'We have to make sure that the dam does not burst while people are in
there. You can imagine the consequences, should that happen.'
He was silent for a moment while he let them dwell upon the possibility.
Royan shuddered slightly and hugged her own arms.
'Not very pleasant,' Nicholas agreed. 'So you plan to use the blocks?'
he prompted Sapper.
'That's right. I have studied the photographs taken in the quarry. I
have picked out over a hundred and fifty granite blocks lying there
completed or almost completed, and I calculate that if we use these in
combination with the steel mesh gabions and the timber coffer walls,
this would give us a firm foundation for the main dam wall.'
'Those blocks must weigh many tons each,' Royan pointed out. 'How will
you move them?' Then, as Sapper opened his mouth to explain, she changed
her mind. 'No!
don't tell me. If you say it's possible, I will take your word for it.'
'It's possible,' Sapper assured her.
'Taita did it,' Nicholas said. 'We will be doing it all his way. That
should please you. After all, he is a relative of yours.'
'You know, you are right. In a strange sort of way, it does give me
pleasure.' She smiled at him. I think it's a good omen. When does all
this happen?'.
'It's happening already,' Nicholas told her. 'Sapper and I have already
ordered all the stores and equipment that we will be taking with us.
Even the mesh for the gabions has been precut to size by a small
engineering firm near here. Thanks to the recession, they had machines
standing idle.'
'I have been down there at their workshop every day, supervising the
cutting and packing,' Sapper butted in.
'Half the shipment is already on its way. The rest of it will follow
before the weekend.'
Sapper is leaving this afternoon to take charge and get it all loaded.
You and I have some last-minute arrangements to see to, and then we will
follow him at the end of the week. You must remember I was not expecting
you back from Cairo so soon,'Nicholas said. 'If I had known, I could
have arranged for us all to fly down to Valletta together.'
'Valletta?' Royan looked mystified. 'As in Malta? I thought we were
going to Ethiopia.'
'Malta is where Jannie Badenhorst has his base.'
'Jannie who?'
'Badenhorst. Africair.'
'Now you have really lost me.'
'Africair is an air transport company that owns one old ex-RAF Hercules,
flown by Jannie and his son Fred. They use Malta as their base. It's a
stable and pragmatic little no country African politics, no corruption -
and yet it is the door to most of the destinations in the Middle East
and in the northern half of Africa where Jannie and Fred do most of
their work. His main employment is smuggling booze into the Islamic
countries, where of course it is prohibited. He's the Al Capone of the
Mediterranean.
Bootlegging is big business in that part of the world, but he does take
