Temple of the Gods - Andy McDermott [9]
‘There she is!’ shouted Maximov, pointing into the sky. Eddie looked up to see a bright yellow aircraft approaching at low altitude.
It wasn’t the one he had expected, however. ‘What the bloody hell’s that?’ he demanded as the large, ponderous biplane made a lazy descent towards the road. The closer it came to the ground the slower it moved, to the point where it seemed to be hanging impossibly in the air. Then, with an upward twitch of its nose, it dropped the last few feet and bounced along the dirt track before trundling to a stop near the unfinished buildings.
Banga drove the pickup to meet it. Strutter prodded Boodu out of the back with the machete as Eddie jumped out and ran to the aircraft. A hatch opened in the biplane’s rear flank. ‘TD!’ he yelled over the engine’s sputtering growl. ‘What the fuck’s this piece of old crap?’
Tamara Defendé looked offended. ‘And it’s nice to see you too, Eddie,’ she said in her melodious Namibian accent.
‘What happened to the Piper?’ He had expected her to be flying her Twin Comanche air-taxi.
‘Didn’t I tell you? I’ve got two planes now – my business is expanding. I thought you might need something bigger for this.’ She nodded at Maximov as he accompanied Strutter and Boodu to the aircraft. ‘I don’t think he would even fit in the Piper.’
Eddie was still far from impressed. ‘But . . . but it’s fucking prehistoric! It’s a biplane, for Christ’s sake. Who built it, the Wright brothers?’
‘It’s Russian,’ said TD, pouting in defence of her plane’s honour. ‘It’s an Antonov—’
‘Antonov An-2, yeah, I know.’ Eddie’s military training had included aircraft recognition. He clambered into the surprisingly capacious hold, moving aside to let the three other men in. ‘I meant, why the hell would you buy this thing? It must be sixty years old!’
‘Hah! It’s only thirty-nine years old, so it’s younger than you—’
‘It’s the same age, actually,’ he protested. ‘I’m not forty yet.’
‘—and it’s cheap and simple and I can repair it with a wrench and a hammer out in the bush if I need to. And it can carry a lot of cargo and land just about anywhere, so it’s perfect for my work.’
‘Main thing I want to know is: is it fast?’ Eddie asked as he waved goodbye to Banga and shut the hatch.
‘Not really, but this is Africa. Things don’t happen in a rush here.’
‘They will once the government finds out what just happened at the prison.’
The attractive young pilot took the hint and hurried up the cabin to clamber through an arched opening into the cockpit. Eddie checked on the other passengers. Strutter, evidently as unconvinced by the Antonov’s supposed airworthiness as Eddie, had already strapped himself firmly in. The only thing keeping Boodu down, however, was Maximov’s scowl from the neighbouring seat.
‘You’ll never get away,’ the Zimbabwean snarled as Eddie took the seat next to Strutter, facing him across the cabin. ‘Not in this antique.’
‘Ten miles and we’re across the border,’ Eddie reminded him. ‘Even this thing can make it before any of your fighters reach us.’ TD revved the engine, applying full rudder to turn the elderly aircraft back down the road. The Antonov lurched over the bumps. Strutter nervously pulled his straps even tighter. ‘If it can make it,’ said Boodu.
‘I heard that,’ TD snapped from the cockpit. She straightened out, braking and checking the instruments before pushing the throttle to full power. The engine roared, the entire fuselage vibrating and rattling.
‘I should have kept earplugs in,’ Maximov complained. Eddie had to agree; the Antonov betrayed its Soviet military heritage by its utter lack of creature comforts like soundproofing.
‘Hang on,’ TD warned. The jolting increased as the biplane picked up speed. Eddie looked out through the row of circular portholes, gripping the arm of his seat with one hand as he kept the gun aimed at Boodu with the other. They were doing forty miles per hour, fifty – then abruptly the