Chapter 10

 

I awoke to the familiar sound of Joseph’s knuckle rapping on the hull of the boat.

“Yeah!” I shouted out. “I’ll be right there.”

As I pushed open the companionway hatch, the full blast of the sun just coming up on the horizon sliced through the interior of the cabin like a brilliant flood light. Wow, I thought as I covered my eyes from the rays of the sun. I then remembered that the previous day we had tied off the boat in the opposite direction that we were usually in.

“Hey, Tom!” I shouted out in the direction of Tom’s berth.

“Tom, he gettin’ coffee, mon,” Joseph informed me as he pointed in the direction of Tom making his way back from the marina restaurant.

“Now, there’s a good friend,” I said aloud to Joseph once I knew Tom was in earshot.

“Yeah, mon. Tom good,” Joseph asserted.

Over coffee we agreed to head to the little French airport where Joseph would drop us off and then meet with the girls to help them move. Once in the car I remembered I hadn’t spoken to anyone stateside in a while. Under the circumstances of entering the unknown, I decided it best to make calls back home.

“Joseph,” I said. “Let’s go to Philispburg first. I need to make a couple phone calls before we head out.”

“Ok, mon. Philipsburg, it is.”

I knew Linda would be at work so I called there first. Her secretary informed that she was on a field trip that day doing some research work. Damn, I thought. “Ok, well, tell her I called and that I’ll call her tomorrow.”

Next I called Bruce’s father. He was anxious to hear from me and when I had informed him that we would have definitive answers within a couple of days he seemed quite relieved. I made no mention of the real situation, only that I was expecting a good outcome to the situation at hand.

 As I was about to leave I thought of Linda again and figured I’d call Pat. He and Linda were close friends and I felt the need to know she was ok. Besides, I could ask him about Tom’s and my motorcycles.

“Hey,” I said as Pat answered the phone.

“How’s it going over there?” he wanted to know recognizing the sound of my voice.

“Well, we’re actually down here now.”

“Down there?” he asked. “Aren’t you in the Bahamas?”

“Well, we ended up having to go a little further south. We’re now down in St. Maarten. Didn’t Linda mention that to you?”

“No, man, this whole ordeal is a bad one as far as she’s concerned.”

“Really,” I said, “She never mentioned that to me when I spoke with her last.”

“And, when was that?” Pat wanted to know.

“Well, about a week ago.”

“You‘re an asshole,” he said.

“Whoa, where’s that coming from?”

“Look, man, she’s the best thing that ever happened to you and you have her on some list that’s not even close to a priority.”

Now, my father had once told me to never be hurt by the words of a man I didn’t respect but Pat was the man I respected most. He was the most honest, hardworking, ethical man I knew. Besides being the most talented mechanic in my life, he was always there to give me an unbiased view of reality.

We are at any given moment the result of all the good and bad that has happened to us in our lives. I was who I was and not that I was always happy about that, I was true to myself. Unfortunately, it seemed that the things I held too tight got away from me and the things I cared about, that I should have given more attention to, I allowed to slip through my hands. Pat was right. As much as I would have liked to believe she was on my list of top priorities, my actions proved otherwise.

“Are we good?” I asked him before saying goodbye.

“We’re always good, man,” he assured me. “I’m always your friend. That’s why I can tell you these things.”

“Yeah, I know and you’re right. When I get back, I’m going to make some real changes. This time I’m serious.”

Walking out of the phone center, I vowed to make things right with Linda once and for all when I returned to the States. As I walked up to Joseph’s car my thoughts and focus quickly turned back to the task at hand.

“Everything ok?” Tom wanted to know.

“Yeah, all’s good and our bikes are done and waiting.”

“Great!” Tom exclaimed. “I’m looking forward to riding again.”

“Me, too, but let’s deal with this mess and get it out of our way.”

Joseph knew right where the airport was. When we pulled up we could see only two airplanes. As we got closer I couldn’t believe either of the two airplanes was airworthy. The twin Apache was obviously in need of a nose wheel. The front of the airplane was propped up on a couple of cinder blocks.

The 172 Cessna looked like it hadn’t been in the air in years. The paint was so worn thin by the sun that the zinc chromate primer was showing through all over the plane. The numbers on the sides of the airplane were so faded we each thought it read differently. Only after a little closer look did we decide the last three numbers to be 36Q.

Walking around the plane I noticed hydraulic fluid leaking from the nose wheel strut. The reddish color made it obvious. It was leaking or had leaked enough to cover part of the front wheel as it made its way to the ground where you could see it had soaked in the weed infested black top.

“Damn, man,” I said. “I thought André said this thing was ready to fly.”

André, or his men, had left six five gallon gas cans and a battery sitting under the wings as well as some hand tools. Great, I thought, well, let’s get this plane fueled up and see if this battery fits in the battery box.

I opened up the cowling hatch on the engine compartment and it actually looked better there than the outside. I checked the oil and it looked clean. Before putting in the fresh fuel I thought of checking the wings’ gas tank drains as well as the gascolator in the engine compartment. Each contained large amounts of water. We drained almost a quart of water and dirt from the system before the fuel drained clean.

“Ok,” I said. “Fill up the wings and let’s get out of here.”

“Joseph, do you know anyone who works around any of the pools at any of the hotels?” I asked him.

“Ya, mon, my friend Paul, he take care of pools at a few of the hotels here.”

“Great,” I said. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Ya, mon, what you need?”

“I need some chlorine.”

“What you gonna do with that?”

“I just need a gallon of pure chlorine. Not bleach but chlorine.”

“Ya, mon, I can get that for you.”

