After providing a copy of this story to my writing group, they gave it back to me with the following feedback. You can see their notes and their recommendations, and you can see how I incorporated it or not into the final draft.
Pilots of Convenience, Part 1 (Marked-Up Draft)
The old cargo plane creaked and groaned as we flew low over the jungle. An ancient DeHavilland Caribou, almost as old as Dart and I combined, flew much like her real namesake – big and awkward [Implies that Caribou can fly].
[Add more details of the sights, sounds, and smells of the cockpit.]
Dartanian Matthews, known as simply Dart [Filler clause], returned to his seat in the cockpit. He appeared as old as he actually was; he had not had an easy forty years.
“Oh, man, does that give me a rush!” he shouted [Would an experienced pilot exclaim like this?]. With the roar of the Caribou’s radial engines pushed to almost full power, I barely heard him.
I ignored him. I hated this type of flying. If given a choice, I wouldn’t be here, but this was the only job that would take me. [Jobs don't take people; employers do]
Buckling back into his seat, he placed his headset upon his pudgy round head. “Oh, man,” he said through the intercom, “this brings back memories. This is just like the days in my A-10 over Iraq!”
“Well, except for the fact that the A-10 is an armored jet with a big honking gun and Iraq is a huge desert, yeah, I can see how this is exactly like that,” I replied.
Dart laughed. He made the same comment on every flight, and I gave the same reply. Only Dart never called them flights; to him, they were "missions."
As we raced out of the foothills of southwestern Venezuela where we made our cargo drop, Dart grabbed the controls.
“Change of plans, Foe,” he announced as he turned us to a heading almost straight south. [Consider removing this whole line.]
Although my real name is Dan Carlyle, but I got the unfortunate nickname Foe my first day on the job. Upon first meeting Dart, I called him “Captain” and announced that I was his “F.O.” – short for “first officer,” the politically correct way of saying “co-pilot” in the airlines. After having a good laugh, he took to calling me “Foe.”
Our flight plans were simple – take off from Aguachica and head southeast to Cravo Norte. Along the way, a slight deviation into Venezuelan airspace, look for the signal, make an airdrop, and resume the flight plan. It sounded looked easy on paper.
In reality, however, things were much different. We took off from Aguachica [Redundant] around dusk, loaded with about 5,000 pounds of cargo around dusk. From there, we had about ten minutes before we had to be above 7,000 feet in ten minutes to clear the first mountains. From there, it was an additional climb to 10,000 feet. If it was cloudy – which was half the time – you we had to ensure you were clear of the clouds prior to nearing Venezuelan airspace, else otherwise you we wouldn’t be able to make the drop.
Then, we crossed into Venezuela, descended to 5,000 feet, and looked for the flares. Once we saw them, Dart went into the back and dumped the cargo while I held the controls and kept the plane from pitching wildly up following the rapid decrease in weight and balance. [Cool; never considered that you'd have to do this. Adds realism to the story.]
Then we would turn and continue our flight path over Venezuela and southeast back into Colombia as if nothing ever happened.
But tonight, following the cargo drop, Dart cancelled changed our flight plan, turned us on a heading of 179 [Unclear what this means], and took us down to 1,500 feet, just above treetop level.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“I want to check something out,” Dart replied.
“There’s not much to see out here but jungle.” I looked out the window as we crossed the Rio Arauca, welcoming us back into Colombia [How is this a change?]. “We’re not supposed to deviate too far from the flight plan. That’s Rule #5.”
“Ah, but Rule #7 is 'Ensure the safety of the aircraft, the cargo, and the crew.'”
“And notice the order of those priorities,” I added.
“And as you recall from our safety briefing, we should vary the egress route after making the drop.” A smile appeared on Dart’s weathered face. “I’m just varying the egress route.”
As I looked over the map, I saw that we were heading towards Tamé instead of continuing on east to Cravo Norte. “Tamé?”
“Yeah, that’s what I want to see.”
“There’s nothing to see at Tamé.” I was puzzled; we’d flown in there about a dozen times, and never had Dart shown any interest in the place. “Why are you interested in that place now?”
“I heard Juan talking the other day.” Juan was one of our ground servicing crew. A Colombian of dubious loyalty, he had connections. Any time we needed something, we asked Juan; he provided it to us as long as we paid cash (Rule #3 – Always pay cash) [I like the listing of the rules] and never asked any questions (Rule #1 - Don't ask questions).
As I was about to ask Dart what tourism advice Juan provided him, I saw flashes from the jungle below, followed by the high-pitched pinging of bullets off the airframe.
