Twenty-seven-Thousand Feet Over the Atlantic,
October 1969
Jorge Ortiz and I had seats together in a mostly empty Pan Am DC-8 jet doing a daily milk run from Miami to Barranquilla, to Bogota, and back to Miami.
“I’ll summarize a few important things about the Comanche,” offered Ortiz. “Obviously, we bought the PA-24-250 with the extended range ninety-gallon tanks. Gross weight is twenty-nine-hundred pounds. With ninety gallons of fuel, the payload is six-hundred-seventy pounds. Subtract out the average hundred and seventy-pound pilot and you have five-hundred pounds of cargo. But the cargo area is placarded at two-hundred pounds, so we removed the back seats, which give us more space and the ability to shift the center of gravity (CG) forward.”
“How can I do a proper weight and balance check prior to flight with these changes?” I said.
“Well, you can’t exactly. So, I did some test flights adding weight with dumbbells and other known weights at different moments in inch-pounds to determine an approximate CG at four hundred and four-hundred-fifty pounds.”
“Jesus. That scares the crap out of me.”
“Being scared tells me you’re well-trained. I explained this to three pilots; two hardly reacted to this trial-and-error method. The other one freaked out and wanted to quit.”
“What happened to him?”
“Well, he had seen too much, knew too much, and met too many people. One of the No Names arranged a fatal accident.”
Returning to the original subject, Ortiz asked me, “Have you ever taken off in a plane only to discover you had an aft CG problem?”
“Once, as a favor I ferried two fat helicopter pilots back to their home base. They had no baggage, so I thought: I’m within weight, but maybe toward the aft CG corner. Later, I calculated my CG limit and was lucky to have survived.”
Ortiz continued, “The plane can land at max gross weight and needs less than fifteen-hundred feet to land with 32 degrees of flaps. Therefore, if you sense a CG problem, make one-half standard rate turns to return and rearrange or remove cargo, and keep your speed up making those gentle turns. The landing strip is twenty-five-hundred feet and paved – almost commercial grade.”
“How large is the cargo door?” I asked.
“Twenty inches square. The marijuana is in bales of fifteen-by-eighteen-by-forty inches and weighs about fifty pounds, so it fits through the door. We have to arrange them by climbing over the seat. The other product is more compact and dense, and rides in stacks behind the pilot. Usually we take off with less than four hundred pounds of cargo and 15 degrees of flaps. You’ve flown Pipers before, so be careful when low on fuel about uncoordi- nated flight maneuvers that might uncover the fuel outlet in a tank. It is always kind of scary when the engine stops. Piper also recommends burning the aux tanks dry before switching to the main tanks. Finally, to prevent inadvertent gear retraction on the ground, you must move the handle aft before moving it upward. Now, you are an expert.”
“Do you have a proper Pilots Operating Handbook10 (POH) for me to study?”
“We can drive over to the strip when we arrive, and I’ll take it out of the plane for you to look over tonight, but I want to leave early tomorrow so we don’t have to dodge thunderstorms in the dark, a mistake we made during an initial run.”
I still had questions, but studying the POH would help a lot.
One of Ortiz’s men picked us up, and we drove directly to the private airstrip about thirty kilometers west of Barranquilla, where two Comanches were parked. One was down for maintenance.
In the nearby motel, I studied the POH, a process I’d done for many planes. Fatigue finally took its toll. I slept hard until the phone rang with a wakeup call. I understood nothing she said, except it was time to get up.
Ortiz and I drove to the strip in silence, drinking coffee. The airstrip looked better in daylight. No numbers were painted on the ends, which indicate compass direction if you add a zero. For example, runway 27 faces 270-degrees or due west. Ortiz said this runway was approximately perpendicular to the coastline, thus accommodating nocturnal winds from the differential heating of the land and sea.
I insisted on weighing each bale, but the coke was in one-kilo bricks.
“This weighing shit is going to slow us down,” groused Ortiz.
“Yeah, well it might mean that your load arrives intact along with two pilots,” I said, being in no mood for estimates.
“Also, does either of your assistants speak English?”
“I do,” said a man called Juan. “I or one other worker who speaks English will help you on trips when you come alone.”
“Thanks,” I replied. For a reason just beyond my reach, I was in a foul mood. Maybe it was the long, boring trip with Ortiz, almost thirteen-hundred miles with a fuel stop in a plane that tops out at one-hundred-fifty knots. Alternatively, I learned nothing here except the name of one laborer. I shrugged it off to do the preflight inspection and oversee the cargo layout. The more dense cocaine was toward the front, behind our seats, and the bales were in back. The procedure seemed to work out better than I expected.
“Three-hundred and fifty pounds,” beamed Ortiz.
“We are still over gross with two pilots.”
“You gringos worry too much.”
“Being careful keeps me alive.”
“Okay, let’s get out of Dodge,” said Ortiz. “That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, if you like cowboy movies.”