“Ok,” I said, “and I also need about six one-gallon plastic jugs and a roll of aluminum foil. It’s got to be aluminum foil only.”

“No problem,” he assured me.

As Joseph headed off my attention quickly refocused on to getting the airplane ready to fly.

“Chlorine, aluminum foil?” Tom asked.

“Yeah, man, you know we’re going to need some sort of diversion.”

“That will do it,” Tom replied.

With the fuel in the wings and the battery hooked up, I drained the fuel system’s lower drain plugs again looking for water. This time only a small amount of water came out of each of them.

“That should do it,” I said.

“Are you ready to fly this thing?” Tom asked.

It had been at least ten years since I had last flown an airplane.

“Yeah, it’s just like riding a bike.”

Tom had been the very first person I ever took up in an airplane when we were kids. Now, here we were in another part of the world getting ready for a first flight in about ten years and he again, was my first passenger.

Joseph was back quickly from his quest for the chlorine and as I took the six jugs from him I realized they were kind of on the heavy duty side. “Problem?” he asked.

“No, these are good,” I assured him. We loaded everything into the plane.

“Joseph?” I asked. “Can you drop these gas cans back at André’s shop for us?”

“Ya, mon, and the tools, too?”

 “Let me see that tool bag a minute.”

I then decided to take a couple basic tools with us.

“Let’s see, screwdrivers, a couple wrenches and a pair of vice grip pliers. Ok, that should do it. Ok, let’s do this!” I shouted.

I was getting a real rush of adrenaline and ready to get this task in motion. As I did a quick walk around the airplane checking the ailerons and rudder controls, it dawned on me that I never got the keys for the plane from André.

“Damn!” I yelled out.

“What’s up?” Tom wanted to know.

“The keys,” I said.

As I rounded the back of the plane, I could see Joseph pulling out and onto the main road and too far from us to call for him. Fortunately, as I got to the side door of the plane I looked through the window and saw a key in the ignition switch.

Man, I thought to myself, calm down, get focused.

With everything loaded up I turned the mag switch to ‘On’, pumped the primer a few times and turned the key. The engine fired right up. Damn, I thought, that’s a good thing.

The runway was old and had a lot of weeds growing through the cracks that had formed there through many years of neglect. The runway was long enough but with the uneven surface it took a little longer to get up enough airspeed to get off the ground.

I lowered the flaps about 10 degrees and pulled back on the yoke with just a little pressure and within a few hundred feet we were in the air. The engine sounded good, I banked to the left at a few hundred feet and we were instantly over the water and away from the island.

I then realized that the airport was a lot closer to the coast of the island than I had thought. Even at a few hundred feet we could see our destination right there in front of us and that it would be a quick flight over to St. Barts.

Flying had always been the most exciting form of adventure for me. I really liked riding motorcycles but an airplane truly affords a real sense of freedom. In unrestricted air space one could get as mild or wild as their abilities would allow. There in the air there were no traffic signals or speed limits. You could fly over areas of the ground that you could not see from any other perspective. I thought as a kid I would pursue a flying career but after returning home from the service I had gotten very disillusioned with the establishment and my personal appearance of long hair and beard didn’t lend well to a flying career.

“What’s the plan?” asked Tom.

“Well, I figure we’ll climb to 1500 feet and over fly the airport so I can get a look at it. Then we can see which way we want to go in.”

I pulled back on the yoke and trimmed the plane for a couple hundred feet per minute climb figuring we’d be about 1500 feet by the time we were close to the island. In a short time we were at 1500 feet and as we got close to the island I could see the tiny airport tucked away between two hills.

Damn, I thought, André was right when he said ‘challenging’. We could see an obvious wind direction indicated by a large orange wind sock that was outstretched showing a wind from the east.

“Ok, ready?” I asked Tom

“Yeah, let’s do this.”

With that I pulled back on the power and eased the nose of the airplane over. As we got lower I could see that our approach had to be right over the main harbor that we had entered yesterday. From there the approach was over a large hill that dropped right down to the end of the runway.

As I banked the plane to the left we were right over a group of large private boats that were at anchor there in the harbor. As I looked down my attention was drawn to a beautiful woman who was sunning herself on the bow of one of the larger sailboats. I could see her actually shade her eyes with her hand to look up at us as we passed right over her.

“Damn, that’s a nice approach,” I said.

“Yeah, well, do you see that mountain in front of us?” Tom wanted to know.

Looking forward I could see we were going to need some more power to clear the hill that seemed to get taller as we got lower. I quickly added some power and headed for a saddle that seemed to be carved out of the top of this hill. As we flew through the saddle a sudden updraft coming up the other side of the mountain threw the plane around violently and I found myself suddenly serious about controlling the plane.

I could see the end of the runway and nosed the plane over and pulled back the power. This was definitely more than I had anticipated and I was relying on my rusty skills now to get this plane on the ground safely.

By the time I got low and slow enough to land, we were halfway down the runway and I could see the beach that was at the other end getting closer to us real quick. I then remembered these Cessna 172s as ‘floaters’ meaning they just seemed to drag slow in flight before giving up flying. With that memory I slammed the throttle forward and retracted the flaps. By the time the plane had enough airspeed to actually climb we were over the beach at about 3 feet.

Wow, I thought to myself, am I that rusty or is this runway that challenging?

“What do you think?” Tom asked without a waiver in his voice.

“Damn, man,” André was right. This freakin’ airport is a tough one.”

“Maybe you’re just being complacent,” Tom said.

“What?” I asked.

Now Tom was not one for mincing words, but I couldn’t remember that particular word ever coming out of his mouth before.