“What the hell?!”
“Juan said the FARC [Unclear what this means] had taken an area outside of Tamé. Guess he was right!”
Dart got off on this kind of crap. Me? I never planned to do this job. Dart called us mercenaries, but that wasn't right. Mercenaries got paid to fight in wars; we weren't here to fight. Well, maybe he was, but I certainly wasn't. If given the choice, I’d have stayed working as a flight instructor for the rest of my life. The pay sucked and the flying wasn’t so good, but hell, you I didn’t get shot at!
I grabbed the yoke and cranked it hard left while shoving the throttle all the way forward. The engines roared and the airframe groaned as I stood the plane on her left wingtip. We didn’t normally bank more than 60 degrees in a steep turn, but I think I got her well up near 80 degrees.
Dart placed his large calloused hands upon his head and laughed.
“What are you thinking?” I shouted. I didn’t know if they were still shooting at us, but I wasn’t about to find out.
I took us up to 5,000 feet at a heading of 095 and leveled off.
“Man, that was a rush! [This is a repeat of Dart's earlier line.]” Dart gave out a hearty laugh. “Now that was like Iraq!”
“Take the yoke,” I said, as I let out my breath.
[Remove from here...]
When you are going through flight training, in addition to navigation and meteorology, there should be flight training should include a class on labor relations [This makes no sense]. My plan was quite well thought out. I was a certified flight instructor for about a year before I decided there was an easier way. I heard about this program in which you paid $35,000 to this a training academy and in return, they provided you the "opportunity" to fly the line in one of their turboprops. I went into debt as far as I could plunking down the money to jumpstart my career. No problem, I thought; in a year, I would be making six figures at a major and would pay off the debt in no time.
It wasn’t until much later after my “training” that I found that what I was involved in was called “PFT” – “Paying for Training,” and it was frowned upon by all the union pilots who scraped and climbed their way to the top. Add to that the unfortunate choice [Is it a choice?] of being on the wrong side of the picket line at a regional, and after two years into my airline career, it [Unclear; the career?] was over [Why is his career over?].
Then, one day, I was at a site called “jetcareers.com.” I found a job posting for, of all things, a prop job in a foreign country. The details were limited, but the one that stuck out was “Must be able to pass a background check.” I thought the whole thing was a scam, but I was desperate, so I replied. And the rest is history [Cliche].
[...All the way to here. Too much backstory and slows things down.]
We flew on for several minutes before I broke the silence.
“You know, those were probably the guns we dropped that they were shooting at us.”
“Rule #2,” he reminded me. That rule was simply “Never talk about the cargo.”
“Listen, we both know who we work for, and I think we both know what our ‘cargo’ is.”
Officially, we worked for an airline based in Massachusetts. But if you went to at the airline’s address, you’d find was a lawyer's office. The airline didn’t exist except on some bureaucratic paperwork. That’s because the people who paid us – the ones we really worked for – were based in Langley, Virginia. [Aren't most government agencies here? Who knows what this is?]
“You want this landing?” Dart asked.
“Yeah. I don’t trust you.”
“Outstanding.” Dart reached into his flight bag behind his seat and removed a small set of bongos that he bought at a market in Bogotá. He beat the bongos slowly building up the pace. “Your drum roll has commenced, sir.” [Great detail to emphasize his attitude; builds character with quirky feature.]
I turned and lined up the runway and did a double take. Normally unlit, Usually we paid a group of kids to line up half a dozen 50-gallon drums of fuel making smudge pots as crude runway markers. Instead, though, we saw actual lights down there. Not your standard runway lights, but enough temporary lighting to make the small strip visible from miles away.
My first instinct was that we had the wrong airport, but I knew we were where we needed to be. Then my next thought was that the airport had been taken by guerrillas, but then they were more apt to destroy the airfield than improve it
“Look at those lights,” I said to Dart.
Dart kept beating on the bongos and increased the beat. “I’m not stopping your drum roll.”
I eased the throttle back and added flaps. As the roar of the engines eased, I could hear Dart’s bongos gaining volume and speed.
Unsure of what waited for us upon landing, I took her in faster than normal, hitting the pavement with a heavy thud and a loud screech, followed by a shrill whine as I stood on the brakes.
“No wonder the airlines didn’t want you,” Dart said. He rubbed his neck as if I injured it on landing.
As we rolled down the runway, I saw the Gulfstream business jet parked to the side of the strip. I knew now why the runway was lit up.
