Baku Surprise

Part 2    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK. Why not. nothing doing here, but how does one get there? I answer to myself "Well you don't start from here for a start."
I rummage through my bag, pull out a pack of  Jeppersen charts, "Well its not that far from here, as the crow flies provided he don't get himself shot on the way, down here they shoot anything that moves and quite a lot that don't."

I look out the window at an awakening Cairo, as the call to prayer warbles from mosques all across the city.
In an hour I'm showered, dressed, packed my bag, retrieved my gun from under my pillow, a choice of passports from behind the wardrobe and slipped down the back stairs and into the street, I grab a coffee from a street-side stall, and hail a cab.

At the airport I head not for the terminal but for the cargo bays, without delay I make enquiries as the aircraft leaving to the north-east, "Anywhere Beirut, Ankara, Tbilisi, Baku, even Tehran?" he points to an ancient Antonov An22 "Try him."

"Where you go?" I ask one of the crew. "Mosul, Iraq then on to Tabriz Iran - Oil supplies" then he added "You want ride? You any good at making good coffee -Turkish?"
"I'll have a bash" I answer.
"OK" he says sling your bag with the others bags over by the hatch and give me a hand with these crates.

An hour later we have trundled out to the runway, taken off and are heading north-east across the Med.

"Is this technically called flying?" I ask myself as we bump and rattle, grind and whistle yawing first to the left then to the right, fall several hundred feet only to catch ourselves and slowly clamber back to our place in the sky.
"You OK?" a voice from behind the crud, "You want to buckle up, this could be a bumpy landing."

"Already?" I ask,

"Sure comes the answer, you've been asleep for hours, we already did our drops, we are diverted to Baku, that OK for you"

"Perfect." I reply, trying hard to hide my apprehension.

When we come to a lumbering halt, and the huge cargo doors creak open, the brilliant light  streams into the interior of this huge beast and we tumble out onto the tarmac, The pilot and Crew come over, there is much shaking of hands, slapping of backs, a cuddle or two and just a few kisses to much to my liking but this is the way here in the Caucasus

I look around, and memories of my last visit come flooding  back.