Crocodile Tears

seen anything quite like it. It was like an oversized toy with two seats, one behind the other, three wheels, and a single propeller at the front. It had no cabin or cockpit. A slanting window would protect the pilot, but any passenger would be sitting outside, feeling the full force of the air currents. A single wing, on struts, stretched out from left to right, and Alex saw a series of rubber tubes running all the way to the tips. These were connected to two plastic drums lashed to the side of the plane just behind the passenger seat.
    It was a crop duster, but a very old one. It should have been in a museum. Alex wondered if it could really fly.

    “ This is the Piper J-3 Cub,” Beckett told him. She had taken off her glasses and was putting on the flying cap, fastening it under her chin. She was also wearing a leather jacket, which she had brought from the Land Rover. Alex noticed that she wasn’t offering him anything to keep him warm. “Twenty-two feet long. Sixty-five horsepower engine. They used them for training during the war. Please, get in.”
    Njenga stood near the car. Alex was feeling increasingly uneasy, but he did as he was told. There was a metal lever between the seats connected to a control box, with two sets of wires running toward the wings. When he sat down, it was right in front of him. There was almost no room for his feet. Myra Beckett got into the front and made a few checks. She produced a pair of goggles and slipped them over her eyes. Then she flicked a switch and the propeller began to turn.
    It took a full minute to blur and then come up to speed. Alex could feel the high-pitched buzz of the engine and knew that from this point on there would be no more conversation. That suited him. He had nothing to say to the woman.
    Njenga moved forward and pulled the chocks from under the wheels. Alex clicked on his seat belt. The Piper rolled forward.
    They taxied to the end of the runway, bumping up and down on the uneven surface. At least Beckett seemed to be an experienced pilot. She spun the plane around, then raced back again, the engine straining like an overworked lawnmower. Alex wondered if they had enough speed to get into the air, but after one last bump they were up, with the wind rushing past and the ground sweeping away below.

    Alex looked back. He could see Njenga standing on his own beside the car and behind him, separated by a line of brush, Simba River Camp, with the water now a silver ribbon twisting around it. The far bank rose steeply, then sloped down again, opening onto a great savannah that fanned out to the horizon. He saw a herd of antelope, startled by the sound of the engine, racing across the plain as if it were a bed of hot coals, their feet barely touching the grass. In any other circumstances, it would have been a beautiful sight. The flat African landscape, with its burned-out yellows and browns, had a true majesty. The sun was shining. The sky was a brilliant blue. Just for a moment, he was able to forget the trouble he was in.
    Beckett had taken the Piper to a height of perhaps one thousand feet, at the same time tilting away from the river, heading north. Alex could see the compass on the control panel in front of her. He studied the landscape, holding up a hand to protect his eyes from the slice of the wind. They were flying over a sprawl of green, but there were hills ahead of them, gray and rocky, rising up to the east and west, then closing together to form an upside-down V. In the far distance, he made out what looked like a man-made wall, but it would have to be a very big one if he could see it from here. Over to one side, he noticed a track winding up into the hills, and an electricity pylon. Had Beckett been lying when she said there was no one around for seventy miles? There seemed to be signs of civilization much closer than that.
    They flew over a wheat field. The entire valley between the hills had been planted with the crop, which looked almost ready to harvest. Alex could see thousands of golden blades bending in the breeze. He wondered how it could possibly grow out here in this heat, and a moment later he got his answer. The wall he had seen was a dam built into the neck of the valley. The plane flew over it and suddenly they were above water, a huge lake stretching out to the mountain range on the far shore. The water must somehow feed into the river. It would also be used to feed the crops.

    Beckett pulled on the joystick and the Piper