Seven Lies South

12

The cockpit of the C-47 was dimly lighted from the glare of the instrument panels. Beecher flew at six thousand feet, on a course which was taking them south and west from Mirimar. Unless Lynch gave him another heading they would be over Gibraltar within fifteen minutes. Beecher sat at the chief pilot’s column adjusting the trim of the ship and checking his instruments. He was flying from memory and intuition, but already he had formed an estimate of the plane; the date from the instrument panel and the feel of the controls had given him an index to its present and potential performance.

Laura sat beside him at the co-pilot’s column. He could see the shine of her blonde head in the windshield, and the triangle of white flesh below her throat. The gun in her hand wasn’t reflected in the windshield; she was holding it casually in her lap.

“You do this very well,” she said.

He didn’t answer; he couldn’t trust himself to talk to her yet.

Instead he made himself think of the ship. Both radios were dead. The starboard motor sounded odd to him, but he wondered if he could trust his judgment after all these years. He hadn’t flown a C-47 since the end of the war in Europe. VE-Day, plus a week or so, had been his last flight. He had ferried two generals and some WAC brass from Paris to London. Everything then had been gay and brave, the lights blazing in Piccadilly, and the statue of Eros released at last from its protective prison of scaffolding and sandbags. Men in bars shouted, “Have a pint, Yank!” and pounded his back with grateful hands. But his mood had been sad and nostalgic, he remembered. The kind and gallant city was suddenly alive again, but feeling its losses more keenly now that the lights were on and the sirens still at last. He had got drunk with three Aussie fighter pilots, and they had ended the night at a bar in the East End singing the “Mountains of Morn.” A wrinkled and toothless old woman had climbed on a table and said a prayer.

Beecher was sustained by these irrelevant recollections; the past had become a healing therapy for the present. And because it had been a significant time for him, it was important to think about it now.

There were the strikes at Aachen and Cologne and Düsseldorf and Frankfurt, and then Aachen again and still again, a city defended by three rings of 88-millimeter cannon that fired with the flat trajectory of a rifle and raised a ceiling of iron above marshaling areas and industrial complexes. And his Forts had to pierce that ceiling in formation before peeling off into their long, desperate bomb runs. He’d been all right then, Beecher remembered. Tough and controlled. He’d known what to be afraid of. He hadn’t been reduced to inertia by self-pity. Deliberately, purposefully, he looked back at what he had been, and what he had done. He was trying to draw strength from his past. This might be foolish, he knew; like an old man torching for the iron arms of youth. But maybe it wasn’t so foolish. If you’d measured up to a challenge once, there was a chance you could again...

There had been no trouble at the airport in Mirimar. Driving there, Lynch had kept his gun at Beecher’s side. “You’ll stick to me like glue, old man,” he’d said. “Laura will take care of the passports and tickets. The plane from Madrid landed an hour or so ago. It’s transferred its load to the commercial flight, and is half way home by now. But there’ll be a delay. Don Willie’s booked all the seats on the Rabat flight. That was done in Seville. Naturally these bookings won’t show up. We’ll have the plane to ourselves. But the airport is likely to hold up the flight a bit for them. We’ll wait politely and patiently. Do you understand?”

“Yes. But supposing some businessman from Málaga arrives at the last minute looking for a seat?”

Lynch had smiled. “This businessman from Málaga will find himself in another business, that’s all.”

“Supposing they’ve found the Frenchman’s body?”

Lynch sighed. “You are a worrier, aren’t you? If it hasn’t been discovered by now, it won’t be until morning.”

Beecher and Lynch waited in the dimly lighted lounge while Laura cleared their tickets and passports in the office of the airport. From where they sat Beecher could see the plane which was being prepared for the flight to Rabat; a gas truck was pulled up beside it, and a mechanic was crawling along its wing. The pilot and co-pilot were sipping coffee at the bar not a dozen feet away from them. They were grave, contained young men, with dark hair and mustaches. Beecher heard a snatch of their conversation.

“Look, I don’t mind if Pepa’s mother lives with us. But Madrid is no place for her.”

“Sure. The old ones are happier in the village.”

“Look, explain that to Pepa tomorrow night, eh?”

“She doesn’t want her mother hit by a motorcycle, does she?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

The gas truck drove away from the C-47 and the mechanic climbed from the wing and pushed portable stairs into place at the doorway in the bay of the ship. He walked away then, stuffing an oily rag into the back pocket of his coveralls. Lights blinked off, and the plane roosted in the darkness on a hardstanding.

