She squinted through her cigarette smoke, focusing again on the small female feet in the aft chamber. The image raised the discomfiting specter of another loose end, her mother, who remained helplessly alone in Yorkville. Yet Mutti was most likely safely adrift in her senile reveries. She may have been questioned briefly by the Americans, but they would have quickly realized the limits of her contributions. The pathetic, lawyer-laden American justice system would deem her mother useless as a witness, forbidden as a pawn. They might watch her in fruitless hope, but ultimately they would have to leave her be.
The Falcon bounded gently as it passed through a pocket of low pressure, and the girl’s feet twitched once, like the limbs of a dreaming dog. The injection she had been given just after boarding would be wearing thin now, yet with Youssef and Riyad as baby-sitters, Ruth Baum was hardly a threat. Martina looked at her watch. Less than an hour remained . . .
Ruth also sailed aloft among the clouds, yet they were the high, wispy cirrus of chemical dreams. The sun was white and sharp and far away, a brilliant dot against a shimmering azure sky. Her hands stretched out before her as she floated, her fingers brown from the beach holiday that had begun some time ago, yet had no limit, no sad anticipation of its end. A slim silver ring flashed on one finger, cotton sleeves billowed over her forearms, and the cool vapors tickled her cheeks as she flew under the power of her own ecstasy.
She looked down at the seductive layer of cloud, bent her head, and settled onto a creamy bedsheet, the scent of fresh laundry and the sweet pungency of a man’s aftershave rising from the pillow. The bed, an endless mattress without corners or borders, rose up gently and fell again. She felt a weight on her back, a soft nudge, and she rolled over, reaching up to touch the smooth muscles of his shoulders, the downy hairs at the nape of his neck. The rocking came again, yet now it was their rhythm, together, entwined, as she drew her head back, stretched her throat, and sighed.
The bed bucked hard, but suddenly she knew it was not love. The sun went out, day to night, quick and horrible, like a coffin lid slammed down over a coroner’s miscalculation. Her hands scrabbled at the air as she tried to surface, and then she heard Mike’s voice calling to someone, but it was not his voice, the accent strange.
“She’s up. She’s up.”
Her eyelids were glued. She brought her palms to her brows and smeared them up. The darkness was replaced by blinding pins of light, then a hovering black mushroom. She saw the woman’s face inches from her own, the wide mouth, the black hair, and she screamed.
Martina’s fingers dug into Ruth’s shoulders as she pulled her up into a sitting position on the couch. Ruth’s head sank forward; a hand pushed her forehead back. Just beyond Martina’s breast, a huge man leaned forward, reaching out for her. A wave of nausea clenched her as she retched and slid to her knees. Someone cursed, a door was kicked open, fingernails pinched her armpits, and she crawled into a small room. A gold sink was to her right, a hand turned her head to the left, but there was only a heavily upholstered seat there. She could not hold it any longer, yet suddenly the seat flipped up to reveal a steel commode, and she regurgitated nothing but saliva and coughed until her tears met at the bridge of her nose.
At last, the rebellion of her body subsided. A damp cloth poked through the tumble of her hair and swiped over her mouth. She slid slowly back and sat on her heels, her arms trembling as she gripped the commode for support. She heard the suffocated whine of jet aircraft engines and it all came back to her full force, like the hollow dread of a mourner waking to a dawn that would not bring relief, could not roll back time.
Elohim. Oh, God. She shook her head once, and a liquid whirlpool swirled in her brain. I’m still here. She remembered her last wakeful state, as she walked toward the airplane, wanting to cry out but for the hand that gripped her elbow, the woman’s face that watched as it escorted, the brows knitted in concern above eyes that threatened death.
That had been real, the wedding bed a dream.
She opened her eyes. She was wearing a long black dress, spotted with liquid. Where is Abba now? Her silent plea brought a flash of anger, some strength to her arms as they steadied. Yet she quickly wondered the same of Michael, which evoked her last image of him, being thrashed by those men, his half-naked body arching back into her apartment. What had they done to him, the bastards? Had they killed him? Left him on her floor to be found by those other policemen, who should somehow have been there to stop this? How had they all allowed it, let her be taken by these maniacs?
