“Not for any,” Mary corrected. “We’d best tell her. I think Tara is free, and she could use the money.”
“All right, and then we celebrate. I’ll get the bartender to open early.”
“No celebrating until tomorrow,” Mary said. “When we deposit the check, that’s when we’ll celebrate. And do you know what you’re going to do?”
Dare started toward the Hotel California compound to see Phyllis. “Not a clue, but I know you’ll tell me.”
“You are going to buy me a new dress. Then you’re going to get a suite at the Norfolk or the New Stanley and order a bottle of Dom Perignon from room service. You are going to take me to dinner—your choice, but it had better be four stars. And finally, you are going to take me dancing, and no Texas two-step. You want to play sugar daddy, I’ll show you how it’s done.”
“I’m not any sugar daddy, I’m your goddamned fiancé,” Dare said.
FITZHUGH LAID HIS HEAD on the desk. Having “minded the store” for five days on his own, he was tired. Now, in the muggy heat of a rainy-season afternoon, he had to juggle tomorrow’s and Wednesday’s flight schedules because Alexei’s Antonov was grounded in Sudan, mired in a runway that was supposed to have been serviceable but turned out to be eight hundred meters of muck. Dealing with such problems—ordinary in the context of African bush aviation—took his mind off more serious issues. There had been no word from Douglas until Saturday afternoon, when he called on the satellite phone. His message was guarded and, at eight dollars a minute, brief. He had met with Hassan, it had been an ugly scene, but Hassan had come up with some “fresh ideas” on resolving their predicament that wouldn’t require any resignations. They were working things out, and that would keep him in Nairobi until the middle of next week. Fitzhugh was to keep him informed of any new developments.
There had been none, except that Phyllis had returned to Loki last night. He assumed she was now in the air with Wesley, heading for the Nuba. Douglas’s call had given him cautious hope for a clean resolution of the current mess. He would have liked to hear Adid’s “fresh ideas” firsthand but was glad he’d been spared the scene that preceded their presentation.
He went to the coffee urn to fortify himself for the rest of the afternoon. A liquid resembling melted asphalt leaked from the spigot.
“Rachel,” he said, “I have got to get these schedules finished, and I can’t do it on this.”
“I will make a fresh pot. But you know you have to be at the UN flight office in just ten minutes.”
She raised her appointment book.
“I completely forgot. Asante.”
Distracted, I am too distracted, he said to himself, driving to the UN compound for a meeting with the flight coordinator about changes in the airstrips where UN-authorized flights were permitted to land. A pickup appeared behind him, lights flicking, horn honking. He waved to the driver to pass. The vehicle swung out and came alongside, a woman at the wheel signaling to pull over. This he did, the pickup parking in front of him. Pamela Smyth sprang out and ran toward him through the mist of laterite dust.
“Fitz! I have been looking for you! Do you have a plane and crew available? It’s Tara!”
“Trouble?”
“She called in a Mayday half an hour ago, and I haven’t been able to raise her since.” Leaning into the window, Pamela clutched his arm. “She’s gone down somewhere. We need a plane for a search.”
“Gone down?” Somehow he could not imagine Tara Whitcomb crashing. “Gone down where? Did you get coordinates?”
“Only part . . . wrote it down—At the office. Please follow me.”
He almost said, “But I am late for a meeting,” and then made a U-turn.
Tara’s office was a tin shack near the Dogpatch hangar, in front of which a twin-engine plane was parked. Fitzhugh entered the shack, and then it registered on him that the plane was Dare’s Hawker. Freshly painted and washed, he hadn’t recognized it at first glance. Dare’s trip must have been delayed or called off.
Pamela was more collected now, though her voice quavered as she said, “This is all I got from her,” and showed him a scrap of paper on which she’d written one set of GPS coordinates, which wasn’t very useful without the other set.
“Tell me what you heard,” Fitzhugh said, looking at the wall map.