We got in and began the checklist, leaving the door open for ventilation.
“Fuel selector on right tank, mixture rich below three-thousand feet…”
“What are you doing?” demanded Ortiz.
“I’m trying to start the goddamn plane. Here’s an old west saying for you from Jessie James: ‘Who’s robbing this train anyway?’ I read the POH, and you don’t start with aux tanks. You switch to aux after altitude. Finally, I talk to myself when reading checklists so I can compare what comes out of my mouth with what I’m doing physically.”
Ortiz slumped back in his seat with two helpful comments. “The book says rotate at fifty-six knots. I recommend sixty-five knots plus 15-degree flaps because of the weight. I’ve had the nose wheel bang down on me trying to get off at fifty-six.”
“Thanks.” We had agreed that Ortiz would navigate and only assist with piloting duties. He had made this over-water run before, and we intended to fly low near the shore, which minimized reception of available navigation aids. Since international flight is illegal without a flight plan, we planned to stay at about a thousand feet until over the ocean to avoid detection. The Navy would pick us up on radar at Guantanamo, but we were drug runners, not a military threat.
“I’m setting 20 degrees on the heading bug,” said Ortiz. Fly that until you pick up the 12-degree radial off the Barranquilla vortac. The heading should work for about twenty-five miles to give us a wind correction angle, then we just dead reckon until we pick up a crossing radial off GITMO’s vortac. Better to fly over Navassa Island on western Haiti than get in Cuban airspace.”
“Time off is 8:50 p.m.,” I began. “Mixture rich. Prop., forward. Three greens on the wheels. Fuel pump on. Flaps at 15 degrees. Full power. Oil pressure green. No warning lights. Coming up on sixty-five knots. Rotate. Positive rate of climb. Retract gear and flaps. Level off at a thousand feet. Power back to 75 percent. Turning right to intercept the 12-degree radial. Trim off excess control pressure.
“Now, not much to do for the next three hours until we enter the Windward Passage,” I said to myself.
Ortiz reached behind his seat, “We try to think of everything for pilot comfort. Here’s a one-liter mason jar with a top for used coffee and drinks.”
“Thanks.”
The hours over open water with no features were grueling. We calculated a wind correction angle and stayed on that course. Ortiz had put in the GITMO navigation frequency and turned the volume up in hopes of hearing the Morse code identifier. Soon, we heard a faint pattern of dots and dashes.
“The needle is unstable,” I said. “What do you think of popping up to three-thousand feet to get a bearing, and then drop back down?”
Ortiz didn’t respond immediately. “Do it. Better to piss off the U.S. Navy than the Cubans by getting too close. Port-au-Prince radar can’t see this far west.”
Unfortunately, we were too close. The wind had shifted direction, pushing us westward toward Cuba. I dropped down to five-hundred feet and, after a quick calculation, flew almost due east at full power for 15 minutes, then back to one-thousand feet.
“We’re crossing the 120-degree radial,” said Ortiz. “Let’s fly a wide DME arc until we can see Haiti off to the right. Crossing 110 degrees, 100 degrees. I see Haiti on my side. We’re okay. Turn right to 15 degrees. No, make it 18 degrees for wind. That should take us close enough to Matthew Town on Great Inagua to pick up the non-directional beacon at the airport north of town, another hundred-and-fifty-five miles. Time now is 1:10 p.m. They’ll be open for fuel, but if one of our boys takes care of us, we give him the hundred dollars.”
An hour later, we were on the ground. It felt so good to stretch and walk around. The runway was lined on either side with white sand and salt, beyond which lay nothing but the scrubby, low brush that could tolerate this environment. The economy of the island is based on massive salt deposits, a main supplier to Morton’s Salt. The base operator’s office and fuel truck were on the far west end of the runway. One of the boys was taking care of us. The plane doors were locked, and a tarp lay on top of our cargo. We walked in, bought some peanuts and candy, and used the bathroom.
“I see your Comanches here often,” said the booming island voice from behind the counter. He looked fit, in his early fifties, and of mixed racial origin.
“I appreciate your business, but how come you don’t buy one of those fancy jets and fly direct?”
I decided to answer. “The fancy jets are several million dollars we don’t have. We operate on a narrow profit margin, so these planes cost about three-thousand dollars and burn a lot less fuel.”
“Well, better for me you stop in regularly. Nice to see somebody other than salt cargo planes. Looks like fuel is just under two-hundred dollars; let’s call it fifty cents for the nuts and drinks and two-hundred dollars for the whole thing.”
We climbed back in and set the heading bug for 340 degrees. Only six-hundred-and-fifty miles to go. This time the Bahamas lay in front of us. A direct course would take us over Nassau and into big trouble. The plan was to skirt the land masses on the north side, then turn west to 290 degrees after passing Great Abaco Island. From there it’s only a hundred miles to Valkaria airport.
