by Ciaran Nagle
Nancy still held her hands on the side of her head. She swayed slightly side to side, rocking against the car.
He raised his voice. 'OK Nancy?'
'OK,' she said eventually, her voice as quiet as the night. Defeated.
'Good girl, I know you come through this Nancy. You got spirit. You got…' He thought for a moment. 'True grit. I can feel it.'
Nancy didn't feel very gritty. She felt tired, forlorn and beaten.
'Look.' One last try. 'You must have someone else. You surely can't be sending a plane all the way to Timbuktu just to take me there. Isn't there someone else more local you can use? Someone who knows the area? A real aid worker maybe?'
She was clutching at straws and Habib knew it.
'The plane is already going there. It's taking a very important cargo to our friends. Israel's friends that is. In Africa. They call it the Flying Hippo. It's just there.' He indicated a 4-engined transport about 200 yards away. 'Then you came along Nancy and I saw you and it was like a gift.' Gloating filled his smile like a Barbary pirate greeting newly-captured slaves. 'You appeared at just the right moment. You were the last piece of the jigsaw and I knew you had been sent. It was an act of Providence.'
Nancy's face was expressionless. She felt like a ladybird trapped in a matchbox.
'Now walk down there,' ordered Habib pointing again at the 4-engined plane. The covers were open on two of its engines and several mechanics were inspecting them.
'Go to the plane and wait for Ilan. He will tell you where to sit. Do exactly as he says. Now go. I have matters to attend to.' But Habib was looking about him, a little nervously. Nancy set off in the direction of the plane. She scuffed her feet on the tarmac and kicked a small stone.
When she turned to look back at the bully Arab, he was talking with another man. They both glanced in her direction from time to time. She threw Habib a look of disgust. He ignored her.
Nancy arrived at the plane. Its huge loading ramp was down. The dark interior was like a vast stomach that would swallow her up. The two mechanics on the wing ignored her and passed each other spanners and wrenches. They replaced a panel and screwed it tight.
She walked up the ramp. Its immense hold was filled with a variety of military equipment. There was a field gun on wheels and a jeep and a half-track with a machine gun pointing rearwards. There were also stacks of wooden boxes piled on top of each other and roped to the plane's ribs on either side so they wouldn't topple over if it were buffeted in a storm.
A voice behind her. 'Nancy, I am Ilan.' It was the other man Habib had been talking to. 'Any friend of Habib is a friend of mine. Pleased to meet you,' he declared proudly.
Friend of mine? Is he kidding?
Ilan didn't look like an Arab. He had a pale complexion and looked like a westerner.
'Look, I'm being kidnapped,' she blurted. 'Habib, he gave us drugs. Me and my friends. He gave us drugs and then trapped us. Ilan, please call the police.'
'It's OK, I'm going to get you out of here,' smiled Ilan.
'You are?'
'Sure, in about half an hour you'll be heading out across the apron and getting ready for take-off,' he was laughing at his own clever irony. Then seeing her alarm he became serious. 'Look, Habib said you'd be a bit panicky. But it'll be fine. Habib has it all organised down to the last detail. You'll be back here in no time. You'll be back with your friends after you've helped him out. Thanks for what you're doing.'
'So who are you? Who do you work for?' pleaded Nancy.
'Let's just say I work for an organisation that fills in where government leaves off. Governments are weak. They need difficult things done but can't do them. That's where we come in. Me and my friends do things no-one else can. And sometimes we work with Habib's group. They're people I respect. They do what they say they will.' Ilan was calm and pleasantly spoken but the look in his eyes showed he was as open to persuasion as a prison door. He was not about to let Nancy go free.
'Now if you'd like to get aboard, I'll show you around the bird and you can meet the pilot. Would you like some coffee?'
Nancy knew that she was out of options and that escape was unlikely. Even if she managed to run away, the boys would be like grasshoppers in a lizard's cage. Habib was as close to a human reptile as she could imagine and the area around Eilat was his dominion. He could hurt the boys a lot. She reluctantly continued her walk up the ramp into the hold while Ilan followed her. He showed her to a pull-down seat built into the ribs of the plane, sat her in it and pulled down another seat beside her.
