32
DIN
The private section of Cairo International Airport was a world away from the chaos of the main terminals. Din stood on the tarmac, watching as the ground crew prepared Kalugal's jet for departure. The morning sun was already fierce, promising another scorching day, but he barely noticed the heat. His attention was fixed on Esag and his companions as they carefully unloaded wooden crates that contained a treasure trove of figurines from the van.
"No, no," Esag said when one of the ground crew reached for a crate. "We'll handle these ourselves." Or something to that effect. Din understood more from the tone and hand gestures than from the language itself.
Davuh and Roven flanked their friend, each carrying a wooden crate with the reverence usually reserved for religious artifacts. Which, Din supposed, they were in a way. Five thousand years of memories were carved in stone, preserving the faces of a lost civilization of gods and immortals.
One of the two pilots walked over to the redhead. "We need to ensure proper weight distribution in the cargo hold. It's criticalfor flight safety. If cargo shifts during flight, it can affect the aircraft's center of gravity. In extreme cases, it could cause the aircraft to crash."
Din felt his stomach tighten at the implications. The more he learned about aviation, the less he trusted it. Statistics be damned—he'd experienced firsthand how easily things could go wrong.
"Show us where you want them and we'll help you secure them properly." Roven's tone brooked no argument.
The pilot nodded, recognizing a battle he had no chance of winning.
As the pilot and Esag's group got busy securing crates in the plane's cargo hold, Din remembered the packages he still had in the van. His lamp was too large and awkward for the cabin, so it would have to go in the cargo space as well, but the rest of his purchases could go into the overhead compartments.
As he retrieved it, he tried to fix the paper wrapping around the brass tentacles that was becoming undone. Well, they weren't really tentacles so much as artistically shaped arms, but that was what Fenella called them, and it had stuck.
"I can't believe you are taking this with you," Max said. "I'm sure you can find better stuff in L.A. It's not an antique, right?"
"It's not, but it has character," Din defended, though he was starting to question the purchase himself. Unlike all the mass-produced stuff from China, this was one of a kind.
"I'll take your word for it," Max said.
They joined the others at the cargo hold, where the pilots were demonstrating the proper securing technique to Esag's group.Specialized compartments with padding and adjustable straps would keep the crates immobile during flight.
Din handed over his lamp to one of the pilots. "I hope you have room for this."
"We'll find room," the guy said.
As he watched them secure it in one of the compartments, his mind churned with all the things that could go wrong. Shifted cargo affecting the plane's balance. Turbulence severe enough to break even these restraints. Mechanical failures, bird strikes, human error...
"Stop it." Fenella slipped her hand into his.
He glanced down at her. "Stop what?"
"Calculating all the ways we could die." She squeezed his fingers. "I know the face you make when you do that. Your jaw gets tight, and you get this little crease between your eyebrows."
"I'm not—" He stopped, realizing she was right. "Yeah, I do. I just can't help it. Ever since the water landing, I find it difficult to trust these flying death traps."
"I understand." Her eyes got clouded. "Once trust is lost, it is nearly impossible to recover."
Din felt shamed by her quiet admission. Compared to what she'd gone through, his brush with death was nothing.
With Fenella's exuberance and zest for life, it was easy to forget the nightmare she'd lived through. There were the occasional nightmares, but other than that, she never talked about it, and he didn't ask because he figured she'd tell him when she was ready.
He squeezed her hand. "You are much braver than I am."
Once everything was loaded and secured, the cargo hold was closed and locked, the ground crew moved on to final pre-flight preparations, and the passengers of Kalugal's luxury airline headed toward the stairs.
As Kalugal's men took everyone's carry-on luggage and packages to put in the cabin, Din contemplated never boarding another plane again, but given that his mother was in Scotland, and she still hadn't met Fenella, that wasn't an option. Besides, he had to take care of things at the university, and not everything could be done remotely.
"Are you still calculating?" Fenella asked as they paused at the foot of the stairs, letting Jacki navigate them first with Darius in her arms.
"Now I'm thinking about sea voyages. How do you feel about ships?"
