Aqaba

Beryl was naked under her voluminous indigo thobe, reclining on rugs and cushions within a traditional Bedouin black tent.   An embroidered and tasselled wool camel bag nearby was playing As Time Goes By.   She concentrated, hard.   Phone.   That’s my iPhone.   I’m…   I’ve got a phone call!   Beryl dived for the bag, rummaged about in it and found the phone just as it stopped ringing.   She was cursing fluently in Arabic, English and Swahili when it rang again.   This time she answered.

            “Agent 160?   Can we talk freely?”

            “We can,” she replied, “The boy is with his sheep.”

            “Get down to Aqaba as quickly as you can,” it was Larry’s factotum, Barrymore, on the other end of the phone, “There will be a Loening Air Yacht down at the waterfront and Dark Flo will be joining you.   She has all the details for your mission.”

            “OK…” Beryl paused as if to say more.

            “That’s not a problem is it?”

            “Not a problem.   I’ll be there sometime this afternoon.”

            Beryl felt a weight lifted from her mind – action at last, and an excuse to move on.  She really had enjoyed her time with Abdulla, but his affair with the blond English woman was doing much too much for his confidence after a short lifetime with nothing but his goats and camels.   Before long he would have become a pain.   It was better this way.   Quickly changing into her flying kit and throwing a few necessaries into a threadbare carpetbag she wrote a hasty note of thanks and regret and left it on the brass tray under a coffee pot.   It was but a short stroll to her Dragon Rapide.   Beryl checked the fuel gauge, waved goodbye to the cluster of Bedouin children that had gathered around and, buckling her flying-helmet under her chin, taxied to the makeshift landing strip.   She was airborne when she noticed Abdulla’s Toyota kicking up dust as it sped towards the camp.   She banked the Rapide, flew low over his pick-up truck and dipped the wings in salute before heading south.

Beryl found the seaplane swinging gently at its buoy as the tide turned.   She selected a café on the Aqaba Corniche, sat at an outside table, ordered a strong Turkish coffee and the fill of a shisha pipe.   She would wait for Dark Flo to contact her, and pulling a well-thumbed Penguin paperback copy of Freya Stark’s Valleys of the Assassins from her canvas knapsack, she settled back in the uncomfortable plastic chair.

            She had reread a chapter and a half and was beginning to drift when the winsome figure of Dark Flo appeared in front of her.   The thick black hair was plaited into a single pigtail down her back and a thin, sleeveless frock exposed bare brown arms and legs glistening damp in the heat of the early afternoon.   Flo sat, took a long drag on the mouthpiece of Beryl’s hookah and waved to a waiter.

            “A glass of mint tea, if you would be so kind.”

            “So…” Beryl beamed and leaned in close to her willowy companion, “What have you got us into this time?”

            “We’re going to Antarctica.   Well I am.   You’re to overfly New Swabia and I will bail out over some whaling station or other.   Larry’s heard from Bamse at last and it appears they’ve made a right hash of things.   So good old Ninja Flo gets to don a wingsuit and do her Wonder Woman act.

“Larry reckons it’ll be easier to find places on the way to set down and refuel with the amphibian than your Dominie.   So he’s lumbered us with that crate over there.”

            “Great.”   The pair giggled together.

They took a room in a family run, backstreet hotel for the night.   Throughout the nocturnal hours there was no let up in the clamour from the street and the fragrant air hung hot and humid.   They did not sleep much.   Next morning they had a breakfast of croissants and grilled halloumi cheese before setting off for the waterfront.   After some hard bargaining Beryl secured the services of a local felucca skipper and they were ferried out to the air yacht.   Flo produced the keys to the Loening and balanced on the felucca’s thwart as she reached for the door.   Beryl passed up their luggage and they clambered, without much dignity, into the seaplane.   Giving them an appreciative leer, the boat skipper sheeted in the large lateen sail on his skiff and veered away.

            Within the fuselage most of passenger seats had been ripped out to make room for additional fuel tanks.   An Elsan ‘Bristol’ chemical toilet and pipe cots had also been installed so that the duo would not have to go in search of accommodation every time they stopped for the night.

            “How far is Antarctica?   This is going to be real fun, I don’t think,” muttered Dark Flo as Beryl climbed to the open cockpit to begin flight checks.

            “Don’t know.   Check the charts.   And can you make sure they cover the entire journey?   I don’t want to be trying to track down a copy of ‘Admiralty 4075’ in some one horse South American back water.”