Fly by Night

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

There are nine hundred thousand words in the English language. Jammer Davis couldn’t think of a single one.

She was standing by the same table on the same patio where they’d dined yesterday. Only the doctor was not the same. She was wearing a pair of blue shorts and a tiny white shirt knotted above the belly. Even with flat shoes, her long legs seemed to go on forever, lithe and brown. The shorts and shirt accentuated her curves and exposed a stomach that belonged on a late-night infomercial for blasting abs. If Davis was built for rugby, Antonelli was a pole vaulter, all long limbs and sinew and muscle. Her flawless skin was dark, though not so much a tan as the native bronze of her Mediterranean heritage. Davis had never seen the doctor in anything other than work clothes and hospital scrubs, so now he knew what he’d been missing. His only concern was that her new fashion statement would raise eyebrows in the village — they were still in a Muslim country. But then, Antonelli knew the local sensibilities better than he did.

“Hi,” she said for a second time.

He finally spit it out. “Hi.”

Davis pried his eyes away from Antonelli, and they landed on a bottle of Pinot Noir on the table. It was open, and situated nicely between a pair of mismatched glasses, probably the same two they’d used yesterday.

He said, “I see you were serious about only drinking from bottles with corks.”

Antonelli poured. “Wine is very serious.”

They took their regular seats and toasted a successful day, his in the ocean and hers in the clinic. The wine was quite good. As far as Davis could tell.

She said, “You must tell me about what you found in the sea.”

“I found what I was looking for. The wreckage is lying in about fifty feet of water. But I need a closer look.”

“What will that tell you?”

“A lot, I’m hoping. Chances are this wreck will never be brought to the surface. Sudan doesn’t have the resources for that kind of salvage. But I can learn a lot from a closer look. I’ll see if there was any cargo. I’ll check the position of switches and levers in the cockpit to verify the configuration when the airplane hit, things like landing gear and flight controls.”

“And that can give you a solution?”

“It’s a start. But there might be more to it.”

“Such as?”

“FBN Aviation is a shady operation. Aside from delivering supplies to people like you, they deliver a lot of things that are … well, less helpful to the world.”

“Weapons?” she suggested.

“I’m sure you’ve seen them. For my investigation that brings a lot of possible causes into play. This crash might not even have been an accident. At least not in the usual sense.”

Antonelli pulled her glass from her lips in mid-sip. “Are you saying FBN might have sabotaged the airplane?”

Davis shrugged to say it was a possibility.

“What about the pilots? I knew one man fairly well, the one who helped at our clinic.”

Davis studied her for a moment, wondering how far to go. He relented. “I probably should have leveled with you earlier about that. I told you that I found the crew, the two Ukranians.”

She looked perplexed. “Yes?”

“Actually, I found their bodies in the desert a few days ago. They had been executed.”

Antonelli gasped. “Executed?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“But who would do such a thing?”

“My guess is FBN Aviation. Imam Khoury has his own private army. And I suspect it goes higher than that. In a place like this, Khoury would never be able to operate without support from someone in the government.”

She said nothing for a long time. The same woman who had served them last night arrived with food and a smile.

When she was gone, Antonelli said, “The world can be a cruel place.”

“Yes it can,” he agreed. “But it can also be a good place.”

She raised her glass. “To the good.”

He tapped his against it. “To the good.”

The meal was fish, well seasoned, accompanied by couscous. It was even better than the previous evening. Or maybe Davis had only worked up a greater hunger by getting dragged through the Red Sea all day.

Midcourse through dinner, Antonelli offered up her phone for another call to Jen. Davis had also been contemplating a call to Larry Green. The general might have new information, although more likely he’d just order Davis home again. In the end, neither idea got off the ground for the most basic of reasons — her handset was low on power and wouldn’t hold a connection. Davis was disappointed, because he really wanted to talk to his daughter. He had fewer regrets about the call to D.C. After his dive tomorrow, he’d find a way to get back to Khartoum. Then he’d find a phone and check in. What difference could a day make? he reasoned.

Davis made Antonelli tell him about her day at the clinic, and that subject lifted the mood considerably. Or perhaps it was the wine. They pulled a second cork before finishing, and still had half a bottle left when the server took away their plates. Both agreed that a walk on the beach was in order. She grabbed the glasses. He grabbed the bottle.

