"With a special cost of living clause--" Kenny Ballalou added.
"And housing and dependents allotment!" Abe crowed.
They all looked at him.
Bey tried to imitate the other's beatnik patter. "Like, you got any
dependents, man?"
Abe made a mark in the sand on the mosque's floor with the toe of his
shoe, like a schoolboy up before the principal for an infraction of
rules, and registered embarrassment. "Well, there's that cute little
Tuareg girl up north."
"Ha!" Isobel said. "And all these years you've been leading me on."
Homer Crawford returned and his face was serious. "That does it," he
muttered disgustedly. "The fat's in the fire."
"Like, what's up, man?"
Crawford looked at his right-hand man. "There are demonstrations in
Mopti. Riots."
"Mopti?" Jake Armstrong said, surprised. "Our team was working there
just a couple of months ago. I thought everything was going fine in
Mopti."
"They're going fine, all right," Crawford growled. "So well, that the
local populace wants to speed up even faster."
They were all looking their puzzlement at him.
"The demonstrations are in favor of El Hassan."
Their faces turned blank. Crawford's eyes swept his teammates. "Our
instructions are to get down there and do what we can to restore order.
Come on, let's go. I'm going to have to see if I can arrange some
transportation. It'd take us two days to get there in our outfits."
Jake Armstrong said, "Wait a minute, Homer. My team was heading back for
Dakar for a rest and new assignments. We'd be passing Mopti anyway. How
many of you are there, five? If you don't haul too much luggage with
you; we could give you a lift."
"Great," Homer told him. "We'll take you up on that. Abe, Elmer, let's
get going. We'll have to repack. Bey, Kenny, see about finding some
place we can leave the lorries until we come back. This job shouldn't
take more than a few days at most."
"Huh," Abe said. "I hope you got plans, man. How do you go about
stopping demonstrations in favor of a legend you created yourself?"
* * * * *
Mopti, also on the Niger, lies approximately three hundred kilometers to
the south and slightly west of Timbuktu, as the bird flies. However, one
does not travel as the bird flies in the Niger bend. Not even when one
goes by aircraft. A forced landing in the endless swamps, bogs, shallow
lakes and river tributaries which make up the Niger at this point, would
be suicidal. The whole area is more like the Florida Everglades than a
river, and a rescue team would be hard put to find your wreckage. There
are no roads, no railroads. Traffic follows the well marked navigational
route of the main channel.
Homer Crawford had been sitting quietly next to Cliff Jackson who was
piloting. Isobel and Jake Armstrong were immediately behind them and Abe
and the rest of Crawford's team took up the remainder of the aircraft's
eight seats. Abe was regaling the others with his customary chaff.
Out of a clear sky, Crawford said bitterly, "Has it occurred to any of
you that what we're doing here in North Africa is committing genocide?"