Alan saw it all, waking at the first paling of the starry sky. He needed sleep, wanted sleep, but his brain wanted daylight and activity and distraction from chewing over the violence of the day before. His brain wanted to get on with the burden of getting his people out. Green. It was a green land, in a place of some of the heaviest rainfall in the world. Lush grass grew around the van and lay like a carpet between them and the scattered buildings of the airfield, the single runway a dark stripe on it, half a dozen light aircraft tied down where the grass ended and two rusty metal hangars leaned. Surrounding the airfield were green trees, then green fields, then the bluer green of hills behind them to the east. Silhouetted now against the brightness, distant mountains. They had found the place in darkness, their lights rousing a guard in a dhoti and a low-collared old shirt who had waved a cudgel at them as he stood in the headlight glare behind a gate that was nothing but a sagging metal pole between two posts.
