DEBRIEF
Roger looked away from the window and sat up in his chair. Yes, the tricky part was over, but at what cost?
He hadn’t wanted to do the run from Colombia through the islands. First off, there was a lot of heat because of the television drug war waged around Florida by Vice President George H.W. Bush. Second, his well-honed sixth sense had given him a weird feeling about it. Finally, the whole trip was pretty much senseless because Roger had already shifted his farming operations from South America to the small Central American backwater of Belize, a peaceful, English-speaking nation 500 miles closer than Colombia. There, he’d taught his growers how to grow the much more potent sinsemilla—seedless—pot. It resulted in a stellar product that cost him a fourth of what he paid for Colombian and he sold it for twice as much at wholesale.
But his chief pilot, H.R. “Hanoi” Gibson, had set up a final trip to collect a debt owed to him by his Colombian associates, a trip that was delayed because it was late in the season and quality product was scarce. The Colombians had to go deep into the mountains to find the required quality, so during the wait, Hanoi went to Alaska to make a few legitimate bucks hauling salmon. Unfortunately, he died there when workers overloaded his airplane and it crashed on takeoff, leading Roger to use the inexperienced Billy for the run—and the resulting head-to-head with The Man had broken his multi-year streak of good planning and good luck.
This was where the as-yet untallied costs lurked. He and his crew had essentially hit a hornet’s nest with a big stick. He knew the feds were pissed and would swarm in all directions looking for the guys who embarrassed them. He wondered which way they would swarm and, more importantly, whether he’d left a trail.
He put on his sunglasses, grabbed several rolls of quarters, drove to a pay phone, and called his California answering service. Prepaying for this service with money orders and using pay phones created untraceable anonymity, a key element of Roger’s business operations.
Roger dialed the 800 number, gave the operator his extension, and picked up two messages. The first said: “Mike called.” That meant “delivery completed.” The second contained a coded callback number from the boys in Georgia. He placed a call to the deciphered number, and a pay phone rang.
“Joe’s Pizza, we deliver!”
“Yes, you do,” Roger replied, recognizing Joel’s voice, still pumped from their adventure. “How’d it go?”
“Perfect! Blew all the tires, nose gear snapped, props hit, wrecked the plane. Then I guess after we left the place turned into a friggin’ combat zone!”
“What do you mean, you guess?” Roger frowned. “What happened?”
“My dad knows one of the deputies,” Joel said. “Dude told him someone cut loose from the plane after it hammered, sheriff shot back, then the other deputies showed up and they blasted each other half the night. Dude said sheriff thought he was fighting Cubans. Guess the feds thought they were fighting smugglers ’cause sheriff and his boys showed up in their own cars. What a clusterfuck!”
Roger heard laughter over the line, but this was not good news. The hornets would be even madder now.
“Anybody get hurt?” he asked, dreading the answer.
“Nah, but Dude said the feds turned their cars into Swiss cheese,” Joel said. “Then the boys started flanking ’em, so they ran for the woods and kept shooting. Didn’t sort it out until the local cops showed up in squad cars.”
Laughter on the line again, and Roger smiled in spite of himself.
“Great work, guys.” Roger said, “but be sure you lay low for awhile, you know? And remember—”
“Yeah, we know,” Joel interrupted. “‘Don’t talk trash, don’t flash the cash.’ And just to make sure we don’t, we’re heading south to skydive until it’s all gone.”
Now it was Roger’s turn to laugh.
“Good plan,” he said. “Have fun and check back in a week.”
“Will do. Blue skies.”
Roger hung up, somewhat relieved. The feds and sheriff would be fighting with each other over the mess more than they’d be hunting him. His panthers had performed flawlessly and he knew they’d be cool afterward, too. They were still kids in age but they already lived like grown men.
Roger sighed. The same could not be said for Billy. No phone call would do for him. Roger needed to deal with Billy in person.
