evacuate civilians who’ve been wounded in the fighting. And snakebite, that’s okay, too. Otherwise, tough shit.’ Was I supposed to tell him that?”
Two rebel soldiers lifted the litter and carried the girl into the plane, the older woman following. Another shell exploded, near to where the first had struck. With a languid movement of one huge hand, Gabriel gestured at the people waiting in the distance and pleaded with Douglas to take them as well.
“All of them?”
“It’s a very big plane and they are not many,” Gabriel said, speaking with great composure. “If the murahaleen come, you know what will happen—” Another shell, bursting somewhat closer, interrupted him. Douglas noticed a movement in the crowd, a rippling as of grass in the wind, and he thought or imagined the people made a sound, a kind of collective sigh, as of wind moving through grass.
He took a headset from one of the loadmasters and told Estrada what was going on.
“I’m hurting, man, really hurting” was all the captain said. “C’mon, get up here and let’s go.”
“Call Loki. Ask them to authorize.”
“Forget it! They’re not going to let us bring half the town into Kenya. Get on up here before we get blown off this runway!”
“Is it still my plane or what?”
“Get your ass up here now.”
Douglas felt a flashing envy for people who dwelled in the peaceful nooks of the world, where there was time to ponder before making difficult moral choices.
“All right, but get them aboard in a hurry,” he said to Gabriel, then returned to the cockpit, stepping over the pregnant girl, while the aid workers, strapped into their web jumpseats, looked at him, bewildered.
If Estrada had not been so sick, he might have taken a swing at his copilot. He called the loadmasters on the intercom and ordered them to raise the ramp. They said they couldn’t; there were people on it. Then kick ’em off, Estrada said. The loadmasters couldn’t do that either because there were too many, sixty, seventy at least, and what was more, men with guns standing outside the door.
“All right, Yankee boy, you caused the problem, you fix it. Turn those people around. Tell ’em big mistake. This isn’t American Airlines.”
At Douglas’s refusal, the captain rose from his seat and turned to go to the rear of the plane. Just then, another wave of dysentery bound his guts, and he doubled over again. Seeing his chance, Douglas strapped himself in and told the loadmasters to continue boarding the refugees. A few moments later, when the DOOR OPEN light went dark, he pushed the throttles, let go the brakes, and started his roll.
“Good thing there weren’t any weapons on board. I think Estrada would’ve put a pistol to my head.”
“Yes, I think I might have, too,” Tara said with a sternness that chipped the armor of Douglas’s self-assurance.
His gaze wandered for a moment; he drummed the table with his fingers.”Listen, I found out later that what the French or Belgian guy was afraid would happen did happen. Five, six hundred Arabs on horseback overran the airfield less than half an hour after we got out of there. The big guy, Gabriel, got killed, I heard, and whoever was left in town either got killed or was hauled off into slave camp.”
“Yes. I think you did the wrong thing for all the right reasons.”
He drew back, as if Tara had raised a hand to slap him.
“You did commandeer the aircraft. And I say that in the spirit of constructive criticism.”
But he did not take it that way. He looked insulted and incredulous, as if he were convinced that his actions had been so manifestly right that only a blind, stupid, or morally corrupt person could think they’d been otherwise.
“All right, I’ve heard the criticism, what’s the construction? Clue me in.”
The combination of petulance and flippancy made her wince. For his part, Fitzhugh had fallen in love. The American was a spiritual brother, with a zeal and daring he could only wish were his own. He decided to give Douglas a little support. To put everything on the line to save a few strangers of no importance to anyone, he told Tara, had been a triumph of conscience over self-interest.
“I did say it was for the best of reasons, didn’t I?” An adamantine varnish seemed to flood her eyes, and their hard blue glare unsettled him. “But from what I heard, the story didn’t have a happy ending. Immigration incarcerated those people, then packed them off,