The airport at Mirimar was run with what seemed to be a combination of Spanish humor and Spanish fatalism. There were no landing lights or markers; pilots coming from the north at night skimmed over the Sierra Nevadas and looked for the blaze of Málaga on their left, and the spreading expanse of the sea in front of them; then, depending on ceiling and visibility, made up their minds whether to land immediately or to swing out over the Mediterranean and come back in on the southern leg. There were some who maintained that such decisions were made by the tower; but the majority opinion was skeptical. There was no “runway” in the usual sense. The field was covered with a matting of smooth tight grass, which was kept short by herds of sheep. Sometimes daytime arrivals were complicated by this; a plane might be kept circling for half an hour while small boys chased the sheep off a landing area.

The staff at the field was small. Clerks from Iberia came out from Málaga to process each flight; when the passengers were cleared, they took buses back to their office in the city. The Customs officer and a policeman played dominoes. There was a newsstand with old copies of Time and Life and fresh Spanish newspapers. Sometimes the attendant was there; sometimes he wasn’t.

Don Willie’s project did not seem quite so preposterous to Beecher, as he sat in the small dim lounge with Lynch. Stealing an airplane from here might not be any more difficult than stealing one of the curling copies of Time or Life from the lobby.

While they were waiting, a car had pulled up in front of the airport. Lynch got to his feet and glanced alertly at Laura. Beecher felt the quickening stroke of his heart; this might be someone looking for a last-minute cancellation on the Rabat flight. And it now was almost take-off time. There were tickets available. But as they waited in the gloom, they heard the idling motor roar into life again. The car drove off, the sound of it fading slowly into silence. It had probably been a cab driver, Beecher thought, making a last check for a fare.

Lynch let out his breath. He sat down and crossed his long legs. His manner had changed subtly since they had left Don Willie’s villa, Beecher realized; he had discarded the public school accents, and was no longer attempting to strike a well-bred and good-humored tone. Occasionally his head moved warily, like that of an animal scenting danger, but his eyes remained fixed on Beecher. He would use the gun, Beecher knew; there was a suggestion of final commitment in the tension charging his long, tough frame.

Beecher had been hoping that some of his friends might decide to come out to the airport to see him off. Old Polly Soames usually made a ritual of gathering a crowd and rushing to the airport to get drunk with anyone leaving Mirimar. He had hoped for confusion and turmoil; Laddy Curtis shouting limericks, Juggy Olson playing his accordion, Trumbull and Nelson wrangling over the comparative horrors of past hang-overs. Some explosion to divert Lynch. But now he was relieved that no one had shown up. Lynch wasn’t playing games. Someone would have been hurt...

They boarded the ship after a fifteen-minute delay, which had been caused by Don Willie’s phony bookings. The Iberia clerks were concerned at first, but as the seconds ticked away, they shrugged and retreated into Spanish fatalism — or more probably, Beecher thought, the simple indifference of airline clerks the world over. A missed flight was one thing, but a missed supper (their own) was quite another. They called the flight and put on their caps to go home.

Beecher had taken an outside seat at Lynch’s order, and Laura had sat behind him with a gun at the back of his head. Five minutes after they were air-borne Lynch had walked forward and jerked open the door to the pilot’s compartment. He reappeared seconds later herding the pilot and co-pilot before him, the gun in his hand whipping back and forth between them like some small ugly animal.

“Get up there, double quick!” Lynch had jerked his head at Beecher.

The plane was on automatic pilot. Beecher took his seat at the first pilot’s column, took control of the strange ship. It handled like a dependable truck; solid, heavy, calm. He felt it would make any reasonable target without temperament or brilliance.

That had been twenty-five minutes ago. Now they were about sixty miles southwest of Mirimar and nearing La Linea, the border station between Spain and Gibraltar. He couldn’t see the coastal ridge of mountains, or the sea a mile below him; beyond the soft glare of the instrument panel there was only blackness.

Laura struck a match to her cigarette, and he saw her expression clearly in the leaping flame; her eyes were alert, but her features were composed and serene. She had looked that way at the restaurant after the bullfight, he remembered; calm and contented and happy.

“Who the hell are you?” he said. “What’s your real name?”

“Laura Meadows. That much is right. But I’m Canadian, not American. I was afraid you’d guess that.”

“There were lots of things I didn’t guess.” He recalled the night after Don Willie’s party when they’d sat at the Irishman’s with Trumbull and Nelson. And she had used the RAF phrase, “Gone for a Burtons”... That should have made him wonder. If he’d been scenting the winds for betrayal...

