their losses with what we find in the bottom of Taita's pool.'
'I hope so,' he agreed fervently. 'I do hope so.'
The giant Hercules -Mkl four-engined turbo, prop aircraft was painted a
dusty nondescript brown, and the identification lettering on the
fuselage was faded and indistinct. There was no Afticair legend
displayed anywhere on the machine, and it had a tired and scruffy
appearance that spoke eloquently of the fact that it was almost forty
years old and had flown well over half a million hours even before it
had fallen into Jannie Badenhorst's hands.
'Does that thing still fly?' Royan asked, as she looked at it standing
forlornly in a back corner of the Valletta airfield. Its drooping belly
gave it the air of a sad old streetwalker who had been put out of
business by an unexpected and unlooked-for pregnancy.
Jannie keeps it looking that way deliberately,' Nicholas assured her.
'The places that he flies to, it's best not to draw envious eyes.'
'He certainly succeeds.'
'But both Jannie and Fred are first-rate aero-engineers, Between them
they keep Big Dolly perfect under her engine cowlings.
'Big Dolly?'
'Dolly Parton. Jannie is an avid fan.' The taxi dropped them and their
meagre luggage outside the side door of the hangar, and Nicholas paid
the driver while Royan thrust her hands -into the pockets of her anorak
and shivered in the cold wind off the Mediterranean.
'There's Jannie now.' Nicholas pointed to the bulky figure in greasy
brown overalls coming down the loading ramp of the Hercules. He saw them
and jumped down off the ramp.
'Hello, man! I was beginning to give up on you,' he said as he came
shambling across the tarmac. He looked like a rugby player, as he had
been in his youth, and the slight limp was from an old playing-field
injury.
'We were late leaving Heathrow. Strike by French air traffic control.
The joys of international travel,' Nicholas told him, and then
introduced Royan.
'Come and meet my new secretary,' Jannie invited.
She may even give you a cup of coffee.'
He led them through a wicket in the main hangar door and into the
cavernous interior. There was a small office cubicle beside the entrance
with a sign over the door saying Africair' and the company logo of a
winged battleaxe.
Mara, Jannie's new secretary, was a Maltese lady only a few years
younger than himself. What she lacked in youth and beauty she fully made
up for across the chest.
'Jannie likes them mature and with plenty of top hamper,' Nicholas
murmured to Royan from the side of his mouth.
Mara gave them coffee, while Jannie went over his flight plan with
Nicholas.
'It's a little complicated,' he apologized. 'As you can imagine, we will
have to do a bit of ducking and diving.
Muammar Gadaffi is not wallowing in affection for me at the moment, so
I' rather not overfly any of his territory.
