'I am sorry, Nicky,' she whispered, 'but you must have known that I am
not a thief. It belongs to Egypt, not to US.'
'So everything that I thought there was between us was a lie?' he
demanded remorselessly.
'No!' she said. 'I-' and then she broke off without finishing what she
was going to say. She ran down the ramp into the sunlight to where the
chauffeur was holding the back door of the limousine open for her. She
slipped on to the seat beside Abou Sin without looking back, and the
Cadillac pulled away and drove through the gate.
'Let's get the hell out of here, before these Gyppos change their
minds,' said Jannie.
'What a splendid idea,'said Nicholas bitterly.
nce they were airborne again, Aswan Control cleared them for a direct
flight northwards to the Mediterranean coast. The four of them, Jannie
and Fred, Sapper and Nicholas, stayed together on the flight-deck and
watched the long green snake of the Nile crawl along their right
wingtip.
They spoke very little during this long leg of the flight.
Once Jannie said quietly, 'So I can kiss my fee goodbye, I suppose?'
'I didn't really come along for the money,' said Sapper, 'but it would
have been nice to be paid. Baby needs new shoes.'
Does anybody want a cup of tea?' Nicholas asked, as though he had not
heard.
'That would be nice,' said Jannie. 'Not as nice as the sixty grand that
you owe me, but nice anyway.'
They flew over the battlefield of El Alamein, and even from. twenty
thousand feet they could pick out the twin monuments to the Allied and
German dead. Then the blue of the sea stretched ahead of them.
Nicholas waited until the Egyptian coast receded behind them and then he
let out a long, soft sigh.
', ye of little faith,' he accused them, ''hen did I ever let you down?
Everybody gets paid in full., They all stared at him long and hard, and
then Jannie voiced their doubts. 'How?' he asked.
'Give me a hand, Sapper,' Nicholas invited, and started down the
staircase. Jannie could not control his curiosity and handed over the
controls to Fred. He followed the two Englishmen down to the lavatory on
the main deck.
Sapper and Jannie watched from the doorway as Nicholas took the
Leatherman tool from his pocket and lifted the cover of the chemical
toilet. Jannie grinned as Nicholas started to work on the screws,
holding the hidden panel in place. Big Dolly was a smugglers' aircraft,
and these little modifications were evidence of the pains that Jannie
and Fred had taken to adapt her to that role. There were a number of
these hidey-holes cunningly uilt into the engine housings and other
parts of the fuselage.
lj When they had flown back from Libya, the Hannibal bronzes had reposed
in the secret compartment behind this panel. The location of the panel
in the back of the toilet made it highly unlikely that any follower of
Islam would want to investigate such an unclean area.
