“Sub-Sahara. Um. Come on; we’ve only half an hour. Let’s look over Azouad.” Tony hesitated, gripped Phil’s arm, and glanced up. “That a plane?”
“Yeah.” Phil squinted aloft. “Wait . . . not a government plane. Private. Anyway, so what? There’s no extradition.”
“I know,” Tony said softly. “But the Earth Star’s plenty valuable. Somebody might have . . . ideas.”
“Maybe I’d better mail it back home,” Jimmy grinned.
Three glances crossed. And, curiously, at that moment a shadow drifted across the brothers—the shadow of a plane, chilling them momentarily after the blast of the African sun. It was like an omen.
Phil said, “I wonder which of us really has it?”
“I have,” Tony remarked. “Come along. I want a drink.”
He led the way, shouldering through a crowd of assorted riff-raff, the usual scum of a bordertown. Odors of sesame, oils, and less familiar stenches were sickeningly strong. Dozens of mongrels roved hungrily about; the flies were countless.
They bought smokes and entered a cantina, dark and muggy. A fat native served them squareface gin, waddling toward the dim corner where they sat. Behind them, Tony noticed, was a door, half opened less to permit fresh air to enter than to allow foul to emerge. He pushed it shut with a casual foot.
The gin wasn’t good, but it was strong. Also, it was inordinately expensive. Jimmy made a wry face.