by Duncan James
***
Joshua Chombo climbed into the Cessna's cockpit. He was wearing a smart short-sleeved white shirt, with his metal wings pinned over his left breast. He was very proud of the four-ringed epaulets he wore on the shoulders. A captain's rank. He didn't get much work these days. The Mashonaland Flying Club had virtually ceased to exist, although there were still a few aircraft in their tumble-down hanger, and most of the small companies that used to fly from there went bust long ago. His passenger, with the briefcase, decided to sit in the right hand seat, where he could enjoy the view out of the front. Chombo had filed his flight plan, such as it was, and checked the weather with the Met. Office at Harare International, before having a quick look round the outside of the aircraft. The airfield was supposed to shut at four, but a couple of people had stayed on late, as this was a special charter.
He was just about to call the control tower for clearance to start up, when several things happened all at once.
A voice said, "'evening, Sambo," and what could only have the muzzle of a pistol was jammed into his ribs, quite taking his breath away. Before he had time to say anything, or even think of anything to say, a strip of gaffer tape was slapped over his mouth, and he was yanked backwards from his seat in a vice like grip, bundled into the rear on the floor and securely bound. Much the same was happening to his passenger, he noticed.
"I'll drive this, old boy," said White-knuckles. "You just relax and enjoy the ride."
He slid into the left-hand seat, and pulled an old, rather greasy, RAF peaked cap from the pocket of his combat fatigues. He planted it on his head at a rakish angle, adjusted the scarf that was half-covering his face, and turned on the ignition before doing a quick check of the instruments.
He hadn't flown one of these things before, but was sure he would soon get the hang of it. If Sambo with the tin wings on his shirt could fly it, then he, White-knuckles, certainly could. He noticed that one or two things were either missing or broken, but thought he could probably manage without them. He decided he wouldn't tell Tiger - he would only worry.
Tiger slipped in to the right-hand seat. He had seen White-knuckles thump the instrument panel with his fist a couple of times, but decided not to ask - what he didn't know, he couldn't worry about.
"Do you have to wear that filthy old hat?" he asked.
"Every time, my dear fellow," replied White-knuckles. "Part of the uniform, y'know."
Anyone watching from the tower would probably not have noticed anything, it all happened so quickly. And if they had, they might well have chosen to do nothing about it. They had Spider for company.
White-knuckles had the engine running, selected a little-used radio frequency, and called the control tower to request clearance to start up, taxi and take-off, all at once, and could he please have the local barometric pressure.
Spider grabbed the microphone and said, "Sod off," before returning to his task of tying up the three people in the tower.
"According to the book," Spider told them, "this dump opens at five tomorrow morning, 'though God knows why. So you'll only have about twelve hours to wait. There's a bottle of water each for you here, in case you break loose before then. I don't usually treat opposing forces like that," he said, running his thumb along the edge of his knife. The three men cringed. "I must be getting soft in my old age, but that's what the President wants, so ?" He shrugged.
He paused only long enough to rip the cables from the back of the controller's desk and pull out the phones, before going out on to the balcony, swinging his legs over the rail, and abseiling to the ground. Quicker than the stairs.
White-knuckles saw him go, and grinned as he eased the aircraft off the runway. When they were airborne and on the correct heading, he called up local control at Harare International to confirm his route and ETA at Plumtree, in accordance with the flight plan. Harare, in reply, gave him the current wind speed and direction, and the barometric pressure so that he could adjust his altimeter, and told him to contact Bulawayo Local.
"Roger that," replied White-knuckles.
Bulawayo told him their wind speed and the pressure in milibars, although he didn't really need to know about the wind, or anything else. He planned soon to drop below radar level and fly off-route to his landing strip at the old mine, at low level. Bulawayo control would probably not even notice that they had lost radar contact with him. That often happened these days, what with power failures, aging equipment and so on, and nobody much seemed to bother.
The control tower instructed him to change radio frequency yet again, and hoped he had a nice day.
I'm already having a better day than you are, chummy, he thought.
Tiger slipped into the back of the aircraft to address Chombo and his passenger.
"Now you listen to me carefully," he said. "Neither of you have anything at all to worry about, I can assure you, and if you do as you are told, absolutely no harm will come to you. Not from us, anyway," Tiger thought he should add, in fairness. "It's just that the President has decided that he wants the contents of this briefcase all to himself, so that's why we're taking it from you. Do you understand?"
The two men nodded enthusiastically.
"Good," said Tiger. "Now listen carefully again. We shall be landing near Plumtree, and you will be set free, providing you don't cause any trouble." Tiger waved his pistol in emphasis. "You'll have to walk home from there, I'm afraid, but it's not far to the main road."
They nodded again.
"We're nearly there, boss," yelled White-knuckles, over the noise of the engine.
Tiger returned to his seat.
"I think I'll do a quick low pass before we make our landing run," announced the pilot. "Just to get the hang of the place, and make sure there are no stray elephants in the middle of the strip, or smoke from bush fires obscuring the view - that sort of thing." White-knuckles grinned at Tiger, who would have taken money that this would happen. He put on his seat belt, and pulled it extra-tight.