The noon sun beat down on Roger as he entered a small house in a modest part of town, carrying a briefcase. He heard snoring as soon as he got inside and saw Billy sprawled on the sofa, more comatose than asleep. He walked lightly down a hallway into the nearest bedroom, where he found Dave sleeping soundly, too.
He went back to the kitchen and started the coffee machine, then turned on the radio to a medium volume. He didn’t want to bulldoze them, but they needed to get up and running so he could debrief them and move on to the next thing—the weekend was coming. He dropped his sunglasses on the kitchen table and sat down to wait for the radio and the smell of brewing coffee to do their work.
Roger was sorry he’d met Billy and sorrier still that he’d used him for a run. He certainly wouldn’t do so again. Damn that Hanoi anyway, getting killed two days before the run, leaving him without a pilot—and prompting him to violate two of the rules that had served him so well over the years: Know when to say no to a run; and use only trusted, team-oriented people for critical slots.
Roger knew in hindsight that Hanoi getting killed should have killed the run too—and would have if it wasn’t for Roger’s two-edged personality trait of giving people a chance to prove themselves, even though they might not be up to it. It was a great trait for life in general, but a dangerous one in business, especially the smuggling business.
Billy had been flying jumpers at a nearby parachute center, dreaming as he did so of “getting one in” to become a millionaire—and dropping hints about it to certain people in the jump community. Those people had passed on his hints to Roger, and when Hanoi died, Roger focused more on figuring out a way to get the run done than he did on figuring whether he should do it at all.
So he let Billy fly, without knowing whether Billy fit the profile of a “Team Nelson” operator. Billy, for his part, jumped at the chance because he wasn’t competent enough to put a run together by himself—though, in fairness, not many people were.
Twenty minutes later, the three men were settled into their chairs around the kitchen table, Dave sucking down coffee, Roger sipping his as Billy finished up his version of the previous night’s run.
“. . . and when that DEA plane spotlighted me on the runway, I held back until they hit the nails,” he said calmly, in sharp contrast to his demeanor when it actually happened.
“Thank those guys in Georgia for me, will ya? They sure saved my bacon.”
And ours too, Roger thought as he grinned, not at what Billy said, but on the look he knew would cross Billy’s face if he heard a recording of his panicky “I’m outta here!” as he took off too soon from that Georgia runway, without knowing for sure that the DEA plane had been disabled.
“Yeah, I’ll let them know,” Roger said, suppressing the urge to tell Billy what a complete dickhead he’d been throughout the run. Roger knew that to keep Billy from becoming an after-the-fact danger to them, he had to feel good about what he’d done, and think that he was still part of the team so that he’d observe those two “end-game” rules that were so critical: “Don’t talk trash, don’t flash the cash.”
So Roger smiled and congratulated Billy, then handed him the briefcase. Billy opened it and his eyes went wide as he surveyed the neat stacks of green that filled it.
“Wow,” he said softly, more to himself than to his companions. “Just like the movies.”
Roger and Dave rolled their eyes at each other, knowing that the mesmerized Billy wouldn’t notice. Billy thumbed through a few stacks of Franklins, then snapped the briefcase shut and stood up.
“I think I’ll catch a few more ZZZs,” he said, and patted the briefcase. “With this. Thanks, man.”
Roger and Dave watched him disappear into a bedroom, then drained their coffee cups. Roger put on his sunglasses and they headed outside.
“How do you think Billy’s gonna handle this?” Roger asked as they got in the car.
“Like you would expect,” said Dave knowingly.
“Great,” Roger said, facetiously, and they both chuckled as they headed to the motel where Mike was staying. They both knew it had been a mistake bringing Billy into the operation but they were stuck with him now and could only hope for the best.
“Fortunately, your system is bad-ass enough to overcome some flawed parts and bad luck,” Dave said. “Sure was nice to have those ‘what-if’ plans in place and ready to go.”
“Extra gas never hurts, either,” Roger added.
“Part of your plan, too, my man,” said Dave, appreciatively.
“Still ended up being a lot closer call than we’ve ever had,” Roger reminded him, and paused for a long moment. “Maybe I shoulda called it off after Hanoi went it.”