“Complacent?” I said. He was right. As much as I would like to have thought he was wrong, he was right.

“Ok,” I said. “This time.”

On the second approach we passed right back over the same sailboat and the same woman doing the same thing with her hands. This time I was prepared for the updraft. Once over the hill, I cross controlled the plane and slipped it down quickly towards the approach end of the runway.

“Here we go,” I said aloud.

This time I got slow, low and flared on the first third of the runway. As the wheels touched down, I retracted the flaps.

”And that’s how it’s done.” I boasted.

“Yeah, well what happened the first time?” Tom wanted to know.

As we pulled off the runway onto an adjoining taxiway I could see the airport’s office and part of the little building next to it. I saw a door with a sign over it that said ‘Customs’.

“Oh, fuck!” I shouted.

“What’s wrong?” Tom wanted to know.

“We never cleared customs when we left St. Maarten,” I informed him.

“Oh, fuck is right,” he said. “Now what?”

“Well, we either fly out of here right now or try to explain it.”

“What do you think?” Tom asked.

“Well, we could just try to explain that we forgot. I mean what can they do? We’re here.”

“Our passports do show us being here yesterday.”

“Let’s try explaining and see what happens.”

We made our way over to a tie down area and as we were securing the plane I looked around at the dozen or so other airplanes that were there. None had the numbers on them that André had given me as the tail numbers for Bishop’s airplane and none of them were a 210 Cessna. That wasn’t encouraging.

We left everything in the plane and walked over to the customs office with our passports in hand. As we entered we were politely greeted by two customs officials. As we handed them our passports, they casually offered us a seat and said to make ourselves comfortable. I wasn’t’ going to say anything about anything unless asked.

After a couple of minutes one of the guys asked, “Who’s the pilot?”

“I am,” I offered up.

“Are you a licensed pilot?” he asked.

“Ah, yes. Yes, I am.”

I was thinking that they had witnessed our first approach to land and that perhaps it was the reason for the question.

“May I see your license, please?” he asked.

With that question I looked at Tom as he was turning to look at me and it was one of those memorable moments.

As I’m looking at Tom I replied, “Ah, yeah, sure,” and I remember the look on Tom’s face.

Now for me, there were a few really proud moments in my life. Times that I was proud of myself for accomplishing something I really wanted to do. One was getting my driver’s license on my 16^th birthday.

When I was growing up in Pennsylvania you had to be 16 to get a permit, you learn how to drive, take a written and driving test and when you pass you get your driver’s license. I got my permit and asked to take the tests on the same day.

The people at the driver’s license bureau weren’t even sure if you could do that but they let me take the tests and I passed. Little did they know that I had actually been driving illegally for years.

Pretty much the same with the pilot’s license. For the private license you needed 20 hours of solo time and 20 hours with an instructor. I took my test with 40.5 hours. Same thing – got the license but had been flying for untolled hours before that.

Even better than a driver’s license – once you get it – that was it. You have it for life unless your health fails or you get caught doing something stupid or illegal. Now to stay legal, you need to take a flight review every two years to stay ‘current’ but that’s not mentioned on the actual license.

As I stood up I reached for my wallet and produced my pilot’s license which I had carried with me since day one. As I handed it to the official I turned to see Tom smiling and shaking his head in disbelief.

“Very good, have a seat, please,” the official said as he took my license. “And what brings you to St. Barts?”

“Well, we were out flying a friend’s plane and we figured we would fly over here for some lunch.”

“Your friend’s plane? And who might that be?”

“André,” I offered up. “He has the cargo planes over on St. Maarten.”

“Yes, I know André,” he replied.

The tone in his voice sounded positive and I figured that might play out in our favor. He then went on to say that his brother in St. Maarten worked for André and that André came here himself quite often in the airplane we were flying. That figures, I thought to myself.

“Then you’ve seen this plane here before,” I offered up.

“Yes, many times, but never with someone else flying it.”

I was sensing that he was looking out for André and his interests more than anything else.

“How long will you be here on St. Barts?” he then asked.

“Well, we will be leaving sometime later today,” I replied.

“Ok, then you are free to go. Enjoy your stay,” he said handing back our freshly stamped passports along with my pilot’s license.

As we closed the door on the way out, I felt relieved that the lack of a customs stamp from St. Maarten had never been mentioned. Oh, well, I thought, that’s a good sign.

We went next door to the fixed base operator’s office where I saw a sign for car rentals. After another exchange of passports and driver’s license, we were handed the keys to a small white car parked right next to the office.

“Can we drive the car over to our plane to get our luggage?” I asked.

“Yes, by all means,” he replied.

The last thing I wanted was for him or the two customs officials to see us unloading plastic jugs and our duffel bags from the airplane. The whole time we were in customs and handling the paperwork on the car rental, not one airplane had landed or departed from the airport. But while unloading our supplies from the plane to the car, a small regional airplane landed and unloaded a group of six people.

“Now that’s how you’re supposed to do it,” Tom said watching the pilot land.

“Well, he’s probably done it a thousand times,” I quipped in defense of my own pride.

As we pulled out of the airport, I looked around one last time for any sign of Bishop’s 210. It wasn’t there. We hadn’t eaten anything yet that day and decided we would eat before getting involved in anything.

Before going to breakfast, we found the address that Bishop had given to us the day before. As we drove by, we could see that it afforded a good bit of privacy with a gated drive entrance. The drive wrapped around a hill which blocked any view of a house.

I then remembered him mentioning that his property backed up to some bluffs and his mention of a private beach. With that thought, we had decided that coming in from the backside would be to our advantage.