'Now, listen carefully,' he said, checking that she was paying attention, 'while I explain what you have to do and how you are going to get back here safely.'
Ilan took out a map of West Africa and spread it across his knees.
For the next quarter hour he explained to Nancy in detail what her mission would be when the plane arrived in Gambia.
'So in summary,' he concluded, 'Lafi will meet you at Banjul airport. You are going to help him rescue a consignment of urgent medical supplies that is stuck in Senegal because of a tribal conflict. Together you will drive an empty UN lorry on the outbound journey. There is a border crossing to pass through. But here your skin colour will help. Your pale complexion will help you pass unhindered across the border without many difficult questions being asked. When the supplies are loaded you'll drive them back into Gambia and deliver them to other people in the capital. Once that's done your mission is accomplished. They will take them and distribute them where they are needed. OK?'
'Medical supplies,' said Nancy sarcastically. 'Really?'
Ilan didn't try very hard to convince her that the aid imperative behind the mission was genuine. It was obvious that Habib and whoever else he was working with were involved in something dangerous and illegal.
'So why me?' Nancy demanded bitterly. 'Why fly me all the way across a continent just to drive a lorry a few miles?'
She had asked Habib the same question but she now asked Ilan, just to see if she got the same answer.
'You were in the right place at the right time. This plane was scheduled for Gambia anyway so it was easy to put you on it. You turned up just when Habib needed you and it sounds crazy but it was easier to fly you out there and back than to try and source someone local in the time available. These 'medical supplies', Ilan emphasised the words, all pretence at innocence long since gone, 'are extremely valuable to Habib's organisation and the short journey you'll be taking them on has been the one weak link in the chain. Once you've delivered them to Banjul the rest of the supply chain kicks into gear. Now, no more questions.' His tone had abruptly altered as though he regretted having said too much.
At that moment a man in a flight suit emerged from the cabin at the front of the plane and came towards them. He spoke briefly to Ilan and then returned where he had come.
Ilan turned towards Nancy. 'Show time, little lady,' he announced as if he'd learnt his English from watching movies. He reached across her and took hold of her seat belt buckle, pulled it back towards him and clipped it into its socket. 'You're clear for take-off. I'll see you in a day or two.'
With that he stood up and walked out and down the ramp and strode off as if he was heading for a day at the office. Seconds later Nancy heard the sounds of engines coughing and firing as the four propeller turbines kicked themselves into life, one after the other. Diesel fumes swirled into the rear of the plane. A grinding sound followed sending vibrations through the hull and up through her seat. The ramp slowly drew itself up and closed with a hollow metallic clunk. There was near darkness inside the hull. Nancy felt sudden panic and unhooked her safety belt to stand up. The plane had started to taxi but she walked around the space close to her, holding on to the vehicles and boxes to steady herself. As she walked beside a jeep she noticed wing mirrors protruding from the side and stooped down to look at herself in the reflection. It was the same old Nancy looking back at her, just a little more sweat streaked than usual. Somehow she found her
own image oddly comforting. Then she looked in the jeep's door window at something that caught her eye.
'Not again,' she gasped to herself.
A large lower case letter e was clearly visible hanging in the air just the other side of the glass, a black shadow edged in white. She looked behind her for its source. Nothing. As she looked back at the e again its sharply defined edges turned slowly red, glowed hot, then seemed to burn for a few seconds and went out leaving no trace. The inside of the jeep looked back at her.
Nancy stood up, breathing deeply, holding onto the roof of the jeep. She looked about her at the shadows, at the vehicles, at the fume-laden air. 'What do you want?' she screamed 'What do you WANT?'
Heaven's Shore
All was quiet. Completely and totally quiet. Jabez picked up a stone and threw it down the shore. It hit the sand with a soft thud. The deafening silence folded back in immediately.