Dave shrugged.
“Maybe, but you didn’t and it worked anyway. Next!”
Roger smiled. Next is right, he thought to himself, though maybe not in the way Dave is thinking.
“I think it’s time to reevaluate things,” Roger said after they joined an already up and about Mike in his motel room. “Hanoi’s gone, and we just kind of forced this last one through. I’m not happy with what happened in Blairsville and I think you ought to know what really happened.”
“The way Billy told it—” Dave started to say.
“—made him the hero, I’m sure,” smirked Roger. Mike and Dave traded concerned glances as Roger cleared his throat and became Billy—imitating the rookie’s timid radio voice, and reenacting his imagined expressions and gestures. Roger crouched as if he were sitting in the pilot’s seat, widened his eyes, and hyperventilated.
“Why aren’t you telling me everything, Roger?” Roger said in Billy’s high-pitched, frightened voice. “I’m all alone in this tin can of an airplane. I’m freaked out! Oh my Gawwwd!’”
Dave and Mike bellowed in laughter. They knew it was hard staying cool during your first run, but neither they nor one they knew had ever sounded that bad.
“I’m surprised he didn’t shit his pants,” Roger said in his own voice, shaking his head.
“How do you know he didn’t?” Mike deadpanned.
They all laughed again, then they got serious again, with the eerie feeling hanging over their conversation that somebody could have been killed on this one, either one of them or one of their pursuers.
“If I hadn’t been there holding his hand literally every moment of the run, we’d be cleaning up shit instead of collecting money,” Roger went on. “I kept asking myself, ‘why did I let this imbecile fly for me!?’”
“Everybody fucks up now and then,” Mike said gently, “and you were long overdue.”
“True enough but this one almost cost us big-time—and, my old and dear friends, it confirms what you both know: I’m also long overdue for getting out of this business.”
Mike and Dave traded glances and sighed in unison at their old friend.
“Yeah,” Dave said quietly, “we know.”
“And like you said,” Mike continued, “with Hanoi gone it just didn’t work like it should. Makes more sense getting out than trying to find and train a new pilot.”
“Who’d never measure up to Hanoi anyway,” Dave added.
Roger was touched but not surprised by their understanding.
“It’s been fun and easy working with you guys,” Roger said, “and you know from how much I pay you that for me smuggling dope was more about the thrill than the cash.”
“But with a young family and a thriving drop zone, it just ain’t worth the risks any more, is it?” Mike said, finishing Roger’s sentence for him. Roger nodded, but didn’t say anything. He was afraid his voice would break if he did, and he didn’t want his friends to see him blubbering.
There was a long silence filled alternately with meaningful glances and staring at the floor.
“Won’t be the same without you,” said Mike. “Aren’t too many people like you in the world, especially in this trade.”
“Thanks, Mike,” Roger said, sure of his voice again, “but you hit it on the head. It just doesn’t feel right any more… it’s hard to explain.”
“Then don’t,” said Dave. “We get it. Maybe hard for us to imagine being in your shoes, with everything going on at the drop zone and finding time for your wife and kids, but we get it—and no matter what you decide, we’re with you, buddy.”
“Aren’t too many like you guys in the world, either,” Roger said, “especially in this trade.” He clapped his hands together. “So it’s settled. I’m leaving as soon as we can sort it out, but I’ll leave it in good order if you decide you want to carry on. So Mike, be ready to fly at the DZ mid-morning. Dave, I’m gonna give you a run for your money at team training tomorrow!”
Those words signaled the end of the meeting. Now it was time to play! They stood, shook hands and embraced, manly back-slapping embraces to hide their true feelings as this beginning-of-the-end began to sink in. Then Roger separated from them and looked at them with a twinkle in his eye.
“Before I go, though, I have one more run I’m thinking about.”
Dave grinned. Mike smirked.
“Of course you do,” said Mike.
“Details later,” Roger smirked back. “Now let’s go skydive!”