“Gone for a Burtons,” he said. “You picked that up from Lynch, I imagine.”

“Yes, it’s Jimmy’s line. It was stupid of me to use it. I thought you’d tumbled. You acted so strange.”

Yes, he’d acted strange, he remembered. Watching the swift currents of youth flowing between her and Trumbull and Nelson. Feeling old and out of it...

He wanted to look at her, but he couldn’t. “Why the hell did you do this?” he said bitterly.

“Because Jimmy asked me to.”

“Did he tell you to climb into the sack with me?”

“I don’t imagine he thought that would be necessary.”

“He left the decision up to you?”

“Of course.” She smiled. “He trusts me.”

Beecher tried to push his thoughts back in time — away from her deceptively smiling eyes. Back to memories where there were strength and confidence. There had been briefings in the cold dawns, a thousand men crammed into drafty halls, and groans when the target was given, and furious bitching when the fighter cover was announced; and then cigarettes and coffee and Cokes to be consumed while waiting for the okay from Weather and Plans, the nod that would send them to their plane, or the appearance of the jeep with a CANCELLED pennant flying its stern, which meant it had all been a waste of time and sleep, the fear and sweat made pointless by unexpected weather or a snafu by desk pilots at Wing.

But none of that seemed real to him now; the small warm cockpit, and the smiling girl beside him, that was real. “How long have you known him?”

“Jimmy? Four years.”

“And they were good years, I imagine.”

“Hardly that. You don’t know him. He’s usually taken for a gentleman, and that always got him into trouble. In England especially, where people are impressed if you speak properly.” She sighed humorously. “Banks are impressed too.”

Beecher found he could talk about Lynch. That was easy. “Was that how he got his exercise? Bouncing checks?”

“No. There were other things. He doesn’t give a damn about anything or anybody. He likes making a mess and hurting people.”

Beecher looked at her. “That’s his attraction for you?”

“Don’t be ugly,” she said sharply.

Beecher smiled at his reflection in the mirror; it wasn’t a pleasant smile, it was the reaction of a fighter who’d drawn blood. “I haven’t started getting ugly yet,” he said gently.

“You’re afraid of too many things to be dangerous,” she said, with a little smile.

The ship lurched suddenly and sickeningly then, the port wing dipping at thirty degrees. Beecher slammed his foot against the left rudder and fought the control column; he thought at first an aileron had been blown out of function, but the ship steadied after a few wild seconds and resumed its normal steady pattern of flight.

“What happened?” Laura asked sharply.

Beecher didn’t know himself. There was no wind. They had probably flown into a chance turbulence.

“You try anything funny and Jimmy will have your hide,” she said.

Beecher was startled by the raw anger in her voice. He turned and saw the tension in her face, and the way her hands had knotted themselves tightly together in her lap. And he realized then that it wasn’t anger he had heard, but fear.

Beecher smiled and turned back to the controls. “You said I’m too scared to be dangerous, remember?”

The door opened a moment or so later and Lynch came into the cockpit. He had changed into faded khaki dungarees and a brown pullover sweater. The gun hung in his hand. “On target, I see,” he said, glancing over Beecher’s shoulder at the compass. “Well and good. You get some sleep now,” he said to Laura. “Beecher and I have to mull over the navigational drill.”

When Laura had gone, Lynch sat down at the co-pilot’s column and flipped open a sturdily bound book of navigation charts. He put the gun in his lap, took a pencil from the upper breast pocket of his coveralls.

“First of all, drop down to about five hundred feet now,” he said. “We don’t want the radar at Gib to pick us up. At that altitude they won’t have much chance.”

Beecher pushed the control column forward and watched the air-speed and altitude indicators. “Where do we go then?”

“I’ll give you another heading presently,” Lynch said, making a pencil mark in his chart book. “Now listen to me carefully, Beecher. I can’t fly a plane, but I know a good bit about the mechanical side of it. Don’t get ideas about faking engine trouble. I’ve locked up the Spanish pilots in the luggage compartment. But I can haul them back if you’re stupid enough to give me any trouble. Do you understand?”

“Why didn’t you use the Spanish pilots in the first place?”

“We thought of that, of course. Stick a gun in their backs and tell them to follow orders. But I don’t speak their lingo. But we would have put them to work, I can promise you, if you hadn’t decided to be pleasant and sensible. We’ve got some tricky flying to do in the next few hours. You’re a safer bet.”

