Donald Westlake - Kahawa

So they had, apparently startled by the sudden appearance of a plane shooting at them. But as Ellen swung around for another attack, they started up again, tearing down the highway. “Good,” Ellen said. “The faster they go, the easier it’ll be to pace them.”

They came in on the car’s right, flying low, Ellen slowing to match the car’s ninety miles an hour. This time she held the flap up and out with her elbow while Lew crouched against her seat back, holding the pistol in a two-handed grip, bracing it by pressing his knuckles against the door panel just under the window, the barrel sticking out through the opening. The driver was on this side, clearly visible, staring at the plane, his eyes huge white circles in his dark face, making a toy target. A passenger in the seat behind him was firing wildly in the general direction of the plane.

Lew’s first shot went nowhere in particular, but his second made that target face disappear, like something in a shooting gallery. The car slued and careened, turned sharply right, went over on its side, rolled completely over twice, and landed bone-jarringly on its wheels, smoking. Ellen lifted them higher, and looking back Lew saw the first flames, and two men staggering out onto the pavement.

Ahead, Bathar and the moped still ran, not looking back, not slackening pace. Ellen accelerated to overtake him, while Patricia said, “Who is that?”

“A friend of ours. My employer’s son. We thought he was dead.”

“He almost was.”

They flew over the speeding Bathar, then Ellen brought the Cessna down onto the highway for a very bumpy and scary landing, the fuselage fishtailing the whole time. Once they’d stopped, Ellen opened the door, leaned out, looked back, and said, “Where is he?”

Lew went through the contortions necessary to get past Ellen’s seatback and stick his head out the doorway. The road back there was dark and empty. “He’s hiding,” Lew said. “He’s hiding from us . Let me out, I’ll go get him.”

“We can’t stay here forever,” Ellen pointed out, climbing down so he could get out. “Sooner or later, there’ll be traffic.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Taking a few steps back behind the plane, Lew cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “ Bathar !” No response. He yelled it again, then muttered something, and went jogging away down the middle of the road. He counted fifty paces, then stopped and yelled, “ God damn it , BATHAR!”

A distant unbelieving voice said, “What?”

“Bathar, it’s Lew! Come on!”

A shadow separated itself from the roadside darkness some distance away. “Lew? Honest to God?”

“No, I’m lying. Come on , Bathar!” Lew gestured mightily for Bathar to come on, then turned and jogged back toward the plane.

Behind him, the moped sounded its nasal sputter. It rapidly approached, passed the jogging Lew, and as he reached the plane, Bathar was off the moped and embracing Ellen with great vigor. “Say, there,” Lew said.

Bathar, grinning from ear to ear, released Ellen, then immediately grabbed her again and kissed her smiling mouth. Then he truly did release her, turned, and enthusiastically shook Lew’s hand in both of his, saying, “I can’t believe it. I thought this was a dead Paki, Lew, I really thought that, I really did.”

“Let’s get in the plane ,” Ellen said.

“Right,” Lew said. He started forward, but Ellen put up a hand to stop him, saying, “Oh, no, you don’t. You ride up front with me.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Get in, Bathar. Step there, and there.”

“Very good.” Bathar hoisted himself up, climbed into the plane, and was heard to say, “Well, hello.”

Patricia’s grin sounded clearly in her voice: “Hello, yourself.”

Lew went next, working his way over to the front passenger seat, and then Ellen climbed aboard and at once started them rolling down the potholed road.

“By golly, here comes a car,” Lew said, seeing the headlights appear around a curve far ahead.

“I hope he has sense enough to get out of the way.” Ellen switched on the Cessna’s landing lights so the oncoming driver would at least know what was out in front of him.

He wasn’t a particularly intelligent driver. First he flashed his high beams; whether requesting this airplane to get out of his way or objecting to the brightness of its single forward floodlight, it was impossible to guess. Then he just kept coming, for the longest while. In the backseat, Bathar and Patricia were oblivious, engaged in mutual introductions. “Ellen,” Lew said, “what if he doesn’t stop?”

“Guess,” Ellen said.

But the clown finally did stop, and in fact he steered himself off the road, which was just as well, because the Cessna needed more road before it could struggle back into the air. The verge dipped down here, which was also good; the Cessna’s speeding left wing swept by just over the roof of the car while its driver gaped idiotically at them. Sometime later, they became airborne at last, and Ellen switched off all the lights. Then Bathar told them his story.

“I was trying to get to the border, but I had to hide every time a car came along. I was still groggy, and once when I was hiding I just fell asleep. Then I woke up and started again, and people came out of a little hotel by the road and saw me and chased me. Because I’m an Asian, I guess.”

Lew swiveled around to grin at him, saying, “Well, did you have fun?”

“I guess I did, really,” Bathar said, “so long as I survived.”

“And will you go to London now?”

“Oh, absolutely. In all the bad moments, I kept telling myself, ‘There’s London at the end of this.’”

Patricia said, “You’re going to London?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“I thought I might go back there, too,” she said. “I have cousins in Fulham.”

“A nice neighborhood, Fulham,” Bathar suggested. “Near to Chelsea and all. I used to live in Bayswater with the other wogs, but I didn’t much like it.”

“My cousins could put you up,” Patricia offered, “until you find your own place.”

“Why, thank you. Would they be putting you up, too?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Until I find my own place.”

The conversation in the backseat continued, Patricia and Bathar not at all hiding their mutual pleasure of discovery. In front, Ellen silently drove. Unbuttoning his shirt, Lew pulled out the long triangular pennant, dark green with the orange numbers on it, that he’d been wearing wrapped around his chest. 16 .

Looking at him, Ellen said, “What’s that?”

“My flag. My guidon, standard, pennant. I’ll have to get it a new pole.”

“What’s it for?”

“It came from the golf course where Patricia was having that trouble.”

“So it’s a souvenir.”

“Well, no. Not exactly.” Holding the flag up, studying it in the dim control-panel light, he said, “At first, when I saw it, I thought it was a good joke. That’s why I took it. But now I think it really is my flag.”

“Because you’ll be forever sixteen?”

“Maybe so,” he said, grinning at her. “But for another reason, too. I’ve been in so many armies, fought so many times under so many different flags. This time there wasn’t a flag at all, there were no noble ideals, there wasn’t even a cause beyond money. But I bet I did more good today, more real good in the world, than I’ve ever done in my life before.” He waved the flag. “I’m going to keep this to remind me not to get too serious about other people’s flags.”

“You mean you won’t hire out as a merc anymore?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure what I could do instead.” He shrugged. “Grow up, maybe, though I’d rather not. I’ll have to think about it. What about you? Still going back to the States?”