by L. J. Martin
And as easy as that, presuming the pilots work out, I've got a team put together.
12
To my great surprise in reading deeper, one of the most interesting things to surface from the study Pax provided is the presence of Al Quaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas in what's called the triple frontier, where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina share a common border. Twenty thousand Middle Eastern immigrants, mainly from Lebanon and Syria, provide a basis for these fears. It's reputed to be a hotbed of money laundering, arms trading, counterfeiting, and dope traffic. Arms for dope is a major element of the trafficking. Latin American terrorist groups, mainly the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia and Sendero Luminosos, or Shining Path, operate freely across porous borders. The reports say the U.S. believes ten to twelve billion is funneled through the area each year, with Hezbollah being the primary beneficiary.
I may not be charging Wedgeworth nearly enough. Dealing with fat, complacent government bureaucrats is one thing; dealing with trained Muslim terrorists another altogether.
The good news: I should be able to buy whatever arms I need. The bad: I'll be buying from guys who'd probably love to have a—or maybe I should say another—Marine Corps hide tacked to their outhouse walls.
With luck there's still a small Marine Corps force contingency stationed in Paraguay, and with much greater luck, I'll have some kind of in with the boys there. After all, we are birds of a feather, even if mine have been slightly singed.
In 2005 the Bush administration, fearing the uprising of another Hugo Chavez in the area, cut a deal with Paraguay to build a base in Corazon de America, Paraguay, the heart of South America, and a Marine Corps force of some six hundred was deployed to do so. Now it's a major airport at Mariscal Estigarribia, larger than the international airport at Asuncion, the capital, with facilities rumored to be able to house sixteen thousand troops and structures which far exceed the requirements of the Paraguayan Air Force. The base stands vacant of U.S. Marines now, but can easily be put back into operation for U.S. forces should the need arise.
Cries of American expansionism and the old cries of "Yankee go home," rang throughout the three countries as well as from Columbia, Venezuela, Guyana, Peru and Bolivia, particularly when Paraguay's congress gave Marine Corps personnel diplomatic immunity from prosecution...from the base commander right down to the lowest grunt. Too bad that immunity doesn't carry over to Marines with general courts-martial!
I've got a few hours to kill before my pilots arrive at the McCarran Airport, thank God only a half hour apart, which gives me time to visit my ministorage and see what I think I can get away with taking through customs and onto an international flight. I've collected quite a bag of tricks over the years.
Most of my disguise gear—I've got a buddy who's a makeup expert in Hollywood—will pass: a wig or two, fillers to flare my cheeks and nose and change the shape of my face, a bill cap with plastic pieces that fit behind my ears and flare them like Dumbo, and a half dozen pairs of contacts to change the color of my eyes. I also pack jungle camo gear...clothes are clothes, although upon close inspection the average border guard or airport inspector might notice gear that looks paramilitary. I also pack three palm-size two-way radios. My weaponry is limited to a belt with a removable garrote wire and a pen that contains enough mace to knock down a rhino but looks innocent enough. I'd like to have my twenty four inch square quadcopter along but it's too big, too delicate, to pack; but I do take the controller and the detachable GoPro camera as I can set up the camera, and watch what it sees in real time on the controller. I rearrange the stuff in my bug-out bag, eliminating all that will arouse the ire of border guards, but do include some first aid gear, a water-pump-filter and purifying tablets, and a jungle survival manual. And even though I hope to have two Spanish speaking partners, I throw in an English-Spanish dictionary. I can find the banos and order in the restorante, but that's about the extent of my Español.
When one's going on a job to recover a G5 one plans to leave the country in high style, but one never knows when he might be, instead, slogging through a jungle fighting leeches, snakes and jaguars...and—worse but more likely—dysentery and malaria-carrying mosquitos.
As I'm travelling as a businessman, I take one respectable looking carryon and a matching bag which I'll check, and go through the few decent rags that change me from bodyguard grunt to blue blazer, slacks, and loafer clad respectable traveler. I have a half dozen driver's licenses in a variety of names, but only one passport, so I'm going under my real name, Mike Reardon. I sort through my credit cards and business cards to make sure I don't have anything in my possession that will raise red flags. Using a fake passport from a sophisticated country is a real risk now that Interpol's stolen travel document registry is active. A keystroke and you may be discovered as a phony.
I finish in time to settle down and make a couple of phone calls.
The first is to Carmen, my travel mate. I give her my passport number and tell her we plan to leave for Paraguay in two days so she'll need to use her influence to get that travel visa for me. Then I call an old girlfriend, Jennifer, who I had more than a passing interest in, but who seemed to tire of the fact I would disappear for weeks without calling.
