The Caliphate, André Gallo [best books to read ever .TXT] 📗

touch with my birth relatives while I’m here. How do you think I can find them? I suppose they’re still nomads and moving around quite a bit.”

     “Start with the marabout, a Muslim holy man very close to the Tuaregs. He knows everything.”

     Then Mother Catherine told her how to find him.

***

Steve made calls to the office of tourism in order to establish his official presence in Timbuktu and try to avoid the high degree of red tape he had been warned about by the cultural attaché. Then, wanting to begin both his cover and his CIA assignments, as well as try to get a fix on Kella’s relatives, he went to the airport to rent a plane.

     The airport was deserted, other than a few Malians who seemed to call it home. He headed for the control tower. It was an incongruously elegant piece of architecture consisting of a long neck rising out of an administrative building at a sixty-degree angle to support the control room forward of the tower.

     Overdone, Steve thought. Like having an army to protect a bank with no funds.

     He reached the control room but found himself alone. He eventually went back to his car. Just as Atrar was putting the car in gear, a pick-up truck pulled. He told Atrar to wait while he got out and went up to the other car as the driver stepped out. The man was in his late twenties and sported a stubbly beard. Steve determined immediately from his speech that he was Australian.

     “No, mate, there are no Hertz-rent-a-plane outfits here. The only private aircraft at the airport is shared by several NGOs. That’s non-governmental-organizations to you, mate, if you’re new. It’s a Cherokee Six, a Piper. You’re talking to the owner and pilot.

     “I’m Campbell,” he added. “What is it exactly you want, Yank?”

    Steve explained his photojournalist status and said he wanted to use the aircraft for half a day or so for a reconnaissance of the area around Timbuktu, looking especially for Tuareg camps he could visit by car later.

     “I’ve got a pilot’s license and could fly your plane but, for the first time, I could use a pilot who knows the neighborhood.”

     “You’ve got a deal, mate. How about tomorrow morning?”

     They settled on the price.

     “Great. There’ll be one other passenger.”

    Campbell walked toward the field while Steve told Atrar to drive back to town.

17. Mali: Aéroport de Tombouctou

Steve and Kella waited for Campbell. When he showed up, forty-five minutes late, Steve thought he smelled the sweet odor of marijuana from Campbell’s clothes. He leaned in for a closer look. His eyes were indeed a bit bloodshot.

     “Have a late night last night?” he asked, wondering if the Aussie was one-hundred-percent together.

     Steve saw Kella’s concerned look and squeezed her arm in reassurance. Campbell laughed.

     “The biggest secret about Timbuktu is the party scene. I’m not staying here for the money.”

     They got settled in the Piper Cherokee, a six-seater, with Kella sitting behind the pilot.

     “We’re looking for a place just north of Lake Faguibine,” she said. “Do you know where that is?”

     “Yes, it’s west of here about a hundred miles.”

     “Then I’d like to fly over any Tuareg camps within, say, a hundred-mile radius of Timbuktu.”

     “You got it,” Campbell said, pushed on the throttle.

     The plane picked up speed down the runway and Steve quickly sensed something was missing: He hadn’t seen Campbell go through the take-off check-list. With the plane still on the ground but gaining speed, the engine sputtered for a couple of seconds but resumed its normal operation. Steve, on the pilot’s right, looked at Campbell and asked, “What’s that?”

    Campbell didn’t answer. He pulled back on the control and lifted the plane off the ground. At three-hundred-fifty feet altitude, the engine coughed again, alternating between no power and normal function for several seconds and then stopping completely.

     Kella leaned forward to Steve.

     “I don’t like this. Christopher?”

     At almost the same time, Steve said sharply, “We’d better land.” He expected Campbell to keep going straight and land on the hard desert floor in front of the runway. Instead Campbell initiated a sharp turn to the right.

    “No, we’re not high enough!” Steve yelled, and wrestled the yoke from Campbell’s control to get out of the turn before the plane stalled.

     “Oh my God! What’s going on?” Kella shouted from the back as she looked at the ground rushing toward her.

     The plane swiftly lost lift and altitude as the wings became almost perpendicular to the ground.

     Kella yelled, “No!”

     Campbell, fighting back Steve’s pull on the yoke, shouted, “Drongo Yankee!” But Steve was too strong, and Campbell relinquished his hold. The plane was only thirty feet from the ground before Steve managed to return the wings to a horizontal position. Their sharp descent became a glide toward the sand.

     Steve glanced down at the fuel selector controls and noticed the setting was all the way to the left, on the off position. With his left hand, he quickly moved the setting to number 3 position, the left main tank, going right past the number 2 setting for the left wing-tip tank.

     Barely ten feet off the ground, the engine came back to life. Steve moved the throttle forward, gently at first gently, but when the wheels touched the ground he forcefully pushed on the throttle and the Piper jumped up, the engine no longer coughing.

    At a thousand feet, Steve turned the plane around and circled the airport but kept climbing. He reached two-thousand feet and the engine seemed to be functioning normally.

     “What do you say? The engine sounds okay. I vote for going on. The