Chapter 5
304 Words
Chapter 5The clock on the control panel was showing 15:00. Hassan unbuckled his seat belt. He wanted to stretch his legs and get a drink from the cooler.
Khalid stopped him. “Don’t tell me you want to miss the landing?”
“You mean it? We’re actually going to land?” Hassan could not believe it.
“Oh yes, we are. Your nightmare is nearly over. We had a tail wind since a little before Tambacounda and we’ll be on the tarmac in fifteen minutes.” Khalid smiled at his friend. At last they were landing. Hassan buckled up, this time with some keenness in his movements.
“You’re serious? But I don’t see the strip yet.”
“You don’t have to see it, but it’s there just below these clouds. Let me show you.”
Matching action to words, Khalid smoothly turned the aircraft to the left and started his descent through the cotton balls ahead of them. Khalid put on his headset again and returned to his ‘pilot talk’ to the Dakar control tower.
Hassan was alert, yet apprehensive. Somehow, he believed Talya had not stayed in Sabodala—she was safe, and in Dakar. He tried to think where she would have gone after landing. Hjamal had invited her, probably to his home. Knowing Talya, she wouldn’t go there first, it would be throwing herself into the proverbial lion’s den, and she was too smart for that, unless she’d been forced to do it. The ambassador had reserved rooms at the Meridien. Yes, that’s where she must be... unless she’s still in Kedougou.
Khalid looked at him—it was time to recall Hassan to attention. “Would you tell Monsieur Fade to buckle up, please?”
Hassan turned his head around and practically yelled at the top of his lungs, “Mohammed. If you are still of this world would you buckle up, we’ll be landing soon.”
Over the noise of the engine, Mohammed didn’t hear his friend call. He had fallen in a deep slumber from which he would only awake after touch down.
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