“A doctor?”

“Um…maybe you are too young a sheila to be a doctor. Say you’re a nurse. Tell ’em you were hired by the Thai government and you came all the way from…where did you come from?”

“New York.”

“All the way from the States to help. Makes you sound like a genuine heroine instead of a criminal or a smuggler or a looter.” He pulled off his baseball cap and put it on my head. “Just keep your head down, try not to say anything you don’t need to say, and stay close, okay?”

I adjusted the cap and nodded in agreement.

He pushed open a little door and light streamed in. We stepped out and onto the tarmac, almost directly beneath the belly of a big commercial jet. There were men running around and machines loading luggage into the plane. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to us as they continued to work.

We moved along the lip of the tarmac, right beside the terminal, past plane after plane, until we came to the area I’d seen when we landed. There were hundreds of skids of supplies, some much higher than my head. Forklift trucks and men carrying individual bags were moving the supplies. We moved through the middle of the action and I felt very conspicuous.

“Act like you own the place,” he said to me. “Wave to the people.”

“What?”

“Wave, it’s not hard.” He waved at a couple of the men and they waved back. “Like that. It’s easy.”

I looked over and waved, and they smiled and waved back, which brought a smile to my face too.

There was a line of helicopters at the edge of the tarmac. They were of all types and sizes, painted different colors and belonging to various organizations. Alongside Thai army helicopters were some that bore the United Nations logo, while others had the Stars and Stripes of the United States proudly painted on the side. I felt a lot safer seeing them, and the soldiers that went with them.

“There’s me girl,” he said.

In among the big military helicopters sat a little one, painted bright red, and on its side it said “THAILAND AIR TOURS.”

“You fly a tour helicopter?” I asked.

“That’s what I’d be doing now, if it weren’t for all of this,” he said. “Government hired every chopper they could find, including mine.”

There were men loading bags into the side door of his helicopter.

“How’s it going, mates?” he asked.

“Perfect timing,” one of them said. He had the same accent. “Just putting on the last bags.” He looked at me. “Who’s this?”

“What if I told you she was a nurse?” he asked.

“I’d think she’s too young to be a nurse.”

“How about if I said she was my sheila?”

“I’d think she was too good looking to hook up with an old piece of driftwood like you, so that one’s even less believable.”

“Then the nurse story it is,” he said. “Agreed?”