“Oh crap, it’s Clint,” Dart said.
[End the first chapter here, and start a second chapter with the remainder of the story.]
Clint was our Agency agency overseer. We had no idea what his actual name was, as he insisted we only refer to him by his code-name “Taurus.” However, as with everything with Dart, your real name didn’t matter [Real things don't matter?]; everyone got a nickname. Thus, the agent got the nickname “Clint.” [Why did he get this nickname?]
We parked the Caribou next to the Gulfstream and shut the engines down. Instantly, we set upon blaming each other. It was never a good sign when Clint showed up.
“You had to take us over the rebels,” I scolded him. “He’s here because you got us shot at!”
“Me? How about you!?” Dart jabbed a finger in the air at me. “You’re the one talking about the cargo.”
“How would he know that?”
“He’s Agency, man.” Dart lowered his voice. “They’ve got bugs everywhere.” His eyes flitted around the cockpit. “I wonder where Clint put them.” His eyes locked onto his bongos for a moment before he shook his head.
As we walked out of the back of the Caribou’s lowered ramp, Clint, in his standard black suit,approached us.
“What do you want, Clint?” Dart asked.
“I prefer you call me by my code name,” the agent replied.
“Your code name, my code name; who cares?”
The look of disgust across Clint’s face was enough of an answer for me.
“Okay, Taurus,” – I made a point of emphasizing his lame code name – “what brings you out here?”
“We have to shut you guys down.”
Dart turned to me. "I told you they had bugs in the cockpit!"
Clint cocked an eyebrow to Dart, making his bald head appear even more pronounced. “It's not you guys. It’s Congress. Ever since the rendition [Unclear what this means] flights came to light, all of our operations are under scrutiny.”
Dart got up in Clint's face. “We had nothing to do with that.”
“I know,” Clint said, “but now the Agency is under scrutiny [use of same phrase twice in close proximity]. They’re looking at everything, including you guys. We’ve got to shut you down.”
He [Dart or Clint?] couldn’t do this. I hated this job, but it was still a job. I didn’t enjoy getting shot at while dropping arms on Venezuelan rebels. I also didn’t look forward to being a fry cook at a McDonald’s in Des Moines either. And Dart – where the hell could he go?
“Look,” Dart said, “maybe we could keep going under the table like. I mean, we don’t really work for you, so maybe we could keep doing the flights and drops…”
“To be honest, these flights didn’t really matter.” As Clint said this, Dart looked as though he got punched in the gut. “This entire operation had about 1% chance of success. We’ve been supplying a bunch of anti-Chavez guys guns and ammo for a year now, and we think they have more of a chance of ending up in the FARC or some narco-warlord’s arsenal than ever being used against Chavez.”
“Then why?” I asked.
“A 1% chance is better than no chance,” Clint said.
But then he did something odd; he walked up and put his arm around Dart. “But don’t fret. I’ve got a job for you guys.”
“I thought you said you were shutting us down?” I asked.
“Right now, you guys are off the grid, but you still have a few ties that make you traceable." Clint nodded to the Caribou. "This opportunity is going to take you completely off the grid. You will be invisible. You’re going to be ghosts.”
As I stood there in the moonless humid night in the Colombian jungle, I wondered just how much more off grid we could get. Clint’s “opportunity” sounded more like a threat.
“Sounds good,” Dart replied. “Where do we sign up?”
“We?” I said.
“Oh, come on,” Dart said. “We’re a good crew.”
“You guys are the best,” Clint said.
Dart grabbed my shoulders with both of his meaty hands. “You heard him. We’re the best.”
“Yeah.”
“And the big part of that is ‘we.’ You’ve got to come with me, Foe.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a hell of a first officer.”
I sighed. It was crazy, I know, but I had a lot of respect for the guy. And as much as I hated to admit it, it was fun sometimes. It might have been the world's worst airline, but it was an airline. [This isn't an airline.] If I ever had any hope of salvaging my career, I would have to make the most of this last great "opportunity." [If this is so covert, how can this make sense?]
“No more run-ins with the FARC, okay?” I said.
Clint turned his head abruptly. “What was that?”
“Forget about it,” Dart said as he held out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”
I knew I would regret it about five minutes later, but I shook Dart’s hand.
“Never mind about the FARC,” Clint said. “You won’t need to worry about them where you’re going.”
“Where’s that?” Dart asked.
“Let me ask you this,” Clint said. “How’s your Cyrillic?” [What does Cyrillic mean? Slavic languages?]
Read the author's commentary