Beecher checked his instruments. They were almost at five hundred feet, and he could see the string of lights gleaming at the base of Gibraltar. They were flying south of the Rock; their course would take them over Tangier.

“Did you knock the radios out?” he asked Lynch.

“Yes, of course. Short-circuited the inverters.” Lynch’s small smile was reflected in the windshield. “I imagined you’d be lonely up here, and I didn’t want you chatting to any stations on the ground. You see, I do know my way around aircraft. Remember that. I don’t want you messing around with the mixture controls or prop synchronization unless I tell you to. And leave the cowl flaps and magnetos alone. I like a smooth ride.”

With Tangier behind them they headed out to sea. Lynch checked his charts again, and gave Beecher a heading on a southern course.

He settled back comfortably then and lit a cigarette. “Nothing to do for a couple of hours,” he said. “Put her on automatic if you like.”

“There’ll be a dozen planes looking for us by dawn,” Beecher said. “And Interpol will have the wires hot when the Frenchman’s body is found. Do you seriously think you’ve got a chance?”

Lynch shrugged. “Not the best in the world, but it’s worth a try.”

“The trouble at home must have been bad.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You’re bucking odds that would terrify any sane man. I can only assume they were even worse in England.”

“I see what you mean,” Lynch said thoughtfully. “Well, perhaps they were. At any rate, I had to get out. But I didn’t fancy exchanging one mediocre framework for another. Does that make sense to you?”

“Not much,” Beecher said.

“Well, you’re not British. There’s the difference. You see, old man, it’s quite uncomfortable being second rate in England. Being poor is quite all right. And being rich and first-rate, well that’s damned pleasant. But being struck in-between isn’t comfortable at all. And that was my jolly niche. After the war things seemed to look up for a bit. We were all bloody heroes then. Gents took us to their clubs and stood us drinks. It was quite easy to play that role. Tight-lipped, and a bit grim. Too horrible to talk about, and all that. If they asked direct questions one put them off with the hush-hush routine. Top Secret. The Old Man is reporting directly to the War Office chiefs. Give them to understand it was Burma or Tobruk or the Commando drill. ‘Watch for a flap in the press, old boy. Can’t say much about it now, naturally.’”

Lynch smiled wistfully. “As a matter of fact, I never left England. I was a ranker in the RAF. Ground crew. But I’d got to navigation school by the time the war ended.” He flicked the chart book with his finger. “That’s where I picked this stuff up. At any rate, here was a grateful nation, eager to make heroes out of anyone who’d been called up. It seemed a shame to disappoint them. Not to borrow money from them, let them cash your checks, that sort of thing. I lived like a first-rate, for the first time in my life. Nodding to doormen at clubs. ‘Morning, Soames. Sir Henry been in yet?’ Messing around with proper women. Week ends in old homes.” Lynch sighed and put another cigarette in his mouth. “It didn’t last, of course. The first-raters have remarkable noses. Sniff you out in a hurry. My war stories lacked the right tone. So did my accounts of schools and holidays and my funny old country-squire of a father. A slip here, a slip there, and it was all over.” Lynch cleared his throat. “I went to jail for the checks finally. Eighteen months. I decided to be a bit more clever. But it didn’t help. Back I went for two years. But a curious thing was happening to me. I rather enjoyed being found out by first-raters. Strange, isn’t it? The doctor at the lock-up said something about a need to be punished by those I took for superiors. Absolute rot, of course. But I’d reached the point where I wasn’t sure whether my slips were accidental or intentional. Puzzling thing, eh? The upshot was I lost all confidence. Couldn’t get past a half-blind porter at a second-rate club. Tap on the shoulder, a ‘Begging-your-pardon-sir!’ and there I was, back on the street again. Does all this sound absurd to you?”

Beecher glanced over his shoulder. Lynch’s expression was serious; his eyes were narrowed, and there was an anxious frown on his forehead.

“Well, as you say, I’m not British,” Beecher said.

“Of course,” Lynch seemed relieved. “It’s the difference.”

“Now you’ve killed a man. You’ll be garroted if you’re caught.” Beecher shook his head. “I’m glad I’m American.”

“Well, there’s more to it,” Lynch said with a sigh. “I came on what seemed a good thing. A certain photograph in exchange for a good bit of cash. The girl was young and drank too much. Her family was filthy with money. Everything looked simple and businesslike. But they chose to raise the bloodiest row you can imagine. Sent the police straightaway to my digs. And worse luck. I had the photograph and the negative in my wallet when I was pinched. The coppers grabbed them — a fine disregard for the formalities of personal search — and there I was! My stinger pulled without even a by-your-leave. It made all the papers, of course. And there again you see was this curious need to be found out. Why else did I have the bloody pictures in my wallet? Well, I didn’t need a doctor to answer that. It was this second-rate business. It had sapped all my guts. If you’re made to feel inferior, you’ll become inferior, there’s the long and short of it.”

