peaceful guise, had been one of the pieces of equipment abandoned
A long road ran from the site to a highway a few miles to the south, widened and flattened to allow the passage of heavy machinery. Eddie hoped it would also be wide enough for another form of transport…
‘There she is!’ shouted Maximov, pointing into the sky. Eddie looked up to see a bright yellow aircraft approaching at low altitude.
It wasn’t the one he had expected, however. ‘What the bloody hell’s that?’ he demanded as the large, ponderous biplane made a lazy descent towards the road. The closer it came to the ground the slower it moved, to the point where it seemed to be hanging impossibly in the air. Then, with an upward twitch of its nose, it dropped the last few feet and bounced along the dirt track before trundling to a stop near the unfinished buildings.
Banga drove the pickup to meet it. Strutter prodded Boodu out of the back with the machete as Eddie jumped out and ran to the aircraft. A hatch opened in the biplane’s rear flank. ‘TD!’ he yelled over the engine’s sputtering growl. ‘What the fuck’s this piece of old crap?’
Tamara Defende looked offended. ‘And it’s nice to see you too, Eddie,’ she said in her melodious Namibian accent.
‘What happened to the Piper?’ He had expected her to be flying her Twin Comanche air-taxi.
‘Didn’t I tell you? I’ve got two planes now — my business is expanding. I thought you might need something bigger for this.’ She nodded at Maximov as he accompanied Strutter and Boodu to the aircraft. ‘I don’t think he would even fit in the Piper.’
Eddie was still far from impressed. ‘But… but it’s fucking
‘It’s Russian,’ said TD, pouting in defence of her plane’s honour. ‘It’s an Antonov—’
‘Antonov An-2, yeah, I know.’ Eddie’s military training had included aircraft recognition. He clambered into the surprisingly capacious hold, moving aside to let the three other men in. ‘I meant, why the hell would you buy this thing? It must be sixty years old!’
‘Hah! It’s only thirty-nine years old, so it’s younger than you—’
‘It’s the same age, actually,’ he protested. ‘I’m not forty yet.’
‘—and it’s cheap and simple and I can repair it with a wrench and a hammer out in the bush if I need to. And it can carry a lot of cargo and land just about anywhere, so it’s perfect for my work.’
‘Main thing I want to know is: is it fast?’ Eddie asked as he waved goodbye to Banga and shut the hatch.
‘Not really, but this is Africa. Things don’t happen in a rush here.’
‘They will once the government finds out what just happened at the prison.’
The attractive young pilot took the hint and hurried up the cabin to clamber through an arched opening into the cockpit. Eddie checked on the other passengers. Strutter, evidently as unconvinced by the Antonov’s supposed airworthiness as Eddie, had already strapped himself firmly in. The only thing keeping Boodu down, however, was Maximov’s scowl from the neighbouring seat.
‘You’ll never get away,’ the Zimbabwean snarled as Eddie took the seat next to Strutter, facing him across the cabin. ‘Not in this antique.’
‘Ten miles and we’re across the border,’ Eddie reminded him. ‘Even this thing can make it before any of your fighters reach us.’ TD revved the engine, applying full rudder to turn the elderly aircraft back down the road. The Antonov lurched over the bumps. Strutter nervously pulled his straps even tighter. ‘
‘I heard that,’ TD snapped from the cockpit. She straightened out, braking and checking the instruments before pushing the throttle to full power. The engine roared, the entire fuselage vibrating and rattling.
‘I should have kept earplugs in,’ Maximov complained. Eddie had to agree; the Antonov betrayed its Soviet military heritage by its utter lack of creature comforts like soundproofing.
‘Hang on,’ TD warned. The jolting increased as the biplane picked up speed. Eddie looked out through the row of circular portholes, gripping the arm of his seat with one hand as he kept the gun aimed at Boodu with the other. They were doing forty miles per hour, fifty — then abruptly the juddering eased and the plane tipped back sharply as it took to the air. Antiquated though it might be, the Antonov still had low-speed performance that almost no modern planes could match.
‘How long to the border?’ Eddie shouted to TD as she banked to head west towards her current home country.
‘Less than ten minutes.’
‘Okay.’ Once the An-2 reached Botswanan airspace — passage had already been secured — another fifteen minutes of flight would bring them to a bush airstrip.
Where the relatives of some of Boodu’s victims awaited his arrival.
Boodu had realised this, his attempt at a neutral expression not hiding the concern on his scarred face. His gaze flicked to the machete, which Strutter had shoved point-down into the frame between his and Eddie’s seats. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Eddie warned, with a jab of the gun for emphasis. The militia leader leaned back in his seat, eyes narrowed.
Now that they were in the air, Strutter started to relax. He wiped sweat from his forehead, then turned to the Englishman. ‘You say you are not my friend, Eddie, but for getting me out of that place, you have a friend for life. Whether you like it or not!’ He beamed, but the smile faded at Eddie’s unimpressed look. ‘Whatever you need, whatever you want, you’ll have it.’
‘Just information’ll do,’ said Eddie. ‘I’m trying to find someone.’
‘If anyone can find them, I can,’ Strutter said proudly.
‘That’s why I rescued you. In fact, that’s the
Strutter nodded. ‘It does. Thank you.’ He offered his hand. ‘I promise you, I will find—’
A line of ragged holes burst open in the fuselage, shards of aluminium showering the passengers.
Wind shrieked into the cabin. ‘Shit!’ Eddie gasped as TD threw the lumbering plane into an evasive turn. They were being fired on — but how?
Another burst of machine gun fire punctured the hull, the shots ripping along the length of the plane—
Into the cockpit.
TD screamed. Eddie saw blood on the windscreen. The plane lurched. ‘TD, are you okay? TD!’
Her reply was a barely coherent wail. ‘Oh God, my arm!’
Eddie jumped up and was about to enter the cockpit to help her when the nose tilted upwards, sending him staggering back down the cabin…
Boodu lunged for his machete.
Off-balance, Eddie’s shot at him went wide, adding another hole to the Antonov’s puckered fuselage as Boodu yanked the blade from the seat frame—
More of the Alouette’s bullets struck the biplane. It pitched up almost vertically, dropping Eddie and Boodu towards the rear bulkhead as the other two men struggled to hold on to their seats.
The sheet metal buckled under Eddie as he crashed against it. Boodu slammed down beside him, the machete clanging against the bulkhead just inches from the Yorkshireman’s chest.
Boodu swept the weapon as Eddie rolled away. The machete’s sharp edge caught his arm — only a glancing blow, but still deep enough to draw blood. He tried to bring the gun round, but Boodu lashed out with one leg and kicked his hand, sending the pistol flying across the hold.
The plane’s nose tipped back down. Even wounded, TD was still fighting to keep control of her aircraft. Eddie thumped to the deck as the Antonov came out of its climb. Over the engine’s roar, he heard the clatter of the helicopter’s machine guns. Bullets clunked into the wings.
‘Max!’ he shouted. ‘Get into the cockpit and help her!’ Maximov gave him a thumbs-up and squeezed through the cockpit entrance.
