Pilots of Convenience, Part 2 (Revision Draft)
I taxied the Caribou over to the Gulfstream and shut down the enginers.
Clint was our 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, everyone got a nickname; his became “Clint.”
After parking, we set upon blaming each other.
“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.
"Maybe this is routine," I said, even though I didn't really believe it.
"Clint makes you come to him. He doesn't come see you."
"And yet he is here."
Dart, who I had never seen with the slightest bit of fear, seemed uneasy when Clint was around. I didn't blame him; I didn't trust Clint either. The thing was, though, that if Dart was unnerved, I was downright petrified.
We gathered our flight bags and lowered the ramp. Mark, the crew chief at Cravo Norte, was waiting for us at the end of the ramp. He was ordering a couple of the locals around the outside of the plane.
"Any issues I need to know as we service her?" Mark asked. "Otherwise, she'll be ready to go by 0500 as usual."
"That won't be necessary," a voice said from over by the business jet. "You're not flying tomorrow."
Clint, a short balding government agent in the stereotypical black suit, walked down the steps of the business jet. The guy looked completely unremarkable for a CIA agent. He wasn't James Bond. If anything, he looked more like he should a beancounter for the IRS instead of a CIA spy.
“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 the media. Ever since the rendition 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 the microscope. Congress has gotten involved. They’re looking at everything, including you guys. We’ve got to shut you down.”
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, “we did all the flights. We did all the drops. We did our damned jobs, and we did them well. We made every flight and hit all our drops exactly on time."
“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 do it?” 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. I could feel my blood pressure rising. All of Clint’s “opportunities” sounded more like threats.
“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. And while not ideal, I did get to build hours. I would have to build a lot more hours to get back into the airlines. Like it or not, if I ever had any hope of salvaging my career, I would have to make the most of this last great "opportunity."
“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?”
To be continued in Part 3...
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