Gavin Lyall - Judas Country

By the time I was down to tearing up and feeding out the cardboard boxes themselves, I was frozen rigid: any air comes cold at 170 knots. Putting the hatch back in was no fun at all and once I almost lost the whole thing and how would I explainthat!

Then I went looking for any damage done by Ken's shot. And I couldn't find a sign, so probably it was still in Jehangir's tin leg and it didn't bother me if it rattled as well. But I did find the gun he'd dropped: a Mauser HSc with one up the spout, so he'd been seriously ready to shoot. But I wasn't going to open up the hatch and refreeze just for one gun. I put on the safety and jammed it up the backside of the rear seat, in among the springs. Then shivered my way back to the cockpit.

Nicosia did its usual speedy job of prising the landing fee out of me, then looked severe and said: There has been a complaint about your departure from Beirut.'

I looked surprised. 'What for? I had a clearance.'

They say-' he glanced down at a sheet of telex paper '-they say the clearance was cancelled and you took off without permission.'

'I was flying below the airways; don't see how they can cancel that sort of clearance.'

He looked at the paper again but it didn't seem to help. 'I do not quite understand…'

'If they want to fill in a form 939 and send it to our Civil Aviation boys, then I'll answer it. Until then they've got no blasted business libelling me all over the Mediterranean.'

He frowned. He was pretty sure I'd done something, but he didn't want to stick his neck out on behalf of what he probably regarded as a bunch of hysterical Arabs.

So he coughed and nodded. 'I will tell them if they ask. Are you staying at the Castle again?'

'Where else?'

He went away and I finished up the paperwork and went outside to find Ken.

It was a quiet taxi ride into Nicosia town. Halfway there, Ken roused himself enough to ask: 'How are we cashwise?'

'Not terribly fit.' The Beirut hotel hadn't cost us much, but the flight and the bar of the St George had caused severe financial bruising. In various currencies, I had just about thirty quid left.

Ken grunted and left it at that.

Sergeant Papa wasn't on duty, so we walked straight in and turned left for the bar/dining-room. At the far end, a handful of families were finishing dinner; closer up, Kapotas was sitting at a bar table working over some account books with a glass of something beside him.

I said: "The phrase you're looking for is "Welcome home". Is that whisky after dinner again?'

He looked up and his shoulders sagged a little. 'I haven't had any dinner yet. I thought you'd be in Beirut much longer. Welcome home.'

'Why, thank you. We haven't had dinner ourselves, yet. Is it edible?'

He dropped his pen and rubbed his eyes. 'I doubt it. And with you two back, my accounts will mean nothing – again.' He got up and took his glass to the bar.

Ken was already leaning on it, and Apostólos, smiling gently, was pouring our two shots. He touched up Kapotas's glass as well and we said 'Cheers' and drank.

Then Ken asked: 'Didn't the girls get back here?'

Kapotas shook his head, and Ken and I looked at each other. Then he said slowly: "The Ledra, then? I mean, if you've got money you wouldn't come… I'll just check, I think.'

He went out. Kapotas watched him blankly, then nodded me away to the table, where Apostólos couldn't overhear. Then he whispered: 'What happened over there? '

I thought about it. 'We went to a party, we went to the races, we met some interesting new people. I suppose that about sums it up.'

'You brought back the plane?'

I stared. 'Yes, of course.'

'But not the cargo?'

'We-ell…'

'Oh God!'

'It's down to just nine boxes, now,' I said helpfully.

He had his hands over his eyes. 'But I thought that was what you weregoing for! '

'Sorry, it wasn't.'

He looked at me with haunted eyes. 'Do you know that a senior partner of Harborne, Gough is coming from London tomorrow to look at everything personally?'

My first thought was: with only thirty quid, where the hell can we get off this islandtoi Turkey, maybe? I said: 'I didn't know. But he won't want to open champagne boxes and count the bubbles, anyway.'

'He will want to count the boxes.'

That was a point. 'Well… tell him you imported three boxes here and sold them off. Why's it worth his time to come here?'

'He is not coming only here: he will go on to the Lebanon to see about the new hotel there. But if I say I've sold them, he will want to see the money in the books! '

'So put it in the books. How were you going to explain it if I'd dumped the lot in the sea anyway?'

He studied the tabletop as if it was the Book of Kells.

I said grimly: 'I see: just another example of pilot error.'

He went on watching the table. An obviously British couple walked past from the dining area and I called: 'What's the dinner like tonight?'

The man looked at his wife, his shoes, the ceiling, finally said: 'I suppose I'm not used to this Cyprus cooking, yet.'

I said: Thanks,' and turned back to Kapotas. "The only thing the British hate more than being cheated is hurting the cheater's feelings. I suppose we can get some sandwiches?'

Kapotas looked up balefully. 'It is not my fault this place is… Oh God, if only I could get the plane away somewhere.'

'We'll take off for Britain any time you say the word; the word is "money", by the way.'

'How much does it cost to run that machine?'

I shrugged. "In direct operating costs – that's the extra expense you get by putting it into the air – you won't see much change from £30 an hour. And that's not touching annual costs like pilot salaries and insurance and so on.'

'My God! It uses so much petrol?'

'Fuel's still not the worst of it. Most of your hourly cost is saving up for replacement parts and overhauls.'

He shook his head. 'How can a hotel chain afford it?'

'I thought we'd proved this one can't. Wait till you see the running costs of a private jet. That'll turn your hair white and your politics red.'

Ken came back in, picked his glass off the bar and walked across. 'Yes, they're there. I talked to Mitzi: she's not too happy about it all, but what can we do?' He sat down.

I said: 'She's got the document. It'll be worth a lot in the long run. A fair bit in the short run – Aziz would buy it now.'

Ken nodded. Kapotas didn't know what we were talking about, but Mitzi's name had rung a bell. 'The Inspector Lazaros – he was very surprised you had gone. He said you should call him.'

I suddenly felt weary. 'Tomorrow. Or some other month. What have you got in sandwiches apart from octopus?'

'Or'Kapotas said firmly and not too unhappily, 'I must telephone him as soon as you get back.'

Lazaroswasn't at the station but they said he'd call me back and he did – inside a minute. He made it simple: 'If you will stay in one place for five minutes, I will be there.' So I promised.

Then I went through to the kitchen and talked them into a plate of cheese and ham sandwiches, chargeable to the staff account. There were just two cooks, no sign of Sergeant Papa, and the place certainly hadn't been cleaned up since I was last there. Mind you, the cooks weren't anything to dry your hands on.

I took the sandwiches back to the bar and Ken ordered two Keo beers to go with them. 'Somehow, whisky and sandwiches don't go together.'

'You picked up some strict etiquette up in Biet Oren.'

Kapotas winced at being reminded he was sheltering a fresh-hatched jail-bird, so I changed the topic. A bit. 'Did you find any real fraud in there?' I pointed half a sandwich at the account books.

'No. But then, nobody made the most basic mistake of fraud: to try and pay money back.'