We dropped down to two-hundred feet about fifty miles offshore, to penetrate the military air defense identification zone that lies off both coasts of the United States. If military radar picked us up, the operator would conclude the sole aircraft was too slow to be military, and thus a civilian law-enforcement problem.
Soon the small barrier islands of the coast came into view. With the help of land-based navigation aids, I believed the airport was at our 12 o’clock, just out of sight. Although we listened to the local frequency, nobody was on the air. With the strong onshore winds we knew runway 9 would be in use.
Valkaria was a typical World War II military airport with long runways for that time, which roughly formed the shape of an overlapping, equilateral triangle. This was a variation with an additional north – south runway in the middle of the triangle. Four airstrips of about four-thousand feet attested to its value for the military during the war. Shore reconnaissance aircraft and anti-ship planes were launched from here for both the Gulf and the southeastern U.S.
“I got it at 11:30,” Ortiz almost shouted. “Let’s pull up to one-thousand feet and do right traffic for runway 9.”
“Sounds good,” I replied. I had already shoved in some power to bring us to traffic pattern altitude and looked forward to a smooth landing. I dropped the gear on the downwind leg of the pattern. All planes, big or small, normally fly a rectangular configuration before they turn onto the final approach. This explains how you sometimes see the airport out of your window in good weather and wonder why the pilot is flying past it.
“Shit! I’ve only got two greens,” exclaimed Ortiz. One of the three wheels was not down and locked, a serious problem.
“Exchange bulbs,” I ordered. “I’m breaking left and climbing to two-thousand feet while we sort this out.”
“I switched them, and it’s not the bulb,” said Ortiz.
“Have you had this problem before in this plane?” I asked.
“Once it flickered for a while, and then gave me a solid green.”
“I’m at two-thousand feet. Any objections to shaking the plane to make it lock?”
“No,” said Ortiz. “Let’s try that before the manual gear-extension procedure. Head a couple miles south, the alligators there won’t report anything unusual.”
“Are you ready?”
Ortiz nodded. I began a series of violent side-to-side oscillations to try to force the unlocked main wheel to move into place.
“Stop! It’s green,” yelled Ortiz. “Let’s get this thing on the ground before I puke on your shirt.”
Ortiz gave me taxi instructions to the backside of an old hangar where we tied down the Comanche. Two men and a truck were waiting. He had made an international call from the Matthew Town airport with an estimated arrival time. In fewer than ten minutes, the four of us had transferred the cargo. One man was Latino, the other a black American.
“Sweep out the plane. I don’t any want drug traces,” ordered Ortiz to the truck drivers.
I introduced myself to both men, but was more interested in the American. When I said my name was James, the black man looked briefly at me but did not smile.
“You two are tocayos, ‘the same name,’” chuckled Ortiz. “Kinda like namesake. When somebody else has your first name, you have a special relationship.”
I looked at James, but he turned away.
Motioning behind him, Ortiz said, “We always park a car here with keys under the mat. Although it’s another hundred-and-fifty miles to Miami, Mr. Sterling doesn’t want these planes near there. The airspace is too congested unless you file a proper flight plan, talk to controllers, and follow all the other procedures. So, no paper trail involving these aircraft. I’m going to ride a few miles in the truck, spend the night, and then get a commuter flight back to Miami. Besides, I’m tired of looking at you. But good job.”
“No sweat,” I said. “And you were getting uglier with each passing mile.”
“Fuck you, and here’s your money.”
“Sweet dreams.”
I rooted under the mat for the keys and cranked up the ’67 Chevy. My mind was spinning with what I had and had not learned.
Race is a common bonding agent in prison and street cultures. Ortiz works for Sterling, and both are Latinos. Sterling, the logistics man, works with a production manager in Barranquilla, another Latino. For the trip north, however, it’s a black American and a Latino. The distribution manager is sending one of his own to watch over the load. It wouldn’t be unloaded in Richmond, too far south, or in Baltimore, although both cities contain potential users. Under the firm control of a black gangster, the drugs will be unloaded in a single, secure place in the Washington area. From Washington, he can route smaller amounts, at low risk, both north and south. So, the production manager is Colombian, the logistics manager is Cuban, and the distribution manager is a black American. He is probably a major heroin dealer who has also been in the business for a long time with an established distribution system. Is this a true triumvirate, or is one the boss of bosses?
They also keep their mouths shut. Ortiz gave me no information outside of what I needed to make the runs. If I had probed, it would have aroused suspicion. Plenty of opportunities existed to talk about the operation. Also, I need to warn Ray to resist the temptation to send a couple of FBI agents to Matthew Town, a small, gossipy place. Unlike our early guess, they do not land at or near Miami. This no-place airport on the central Florida coast is much safer.
I need to look up tocayo in a Spanish-English dictionary. The black American had no accent and probably doesn’t speak Spanish. Maybe I can use this word to strike up a conversation – or pull his chain one night at the airport.
Almost there. I’ll be glad to see Jamie, and she’ll be happy to see me, hopefully not too happy.
