When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

sand looks pretty hard. If we have to, we could glide down. Your radio works, right?”

     Campbell nodded but without enthusiasm and Steve added, “I’ll do the piloting and you be the navigator.”

     “Look Yank, I’m still the captain,” Campbell protested, his face white and sweaty.

     “I know that, and you are in charge. But you have to agree you’re not at your best this morning. Right? That must have been a helluva party last night. You don’t put a plane in a tight turn like that at less than at least seven hundred or eight hundred feet. We were barely off the ground, with no power! You could have killed us. You’re still under the effect of whatever you smoked.”

     Steve smiled at the Australian to keep the situation as calm as possible.

     “Let’s watch that fuel-selector switch. Did you gas up this morning? Are the tanks full?”

     “The tanks are not full but we’ve got at least two hours of gas. Okay, okay, head directly west at two-seven-five degrees.”

     Steve was sure Campbell didn’t want to lose the fee.

     “How did the fuel selector get to the off position?”

     “You must have hit it with your knee.”

     “I don’t think so,” Steve said firmly, convinced now that Campbell hadn’t gone through his checklist.

     He looked back at Kella and gave her a reassuring smile.

     “You okay back there? Having fun yet?”

     She did not smile.

     “This is not a joke. We almost crashed. I think we should go back and forget about this.”

     “We can do that,” Steve said. “But I think we fixed the problem. The fuel selector was set on an empty tank. We’re okay now, right Campbell?”

     He sulked and said nothing. Steve again looked at Kella.

     “I’m for going ahead. We’re okay, really. I’ve got things under control.”

     “I hope one of you knows what he’s doing,” she said.

***

Timbuktu was still visible to the north as they flew over a track that headed first to the west and then to the southwest, paralleling the Niger River. As far as the eye could see, the only traffic consisted of one truck heading west. However, there were scattered small groups, some with a camel or a donkey or two.

     Soon Lake Faguibine was visible in the distance. Indeed, on the northern side was an outcropping of rocks rising a couple of hundred feet above the desert. Between the northwest side of the lake and the rocks were palm trees and bushes. Steve lowered his altitude and could see several camps among the trees. The black tents, the whites and blues of the men’s clothing, and the blacks of the women’s, together with the green of the vegetation starkly contrasted the otherwise monotonous color of the sand.

     “They’re Tuaregs,” Kella said. “That’s where the marabout told me I would find Azrur and Thiyya.”

     Steve came down to a hundred feet above the camp and waggled the plane’s wings in a friendly gesture.

     “Here, put an X on the map so we can find them again,” he said, pointing the plane on an azimuth of forty-five degrees heading toward the oasis of Dayet en Naharat, to start a wide northern arc around Timbuktu. They soon reached the track that led to the oasis and followed it north until they overflew it. They then headed directly east and soon reached the oasis of I-n-Alei.

    Off to the east about four miles sand and dust swirled into the sky. Curious, Steve headed for it, skirting the cloud on its southern side. A convoy of trucks and jeeps apparently coming from I-n-Alei was at the source of the disturbance. The trucks were loaded with barrels and with goats and cases of vegetables.

     “Where do you think they’re going?” Steve asked Campbell, who shrugged.

     “I’m not sure I want to know. They look military, probably the Malian army resupplying its desert troops somewhere.”

     “Well, let’s see,” Steve said as he directed the plane to follow the desert track being used by the convoy. Thirty miles farther, flying at a thousand feet, they could see the outlines of a camp. There were vehicles, several large tents, and a group of men in single line getting food and water—a chow line. It was lunchtime. There was another group doing push-ups and calisthenics.

     Steve could also see an obstacle course and a rifle range. The men in line had weapons and a few pointed them toward the plane, others waved their arms for the intruder to leave their space, and others appeared to be shouting. A black flag flew at the top of a pole in the middle of the camp.

     “What’s that?” asked Kella from the back of the aircraft.

     She leaned forward and pointed to the far end of the camp where they could see an airstrip about a thousand feet long. As Steve looked toward where she pointed, a small plane about half the size of theirs was taking flight from the airstrip. Steve banked the plane to circle the camp and headed higher.

     “Looks like a UAV, an unmanned air vehicle. It’s too small for a pilot. But big enough to carry other stuff, like cameras, machine guns, even missiles,” Campbell said. “I’ll take over here, I feel fine,” he added with a new air of authority, and Steve reluctantly relinquished control of the plane to the Australian.

     The UAV was also gaining height, and it soon was only about a half-mile away but clearly heading toward the Piper at an altitude of thirteen-hundred feet, only two-hundred feet below them. As it got closer, they noticed it had no identifying number, only a black rectangle on its tail.

     Campbell climbed to keep some distance from the UAV until the ground controller made his intentions