Over breakfast at a small open air café in Gustavia, we started to lay out a plan of just how we were going to execute our mission of freeing Bruce from his captors. We had decided to park the car about a quarter mile from Bishop’s place where there was an easy access to the shoreline that would take us to the back part of his property.

“What about dogs?” Tom asked.

“Got it covered,” I assured him.

“How’s that?” he wanted to know. With that, I pulled out of my pocket a prescription bottle I had gotten from Bruce’s father as part of our first aid kit on the boat. The prescription was made out in my name and was for fifty 5mg valium.

“Right here,” I said, showing him the vial.

“And how are you going to get a dog, or dogs, to swallow a pill?”

“No problem,” I said. “We serve it with steak.”

“Steak?” Tom asked.

“Yeah, you’ll see. Let’s get out of here,” I said as I finished the last of my coffee.

Our next stop was the local food store. There I headed for the meat department.

“Here you go,” I said. “What dog could resist this?” It was a thick slab of meat that could have had any dogs interested.

“How many do you think?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know, let’s get four or five just in case.”

We purchased five of the largest pieces of meat we could find and a couple rolls of duct tape. After our stop at the grocery store, we decided to drive past the house one last time.

Nothing had changed. The gate was still closed and not being able to see the house made it difficult to determine just what was going on or how many people we might encounter once we stormed the house.

After the second drive-by, we headed down the road to where we had earlier determined we could gain access to the shoreline. There was a place we could park and leave the car without drawing attention to ourselves. Once parked, I opened the trunk and we went through our supplies to determine what we had and what we needed.

The three weapons we had were a Smith and Wesson .38 Special, a Mac 10 automatic and an old Colt .45 that had a conversion kit enabling it to be used as a .22 caliber. I decided to break down the .45 and change it over to a .22. I reasoned that it would still look as impressive and intimidating as a .45 but would be much quieter should I have to shoot it.

Having guns on the boat had afforded us a certain level of comfort but here on land, on this island, they could put us in prison. This was serious shit and Tom and I decided that we were fully committed to the task. We could have just called Mr. Saxton and told him of the situation and still walked away with a fortune.

But now, it went beyond that. I was pissed off. This guy had set out to hurt, if not kill, me and I was going to make him pay. Tom and I had also decided that if we could actually put Bruce and his father face to face, it would seal the deal and there would be the maximum payout.

“Let’s not forget this,” Tom said handing me the ten pounds of meat we had bought.

“Oh, yeah, let me see that.”

I took each piece of meat and with my trusty Randall knife sliced small folds into the meat in such a way that I could tuck the pill inside. The pill would stay there even if I had to toss the slab of meat some distance.

“How many?” I asked Tom.

“I don’t know but if in doubt, more is better.”

I tucked five pills into each piece of meat before rewrapping them in the butcher paper. We then filled each of the plastic jugs half way with the chlorine Joseph had procured for us earlier. I put half the jugs in one duffel bag and the others in the second bag so neither would be too heavy to carry. I then put the meat, aluminum foil, duct tape, guns and ammo into the third duffel bag.

“This should do it,” I said as I closed the trunk of the car.

We found a worn path through the scrub brush which led us to a small rocky beach. It wasn’t a sandy beach and we were relieved to find there was no one on it.

“Careful,” I said to Tom as I negotiated the slippery rocks. Each was covered with slimy algae from the ocean at high tide washing over them.

We headed off to our left in the direction of Bishop’s house. He had mentioned something about having a private beach and we figured from where we were it would be the first area we found that resembled a beach. As we walked further I could see in the distance an area where the stony shoreline gave way to a section of sandy beach.

The beach area almost looked manmade – like it had been put there by the hand of man and not the sea. Three hundred feet further the rocks again occupied the shoreline. Now, I thought, this is definitely a private beach. Bishop had been accurate about the beach and the bluffs, as well. Looking up, the back of his property dropped a good 150 feet down to the beach where we were standing.

“I’m glad we don’t have to climb that,” Tom said.

“Yeah, looks mighty steep.”

Fortunately for us, Bishop had gone to very elaborate measures to build a substantial stairway that zigzagged its way back and forth as it made its way from the overlook to the sea. Even the stairway looked challenging, especially with the weight of the three duffel bags.

“Wait here,” I offered up. “I’m going to check it out.”

“Be careful,” Tom said as I started up the stairway.

Making my way up the stairway, I was wondering what it was I was going to find at the top. Now from my vantage point halfway up, I could see further down the shoreline and it was rocks as far as I could see. This has to be the place I reasoned. As I made my way up the last section of stairway, I thought I heard a dog bark. Damn, I thought. That sucks!

 I figured I better move quickly to assess the situation. As I got to the last couple of steps, I crouched down and peered over the back edge of the stairway where the back lawn area started. I could see a house about 300 feet away. Sure enough, in a fenced off area extending to within about 50 feet of me, were two very large dogs - both of which were now barking.

It was then I remembered the direction of the wind. When we landed, the wind sock had indicated a stiff breeze out of the east which was directly, at that moment, at my back as I lay there looking at these unfriendly dogs.

Just then I saw a back door open and out stepped a man I recognized as being one of the men that was with Bishop the day earlier. He was yelling for the dogs which were now at this end of the fenced-in area. When the dogs failed to respond to him I saw him start walking in my direction. Oh, shit! I thought.

I quickly turned and ran down to the first switchback of the stairway. Looking over and down at the beach I motioned for Tom to hide under the last section of stairway. He couldn’t understand what I was asking of him so I stepped over the stairs and took cover. It was then he figured out exactly what I meant for him to do. I wasn’t sure how far this guy was going to investigate the dogs barking but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

After about 15 minutes, I peered up and over the stairs where I was hiding. I could see the edge of the lawn and saw no one. The dogs had stopped barking as well. I very quickly made my way back down to the last section of stairway to find Tom crouched underneath with the three duffel bags at his side.