I parked the Chevy at Ex-Pat Reality, picked up my car, and drove home.
As I was fumbling with the house keys, Jamie opened the door and pulled me inside. She was wearing white shorts and a sexy tube-top. After briefly looking me over like some sort of patient, she hugged me hard enough to crack my back.
“There’s another place on your back that needs to be cracked. May I?”
“Do you know what you’re doing? I don’t want to spend the night in an orthopedic ward.”
She took my question as a “yes,” and embraced me a little higher up. The bear-hug did feel good as did having her big, perky breasts pressed into me.
“Hey,” I said. “Where’s my forehead kiss?”
“Coming up.”
The kiss was sweet and gentle – not romantic or erotic. I was actually looking forward to it.
“You appear like crap, taste like salt, and smell of sweat and oil. Was this the last place you bathed?”
“Stop equivocating! Are you going to let me in or not? By the way, you look great, and the answer is yes, my last bath was here. Sometimes Ray or Roy works late. I want to call on your line. Sit next to me if you can stand it.”
“Roy! I just made a run. Shall I brief you now, or do you prefer to go home? How detailed? Everything. Okay, I will write this up tomorrow if Jamie can get a cleared courier from her office to carry it to D.C., so take light notes. She’s here with me and says no problem on the courier.”
I emptied my brain from my impression of Marcus Sterling, to the mechanics of their flight planning, to my preliminary conclusions driving home. I emphasized that I did not want any federal agents snooping around Matthew Town. I waited for his reaction.
“You filled in large information gaps with only one trip,” Roy began. “I agree with the assessment that one black and one Latino driver was a control measure by the distribution manager. D.C. has about four large-scale heroin dealers. Absent any turf wars, we assume they have an agreement.”
“Four questions,” I said. “Who seems to be the most security conscious? Who reaches outside of the black stereotype user with an ambitious distribution network? Does one or two seem more prosperous than in the past? Has law enforcement focused their intelligence efforts on anybody for money laundering? Maybe we can eliminate at least one or two that way.”
“That is a tall order, but I have some ideas. Tomorrow, I will task some analysts on your questions. We may need help from BNDD and the law enforcement side of Treasury. I plan to call the two FBI agents assigned to help me on this operation. Look, at the risk of being blunt, you’re not the lone ranger. We have other federal agencies available to us.”
“The FBI role doesn’t concern me. I wish we had more help from them. For the reasons we discussed, however, I’m uncomfortable with BNDD’s role. Moreover, as investigators, they are not as skilled as the FBI.”
“Okay. We’ve had this discussion before. It’s your ass, so I’ll reluctantly defer to you. Let me think of something bureaucratically useful for them to do that keeps you isolated. If I come up with anything on the heroin-cocaine dealers here, I’ll call. You sound grumpy and exhausted. Go to bed.”
“I need to shower first or my housemate will put me in a shed next to the gators.”
“Gators?”
“We live next to a drainage ditch full of them, and she eats them!”
“Yeah, better go shower. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Roy.”
“James, I’m so proud of you. What you are doing takes real courage.”
“Thanks,” I replied, somewhat self-consciously.
“Shower that scum off of you, and I’ll give you a nice massage to relax tense muscles.”
“Thanks.”
After I toweled off, I pulled on a pair of clean shorts I used for lounging around the house and flopped down on my bed.
“Jamie,” I called. “I’m ready to be relaxed.”
She came in with a bottle of lotion, the same white shorts, but with a sheer negligee top. I stared; she looked so sexy, especially for a man who recently left prison.
“I’m glad you like the top,” she said casually. “Now lie face down, and I’ll work on your back, neck, and legs, then flip over for the front later.”
Although she was quite skilled at the massage, the show wasn’t very subtle. I thanked her, got a forehead kiss, but slept somewhat fitfully. I did not want a complicated relationship with Jamie.
The Hammer
Jamie gave the memo to the courier the next morning. I walked out to look for the gators, which I concluded were a myth. I had two more days off, then a solo run. The sun was behind me, and a reflected light briefly hit me in the eyes, then a sound from across the ditch. A moment later, a large gator crawled up the concrete slope toward me. I slowly backed toward the front steps, attributing the sound to the gator and forgetting about the light in my face.
I sat down in the Lazy-Boy to wonder if I was under surveillance. By whom? Nothing made sense. If Sterling had discovered my identity, I’d be in a dumpster with two in the back of the head. I didn’t like coincidences.
For the next two days, I worked over at Opa Locka airport, doing odd jobs for the chief mechanic. Actually, my Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic’s certificate had expired, but I had done enough A&P work that his assignments were easy. Working gave me time to think about next steps. One crazy idea was to take a commercial flight to Barranquilla, stay in a tourist hotel, and find a cab driver who spoke English. Then what? Say, what’s the name of the local drug kingpin? I put the idea on rear burner. I also mulled over the apparent surveillance problem. Even if local law enforcement knew I was on parole, they have bigger problems to deal with than snooping around in bushes taking pictures.
