Mercado was leaning between the seats, dividing his attention between the map and the view from the Plexiglas canopy.
Purcell dropped lower as he approached the first site, marked Number One on the map, which had shown a light reflection in the corresponding photograph. He made a tight clockwise turn, then dipped his right wing so that it was not obstructing their view. Mia shuddered to warn him she was about to stall, and Purcell pushed in the throttle as he leveled his wings.
Mercado lowered his binoculars. “I think I saw a pond… or maybe swampland.”
Vivian agreed, “It was water. Not a glass roof.”
Purcell said, “At least what we saw in the photograph was not an illusion, and we’ve also marked the map position correctly. That’s the good news.”
Vivian agreed. “One of these circles will be the black monastery.”
“If not, we have at least eliminated some locations.”
They continued on to the next closest circle that showed a large cluster of palm trees in the photographs, and Purcell repeated his maneuvers. No one saw anything, so he made another pass, and this time Vivian said, “I definitely saw a body of water through the palms.”
“Any shiny roofs?”
“No.”
Purcell moved on to the next circle on the map, Number Three, which Vivian pointed to on the corresponding photograph. He glanced at the photo and saw a very large cluster of palms, surrounded by much taller growth. This looked more promising and he pulled off some power and lowered his flaps as if he intended to land. The airspeed indicator bounced between sixty and sixty-five miles per hour.
The cluster of palms was coming up fast at his one o’clock position and he dropped his right wing, causing the Navion to shudder, but giving Vivian and Mercado an unobstructed view as they passed by.
Vivian shouted, “I saw something! A glint of light… not water.”
Mercado agreed, and Purcell, too, had seen something, and it was definitely not water.
He climbed as fast as he could, got to six hundred feet, and came around again, this time from the west so that the afternoon sun was at their back. He was higher than last time, so he could keep his nose down as he flew straight toward the cluster of palms.
Vivian had taken the binoculars from Mercado and she was unbuckled and leaning over the instrument panel, staring through the front windshield.
Purcell continued his dive until the last possible second, then pushed the throttle forward, pulled back on the wheel, and raised his flaps. The Navion continued downward for a few more seconds, then the nose slowly lifted and they leveled out over the jungle canopy at about two hundred feet, then began gaining altitude.
Mercado said, “That was a bit close, old man.”
“Right.” Purcell glanced at Vivian, who was sitting back in her seat with the binoculars in her lap. He asked, “See anything?”
She nodded. “It was… black rock. Just rock.”
Purcell nodded. That was what he thought he’d seen, too. A shiny outcropping of black rock-probably obsidian. “Well, there is black rock in this area.”
Vivian said, “Father Armano mentioned a rock, a tree, a stream…”
“Right. Lots of that down there.” He added, “We’ll check this out on the ground tomorrow.”
He glanced at his watch. It had been three hours since they left Addis. They could keep flying over the area for maybe another half hour, and they should be able to recon all the sites marked on the maps, with maybe some time left over to look at anything else that seemed promising. They’d be late into Gondar again, but not two hours late as they’d been last time. He’d worry about that when they landed. The goal now was to complete the aerial recon, which, if they were very lucky, would reveal the location of the black monastery.
He said to Vivian, “Map.”
She held the map toward him, and he looked at it, trying to determine what heading to take to get to the next circle on the map.
Vivian was glancing out the windshield, then suddenly shouted, “Look!” She dropped the map.
Purcell looked quickly through the windshield. Passing across their front was a helicopter, about a half mile away. “Shit!”
Mercado said, “I think he may have seen our maneuvers.”
“You think?” Purcell had no way of knowing if the helicopter just happened to be in the area, or if it was sent to track them. He said, “If he has a radio, and I’m sure he does, he has radioed ahead to Gondar Airport.”
Vivian said, “Maybe he didn’t see us.”
“We saw him, he saw us.”
Purcell watched as the helicopter turned northwest, toward Gondar, which was where they were supposed to be heading. So Purcell took the same heading, but stayed to the left of the helicopter, and kept his distance at about half a mile.
Vivian asked, “How will he know it was us?”
Purcell informed her, “There are not too many black-painted vintage Navions in East Africa, Vivian. Probably one.”
She nodded.
Mercado said, “We actually have done nothing illegal.”
Purcell reminded him, “We didn’t do anything illegal last time we wound up in jail here, and this time we are suspiciously diverting from the flight plan.”