“What was that all about?” he demanded.

“Well, there are dogs,” I said. “They started barking. Then a guy came out of the house to see what they were barking about and that’s when I motioned for you to take cover.”

“It’s this wind,” I said.

“Wind?”

“Yeah, it’s taking our scent right to the dogs. We’re going to have to come in from the side where the wind won’t carry our scent and any noise we make climbing this hill.”

“Man, that’s not going to be easy,” Tom said.

“Under the circumstances, it’s our only option. The fact that this guy came out of the house tells me that they’re going to react to the dogs barking.”

“Got it,” Tom replied.

I informed Tom that what I had seen was a fenced-in area that had scrub growth right up to the fence line on both the north and south sides. The wind was actually more in a northeasterly direction now so we figured an approach from the southern side of the house would be best. Even with a stiff breeze these dogs would probably be able to detect us, but it was our best option.

The climb up the hill without the aid of the stairway was tough and time consuming. The weight of the bags, along with the heat had us exhausted by the time we had made it to the top. We were both sweating profusely and I was thinking out loud when I mentioned the fact that we were making it easier for a dog to smell us. When we got to a point where I thought we were parallel to the fence line I asked Tom for the duffel he had been carrying with the meat in it.

“You want it all?’ Tom asked.

“Yeah, let me have it all. I only saw two dogs but they were big. Stay here – I’ll be back.”

“How long?”

“If I’m not back in 15, come see about me.”

With that, I picked up the five pieces of wrapped meat and headed off towards the fence line. Making my way through the scrub brush, I was careful not to make too much noise. The brush was bent over at the top indicating a strong wind in my favor.

In no time I could see the chain link fence through a thinning area of the growth. I got up against the fence looking at the house from only about 50 feet away. I could see both dogs were lying down near the house underneath the overhang of the roofline which was affording them some shade from the hot sun.

I carefully unwrapped one of the pieces of meat and, holding it in my hand, tried to figure how I was going to get the dog to eat it. I stood up next to the fence and threw it in their direction.

The meat landed somewhere in between the two and neither dog reacted. Damn, I thought, now what? I figured I’d throw one more piece over. I managed to get this piece of meat a little further in their direction but still no reaction from the dogs.

In order to get their attention I started making a hissing sound which quickly alerted them and in no time at all they were on their feet and headed in my direction. The quicker dog stopped in his tracks once he caught the scent of the slab of meat closest to them. Suddenly, both dogs were fighting over the meat unaware of the other slab that lay only about 10 feet further in my direction.

I unwrapped the third piece and managed to hit one of the dogs with it. His response was quick and his total focus was on the meat. I then threw one more piece over the fence and watched them devour all four pieces of meat.

As each dog was finishing their second piece of meat I made my retreat into the scrub and back to Tom’s location.

“How’d it go?” he was anxious to know.

“Perfect,” I replied.

 “How long do you think it will take?” I asked Tom, knowing well that he, in his life, had taken valium many times both for the pain of a motorcycle injury as well as for recreational purposes.

“I don’t know on a dog but I would think about a half an hour would do it.”

I looked at my watch and after 30 minutes both of us made our way back towards the fence line. Once there, we could see the dogs back lying down in the shade of the roof line again.

“What do you think?” Tom asked.

“Let’s see,” I replied.

I started hissing as before but no reaction from the dogs. I did it louder, still no reaction.

“I think they are out of commission.”

We decided to stay within the confines of the scrub brush and make our way along the fence line toward the house. There were windows on the back of the house and it would be easy for someone to see us if we were in the yard.

Up near the house the fence line butted up against what we thought to be part of the garage and the door where the guy came out of earlier when checking on the barking dogs. When we reached that point we were only about 20 feet from the dogs. I hissed again. Nothing. Not even the slightest movement from either dog.

“Damn, you think they’re dead?” I asked Tom.

“No, but they’ll be down for a while.”

“That’s good,” I said as I started pulling the chlorine filled bottles out of the duffel bags.

“I figure we’ll use four of these. You take two and I’ll do the other two. Remember, it’s got to be quick and we’ve got to do it at the same time.”

“Ok,” Tom replied.

Now the chlorine thing was something Tom and I had both seen done at a party many years ago. Since that time we had impressed a lot of people with the same basic chemistry experiment. It was a matter of one chemical reaction with another in a confined space that was sealed.

When you took pure chlorine and put it in a plastic bottle for noise or glass bottle for damage then added a piece of aluminum foil and put the lid on tight, the gases would expand to the point of blowing up the container and making a lot of noise in the process.

Our objective was to draw the occupants of the house outside rather than go inside where we had no idea of the layout of the house or how many people were inside. We then climbed over the fence. We each had a gun, some ammo and two jugs half full of chlorine. As I nodded, we each opened our jugs and stuffed a couple of wadded up pieces of aluminum foil into each jug then screwed the lid down tight.

 We quickly took cover behind the only thing we could which was an air conditioning compressor unit up against the house on the other side of the door. From behind the unit I could see the chemical reaction going on between the chlorine and aluminum. Then BAM! – the first bottle went off followed immediately by the other three.

It was impressively loud and in no time at all the back door opened and out came two guys both with guns in hand. They looked a bit confused as to what had actually happened. One of the guys noticed the remnants of the plastic jugs on the ground and walked over to the fence line.

“Look at this!” he yelled out.