“Was Laura involved in the blackmailing?”

“Only in an advisory capacity. She’s a clever girl.”

“I know,” Beecher said.

Lynch seemed pleased by his comment. “No nonsense about her,” he said. “No silly business about guilt or inferiority complexes. She can strike a pose and hold it till doomsday. That’s beyond me. Tell me frankly, when we first met did you take me for a proper, first-rate chap?”

“Until you deliberately stepped on my golf ball,” Beecher said.

“There! You see! I had to give the show away. I might have won without cheating, of course. But what’s the good of talking about it?” He put out his cigarette and frowned at the charts. “Let’s see where we’re getting to.”

Beecher was grateful for Lynch’s silence. For now he had something interesting to think about: Lynch’s fears, Lynch’s guilt. Why did he like being caught and punished? Was it legal absolution he craved? Or did he enjoy being shamed and humiliated? Beecher wondered about it. But most importantly, he wondered how he could use Lynch’s fears and weakness.

They flew in silence through the darkness. Lynch poured coffee and gave Beecher a sandwich. They were low enough to see the metallic shine of water beneath them and, on their left, the heavy shadows of the Moroccan coast. Finally they saw brilliant lights spreading from the water’s edge into the plains beyond the shoreline.

“Casablanca?” Beecher asked, nodding toward the thick cluster of lights.

“I expect it is,” Lynch said. “I’ll have another heading for you in a bit. Don’t stray any closer to the coast.”

“You’ve got to go inland eventually,” Beecher said, glancing at the gas gauge.

“You fly the plane. I’ll tell you when and where.”

“Why did we make this big circle around Morocco?”

“Couldn’t risk going over it,” Lynch said. “You Americans have bases at Nouasseur, Port Lyautey, and Sidi Slimane. If we stirred up those particular nests we’d be in trouble. They’ve got the best radar your Yank dollars can buy, plus round-the-clock observers, and jets at the ready. We’d have them flying our wings n the double quick if they got a smell of us.”

Beecher was silent a few moments. Then he said: “Do you think Laura will enjoy life in the bush? On the run from everything she’s known in the past?”

“She’s an adjustable girl. At any rate, she’s struck with it, isn’t she?”

“Supposing she gets fed up. Supposing she wants to pull up and go home.”

“Let’s stop gassing. Keep your mind on the job.”

Beecher smiled faintly at him. “Don’t get windy. I’m a first-rater at flying airplanes, remember? You were ground crew. Snapping to work with the oil rag when the officers came around. I imagine that bothered you.”

“Gang of bloody snobs, that’s what they were!” Lynch’s smooth accent was cracking with anger. “Bite the bullet! Carry on! It’s them that kept their heels on our necks with their talk of Empire. England expects every limey scum to do his duty, which means you scrounge for your beer while praising God the champagne won’t give Her Royal Highness a fit of gas. It’s all much.”

Beecher said, “Well, it gives you something to gripe about.”

“Just fly this bloody kite. Don’t worry about me.”

In an hour or so they came to another crescent of lights strung faintly along the shore. Beecher tried to remember the features of the Moroccan coast. He had made several fishing trips down here with the Irishman. This was probably Agadir flickering on their left. Lynch gave him a heading which brought them south and east of the city, on an inland course. Beecher made a guess at the destination: Tiznit perhaps, or Goulamine. They had to go down pretty soon. Ahead were the Atlas mountains and the Sahara was only a hundred miles or so south. He recalled from some chance reading that Sahara was an Arabic word meaning emptiness. Beecher glanced at his gasoline.

Lynch was bent over his chart. He gave Beecher a change of heading, which swung them onto the southern course, toward the Sahara, toward emptiness.

“Don’t cut it too fine,” Beecher said, nodding at the gasoline indicator.

“Shut up and keep on course. We’ll be over Goulamine in a few minutes. Our final objective is less than an hour away. We’re aiming at a half-mile square of black shale ninety miles south of Goulamine. Don Willie said we couldn’t miss it.”

“But he’s on the ground. How did you get mixed up with him?”

“I met him in Spain five years ago on holiday. He’d given some work to a friend of mine, so I looked him up. But his operations must have been temporarily respectable. I didn’t fit into his plans.”

