together in the now-extinct Soviet Union. Dare turned into position and pushed the throttle levers forward and watched the RPM needles wind up, the engines protesting the restraint of the brakes. Tony’s voice crackled in his earpieces. Flaps and rudders set . . . RPM normal . . .

“No light on the pumps,” Bollichek added. “Reckon the blokes did what they said, miracle of miracles.”

“You can bet Nimrod got on their asses.”

“The hope of Africa, Nimrod.”

“There ain’t any hope.”

“Wilson Tower, this is Five Yankee Alpha Charlie Sierra, ready for takeoff,” Dare said.

“Five Yankee Alpha Charlie Sierra, you are clear,” the controller said in his accented English, then gave the wind speed and direction and temperature. A fine cool morning. Fast takeoff, use up less fuel.

“Thanks. See y’all for lunch.”

He took his feet off the brakes again and went to full throttle. The Gulfstream lunged down the lumpy asphalt. The unkempt meadows alongside, vestiges from the days when Wilson was the grassy platform

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