As the second guy started walking toward him, out through the door came Bruce. He then followed the second guy toward the fence line. I looked at Tom and we both knew without a word it was time to go.

I pulled back the barrel of the colt and loaded the gun, stood up and shouted out, “Drop your guns!”

 It sounded like something out of a movie but I couldn’t think of a better thing to say. The second guy lifted his arm to take aim. BAM! I pulled the trigger and lodged a .22 round into his left thigh. With that, he quickly retreated from any idea of using his gun. By now I could see that Bruce had recognized me and was about to say something when I quickly shut him off.

“Don’t say a fucking word or I’ll put a fuckin’ bullet in your fuckin’ head. You hear me?” I demanded from him.

He nodded in acknowledgement. There was a look of confusion all over his face. By this time Tom had his .38 pressed into the head of the other guy who still hadn’t given up on perhaps pursuing some defensive action. Tom pushed the gun tighter into the back of his head as he reached down and took the gun carefully out of his hand.

“OK, I said, who else is here?”

No response.

“Ok,” I said, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way but I’m not fucking around.”

I walked over, pointed the .22 at the foot of the second guy and fired off a shot. He went right to the ground. As he fell, I could see that the shot had gone through the arch of his foot and had exited through the bottom of his shoe.

With that, they each started telling what we needed to know. As it turned out, it was just the three of them there. Bishop was off island and was expected back later that day. As we walked them back into the house, the one guy asked what we had done to the dogs that, through out all the commotion, were still down.

“We killed them,” I replied.

Now it wasn’t by nature for Tom or me to be hardasses, but there are those who respect you more when they believe that you’re crazier than they are. We were here and totally committed to the task at hand.

Once in the living room area of the house, I had them all sit together on the couch while Tom went to retrieve the other duffel bags. Neither of the gunshot wounds were life threating but the thigh shot was bleeding a lot and I didn’t want the guy to die from blood loss. Once Tom was back we managed to duct tape feet and hands to restrict the two from being any more trouble.

We separated them between two bedrooms. I then walked back into the room of the first guy I had shot. He was still bleeding pretty good. I reached down and drew my Randall from its sheath. His eyes went wide. As I approached him there on the bed, he started to shake.

“Hold still,” I said. “I just want to cut away your pant leg to see about your wound.”

Slicing away the pant leg, you could see it wasn’t all that bad. It had actually grazed him ripping out a chunk of flesh but there was no bullet left in his leg. I went to get some towels and bandages and managed to stop the bleeding. The other guy’s foot was another matter. I had no idea what to do so I didn’t.

Next I focused on Bruce. He was still afraid to say anything so I finally said to him, “What the fuck, man?”

“You lied to me!” I yelled at him

“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “Did you track me all the way down here for that?”

I stared at him.

“No,” I said after a long pause. “We’re here on your father’s dime to take you back to the States.”

“What?” he asked, not understanding the connection between us and his father.

“Well, remember my back pack I left in your Mercedes that night?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Well, one thing led to another and pretty soon your dad’s offering us a lot of money to find you. So the bottom line is we’re here to help you, not hurt you. So grab your stuff and let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“I can’t,” he replied.

“What?” I said. “What the fuck are you talkin’ about? Let’s go.”

“I can’t,” he insisted. “You don’t understand what’s going on here.”

“Oh, I know what’s going on here. Bishop’s holding you hostage until you complete a certain number of smuggling trips into the States with his cocaine and that he has documented evidence that implicates you and André in such affairs.”

The look on his face was disbelief. “How do you know all this?” he demanded.

“Look, personally, I don’t think you’re worth the amount of money your dad’s paying us to bring you back but for that amount we’re going to find out everything we need to know to do what we’re gonna do. Understand? Now, grab your shit!”

“Look, if I leave with you he’ll only come after me or turn over what evidence he has against me and André and then everybody loses.”

“Except me and Tom,” I said.

As I was going to further insist I heard a beeping sound. “What’s that?” I asked Bruce.

“That’s the garage door,” he informed me. “It’s Bishop.”

I yelled out for Tom who was already peering out the front window.

“One car, two guys,” he said.

“Ok,” I said looking Bruce right in the face. “You say nothing. You just sit here when they come through the door.”

“Which door do they usually use?” Tom demanded from Bruce.

“That one over there. It goes out to the garage.”

“This one here?” I said pointing at a door in the direction of the garage.

“Yeah, that one,” Bruce said.

“Ok, Tommy, over here quick”.

Tom got on one side of the door and I took a position on the other side in a hall that led into a laundry room. The next .22 round was already in the chamber. As I drew the gun up around my face I remembered Bishop as being on the tall side and I wanted to be as close as possible to his face right from the get go.

I could hear the car pulling into the garage. Next I heard the closing of two car doors followed by the garage door motor closing the door. I didn’t hear anyone say a thing but could hear footsteps across the concrete floor of the garage. Suddenly, I had to pee. Are you kidding me? I thought to myself. Get a grip.

I was feeling a bit more nervous about this confrontation than the one earlier in the yard. Just then I saw the door knob turn and in walked Bishop followed by the other person with him. Bishop headed towards the living room and was halfway there before the other guy got all the way through the door.

“Ok, hold it right there!” I yelled out to Bishop.

I walked quickly towards him with the gun pointed at his face hoping that at the same time Tom was focused on the other guy.

“You, too!” I heard Tom shout out.

Both were totally surprised and totally unprepared for any sort of defensive move. Bishop immediately asked what this was all about and wanted to know what we had done with the other two that were there at the house.

“We shot them,” I replied. “And, I’m going to shoot you, too, if you don’t get the fuck into the living room and sit down.”