The next day, I told Jamie about the surveillance matter. She was puzzled as well, but said she would inform SAC Wainwright. We said goodbye, and I headed over to Ex-Pat Reality to arrive by 8:00 a.m. I knocked on Sterling’s door and was greeted with “Enter.” No Names One and Two were standing in front of his desk. They frisked me roughly and removed the pistol from the small of my back, the first place they looked. I thought this might be my last day on earth. Nobody was smiling. Sterling took a single, typewritten page, turned it around and pushed it toward me. Complete with a correct address, it appeared like a formal letter to Marcus Sterling, President of Ex-Pat Reality. I read the letter:
Dear Mr. Sterling:
You have employed James Sixkiller as a pilot. He was an associate of mine in Oklahoma for years. Does he still carry a pistol in the small of his back? The only good thing I can say about him is he’s a skilled pilot. Otherwise, he is a double-crossing, thieving, piece of human garbage that owes me more than ten-thousand dollars. Watch your back because he’s watching it too.
Sincerely,
A Distant Friend
“Care to comment, James?” said the icy voice of Marcus Sterling.
“Yes. Was it postmarked in Oklahoma?”
“No. It was pushed under the door.”
“That’s because I have no associates in Oklahoma. I owe nobody money, let alone ten-thousand. I worked alone and was busted alone by a border patrol agent who spotted the tail number of my plane as I flew low over the river. That letter was hand-delivered by the same person who has been snapping photos of me from the bushes near my house.”
“James, how did he know where you conceal your pistol?”
“From the photo surveillance. Finally, no low life in Oklahoma knows anything about you, least of all the correct address of your company. Somebody here has you in their cross hairs and is trying to set me up for whatever comes next.”
Sterling said nothing during my rebuttal, but his body shifted slightly when I used the phrase “correct address of your company.” His silence continued for a full minute after I finished, looking at me with a penetrating gaze designed to give him more information or break the weak. I returned his gaze without expression. It was his move.
“Number Two, return the pistol to James. James, make sure to phone the pick-up team from the Bahamas. Ortiz gave you the number, correct?”
“Yes, and I will call.”
“All of you get out my office.”
Marcus punched intercom for his secretary to call Tyrone in Washington. Tyrone picked up on the third ring.
“Good to hear from you too. I need your advice.” He read the letter to Tyrone, repeated what Sixkiller had said, and how he had reacted.
Marcus gave Tyrone time to think, as he would do if the roles were reversed.
Tyrone began, “I believe Sixkiller. He had all the right answers without knowing this was coming. That said; the only thing Sixkiller could be setup for is a load rip-off. We may have a problem in the pipeline similar to the Nassau double-cross.”
“Tyrone, I trust our pilots and have confidence in all of them, even Sixkiller. Whoever is setting this up knows one of our pilots is a gringo, and if I were to guess, at least one Latino is behind this. Do you think this is coming from Barranquilla or here?”
“I can’t say yet. Maybe even from my office, too many unknowns. Call Gonzalez in Barranquilla and tell him we need his help – which we do. His ego couldn’t tolerate finding out second hand we’re doing an internal investigation. Frankly, the only possibilities for problems from Barranquilla are the ground crew loading planes or Alvaro’s big mouth. Thinking about it, I see this as more of a Miami problem. Why set up Sixkiller? Why announce their intentions? Marcus, maybe you are the target, and this is not directly related to drugs.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. The letter said to watch my back. What about the Matthew Town gossip?”
“I doubt it. How would they know your company’s address?”
“Good point.”
“We caught and killed the guy in Madrid,” said Tyrone, “but he never gave up the dirt bags in Nassau. Everybody talks when tortured, so I don’t think he knew their identities. I’ll also bet the airplane is at the bottom of the Atlantic, and the drugs were sold overseas. Unless you personally are the target, my assumption is these same people are planning another trip to the well.”
“It rises to the top of my list.”
“Are any of the four No Names trained investigators?”
“Yeah. Number Three was a small-town detective sergeant. He actually attended the FBI National Academy program for cops, but didn’t graduate for technical reasons,” said Marcus.
“What about putting him with one of the other three, if any has an IQ above room temperature, explain the situation, and see what they come up with. I’ll do the same on this end. Alvaro can check out his ground teams. Ask Alvaro to send someone he trusts to check their homes. Are they living a little too well? Bank accounts, and things like that. What do you think?”
“I like the plan. Tyrone, you always ask me to call Alvaro with bad news.”
“It’s not exactly that. You have the right knack in delicate situations, especially if we suspect Latinos of screwing us. You know he doesn’t care much for blacks.”
“Okay. Stay in touch. First lead requires communication among all three of us,” said Marcus.
They hung up. Both feared the worst. Marcus pondered how to present the problem to all of the pilots. Their vigilance might save the day.