No wind blew the grass. No birds sang. Nothing moved. There were no distractions. There was no Music.
Across the divide Inferno was dark. No light of lava shone up from below.
There were no friends dropping in either, distracting him with talk of exciting projects or audiences with the Lamb.
The Lamb. He could solve this whole issue right now with a wave of his hand if he wanted to. Why didn't he? Why were bosses always there when they wanted to give orders but never around when there was work to be done?
One thing was sure. If Jabez didn't come to Nancy's aid, nobody would.
Painful as it was, Jabez knew that someone had to take charge of this assignment. And that someone was he.
He plucked the inch-diameter globe from his side and held it between both forefingers. Opening his arms till his hands were twelve inches apart, the globe expanded too, filling the gap between them. The face of Ruth came up and looked out at him. The eyes opened.
'Jabez, Luke said y'all might call,' she greeted with a voice that jangled of pure Texas. 'How wonderful to meet you. Sounds like you've landed a humdinger of a project there. I only get asked to join in really boring things, never anything so swashbuckling. It must be such fun.'
Ruth had blue hair, the colour of a summer sky and a pale complexion with just the faintest hint of added colour on her red lips. Her eyes were also blue and she wore earrings of liquid sapphire whose fluid elements gathered themselves in ripples that swirled this way and that within their tear-drop shape and then dashed themselves like waves on a shore. It was some of the finest micro-engineering Jabez had ever seen. The feathers at the top of her folded wings were also a pale blue which gave way at shoulder height to an ivory tone whose softness you could almost feel just by looking at it.
All angels were beautiful, Jabez thought, yet all individual. How could beauty be formed in so many different ways?
'Ruth. Thanks for your welcome. Yes, I'm having so much fun I just don't know what to do with it all. Actually the fun is so intense I think I'm going to have to give some of it away. No, I'm not going to give it away I'm going to sell it, it's just too good. Ruth what are you going to bid me for some of this fun I'm having out here all alone, out of hearing of the Music and just a few paces from the edge of the Abyss?'
'Oh Jabez, come now, it can't be that bad. You'll look back on this isolation one day and laugh.'
'Well, I look forward to that day,' said Jabez forcing himself to put aside his mordant humour.
'Look Ruth, can I come in? Or are you busy?'
Ruth looked about her in pretend surprise, then back at Jabez. 'Why, the place is a mess Jabez but sure, come right on in. I was just about to tidy up.'
Jabez placed his hands again on the sides of the globe, then opened his arms rapidly as if he was parting curtains. The globe expanded instantly to the size of a room. Jabez put his foot forward and stepped inside.
He was still on Heaven's shore but angel technology allowed him to feel as though he was right inside Ruth's mansion. He could even see all her furniture and belongings exactly as if they were around him.
Paradise was a great place for inventors and creative types. No-one was going to steal your ideas or prototypes and it felt great when people adopted your products. There was no money. Progress happened because angels loved to make others' lives easier. The economy worked because angels and non-angels alike (not all Heaven-dwellers were full-flighted angels) made things for fun and gave them away for free. If you needed bread you went to a baker who gave you the loaves you needed. If the baker needed skis for her holiday she went to a sports equipment maker who gave them to her. If the ski maker needed trees for her garden she went to a grower who helped her choose the right species and gave her as many as she wanted. Everyone lived according to their talents and contribution, no-one demanded more than they deserved.
The globe was one of those technology breakthroughs that had come about because someone realised angels needed more than a telephone. A huge industry had built up around it adding refinements, services and life-enhancing features.
Jabez's globe allowed him to walk inside Ruth's mansion and feel almost as though he was really there.
He looked around him and took in the enormous pearl and ivory-themed room with a dazzling marble and quartz floor and cushionettes that seated you as if on warm air. Behind Ruth, out through a portico of purest jet was a swimming pool with hover-fountains and fish that leapt out, flew around and dived back in. Surrounding that was a tropical garden with birds of fantastical colours and a dozen varieties of ripe fruit trees.
