Angela grinned.  “I meant… that you look pretty tired.  That’s all.  Are you sure you don’t want to get some more sleep?”

Rickards grasped his coffee cup and held it up.  “This is all the sleep I need.”

Their trip to the airport was uneventful except for the traffic, which, not surprisingly, was considerably worse during late morning.  It took almost an hour for them to reach the small private airfield west of Cairo called Ahlan Airport, which consisted of little more than a long row of commercial hangars positioned alongside a clean, dark black 1,500-foot runway.

The seventh hangar in line, average in size and painted dark gray, had its large door fully open and a Daher Kodiak turboprop parked outside waiting, gleaming white under a broiling morning sun.

Inside the hangar, the three were promptly met by a man in his late sixties sporting a thick gray mustache and thinning hair.  He was lean, with a modest belly protruding from under his short-sleeve tan shirt.  When he spoke, it was both abrupt and impatient from behind a set of dark aviation glasses.

“We are ready.  You must fill out paperwork quickly.”

He ushered them into a small office cooled by a single vibrating fan and called out to someone in the back.

Moments later, an overweight woman appeared, dressed in a bright-colored niqab.  Approaching the desk in much less of a hurry than the pilot seemed to be, she pulled her chair forward to sit down and arranged a set of papers, placing them neatly on the countertop.

She spoke in Arabic in a friendly tone, leaving all three looking back and forth at each other.

“Fill out,” said the pilot.  “We then leave.  Just name and passport numbers.  No address.”

Rickards pulled the form toward him and stared at it.  The text was utterly unrecognizable except the header citing the name and address of Egypt’s Ministry of Interior Travel.

He peered at Angela.  “We’re signing this?”

“Um.”

“Quickly,” said the pilot.  “Name and passports.”

“Where?”

The pilot stepped forward and tapped his finger on the section of lines near the top.  “Here.  Names.  Passports.”

“Don’t we need to say where we’re going?” asked Rickards.

“No!  No necessary.  Just say sightsee.”

“Is there a flight plan?”

“No flight plan.  No necessary.”

Rickards stared at the form, quietly contemplating.

No flight plan meant no one would know where they were going.  Or, more importantly, where to look if they didn’t return.

“Believe it or not, this is normal with tours,” said Townsend from behind them.  When they both turned around, he nodded.  “They cut a lot of corners here.”

Rickards turned to Angela, who shrugged helplessly.  “As long as it flies, I guess.”