With that, Bishop walked into the living room and sat down on the couch next to Bruce asking him if this was his doing.

“He had nothing to do with this,” I said before Bruce could say anything.

As I turned back towards the doorway, Tom was escorting the other guy into the room.

When he saw me he said, “Hey, I know you.”

As I was trying to figure out why or how he would know me, he informed Bishop that I was the guy in Nassau that he had left in the closet.

“Oh, man,” I said to him as Tom walked him past me. “I really wish you hadn’t done that.”

I held the gun on Bishop as Tom first duct-taped the one who had done the same to me and then taped up Bishop, as well.

“Ok, you – in the other room,” I said to Bruce pointing the gun at him.

 “Now!” I shouted out.

With that Bruce got up and headed in the direction I was pointing which was toward the kitchen. Once in there, I had him sit down at the table and called for Tom. As Tom came through the doorway, I asked him to keep an eye on Bruce while I had a talk with Bishop.

“Sure, no problem,” he said, sliding a chair up next to Bruce at the table.

I walked back into the room and stood in front of Bishop. He was in a seated position with his ankles bound together with duct tape, hands bound behind his back with duct tape and duct tape covering his mouth.

I put the gun to his forehead and said to him “Ok, I’m going to ask you one time and one time only and if you give me any bullshit about it, I’m going to kill you right here, right now, right in your fucking house. I’ve already killed your dogs and I’ve already killed your two compadres and I’m going to fucking kill you if you don’t play straight up with me. Now, do you understand?”

He nodded assuredly that he did.

“Ok,” I said. “Now, let me tell you a little story. First of all. I don’t give a fuck about you or that little prick in the other room. He lied to me a couple of months back and it almost cost me my life when you and your thugs were shooting up his boat that day in the Bahamas.

“Then your little asshole friend over there on the couch left me for dead in a closet in Nassau. So I don’t care about any of you. This is all about money. Surely, you can appreciate that, right? All I have to do is get him home and his family is going to compensate me and Tom here with a large amount of money. Only we got one little problem.” I said staring into his eyes.

“I understand you got some sort of incriminating evidence that you’re holding over his head to get him to jump like a dog when you say jump and, here comes the kicker, I’m only going to ask you one time to hand it over. That’s it, one time – now, where is it?”

He motioned his head towards a hallway. I reached down and ripped the duct tape away from his mouth.

 “Down there,” he said. “It’s in a safe.”

“All of it?” I asked.

“Yes, everything.”

“Ok, where is the safe and what’s the combination?”

After he told me I reapplied the tape over his mouth and headed for the kitchen. I asked Bruce what kind of incriminating evidence he thought Bishop had on him. Apparently it was in the form of Super 8mm film - one for each of the flights they had made so far and some photos.

“Ok, I’ll be right back.”

I walked back past Bishop and down the hallway to where he had told me I would find the safe. It was up against the back wall of a closet and the second try with the numbers opened it up. Inside were bundles of cash, a couple of hand guns, some jewelry and three rolls of Super 8mm film along with Bruce’s passport and about a dozen pictures that showed André loading drugs onto his plane.

I was thinking of taking it all but this wasn’t about robbing the guy, it was about getting Bruce and anything that Bishop had over him. Despite my feelings of wanting revenge for his actions against me, I left the rest of it there in the safe.

Walking back through the living room, I held the three rolls of film and the pictures up to Bishop’s face and demanded to know if this was everything. He nodded that it was. Walking back into the kitchen, I laid all that I had in my hands and Bruce’s passport down on the table in front of him.

“There,” I said. “Now let’s get out of here.”

“Do you think this changes anything?” Bruce asked as he looked up at me.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, you don’t know Bishop. He’ll come after me thinking this was somehow my plan.”

“The way I see it, you should have been a little more careful about choosing your friends. All I know is that you’re coming back to St. Maarten with us now.”

“Then what?” Bruce asked.

“Then I’m having your father fly down here and giving you to him. After that I don’t give a fuck what you do. Now get what you are taking and let’s get out of here. Now!,” I shouted.

With that, Bruce got to his feet.

“I’m ready,” he said.

“You got nothing here you want to take with you?” I asked him.

“No.”

“Ok, then let’s get out of here.”

I went back into the living room and asked Bishop for the keys to his car. He motioned towards the garage.

“In the car?” I asked.

He nodded, indicating that they were. I walked over and leaned over to Bishop sitting on the couch and looked him in the eye.

“Look,” I said. “Despite the fact that you killed a friend of mine by the name of Kevin and tried to kill me as well, I’m going to put that all behind me. I hope that you can overlook this small indiscretion, as well and that we can call it even.” Looking into his eyes, I could see that that probably wouldn’t happen.

“Ok, we’re out of here,” I said aloud still staring into Bishop’s eyes.

We found the keys in the ignition of the car along with an electric door opener. I pushed the button to open the door and was surprised to see that it was dark outside. With all the commotion, I had lost track of time. Just how long had we been in the house?

At the end of the drive we found the gate closed.

“How do you open the gate?” I asked Bruce.

“Either back at the house or with a combination number here at the gate.”

“Do you know the number?”

“No,” was his reply.

I got out to see how substantial the lock was. It was pretty stout.

 “We could ram it,” Tom said as we both stood there figuring how to get it open.

“I’m thinking that would pretty much screw up the headlights which we are going to need. Get in,” I said.

We both got back into the car and I quickly turned the car back towards the house. Then I stopped and looked at Tom. He knew exactly what I was thinking. I put it in reverse and floored the accelerator. The car hit the gates so hard it broke the hinges that held it to the stone wall but it stayed locked in the middle. I could see this as we literally backed over the whole gate and quickly headed down the road to where we had left the rental car.