“You’re sure you can trust him?”

“Quite sure.”

“Honor among thieves?”

“Hardly that. Expediency is the word. There’s nothing to be gained by informing.”

“You know, you’re pretty similar types,” Beecher said.

“How’s that?”

“You’re both frightened sick of your pasts,” Beecher said. “Don Willie can’t face Germany, you can’t face England. You’re both on the run. But you’ll find it isn’t the past that’s giving you nightmares. You can’t face yourselves, there’s the real horror. Am I right, Lynch?”

Lynch was silent a moment, but Beecher could hear his slow, heavy breathing in the warm cockpit. Then he said gently: “I’ll tell you what the fact is, old man. I’ve got a gun in my hand and it’s pointed at your head. And I want you to kindly lay off my past. I don’t like being hacked to bits.” He caught Beecher’s shoulder in a big bony hand. “Do you understand?”

“It’s pretty evident,” Beecher said dryly. “So how about the future? What happens when we land?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Frankly, I’m not. What about me? And the Spanish pilots?”

“You’ll have the alternative of behaving stupidly or smartly. I’d suggest you behave smartly. But it won’t matter to me whether you do or don’t. I’ll be a long way off before you can set up any howl.”

“With Laura?”

“Yes, of course. Now just shut up, if you please. We’ve got to look sharp.”

Fifty miles south of Goulamine Beecher saw streaks of dawn in the sky. The light was almost imperceptible, a hazy insubstantial glimmer against the darkness, seemingly without source or direction. But in a few minutes the sun was spreading along the horizon, and he could make out the features of the hard dry land skimming below him: the colors were gray and green, and the surfaces were pitted with tight clusters of cactus that stretched away in endless formations, like rows of coarse, gnarled cabbage. He saw an isolated group of trees racing toward him, a stark and pathetic evidence of life in the foreground of endlessly expanding desert. Beecher looked down as they flew over the trees, automatically noting the terrain and filing it for a future orientation. There was a sparkle of water through the trees, gleaming against the desert drabness like a diamond on a background of gray velvet. The trees enclosed three sides of a bowl-shaped depression. The area around the mouth of the tiny oasis looked smooth from the air, and Beecher automatically marked it as a possible spot to land. This was a pointless precaution, he knew, but his years of training had made him instinctively alert; his investigation was little more than the reflex of ingrained efficiency.

The sunlight grew stronger, and the desert grew and expanded with it; the smooth gray land seemed to be leaping away from him on all sides, stretching and spreading to an awesome infinity. The sight made him feel cold and lonely; his body seemed very vulnerable and insignificant opposed to this indifferent, impersonal vastness.

Lynch was sitting forward, his eyes narrowing as he peered through the windshield. “I believe we’ve done it, old man,” he said, in a soft, incredulous voice. “Look there! About a degree or so to your left. Do you make out a layer of black rock?”

Beecher nodded. From this distance the expanse of black shale looked about the size of a playing card against the gray expanse of desert.

Lynch was grinning with relief. “We’ve done it, old chap. Pinched a plane as easily as copping an apple from a grocer’s stall. Who’d believe that, eh?”

Beecher brought the plane down to within fifty feet of the skimming black shale. It looked smooth as ice. “Shall I land?”

“Yes, put her down.”

Beecher reduced his air speed with the flaps, then moved the control column forward; he landed smoothly and taxied to a stop. When he cut the motors the silence settled about them with a sense of weary finality.

The rim of the sun had not yet appeared on the horizon, but the eastern skies blazed with golden light; it was as if a majestic fire were raging below the edge of the world. Beecher saw a tiny black dot moving toward them over the smooth shale. It was a truck of some sort, racing along without swaying or lurching; it looked as if it were on tracks.

“You sit here quietly,” Lynch said, gesturing casually with his gun. “Laura will be just beyond the door of this compartment. Don’t do anything to alarm her, will you? It might give her a turn to have to shoot you.”

“She’d carry on,” Beecher said dryly.

Lynch stood and stretched. “It’s good to move about a bit. I’m stiff as a piece of old leather.” But he didn’t look tired, Beecher thought; there was excitement in his face and eyes, and he looked like a healthy, tawny animal rousing itself at feeding time. “You sit tight, remember?” He said, and stooped to go through the doorway. He kicked the door shut behind with a negligent swing of his foot.

The truck by then had pulled up to stop in front of the plane. It was a stout and powerful landrover riding on wide, deeply grooved tires. There were a dozen jerry cans of water belted into racks along its sides, and six extra tires were strapped into a metal frame on top of the truck.