There was only one answer. They were dead. Both of them. Her father and Michael. She felt the beginning of a sob, then swallowed it, hard. No. Abba had gone to Washington, to the embassy. No one could harm him there, and by now he would know she had been abducted. She was alone, yes, but only here, not in the entire world. For now she was helpless, yet she still had power over her own mind. She could weep over Michael, or hope that he, too, had survived. She chose life, to give her strength.
Large, callused hands encircled her forearms, and this time she steeled herself as the man helped her to her feet. She did not know Youssef s name, but she recognized the huge head of short black curls, the flat nose and heavy lips. It was the same man she had seen in profile as he swung something into Michael’s face. She searched the eyes and found them to be not cruel, just large and dull, the expression of an obedient guard. She would ask him about Michael, but later. He would tell her with his eyes.
The woman gripped her waist from behind, and she stepped forward as a chill snaked over her flesh. The big man backed up, ducked through a passageway, and she saw the length of the plane. Male heads poked into the aisle from both sides of the tunnel, turning back to stare at her like movie patrons disturbed by a drunken heckler.
“Setzen Sie sich,” a voice commanded as her body was steered to the left, and she hazily wondered why the woman assumed she knew German. Seeing the wine-red couch, she felt her knees go liquid again, and she sank into it as the aircraft bucked. Pregnancy, she thought, and she dropped her head back on a cushion and closed her eyes. This must be what it’s like. The incongruity of the image surprised her, and she remembered an old teenage fantasy, of a love affair with Eytan Eckstein, daydreams of having his baby. Eckstein. If he were here, he would walk through this flying can of terrorists and shoot each one between the eyes.
She heard the pop of a metal tab, the hiss of carbonation. Someone gripped her jaw, and she looked up to find the German woman hovering over her, holding a can of Coke like a TV actress on Channel Hell.
“Drink,” said Martina. “If you are good, no more drugs.”
Ruth took the can, and the sweet cold liquid buzzed down her raw throat. Martina placed her hands on her hips.
“In Ordnung?” she asked, like a jaded night nurse.
“Things go better,” Ruth whispered.
Martina nodded. She turned and said to someone, “She will be no trouble,” and she marched briskly away.
I am going to kill you, Ruth swore silently as she watched Martina’s receding back. . . .
The Falcon pilots were not particularly alarmed by the eccentric behavior and odd composition of their passengers, or by the uncommon instructions issued by the woman who ran the show. When you worked for Jetstar Aviation, Inc., you knew that you were no more than a glorified chauffeur. Jetstar was a charter service, and anyone who had the cash could hire you out. Each job brought new passengers, another boss, king or queen for a day. There were weird dietary demands, cinema tastes for the VCR from Disney to porno, antismoking fanatics who wanted the ashtrays sterilized, fat men who ordered up boxes of Macanudo cigars.
Joe Dawson, the man in the left seat, had flown A-4 Skyhawks for the navy in Vietnam. His copilot, Chip Bergh, had jockeyed air force F-4 Phantoms, though he had been too young for the “Southeast Asia Games.” Neither man had wanted to put in the commercial airline years needed to make chief pilot, so they had opted for the type of flying that reminded them of their military year
s: you never knew where you were headed next.
This job was a little stranger than most. First of all, they always flew with a steward or stewardess, who tended to the passengers. Canceled by the customer. Then, they had been told to file a flight plan from Salisbury Airport in Maryland to Málaga, Spain, so they had topped off the tanks and run a full preflight in Baltimore, while Dawson punched the “From” and “To” codes into the AFIS system, coming up with fourteen legs over an easy 3,250 nautical miles, just under seven hours with a 33-knot tail wind at 37,000 feet. But just prior to takeoff, the point of departure had been changed to a strip in Maryland that did not even show up on the vector charts. Bergh quickly flipped through the Jeppesen Airway manuals, finally locating a diagram of Pomonkey, which did have a 5,000-foot macadam strip. But as he showed it to Dawson, he pointed out a printed warning. Caution: Strolling dogs on the maneuvering area.
Dawson looked at him.
“Strolling dogs?”
“Woof, woof,” Bergh replied.