Rough Trip
I settled back in my seat for the two-and-a-half-hour flight to Barranquilla. Sterling believed me. In fact, I always flew the precious drugs and never had to ferry an empty plane back to Barranquilla. First, they would investigate internally for a problem. From the pilots’ perspective, the most vulnerable times are loading and unloading the product. Perhaps, we should ask for more security at these two points. How ironic, asking one set of killers to protect you from another. My enemy’s enemy is my friend.
“Welcome to Barranquilla” proclaimed the airport greeting in English and Spanish. My carry-on luggage consisted of water bottles and peanuts. If the Confederate army survived the 1863 siege at Vicksburg on fresh water and peanuts, I could reach Florida. Oh yeah, and the rinsed-out jars. Soon, I spotted Juan and another man, still carrying the “Sixkiller” sign. We drove west to the private strip where a truck was waiting with two men guarding it. They ambled off to watch from the shade.
“How much is in the truck, Juan?”
“About two-hundred-and-four kilos or four-hundred-and-fifty gringo pounds. I brought the scale because I know you worry about weight.”
I was watching the sky as we loaded the plane. It was clear and unbearably hot and humid – so humid that visibility was down to only five or six miles in the haze. Two of the three ingredients for thunderstorms were present. Hot air over warm water is inherently unstable. Hopefully, no trigger was waiting to cause the air to rise rapidly and form thunderstorms. Orographic lifting is out because the sea is flat, but a frontal boundary could provide the necessary lifting for storms, colder air sliding under hot air. I weighed and loaded the cargo with the able help from Juan and his assistant. Finally, we put the tarp over the load. I asked them to stay with me a few more minutes while I performed the plane preflight, which gave me an idea.
“Juan, I saw a pay phone off the main road here. How much does it cost to phone Barranquilla?”
“About fifteen cents or twelve-hundred pesos.”
“Can you give me twelve-hundred pesos to keep in the plane if I need to call after you leave today or some other day?”
“Sure.”
Handing him a pen and paper, “Write down the office phone in case of an emergency. Thirty kilometers is a long walk.”
I gave him a dollar in exchange for the coins and number. Juan was not trained to be security conscious. He wouldn’t know that my knowledge of Barranquilla operations was limited to him and this truck.
After taking off, I followed the usual route. This time, however, I did not stay low and climbed to ninety-five-hundred feet, an illegal altitude, but so what? The entire trip was illegal. The altitude did three things for me. It guaranteed me five-hundred feet of vertical separation from anyone flying legally out here. It vastly improved my ability to use ground-based navigation equipment. Finally, it gave me a better chance of seeing and avoiding thunderstorms.
I was able to track the twelve degrees radial off the Barranquilla vortac further this time. At ninety-five-hundred feet the wind was pushing me to the east, so I steered due north to maintain my position on the radial, a twelve-degree correction. The high altitude allowed me to monitor center frequencies intended primarily for commercial traffic. They would issue extreme-weather alerts if necessary. Finally, I listened to the Kingston vortac, which had recorded weather. The time passed, and I was content with this new plan, too content.
“Attention all aircraft, Center Weather Advisory three Charlie, level-four and level-five thunderstorms, moving northwest to southeast at thirty-five knots in lines from Kingston, Jamaica to Santiago, Cuba, tops to forty-five-thousand feet, hail to two inches possible, wind gusts to seventy knots.”
Damn! The mountains in Cuba and Jamaica, not some cold front, caused the orographic lifting! To the west, the distant sky appeared black with tinges of green. Think fast, Jake. Storms like this chew up and spit out small planes. Haiti. I’ll climb to eleven-thousand feet and cut right across western Haiti to outflank the lines. Center says the storms are moving at thirty-five knots, and I can coax about a hundred-and-sixty knots out of her at that altitude.
I shoved the throttle and prop forward and leaned the engine out to twenty-five degrees rich of peak exhaust gas temperature.
Question: What is my relative angle to the storm lines? I turned right to a heading of fifty degrees, probably too much. Next, I tuned in a low-powered, non-directional beacon in western Haiti. I was greeted with the sound of lightning instead of Morse code and quickly turned off the receiver. These beacons use the same frequencies as the AM radios found in most cars, rendering them useless in storms. The storms appeared to be growing or moving faster than thirty-five knots. Despite doing everything right, I seemed to be losing. At two miles high, Haiti should have been coming into view, despite the haze. I could see the coast at my 12 o’clock, but there was no time to congratulate myself.
“Unidentified aircraft over Haitian airspace heading fifty degrees; identify yourself or we will intercept you.”
Screwed. Buy time. Lie. Say I’m sorry. I did not want to be intercepted by some World War II fighter with real guns.
“Port-au-Prince Center, this is a Cessna 310, squawking 7700 (emergency), at eleven-thousand feet trying to outflank these storms. We apologize.”
In heavily accented English came the request: “Say tail number and intentions.”