I pulled up next to the car and told Bruce to go with Tom. Bruce got out of the back seat and just before he closed the door I told him to get in the car with Tom and to not do anything stupid.

“Do you hear me?”

“No problem,” was his reply. I think that after all he had witnessed over the past few hours he knew that Tom and I meant business.

“I’ll meet you back at the airport,” I said to Tom as I handed him the keys to the rental car.

I waited until I saw the rented car start up and headlights come on before starting to pull away. As I pulled out Tom started to follow when he started flashing his lights. I stopped, got out and started walking back to see what the problem was. He reached his head out of the driver’s side window and was pointing at the back of Bishop’s Mercedes.

“No lights,” he said.

“Damn,” I said. The gate had not only taken out the rear tail lights but the locking mechanism on the gate had hit the trunk in such a way that you could no longer use a key to open it.

As Tom and I stood there assessing the situation Tom asked if this looked familiar.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Remember the last time we had to open up the trunk of a Mercedes to retrieve a backpack?”

I looked at him. “Right,” I said. “Ok, let’s leave the car right here.”

I parked Bishop’s car where we had parked the rental car. We used the tire iron in the rental to pop open the trunk of the Mercedes then retrieved the three duffel bags and headed for the airport. When we got to the airport we were surprised to find no one there -  no sign of the airport manager who rented us the car and no customs officials. It was around nine o’clock and it appeared that everyone had gone home. Bruce asked how we were going to get back to St. Maarten.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s no one here.”

I then assumed that he thought we were going to catch a flight out or something like that. At about that time the headlights were shining on the side of Andrés’ airplane as I pulled up next to it.

“André’s here?” Bruce asked.

“No,” I said. “He let us use the plane.”

“So you fly?”

“You see the plane here, don’t you?”

We unloaded the trunk and I asked Tom to park the rental up near the office and put the key through the mail slot on the office door. As he pulled away his headlight quickly flashed across the hulk of a 210 Cessna as he turned towards the office. It was parked on the other side of the ramp area.

“Stay here,” I told Bruce. “I’ll be right back.”

I headed off towards the 210 then stopped. I turned around and went back to the plane. I reached inside one of the duffel bags and pulled out a screwdriver and large pair of vice grips. I wasn’t sure then what I was going to do but I was feeling compelled to take the tools.

The 210 looked well-cared for. Its paint looked shiny even there in the dark. The one thing about airplanes is that they’re not very secure in the sense of locking them up. The door locks are simple and easy to break and, basically, if you unground the magneto electrical system you can start them.

Looking at Bishop’s airplane there started me thinking for the first time about what Bishop would do about our assault upon him and his dignity. He was definitely not used to people taking advantage of him, especially in such an intimidating way. I knew he would react in a bad way and most likely in the form of violence, even when he realized that we hadn’t actually killed his dogs or his two buddies there at the house.

My plan was to take Bruce to St. Maarten, put him in a nice hotel room and have his father fly down. That way we could put them face to face and seal the deal. I figured I would need just a day or two to do that.

With that thought in mind, I decided to take Bishop’s airplane out of commission. I didn’t want to do something that was obvious. If it was obvious it could be recognized and fixed quickly.

On all high wing Cessnas the fuel tanks are in the wings. In the form of hard solid aluminum tanks or in bladder form. Either system has fuel lines that run from the wings down the sides of the inside cabin fuselage into the floor area before they reach the front engine compartment. With that also in mind, I took the screw driver and prepared to pop the lock on the door.

I needed to be very careful because I didn’t want to leave any sign of forced entry that might draw suspicion. Just before the attempt, I tried the door latch. When I did the door opened right up. Bishop hadn’t locked the doors on the airplane. I suppose down here in the islands, there was no real need to do so. Back in South Florida I couldn’t imagine any airplane at any airport not being locked up.

Once inside the plane, a matter of removing a few screws on both side panels revealed the fuel lines as they made their way into the floor area. I took the vice grips and adjusted them down to an opening of about a quarter inch. I then found a nice accessible area where I could crimp the line. It took a few adjustments on the wrench but I managed to crimp each line down. I then carefully screwed the panels back in place. Just as I was closing the doors Tom walked up and wanted to know if everything was alright.

“Oh, yeah, nice plane,” I said to Tom.

“Yeah, nice plane, now let’s get outta here,” Tom replied with some urgency in his voice.

We all loaded into André’s airplane and taxied towards the end of the runway. The wind had about given up and the light shining on the windsock showed it just hanging limply indicating no particular direction. I figured we would go out the way we came in.

I would prefer hitting the water to the side of the hill anytime. At the end of the runway I held my feet hard on the brakes and pushed the throttle in. The engine was near full power before I let off the brakes.

The plane moved forward and I added full power and about ten degrees of flaps. We were pretty heavy now with Bruce in the back seat and I knew we were close to the weight limit of the airplane.

We passed by the airport office to our right and I knew then we were halfway down the runway and still not off the ground. I could see a light out ahead of us and reasoned it was a marker light at the end of the runway.

“Lookout!” Tom yelled.

His night vision was better than mine and he saw the hash marks indicating the end of the runway seconds before I did. I pulled back on the yoke and the plane struggled into the air just as we passed over the last of the markers.

The light I had seen was actually a stern light of a boat that was about 50 yards offshore. The stall warning sounded letting me know we were too slow and about to stall the plane. I pushed the nose over and again we were over the beach at just a few feet.

“We gotta stop doing this!” I yelled out to Tom over the noise of the full throttled engine.