Nelson Demille - The Quest

Purcell jumped on the wing and helped Mercado up, then took Vivian’s hand and pulled her onto the wing. They looked at each other a second, then she released his hand and climbed into the cockpit and over to the right-hand seat.

Purcell got in, hit the master switch, and checked his flight controls, then pumped the throttle and hit the starter. The engine fired up quickly, and he checked his instrument panel. Oil pressure still low.

Mercado said, “It’s a bit tight back here with the luggage.”

Vivian said to him, “Do not disturb the pilot when he is doing his pilot stuff.”

Purcell said, “Seat belts.”

He released the handbrake and brought the Navion around. He saw Signore Bocaccio standing beside his old Fiat, waving to them. He returned the wave, then slid the canopy closed and taxied toward the end of the longer runway, which was clear of traffic this afternoon.

Vivian asked him, “Do I need to pray to Saint Christopher?”

He didn’t reply.

Vivian had been trying to engage him in light banter all morning, but he wasn’t in the mood. She’d been good enough not to call him in his room last night, or knock on his door, and he was fairly certain she hadn’t spoken to Mercado about the new sleeping arrangement because Henry seemed himself.

Purcell ran the engine up, checked his controls and instruments again, then wheeled onto the runway. “Ready for takeoff.” He pushed the throttle forward and the Navion began its run.

The aircraft lifted off and Purcell began banking right, north toward Gondar. To his right lay Addis Ababa, a city he would probably never see again, or if he did, it would be from a prison cell-unless they gave him the same view of the courtyard and gallows.

Purcell steered the Navion between two towering peaks, then glanced back at what he hoped was his last look at Addis Ababa.

Henry, as it turned out, had not gone to the press office that morning, but he’d sent a telex from the hotel to L’Osservatore Romano telling his editors that the team was going to Gondar for a few days to report on the Falasha exodus.

Purcell, Vivian, and Mercado had spent the morning in Henry’s room, giving the photos a last look and marking the terrain maps with a few more suspected hiding places for the black monastery. The other suspicious thing in Mercado’s room, the strand of black hair, was still there. Henry should speak to the maid. But they would not be returning to their hotel rooms ever. It was time, as Colonel Gann suggested, to go and find it.

Regarding where to go next if they did find it, Colonel Gann, in the maps he’d sent them, had included contiguous terrain maps from Gondar and Lake Tana to French Somaliland on the coast. Clearly Gann was suggesting an exit plan for them.

So, with or without the Holy Grail, they would make their way to French Somaliland, the closest safe haven, where many Westerners and Ethiopians on the run had gone. The French officials were good about providing assistance to anyone who reached the border. All they had to do was get there.

Vivian said to him, in a soft voice, “You told me we would be friends.”

“We are.”

“You’ve barely spoken to me all morning.”

“I’m not good in the morning.”

She glanced back at Henry, who was concentrating on a photograph with the magnifier. She said to Purcell, “It will never happen again. I promise you.”

“Let’s talk about this in Gondar.” He added, “I’m flying.”

She looked at him, then turned her head and stared out the side of the canopy.

They continued on, and Mercado said, “We have reached the point of no return on our journey.”

Purcell replied, “Not yet. We have burned no bridges, and I can still fly back to Addis and say we had engine problems.”

Mercado did not reply, but Vivian said, “Avanti.”

Purcell spotted the single-lane road and followed it north. Off to his right front, he could see Shoan about ten kilometers away. He banked right and began descending, saying to his passengers, “I want Colonel Gann to know we are on the way.”

As they got lower and closer, Mercado leaned forward with his binoculars. “I don’t see the vehicle.”

Purcell replied, “We don’t know if that vehicle had anything to do with Gann.”

Purcell flew over the village at four hundred feet and tipped his wings.

Mercado said, “I saw someone waving.”

“Did he have a mustache and a riding crop?”

“He was wearing a white shamma… but it could have been him.”

“Going native.”

They flew over the spa, then Purcell banked right, to the area east of the single-lane road where most of their photographs had been taken of the jungle and rain forests that lay between Lake Tana and the area around the destroyed fortress-an area that Purcell estimated at more than a thousand square miles.

Vivian had the large-scale maps on her lap, and Purcell asked her to hold up the one of the area below.

She held the map for him, and he glanced at the circled sites, then banked east toward the first circle on the map. He dropped down to three hundred feet and slowed his airspeed as much as he could.

Mercado was leaning between the seats, dividing his attention between the map and the view from the Plexiglas canopy.

Purcell dropped lower as he approached the first site, marked Number One on the map, which had shown a light reflection in the corresponding photograph. He made a tight clockwise turn, then dipped his right wing so that it was not obstructing their view. Mia shuddered to warn him she was about to stall, and Purcell pushed in the throttle as he leveled his wings.

Mercado lowered his binoculars. “I think I saw a pond… or maybe swampland.”

Vivian agreed, “It was water. Not a glass roof.”

Purcell said, “At least what we saw in the photograph was not an illusion, and we’ve also marked the map position correctly. That’s the good news.”

Vivian agreed. “One of these circles will be the black monastery.”

“If not, we have at least eliminated some locations.”

They continued on to the next closest circle that showed a large cluster of palm trees in the photographs, and Purcell repeated his maneuvers. No one saw anything, so he made another pass, and this time Vivian said, “I definitely saw a body of water through the palms.”

“Any shiny roofs?”

“No.”

Purcell moved on to the next circle on the map, Number Three, which Vivian pointed to on the corresponding photograph. He glanced at the photo and saw a very large cluster of palms, surrounded by much taller growth. This looked more promising and he pulled off some power and lowered his flaps as if he intended to land. The airspeed indicator bounced between sixty and sixty-five miles per hour.

The cluster of palms was coming up fast at his one o’clock position and he dropped his right wing, causing the Navion to shudder, but giving Vivian and Mercado an unobstructed view as they passed by.

Vivian shouted, “I saw something! A glint of light… not water.”

Mercado agreed, and Purcell, too, had seen something, and it was definitely not water.

He climbed as fast as he could, got to six hundred feet, and came around again, this time from the west so that the afternoon sun was at their back. He was higher than last time, so he could keep his nose down as he flew straight toward the cluster of palms.

Vivian had taken the binoculars from Mercado and she was unbuckled and leaning over the instrument panel, staring through the front windshield.

Purcell continued his dive until the last possible second, then pushed the throttle forward, pulled back on the wheel, and raised his flaps. The Navion continued downward for a few more seconds, then the nose slowly lifted and they leveled out over the jungle canopy at about two hundred feet, then began gaining altitude.