I just invented a tail number with a U.S. country code and a mix of five letters and numbers, adding that our destination is Nassau.
“We don’t have a strip (flight plan) for your aircraft.”
“Manley (Jamaica) gave me vectors east for weather, and they just released me. They’re probably overworked.”
“Cessna 310, proceed as filed.”
“310 roger.”
If they had sent up an interceptor and seen a single-engine Piper instead of a twin-engine Cessna, I would have been forced down or shot down. I’m not sure which was worse. Papa “Doc” Duvalier and his Tontons Macoutes were legendary for their violence and extreme torture methods. No pilot of a plane loaded with drugs would leave Haiti alive.
Watching the north coast of Haiti slide under me, I realized how much I had overcorrected. No wonder the Port-au-Prince voice sounded so clear. The Ile de La Tortue lay directly in front of me, about thirty-five miles east of Haiti’s western tip. After turning left to a heading of three-hundred-fifteen degrees, I tried the non-directional beacon at Matthew Town. It rewarded me with Morse code and only a few crackles of lightning. Once clear of Haitian airspace, I shut off the transponder and dropped like a stone from eleven-thousand feet to two-hundred, where they could not see me.
Later, I climbed back to the traffic pattern altitude of one-thousand feet for the airport, the storms and Haiti lay behind me. But I had a slight tremble in my hands, probably from too much coffee. I saw one of the boys watching me set up to land. What did he plan for those hundred dollars?
“Glad to see you back so soon,” said the fixed base operator. “Where’s your partner?”
“Oh him. I pushed him out of the plane an hour ago for talking too much.” While not very funny, he enjoyed the only joke he might hear that day.
“I’m Rupert Nevis. What shall I call you?”
“James. Pleased to meet you officially.”
The line boy burst into the office and said, “It took seventy-eight gallons, Mr. Nevis.” He gave me a long stare. I nodded my head.
“Well, at $2.44 per gallon, the total is one-hundred-ninety dollars plus a bottle of soda on the house. I’m sorry about the high price of avgas. The price would be higher if Morton Salt didn’t come in regularly. You know how islands are. If we don’t make it here, somebody has to import it, for a price.”
I thanked Rupert for his hospitality, used the rest room, and grabbed a cola. I also called the pickup team. The line boy got his hundred-dollar fee for outstanding service, but I still visually checked the fuel and made sure the caps were screwed on tight. The air temperature and humidity had dropped a little, so visibility on the final leg would be much better.
After departure, I began ruminating over James who answered the phone. He was surly about my being late. I explained briefly, with Rupert no doubt listening, it was a weather delay. He ended the call with, “Hurry the fuck up because I don’t like long rides, I don’t like Latinos, and I don’t like standing here holding my dick because you had to run around a few raindrops.”
So, he’s another jerk having a bad day. At least I had some beautiful scenery on the way to Valkaria airport. From the extreme northwestern tip of Great Abaco, Grand Bahama lay off my left wing. The islands looked gorgeous in the setting sun.
At two-hundred feet and a hundred-and-forty knots, the barrier islands off the Florida coast slipped rapidly under me. I slowed up to make right traffic for runway 9. Later, I congratulated myself for a pretty landing after a jarring day. How odd that pilot skill seems measured by the landing. Despite having responsibility for many complicated tasks, the sideways look from another pilot is most likely to come because of a substandard landing. Down to business. I taxied to the truck.
Rodrigo and James waited. I greeted them both and called James tocayo, ignoring his bad phone manners.
“I ain’t nobody’s motherfucking tocayo. You can take that Spanish shit and shove it up your ass.”
Rodrigo piped up, “It’s not an insult. Relax.”
“I don’t have to like any of you white people or Latinos. I have to work with you because the boss said so.”
“I guess you don’t like Indians either.”
“I don’t like any of you motherfuckers who have never suffered the kind of oppression black people endured.”
Stirring the pot some more, I said, “You blacks don’t know anything about oppression; most of you survived slavery. Until 1890, the white government of this country starved, moved, and exterminated as many Indians as possible. All of the so-called Indian wars and relocations at the end of a bayonet reduced a pre-Columbus population of twenty-two million to one-million in two hundred years. Genocide was U.S. policy.”
“I wasn’t born then.”
“Well my grandparents were, and they were beaten if caught speaking their own language in school.”
“I work for a black man, an important black man, who wants to make sure these loads go where they’re supposed to, not stolen along the way. A lot of shit can happen between central Florida and D.C.”
“If Marcus Sterling and your boss thought I was a crook, would they let me fly off alone with a fortune in drugs?”
“I don’t get paid to second guess Marcus and Tyrone.”
His name, Tyrone, the D.C. connection. A slip because he’s upset.
“You know, James. I landed here willing to overlook the rude crap you gave me over the telephone. But you had to start slinging mud again. I don’t take shit from some ignorant truck driver whose only job is to babysit.”