They were ex-fighter jockeys. They shrugged and took off for Pomonkey.
The coffin was a surprise, even more so because it fit into a cargo hold that had been designed only for a cartload of luggage. Dawson had a rule, that he would haul anything but guns or drugs, yet the customs inspector saved him from having to ask embarrassing questions. Anyway, this group did look pretty funereal, and he and Bergh slipped their “serious masks” over their usual jocularity and headed for Spain.
The woman was polite, very businesslike, and beautiful in that hard way that reminded Dawson of female navy officers who had run the gauntlet of male fraternities. Just after takeoff, she’d entered the cockpit and issued some odd orders. He and Bergh were to forgo wearing their lightweight headsets and instead listen to incoming radio traffic over the cockpit speaker and respond using hand mikes. All communications were to be pumped through to the headphones at the jet’s dining station, and since one of her guests was ill, they would kindly ask before using the bathroom. Other than that, happy flying.
When the woman had gone, Bergh shot Dawson a look. The pilot responded with an eye roll: just another crazy client. For an instant, the thought of a hijacking crossed his mind, but that was a wacky notion here, as this wasn’t a commercial flight. There was no need for the woman to commandeer them, as she was shelling out big bucks for the ride and they would go wherever she wanted, fuel and landing facilities permitting. That same devil-take-it attitude that had kept Dawson’s gray eyes unmarred by crows’ feet, his black hair thick, and his age difficult to pin down returned to him quickly. He was about to make an off-color remark to Bergh about “Bat Girl,” when the woman returned with a dark, serious-looking fellow who sat down in the crew seat, folded his arms, and watched them fly. The guy never moved, for six hours, not even to take a leak.
At one point, about two hours over the Atlantic, Dawson had tried to engage the young man in conversation. The pilot loved the Falcon 900 and he reveled in showing her off, but this particular model had one flaw that never failed to make a client laugh. The cockpit digital warning chip had been programmed by an engineer with a lisp. You could punch a button and test the warnings, the flight deck filling with the processed voice of the programmer. Instead of “Stall! Stall!” this one said, “Thtall! Thtall!” Rather than “Don’t sink!” it cried, “Don’t think!” No matter how many times they repeated the act, it always broke up the clients. The guy in the jump seat didn’t even crack a smile.
Martina appeared in the doorway of the flight deck. She leaned one shoulder against the frame and looked forward through the wide windows.
“How is it going, gentlemen?”
Dawson turned his head. The woman’s voice was low and full, sort of a French accent with sharp edges. Her straight black hair obscured most of her face. “Just fine, ma’am,” he said. He was curious about the other woman’s scream and had glimpsed her being helped into the head. “How’s the young lady?”
“She will be all right.” Martina’s eyes stayed focused forward. “Some bad dreams. Airsick.”
“Sorry about that,” said Dawson. “We’ll be dropping altitude soon, hitting some more bumps. She the widow?”
“Yes.”
“Tough break.” He clucked his tongue. “Young guy?”
“Brain hemorrhage,” said Martina. Mussa shifted in his jump seat.
“Jeez,” Chip Bergh empathized.
Martina brought a hand to her lips, and Dawson realized she was holding a cigarette.
“Ma’am,” he said uncomfortably, “I’m required to ask you not to smoke on the flight deck.”
Martina turned her face to him, and the blank blue eyes drove an icicle into his groin.
“Then ask,” she said quietly.
“Ma’am,” he began again, knowing it could cost Jetstar a fat account, “please don’t smoke on deck.”
She smiled at him, but only with her lips. No teeth, no eyes. Then she twisted toward the galley, tossed the burning butt into the spotless sink, and resumed her position, staring forward as she recited like an FAA inspector.
“An inadvertently dropped cigarette might cause the pilots to have to attend to a fire during crucial flight operations.”
“Right, ma’am,” said Dawson. “Glad you understand.”
“Although you are on autopilot anyway. Correct?”
Indeed, the Falcon’s yokes moved gracefully, untouched by either pilot’s hands. The aircraft’s control surfaces had been run by the Honeywell FMS computers since Maryland, following the AFIS plan. The pilots simply monitored the EFIS video and clock-style displays showing altitude, pressures, fuel, weather, progress, and vectors. They would take control only for evasive traffic maneuvers, or thirty minutes out from landing.
