The Greatest Lie Part 16

With the help of a big push on the backside from Nancee, I finally managed to swing around the pilot's seat without stepping on Lizette. I had just sat down in the pilot's seat and was about to open the left side door and step down to the apron when the customs and immigration officer noticed me and barked an incomprehensible command in Thai. I paused and looked at him quizzically as he walked forward to the cabin windows.

The customs and immigration officer peered cautiously into the filthy cabin. After he took a closer look at our supine patient and our vomit-stained gowns, his eyes opened wide with fright. He waved at us dismissively and stalked back to our pilot, who handed the immigration officer Alain's letter and spread our passports open and held them down on the flat top of the engine cowling. The officer glanced at the letter from Alain and stamped our passports without paying any attention to our names, much less asking us to get out and peering under our masks. He turned and strode away without having set foot inside the airplane.

The pilot helped me step down, opened the right hand doors, and helped us lift Lizette down to the apron and transfer her and her oxygen tank to the the wheeled stretcher. Then he put his stretcher back in the Cessna, turned to us and said "Good flying with you ladies. Come back and fly with me soon."

"Oh, we can't wait," I assured him. "It was an exciting flight that we will never forget."

"Thank you, I will never forget traveling with such beautiful passengers," he said, bowing idiotically. He beamed when I blew him a dramatic kiss from the general direction of my masks. At least SARS had excused me from doing the real thing, I reflected gratefully.

Less than a hundred yards away, a dark blue and red twin-engine jet the size of a small airliner waited next to a low-slung piece of airport equipment. Other than its dramatic paint job, the jet was unmarked except for a small Swiss flag and its national registration, HB-xxx, on the engine cowlings.