19

It was dark when we got outside again and the field was a maze of grounded stars: the yellow-whites of the runway, the greens of the threshold, the dim blues of the taxiways and occasional red obstruction warnings. And back and beyond, the rich windows of Eeii Mery and the other hilltops twinkled lazily in the rising air.

It had turned busy, too; the air was full of burnt paraffin and the heaving roar of taxiing jets. We kept close to the buildings: it's when you get noise all around you that you can walk into something, though there aren't as many spinning propellers as once, thank God.

I left the Queen Air's door open so I could go out and check the navigation lights, turned them on, let Ken finish off the cockpit check while I put the straps back around the champagne boxes.

I felt, rather than heard, the first foot on the steps. Before I could move, lanni was up and inside, grinning from a fighting crouch that was more from choice than the height of the cabin. I backed off a step and turned sideways to keep my chin to myself.

More scuffling, slower this time, and the aircraft tilted a little as lehangir came aboard. A slim automatic glinted in the dull cabin light.

'Good evening,' he said calmly. 'Are we ready to start unloading?'

More swaying and a third person stuck a sharp moustached face around the edge of the doorway. Beneath it was a customs uniform.

I said: 'Monsieur Aziz won't like it.'

'No-' he shook his head firmly '-that's done with. I tried to ring him, only to find he was here at the airport. So I realised you must have rung him yourself. And I hurried down.' Pausing only to change out of the pink rig into dark trousers and shirt, a short dark jacket. The total effect was almost black -maybe intentionally.

He leant a forearm on the rear seat back and pointed the gun across it. 'How, by the way, did you persuade Aziz to lift the order?'

Over my shoulder, Ken said: Truth. Faith moves mountains but truth moves financiers.' He was close behind me and I hoped he'd remember where he was – in a small, fragile aeroplane -before he started a gunfight. Also where I was, of course.

'Ah,' Jehangir smiled. 'I really didn't need Aziz poking into my business.'

I said: 'Your name didn't come into it. Yet.'

'Well… Now let's get on with it. Stand aside, please.'

I turned, stared hard at Ken, and sat down in a seat facing forward at the stacked boxes. Ken shrugged briefly and sat on the other side of the gangway.

Janni came forward, undid the straps, and hunched his way aft with a box. He dumped it in the doorway, came back for another. A third. The aeroplane settled a little on the main wheels.

'Three is one-fifty pounds,' Ken said softly, 'and two blokes back there is another three hundred and Janni must be nearly two hundred himself. Six-fifty already. One more?'

'Could be two. Mind if I go first?'

'I was going to suggest it.'

Janni came forward and lifted the next box, then spotted that it had been opened and called to his boss. Jehangir took a step forward and peered.

'Oh dear, so you had to get inquisitive.' He glanced back at his tame customs officer.

I said: 'We did say it was the truth that moved Monsieur Aziz.'

Jehangir suddenly chuckled. 'I wish I could have seen that little prig's expression. Never mind. A diligent customs officer would obviously open some for a random check. Janni! '

He stepped back and Janni moved past us with the box. As he went the aeroplane tilted up behind him like a seesaw.700 pounds aft of the centre of the main wheels and nothing ahead of it was just too much. The nosewheel lifted and the tail headed for the tarmac.

I threw myself into the cockpit, ramming myself on to the controls, as far forward as I could get. Behind me there was a crash as Jauni dropped the box, a crunch as the door-steps touched the ground and a scream as the customs officer fell off them.

Maybe he made the difference, maybe it was also Ken backing in behind me. She slowed, the tail bumper touched gently, then the whole caboodle swung back on its nosewheel with a slam that lifted my gold filling.

But nosewheels are built for slamming; tails aren't.

Ken shouted: 'Drop the gun! Drop it!'

He had both hands on the Smith, pointing straight up the gangway between the seats. I couldn't see what at.

Then he fired.

Inside the aeroplane, the noise was like a grenade. I leant over Ken's shoulder. At the far end – about eight feet away -Janni was picking himself off a scatter of champagne boxes, Jehangir was clinging to the last seat, looking as surprised as hell.

As I watched, he lurched and his left leg slid eighteen inches out of his trouser cuff. He stared at it. The leg rolled a little, the foot at an impossible angle.

Ken said:'Now lose that gun! '

Jehangir let it fall, lowered himself on to the seat-arm, grabbed his leg and hauled it back into his trouser. 'You know what this will cost me?'

'Would your stomach have been cheaper? Now get the hell off this aeroplane.'

Janni was on his feet, giving Ken a vicious glare, then helping the master up. Holding his leg more-or-less in place. Jehangir shuffled to the door. Janni helped him on to the steps.

Jehangir turned for one last word. Ken took it instead: Til tell you something: I was so rushed back then, I couldn't remember which leg was which.'

Jehangir vanished. When we felt their weight go off the steps, Ken moved back to watch them. 'Wind her up. I'll do the chocks and pitot head.'

I was calling for taxi clearance before I'd got the second engine started.

Ken dropped into the right-hand seat as we turned across the front of the main terminal. 'I got the cargo back forward but not tied down. Shouldn't be bumpy tonight, though.'

'How's the door?'

'Bit bent at the top, but it latches.' He shook his head. 'I didn't expect his damn leg to come right off. Wonder what it counts as? Can't be grievous bodily harm, can it?'

'I expect the French have a word for it.' We got to the run-up area off runway 18 as a big jet started its takeoff. The line of lights crawled, walked, ran and slanted steeply into the dark sky.

'Whiskey Zulu, request takeoff.'

'Whiskey Zulu, hold at run-up.'

I'd been listening to the tower long enough to get a picture of what was going on around, which included a Pan Am flight established on the approach. They'd let us go after that had landed.

I ran up the engines briefly, did a perfunctory mag and pitch check. Out low beyond the city two new stars sparkled alive; Pan Am'slanding lights.

The tower said: 'Whiskey Zulu, cancel takeoff. Return to parking ramp and shut down.'

Ken glared at the little cabin speaker. 'The hell withthat. Just Jehangir pulling one of Aziz's tricks.'

I flipped off the brakes and pushed open the throttles. 'Beirut Tower, Whiskey Zulu: your transmission faint and intermittent but understand clear to takeoff. Rolling.'

The Tower screamed: 'Whiskey Zulu, negative I Return to ramp!'

'You're still indistinct, but thanks and good night.'

A deep but tense American voice broke in: 'What the hell's going on down there? Is that runway clear or not?'

'Stand by, Pan Am,' the Tower soothed him. 'Whiskey Zulu, return to… no, whereare you, Whiskey Zulu?'

'Whaddaya mean, stand by? D 'you think I'm in a Goddamnballoon? I'm past the outer marker! '

The Queen Air broke ground, I snapped up the wheels and banked steeply right, over the sea, and left them to sort it out between themselves.

I levelled out at 5,000 and put in the autopilot; it could have done the climb for me, but I was still new enough to this aeroplane to want to handle the controls more than was strictly necessary.

Outside, the night was dark, moonless, crystallising as we got away from the dust and haze of the coastline. And still: no cloud, just a southwest wind with no sense of ambition.