“Yeah,” said Dawson, feeling an inexplicable embarrassment. “We’re hightech.”
“Where are we?” Martina asked.
“ ’Bout a hundred miles from Gibraltar,” Chip Bergh said. He did not look at the woman. He wondered if she gave Dawson the creeps too.
“We will be changing course,” said Martina.
“Pardon?” Dawson bent his head to the right, as if his hearing were impaired.
“We will be changing course. We are not going into Málaga.”
“We’re not,” the pilot said flatly.
“We will refile for Oran,” she said.
Bergh looked at Dawson, his eyebrows creasing above his nose.
“It is a city in Algeria,” said Martina. “On the northern coast.”
“Do you want me to notify Málaga?” Dawson asked, although such a procedure was unnecessary. This was not a commercial flight, with a crowd of passengers’ kin anxious for its arrival.
“No,” said Martina. “Unless your wives are waiting for you.”
The pilots said nothing. They also did not act quickly enough.
Martina squatted as Mussa pulled his feet back to give her room. She pointed to the horizontal console between the pilots’ seats and addressed them in a patronizing tone.
“Would you like me to do it for you, gentlemen?” She gestured at the keyboard below one of the Honeywells. “You simply look up the new destination code through AFIS, refile from your last way point, push AP here for Autopilot, then NAV here for Navigation, and this lovely machine will do the rest.”
Joe Dawson’s face colored to a crimson that usually only his teenagers managed to elicit. He had to work at keeping his voice even.
“You’ve done some flying, ma’am.”
“A hobby,” said Martina. She stood up again. “Oran is nearly due west of Gibraltar, perhaps one vector change and an additional two hundred and forty-two nautical miles.”
“We’ll need clearance,” said Dawson.
“No we won’t. We will not actually land there. Approximately forty miles out, you will turn right onto a new heading and proceed to a smaller strip.”
Dawson sighed. “And where’s that, ma’am?” He glimpsed Bergh’s hand balling up
on his knee. Jetstar had thirteen pilots, and they had the luck to get stuck with Amelia Earhart.
“Farther south. You will have ample fuel.”
Suddenly she touched Dawson’s shoulder, squeezing it as she bent her head down and smiled at him. It took all his willpower not to shake her off, as he decided she must be the kind of lover who likes to make men yell.
“And you don’t have to bother with the FMS, Mr. Dawson.” Her breath was laced with cigarettes and coffee. “My man in the back is printing out your new flight plan.” She turned to the dour youth in the jump seat and said, “Rûh,” which was a word from no language in Dawson’s lexicon.
Mussa got up and walked quickly aft as Martina settled herself into his seat. She crossed her legs, leaned one elbow on her knee, and fingered the strand of pearls near her throat as she focused on the pilots, whose shoulders now showed the tension she had anticipated. The cockpit speaker volume was set to minimum, yet as the Falcon nudged into the evening Mediterranean air traffic, the transmission chatter began to pick up, like a restless Broadway audience during an overlong intermission.
Dawson and Bergh silently awaited instructions, while each of them secretly wanted to cut out of autopilot, take the controls, land at Málaga, and look for other employment. Maybe a Federal Express gig, where the letters and parcels couldn’t jerk you around. It was not the first time that Joe Dawson wished he and his copilot shared some obscure foreign language that could not be understood by a client. But he realized that even if he and Bergh shared Swahili, mumbling it to each other would probably just tick the woman off.
Mussa reappeared in the doorway of the flight deck. He handed Martina two copies of a printout from Nabil’s laptop, whose hard disk contained flight plan software similar to AFIS. The new plan was laid out in a matrix of three short legs, showing the proper vector for each, distance, flight time, fuel required, airspeed, ground speed, and the “comfort factor” of avgas remaining upon arrival. The legs began over Gibraltar, turned south before Oran, passed over Tlemcen, turned south-southwest over Figuig, and ended at the edge of the Algerian Sahara at a place designated as Skorpion.
The Nylon Hand of God Page 36