The Quest: A Novel

small commercial aviation terminal from the air, and as they walked toward it to get a taxi, he assured everyone, “My explanation, as a pilot, was logical and believable.”
    Vivian replied, “I think my explanation as a photographer for what we’re doing here for two hours was more believable than your explanation about what took us over four hours to get here.”
    “You’re a better liar than I am.”
    Mercado also reminded them, “They may borrow our aircraft while we’re gone.”
    “They’ll return it if it doesn’t get shot down.”
    Vivian asked, “Is there a hotel in this town?”
    Mercado replied, “There were a few good ones last time I was here.”
    “When was that?”
    “Nineteen-forty-one.”
    They reached the passenger terminal and entered through the rear. The small, shoddy terminal building looked deserted, and Vivian asked, “Are there any commercial flights to Addis?”
    Mercado replied, “There used to be one a day. Now, from what I’ve heard, perhaps one a week.”
    Purcell observed, “Obviously we missed that one.”
    Vivian said, “We could get stuck here.”
    Purcell replied, “That would be the least bad thing that could happen here.” He noted that the only car rental counter was closed and he suggested, “While we’re in town, let’s see if we can find a cross-country vehicle to rent.”
    They exited the front of the terminal, where a single black Fiat sat at the taxi stand. Mercado woke the driver and they climbed in, with Mercado in the front. “Gondar,” he said.
    The driver seemed confused, as though he hadn’t had a customer since the revolution.
    Purcell said to Mercado, “Give him twenty thousand.”
    “That’s about fifteen dollars, Frank. He makes about a dollar a day.”
    “That’s more than L’Osservatore Romano is paying me. Let’s go.”
    Mercado reluctantly gave the driver a twenty-thousand-lire note, and the man stared at it, then started his car and drove off.
    On the way down the plateau, Mercado attempted a few words of conversation with the driver in Amharic, Italian, and English.
    Vivian said to Purcell, “I don’t think we should fly the Navion back here. That would be one trip too many.” She suggested, “We’ll take the commercial flight here when we’re ready to begin our journey.”
    “We need one more recon flight to check out anything that looks interesting on your photographs.”
    “I’m not even sure we’re getting out of here.”
    “We have been chosen to get out of here.”
    She didn’t reply.
    As they climbed the steep, narrow road toward the walls of the city, Mercado turned and said, “This driver was actually waiting for a Soviet Air Force general.”
    Vivian laughed. “Then why did he take us?”
    Purcell replied, “Because Henry gave him a month’s pay.”
    Mercado said, “Nothing has gone right today.”
    Purcell disagreed. “I didn’t crash, and we didn’t get arrested.”
    “The day is not over.”

Chapter 39
    M ercado directed the driver to the Italian-built piazza in the center of Gondar. They stood in the cool sunshine and looked around at the shops, cinema, and public buildings designed by Italian architects in 1930s modern Fascist style.
    Mercado said, “This looked better in 1941.”
    “So did you,” Purcell pointed out.
    Mercado ignored that and said, “Gondar is where the Italian Army made its last stand against the British in ’41.” He stayed quiet awhile, then continued, “I was traveling as a war correspondent with the British Expeditionary Force by then… we’d taken Addis from the Italians six months before, and Haile Selassie was back on the throne.”
    Purcell looked at Henry Mercado standing in the piazza. The man had seen a great deal of life, and death, and war, and hopefully some peace. He had, in fact, seen the twentieth century in all its triumphs and disappointments, its progress and failures.
    It was a wonder, Purcell thought, that Mercado had anything left in him. Or that he could still believe in something like the Holy Grail. Or believe in love.
    Purcell glanced at Vivian, who was looking at Henry. Purcell hadn’t meant to take Henry’s lady.
    Mercado nodded toward the cinema. “The British soldiers watched captured Italian movies, and I stood on the stage and shouted the translations.” He laughed. “I made up some very funny sexual dialogue.”
    Vivian laughed, and Purcell, too, smiled.
    Mercado pointed to a large public building. “That was where the