Beecher stood and looked out through the windshield of the cockpit. Don Willie was climbing from the driver’s seat of the landrover. Bruno, his pilot, looking sleepy and irritable, jumped down from the other side and disappeared toward the tail of the plane.

Don Willie looked up and smiled quickly at Beecher. He wore a leather flight jacket and a yellow scarf at his throat. His head was bare, and the wind blew his gray hair in a tangle over his forehead. It was obvious that he was in the best of spirits; his face was flushed and triumphant, and his beefy cheeks were puffed out with excitement. He waved and shouted something at Beecher, then hurried after Bruno.

In a moment or so Lynch appeared carrying a wooden crate in his arms. He hoisted it onto the tailgate of the truck and returned to the plane. Then Don Willie and Bruno came into view carrying similar crates. The boxes were about a foot square, bound with metal straps, and sealed on each side by irregular blobs of red wax. Bruno hopped onto the tailgate and began stacking them inside the truck, while Don Willie hurried back to the plane.

Beecher sat down wearily at the control column. It was going off by the numbers. Don Willie must have flown here, Beecher realized, although he saw no plane on the crescent of horizon visible from the cockpit. He might have landed miles away. Bruno must have driven the landrover out from Goulamine to meet him. It seemed incredible that such a confused mixture of plans and possibilities and personalities should mesh so efficiently.

The transfer of crates had been completed; Bruno was strapping the tailgate back into place. Laura appeared, wearing snugly fitted coveralls which were strapped and buckled at the waist and ankles. Her blonde hair was tucked under a slanted black beret, and there was a red scarf at her throat. She climbed quickly into the landrover and settled herself in the middle of the front seat. Bruno came around from the rear of the truck and got behind the wheel.

Beecher’s mouth was suddenly dry.

Lynch and Don Willie came into view. Don Willie put one foot on the running board and frowned at the pure white sky. He spoke to Lynch without turning his head. Lynch shrugged and took the gun from the pocket of his coveralls. It was an automatic, a.38, Beecher guessed. Lynch opened the breech, glanced into the chamber, then let the receiver snap shut.

Beecher felt cold blisters of sweat breaking on his forehead. Lynch had walked out of his sight, striding toward the bay of the plane. Don Willie had hoisted himself into the truck beside Laura. They were set to go; nothing left but to tidy up, to snip off the loose ends.

Footsteps sounded in the aisle, and Beecher trembled with the sudden fearful thrust of his heart. Lynch was walking slowly toward the pilot’s compartment. Beecher realized with panic that he’d been a fool to wait; with the ship in his hands he might at least have crashed them into the ground. Instead he had waited, hoping to play on Lynch’s guilt, Laura’s fears. But they were safe now, their feet solidly on the ground, and he was caught like a rabbit in a noose. And even as Lynch’s hand turned the knob of the compartment, Beecher had a splintered glimpse of Don Willie’s complete plan; Interpol would have no mystery to solve. It would find the plane with three dead men aboard; a puzzle and answer contained in one neat package.

Beecher leaped from the pilot’s column and threw himself at the slowly opening door. His weight slammed it shut, and he heard Lynch’s harsh, startled oath when he rammed home the bolt on the inside of the door.

“Now don’t be an idiot, old man,” Lynch called plaintively. “You’re coming with us, you know. Did you think we’d leave you here?”

“You’re worried about me, eh?”

“Of course, old man. No need to go hysterical. Don Willie’s planning to take care of you.”

“Tell him I want to talk to him.”

“Now this won’t do at all!” The knob twisted rapidly back and forth, then Lynch’s fist hammered against the metal panel of the door. “Open up, I say! Don’t be a bloody fool.”

Beecher flattened his back against the wall beside the doorway, well out of range if Lynch fired through the panel. He felt a desperate excitement running through him; there was a chance, after all. If he could persuade Lynch to leave the plane to talk to Don Willie, he could use the controls without risking a bullet in his back. Then he could start the motors and whip the tail of the plane around against the truck...

But Lynch said, “You’re in no position to bargain, old man.” His voice was casual and patient, as if he were humoring a child. “We’ve chocked stones up against the wheels. You can’t move the ship, you know.”

Beecher looked desperately about the cockpit. There was nothing he could do; the plane was rooted to the ground, and the radios were dead. He turned quickly to the windows. Don Willie was peering out the door of the truck, staring toward the rear of the ship. He was obviously impatient; he mopped at his red face with the end of his yellow scarf, and raised his arm to study his wrist watch.