'Work harder, Ruth, and you'll eventually be able to move out of this depressing pad and into somewhere bright and cheerful. Don't give up. You'll look back on this destitution one day and laugh.'
Ruth looked back at Jabez with a wide smile but didn't say anything. She turned and sat down on one of her cushionettes and gestured for him to sit. Jabez moved to his side and sat on a rock. He was still on Heaven's shore.
'I'd get you a coffee Jabez but…'
'Yeah, I know, they're working on it. Probably have globe-to-globe drinks in the next release.' Some of these jokes were old but Jabez and Ruth hadn't met before so they felt like new.
'Now Jabez, tell me what's going on in your world. I'm not sure there's anything I can do to help, I'm incredibly busy. But I promised Luke I'd listen to you.'
She's just preparing the ground, Jabez told himself. If I don't sell this project well, she can easily excuse herself and back out.
'OK here goes.' And Jabez told Ruth about Nancy and Bezejel and a big letter R and a small e. And how Infernals had seen more to Nancy than they had a right to. And all the other things that didn't make sense. After an hour he concluded his presentation. 'So we think there's some kind of coded message being given to this young woman Nancy but we don't know what it is or why. And then we thought we might have a better chance of working out what the message might be if we knew how to read Nancy's ancestral makeup.'
Ruth allowed a silence to fall as she looked at Jabez for a minute.
'I've had a word,' she said quietly. 'From above.'
'How far above?'
She waited a few seconds.
'Above.'
Not that far above, surely, thought Jabez. What had he got into?
'They're up to something,' continued Ruth. 'The other side I mean.'
'That's an understatement. Look,' said Jabez suddenly, 'if 'Above' are interested in this, then maybe I'm not the right angel for the job. I'm basically still a cherub. They obviously need someone with more experience. Someone who's done this before. Look, I'm not too proud to step aside…'
'Funny thing about this Nancy,' said Ruth, ignoring him. 'She's got quite a history, did you know?'
'No, how would I?'
'I've been looking into her. Fascinating young lady. So shallow, so deep. Wouldn't hurt a fly but could destroy a civilisation.'
'Ouch. That sounds..big.' Jabez was genuinely shocked. 'OK I think I should go back and prepare to hand over to someone else…'
'You
'll do nothing of the sort.' Ruth was still smiling. But a firmness had come into her speech.
'Higher Up has made a good choice. I've been assessing you as you've been speaking. You're the right one for this task. There's no doubt in my mind about it. If you're here to invite me to join your team, I'm delighted to accept. I'll help you as much as I can.'
'Whoah.' Jabez's face had fallen like an avalanche. 'This is a lot to take in. Luke already told me that the enemy are planning an assault on all of humanity, not just one woman. But I wasn't sure if he'd got that right. Now you're telling me that 'above' have had a word with you. Forgive me. I feel like I've been sent out to the store for milk and run into an armed robbery on the way. Bezejel. Now it makes sense. They wouldn't have a senior demoness like her fighting over a single girl's soul. I should have known.'
Ruth said nothing.
'You're sure there's nothing I can do to get out of this?'
'Short of turning in your wings. If that was possible. No.' Ruth's implacable features were a clear No Exit sign.
Jabez blew out a long breath. 'Well then. If Higher Up has chosen me, I don't have any problem asking for your help. Thank you, Ruth. You're hired. You know, I was afraid you'd be a hard catch to land.'
Ruth laughed. 'You might change your mind after a while. I'm known to be a little insubordinate.' She threw her head back and a blue shimmer ran across her shoulders as they shook. 'Maybe you've heard.'
'I heard. You certainly don't mind challenging authority.' But Jabez was smiling too. She was tough. But her laughter was a treeful of robins.
'I don't challenge authority for the fun of it. The facts spoke for themselves. If you're talking about the Skajj case, that is.'
'I am.'
'Well that's all in the past. This is a new page. A new story. From this moment on I report to you directly. But you're the boss. And I haven't been sent to spy on you. Now tell me what you want from me.'