James screamed something and charged directly at me. I stood like I wasn’t going to move; behind me was the truck door. At the last moment, I hopped to my right, dropped down and turned away from him so both hands were on the ground with my right knee in between them against my chest. The left leg shot out and sent him headfirst into the truck door. When he started to get up, I hit him with a roundhouse kick to his neck. He was out. I turned to Rodrigo and said, “Let’s unload the plane.”
Uh oh, I thought. He’s up and still wants to fight. I stepped over to him and hit him with a left uppercut so hard I could hear the jaw dislocate and teeth shatter from the impact. He never moved, and we loaded the truck. Later, he was semiconscious as I buckled the seatbelt around his waist. Rodrigo regarded me oddly.
“I don’t want him to get hurt in a crash,” I replied to the unasked question.
We swept out the Comanche and secured it. Having found the keys to the same ’67 Chevy, I was preparing to leave when Rodrigo walked over.
“I will tell my boss James started the fight, and I overheard the phone call. Maybe better if you had killed him. He is a dangerous man, and now he is your enemy. He will try to kill you someday.”
“Rodrigo, I appreciate you’ll tell the truth about this, and I promise to watch my back.”
Developments
At the first 7-Eleven along the road, I stopped for a big cup of ice water for my aching hand. Hatred for racism clouded my judgment, but I learned something useful. Hopefully, except for adding another enemy to a growing list, no damage was done to my relationship with Sterling. He will bring up the incident with me. In addition to the telephone number in Barranquilla, I had the first name on a short list of suspects in D.C.
The ice helped, and the drive to Miami did not seem to take so long, perhaps because it was more familiar now. I needed to talk to Ray or Roy, but it was after 9:00 p.m. when I parked in the driveway. Tomorrow will be soon enough.
Jamie was waiting inside with a big hug and a kiss to the forehead.
“Your hand is swollen,” said the surprised and slightly accusatory voice.
“The black racist who meets me to unload the plane attacked me.” I told her the story, including the two pieces of good news. She seemed a little subdued.
“James, let’s sit and talk.”
I climbed into the Lazy-Boy and she sat on the sofa next to me.
“This sounds important,” I said.
“I suppose it is,” she replied. “You’re more than a friend to me. I am so attracted to you – emotionally and physically. If you asked me for sex, I would be in the bedroom and naked before you could clear the door jamb.”
I laughed.
Pouting, Jamie said, “Now you’re making fun of me.”
“No,” I lied. “It’s a wonderfully clear summary. What an image!”
“I’m no home wrecker. Giving you a partially naked massage last week was wrong and selfish. It is so hard to accept there is something you want badly, but can never have. I tell you this because I love you. At first, I wanted a casual affair with a pleasant man staying in my house. That changed, however, as we worked together and my respect and admiration for you evolved. I realized that I had something valuable that I have never had before, a real friendship with a wonderful man who also shares my views on law enforcement as a unique brand of public service. Most outsiders don’t understand our world. For me, this is a rare and important relationship, and I do not want a sexual undercurrent to damage the friendship.”
She paused, then continued. “Respect for you will keep my lust in check. Please don’t think any less of me. Also, it’s not fair to Karen. I like the way your voice softens when you talk to her, and you’re not afraid to say ‘I love you’ to her in front of another person. That is precious, and I’ll do my part to support your marriage. Sometimes I think, ‘Why couldn’t he be a jerk like most men I know?’ You know, one-dimensional. I get along fine with them. They put that requirement in my job description. I have never been attracted to an adult, male friend. How about you?”
“Me, neither.”
“I’ll try not to taunt you sexually anymore.”
We both laughed, but we had moved to a different and more comfortable course now.
“The sexual attraction is mutual, and that’s not going to change. The key is how we handle it. I love you, too, but differently from Karen. You are good to me, a wonderful person, and a new kind of friend. Thank you for this needed course correction.”
“I’ve never had a male confidant. What are the rules?”
“Well, we keep our clothes on. I don’t know. We make up rules as we go with the overarching goal of preserving my marriage, and not letting either one of us get hurt.”
“Spoken like a true bureaucrat, but I think that’s right. Maybe we could hold hands and eat popcorn in front of the TV,” she mused. “And talk more. It’s scary to open up your soul to another person who is not a spouse. I think many marriages fail because couples keep secrets and don’t trust each other. I sense trust between you and Karen.”
“Could we hold hands outside?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but I could kick you, a sure sign we are true siblings.”
We both laughed gently. Jamie kissed my forehead again, and returned to the sofa with her feet toward me.
“We need to do this right,” she sighed. “Someday, I might meet Karen, and she will know in a heartbeat if we were lovers.”
“Female radar,” I offered.
“Yes.”
I turned on the television to Bonanza and moved to the sofa, putting a pillow behind my back to prop me up a little. “Come here,” half pulling her so that her head rested on my chest.
She put her hand over mine and whispered, “Thank you for helping to rearrange our relationship.”