“How much time have you got to spare?” Beecher shouted at Lynch.

“I do wish you’d be sensible,” Lynch said. “There’s no earthly reason to drag things out.”

“You aren’t just bouncing checks now,” Beecher said. “You’re playing for that long neck of yours. And you want to lose, don’t you? Isn’t that what you want?”

Lynch didn’t answer. His footsteps moved rapidly toward the rear of the ship. Beecher turned back to the window. Don Willie had opened the door of the truck, and was standing on the running board looking anxiously toward the plane. Lynch had apparently appeared in the doorway, for Don Willie began to shout and gesture furiously at his wrist watch. Then he jumped to the ground and strode angrily toward Lynch, moving from Beecher’s view.

He heard nothing for a moment. Then Lynch called to him: “Are you coming out, old man?”

“Go to hell!”

There was no answer to this. Beecher waited a bit, then glanced out the window. Don Willie hadn’t returned to the truck yet. It wasn’t a truce or stalemate, he knew; they were considering their problem, making plans. And all he could do was wait in his small warm trap. He heard footsteps in the aisle, approaching the pilot’s compartment.

Everything was still. Then Beecher stiffened suddenly; a faint crackling noise sounded beyond the door. Beecher got his ear against the panel. The noise was swelling slowly.

“Lynch!” he shouted.

“You’d better come out, old man.” Lynch’s voice was distant. “I’ve started a fire in the front seats. Wouldn’t you prefer things a bit less messy?”

Beecher put the palms of his hands against the panel. There was no sensation of heat yet, but glancing down, he saw wisps of smoke crawling under the door like thin blue snakes. The noise of the fire grew louder. Beecher backed from the door, trying desperately to control his fear.

The compartment filled slowly with smoke. Beecher hammered against the windows, but the glass had been fired to withstand the pressure of three-hundred-mile winds; he might have been pounding against steel walls. Don Willie was back at the truck now, a foot poised on the running board, and his head twisted to stare up at the cockpit. The smoke eddied and swirled against the windows, blurring and distorting Beecher’s view. Don Willie became a shimmering, bloated figure, and the truck itself shifted strangely in the curling tendrils of smoke. In a marine fantasy, he saw the pale triangle of Laura’s face gleaming behind the windshield of the truck. She had moved forward for a better view, and when she raised her eyes to the cockpit he saw the impersonal excitement in her face, like that of a spectator at a traffic accident.

Beecher began to cough. He dropped to his knees and cupped his hands about his mouth and nose, desperately attempting to filter clear air through his fingers. He wasn’t conscious of fear any more; the need to breathe forced everything else from his mind. But he clung to one blind resolve; he was not going to open the door and let Lynch shoot him. He was as good as dead anyway, and nothing seemed important now but this last act of will; they could burn him to death, but they couldn’t make him run into their guns like a hysterical animal.

Beecher’s coughing became convulsive; the smoke burned his lungs like lye. He had been prepared to die; his will had made that decision. To die suggested a clean swift break; the fall of a blade, or the snap of a switch. But dying had a beginning, a middle, and an end. It wasn’t like snapping off a light switch. Dying took time. Too much time; it was a nightmare streaked with unendurable fear and terror. Beecher didn’t change his mind; his screaming senses changed it for him. He lunged blindly to his feet, pulled the bolt and jerked the door open. Flames leaped up against his face; half the interior of the plane seemed to be blazing. Lynch was at the door in the middle of the ship, a gun in his hand.

Beecher saw this in a distorted flash as he ran through the fire with his arms wrapped about his head. There was the crack of the gun, a mean, spiteful noise in the roar of the fire, but the bullet missed him; he felt nothing but flames searing the backs of his hands, and then the metal floor of the plane scraped his cheek, as he tripped and crashed at Lynch’s feet. He tried to rise; there was air in his lungs now, cool dry desert air blowing against his face. As he raised his head, Lynch’s face was suddenly clear and distinct above the smoke. He looked as if he might be crying; there were no tears on his cheeks, but his eyes were bright with emotion.

“Damn you!” he cried. “I’ve got to, you know that!”

He raised the gun in his hand and swung it down across Beecher’s temple. The effect of the blow was curiously delayed; Beecher felt the cold metal floor under his face again, saw Lynch’s legs disappear against the calm sky, was aware of the heat and flame about his own body — he seemed to experience all of this the instant Lynch struck him. But after that diamond-bright cluster of sensations, there came the pain, the darkness, and the acceptance of death.