shirt sporting the company’s new color and logo, he went to the office. The reporter and crew had arrived ahead of schedule and were setting up when he came in. The office was cleaner and tidier than he’d ever seen it. Rachel, in a uniform like his, was seated behind the desktop; Douglas was at his desk while the soundman fixed a small microphone to the collar of his white captain’s shirt. Fitzhugh recognized the reporter, a red-haired American with slicing green eyes, but he didn’t recall her name until she introduced herself.
“You flew with us into the Nuba a couple of times,” he said.
“Yeah, I did.”
The soundman clipped a tiny box to Fitzhugh’s belt, then ran the wire under his shirt and fastened the mike to the V in his shirt. Phyllis Rappaport sat in front of him and Douglas. She had the X-ray body of an aging fashion model or a diet fanatic. Crossing her legs, a legal tablet in her lap, a pen in her bony fingers, she began with easy questions. How long had the airline been in business? How many planes in its fleet? How many employees? How much money did it make? That led to a somewhat harder question: What did they say to the accusation, often made, that they were exploiting Africa’s misfortunes to make a fortune? Douglas, rubbing the scar on the bridge of his nose, looked into the camera with his artfully artless gaze. “If bringing food to starving people and medicine to sick people and clothes to naked people is exploitation,” he answered smoothly, “then, yeah, we’re guilty as charged.”
“What about guns?” She tried to make the question sound offhanded but didn’t quite bring it off, her voice driving it like a nail.
“What about them?” Douglas asked serenely.
“Khartoum claims that aid pilots are running guns to the rebels. Any comment?”
“Sure. Khartoum needs to discredit us, and not just us—this whole relief operation. It’s propaganda. I’m surprised you’d give any credence to it.”
“A kernel of truth in everything, even propaganda,” she said. “Some fairly advanced stuff has been showing up in SPLA hands, like shoulder-fired missiles. A lot of people, not just the Sudan government, are wondering where they come from and how they get there. Rumors are, they’re being smuggled on relief planes.”
“And I’m surprised you’d give any credence to rumors.”
“Rumor isn’t always wrong, to quote Tacitus.”
Turning from the camera to Phyllis, Douglas caressed her with his gray and candid eyes. “Well, I can assure you, categorically, that this airline has never delivered any weapons to the rebels.”
Sounds rehearsed but very good, Fitzhugh thought. He lies without lying. He tried to imitate Douglas’s composure when Phyllis asked him how the pilots evaded the blockade. False flight plans? Other methods? He replied that he couldn’t comment. Then, abruptly switching topics, she wanted to know if International People’s Aid was a major client of the airline. Yes—in fact it had been Knight’s first client. Phyllis put her pen down and folded her hands on the legal pad, suggesting that she was off the record. Had he or Douglas met Calvin Bingham, and what was their impression? Fitzhugh said the name meant nothing to him.
“He founded IPA,” she said. “Interviewed him last week. He was in Nairobi on a visit. Thought you might have met him.”
“Our dealings have always been with John Barrett. You spoke to him?”
She nodded. “An interesting piece of work, but not as interesting as Bingham. A kind of mystic. He’s into gematria. It’s kind of the Christian kabala. The idea is, you can dig out hidden meanings in the New Testament with numbers and geometry. An odd philosophy for an oil tycoon.”
“So that’s what he is?” Fitzhugh asked, wondering if there was a point to this digression.
“CEO of Northwest Petroleum. Canada’s second-biggest oil company. A few years back Northwest was in the bidding to partner up with Sudan’s state oil company to develop the fields and build the pipeline, but they lost out to Amulet Energy. Kind of intriguing.”
“Actually, I don’t see what’s so intriguing,” Douglas said. “Are we still being interviewed?”
“Sure.” Frowning, she looked at her notes. “To follow up, has the SPLA ever asked you to run guns for them?”
“Are we back to that? Okay, sure they have. They ask just about every pilot and air operator who flies into Sudan.”
“And?”
“And what?” Douglas was getting a bit edgy, but he managed to forge a smile.
“Have any of them agreed to, if you know.”
“I don’t. You’d have to