On reaching the water, they turned left, and meandered toward the dim orange glow. The sun was finally gone, resting after another twelve-hour shift spent beating the earth into submission. Waves slapped gently onto shore, and above the tideline a warm offshore breeze rustled through a thin stand of palms. With the village behind them, they followed a strand of sand that curved out toward sea, then disappeared at a point miles in the distance. They strolled side by side, their steps irregular, arms swinging carelessly. It might have been the wine or it might have been the mood, but for the first time in days Davis found he wasn’t thinking about crashes or drones or thieving soldiers. It felt good.

Antonelli looked skyward, and said, “It’s such a clear evening. We should look for shooting stars.”

“You can’t. They only come when you’re not looking for them.”

She frowned in mock disappointment.

“But I’ll watch just the same.”

She said, “Tell me, Jammer, will you go back to Washington as soon as you have solved the mystery of this crash?”

“Yes.”

“Are you looking forward it?”

“Washington? Not really. But home — yes. When Jen gets back, I’ll be there for her. I promised her that a long time ago.”

“When your wife died?”

“Yes. And I meant it. What about you? Are you looking forward to going home?”

“Milan? No, not really.”

Davis didn’t reply.

“Does that sound strange?” she asked.

“I guess not.”

“Here I work hard, but the rest of my life is simple. In Milan it is somewhat the reverse.”

“I know what you mean. E-mails and meetings.”

“Divorce lawyers,” she said.

Davis stopped.

Antonelli began to laugh. “There is probably not a lawyer within a hundred miles of this place.”

“Probably not.”

She held out her empty glass and ordered him to fill it. He pulled out the cork and did as instructed. When her glass was half full, the bottle ran dry. Davis held up the empty, and said, “Too bad we don’t have something to write with. We could send a message.”

“And what would this message say?”

“I don’t know. I’m not much of a poet.”

“Most of us aren’t.” Antonelli took a long draw on her wine before looking contemplatively out to sea. She said, “You know, Jammer, I have three wonderful bathing suits back in Milan.”

“I’ll bet you do.”

“But none here.” She finished her wine, wound up, and threw the empty glass out to sea. “Sad, is it not?”

“Very,” he said. It truly was.

Antonelli took the empty bottle from his hand and launched herself running into the Red Sea, ending in a headlong dive. When she surfaced, she started wriggling, and seconds later threw her wet shirt at him. It hit Davis on the shoulder and stuck there. Her shorts came next, flying past his head and splattering into the sand.

Davis said nothing. He just stood there, hoping she’d see him as the strong silent type. Not the befuddled speechless type. She began twirling a pair of wet red panties on her finger. He was debating the merits of ducking when she stuffed them into the bottle and shoved the cork in place.

“We have nothing to write with, but perhaps this will make our message clear, no?”

“Crystal,” he replied.

She giggled before tossing the bottle over her shoulder and out to sea.

“Come in,” she said, “the water is wonderful.”

“I don’t have a bathing suit either,” he reasoned weakly.

“Precisamente!”

Davis thought, What happens in Sudan stays in Sudan.

He stripped off his shirt, and was reaching for the button on his trousers when a voice called from down the beach.

“Doctor Antonelli!”

It was a young girl Davis had never seen. She was running and waving her arms frantically. She blurted something to Antonelli in Arabic. The doctor issued what sounded like instructions, and the girl did a quick about-face and began running back to the village.

Antonelli looked at Davis forlornly.

“Bad news?” he queried.

“Actually, good news. A young woman has gone into labor.”

“Now?”

“These things do not wait.” She pointed to her clothes lying in the sand. Davis retrieved them, rolled up the legs of his pants to the knee and walked out to sea to hand them over. There was more wriggling as Antonelli reapplied her top and bottom.

“But …” he hesitated, “are you okay to deliver a baby?” “After a few glasses of wine, you mean? I would never do it if there was a choice. But here, and at this moment, there is not. I am the only physician they will find.” Antonelli stood up, her clothes dripping with saltwater and clinging to her body in amazing ways. “Besides,” she said, “such things have a way of sobering one up.”

“Yeah. I’ll bet they do.”

They waded ashore, and Antonelli started back to the village on a brisk jog. He let her go ahead, and called out, “Is this what it’s like being married to a doctor?”

“Yes,” she shouted over her shoulder.

Standing ankle deep in the Red Sea, half naked, Davis looked up to the sky. He saw a shooting star streak overhead.