Women seldom understand that when dope dealers and pimps, and many times police, are trying to beat you to death or fill you full of lead, you forget the niceties of relationships. She seems happy to get my call and agrees to lunch, but has to go to work shortly thereafter—she's a keno runner at one of the local clubs—so there goes any chance for more than a hug to recall old times. Ka ka happens.
It's just as well, as late this afternoon I have to meet up with my potential pilots. And as I recall, wham bam thank you ma'am wasn't her style anyway.
I just have time to visit the local Barnes and Noble and pick up a couple of text-type books on Avionics, as my cover is as a salesperson for Paragon Avionics, an actual company, that's headquartered in Philadelphia. I met a guy who was an engineer for them. Pax has the guy's card and his in-house graphics person is making me a couple of dozen replicas, only with the name Mike Reardon and the title Director of Sales. I have a collection of cards, as you never know when you might want to be a Drug Enforcement Agent or an accountant or a lingerie salesman, and with today's scanners and printers, it's easy to do. Total BS, but unless someone in Paraguay invests in a long distance call to the company, I'm home free.
You can be anyone you want to be, so long as you keep your mouth shut and your primary response is "I'll check into it." All you need is the basics of any skill or industry.
I'm a little maudlin during my lunch with the beautiful Jennifer, and not surprised to learn that she's tied up with a pit boss. I wonder how serious it is as she's having lunch with me and gives me a lingering hug and nibble on the neck when we part. Still, I'm sure she's a long way from being willing to put up with a will-o-the-wisp who comes and goes, a guy she'd only pass like ships in the night. So much for long term relationships, that's one thing even the repairman can't seem to keep repaired. Again, ka ka happens.
It's time to pick up my pilots and see if I can make a deal, and if they're tough enough to get involved and willing to take a big risk for a big return.
13
Everete Alvarez is the first to touch down. I'm waiting near the luggage carousel, where we'd agreed to meet, for his flight from San Diego, with his picture in hand, when he approaches. I probably would have spotted him anyway. Navy jet jocks have an I'm-hot-shit-don't-fuck-with-me swagger about them that's hard to miss. He's a medium height guy, but with shoulders like some granite mountains I've seen, and a barrel chest that looks like he could hold enough air to stay underwater for a week. His hair is black, straight, and Elvis-long but perfectly combed, and he's got a bushy mustache, perfectly trimmed, that would shame Pancho Villa. And he's a clothes hog, obvious by the sharp ceases, color coordination, and military shine on the shoes.
He sticks out a hand when I walk up to where he stops to wa
it for his luggage.
"You got checked luggage?" I ask.
"Affirmative," he says, and nods as he shakes.
"Pretty sure you were getting the job?" I ask, with a hint of a dig.
"Fucking-A," he says, then adds, "…but if it doesn't work out, I'm in Vegas, so what the hell."
I laugh. "Let's get your bag then put it down over on one of those benches and wait for Madsen. He's due in a half hour."
"Madman Madsen?"
"One and the same."
"Good, he's a good man. A crazy fuck, but a good man to have at your back."
The luggage starts dumping off, and his bag is the third one, so we head to a bench.
"What's the gig?" he asks as he parks it.
"As you were told on the phone by my buddy, Weatherwax, it's a G5 that's gone missing. All you guys have to do is fly it out, presuming we can get you in the cockpit."
"Out of?"
"Paraguay."
"So, who stole her?"
I have to smile. "If it proves to be who it appears to be, the stud duck of the Paraguayan Air Force."
Now it's his turn to laugh, but it's a low one. Then he asks, "So, we're stealing it back, flying it out of a country with…I presume…with some fighters of some sort, and we're gonna do so without getting shot to shit?"
"That's about it. You got the nads for it?"
"My nads grow with the pay. What's it pay?"
"A grand a week guarantee, win or lose, and your expenses. We get home with the goods, and you get a quarter mil."
"And what's your take?" he asks, eying me suspiciously.
"Enough to pay you and Madsen a quarter mil each, if I get back here with the goods."
"When?"
"I'm going down day after tomorrow and when I know what's up, I'll call. I presume your passport is in order?"
"You bet. How about a visa?"
"That'll be handled. I've got an in at their embassy."
"So, if we end up in some deep dark prison in the middle of South America, does the grand a week continue?"
"Hard to say and harder to pay, as I'll be in the cell next to you. I'll give you half of every rat I catch…how's that?"
He smiles, a little sardonically, "About what I expected."
"So, you in?"
"Balls to the wall. No guts, no air medals," he says, and extends a hand and we shake. "So," he asks, "you want me to hang here until you call?"
"Pax has room to put you and Madsen up for a few days. Unless you need to get back to the wife and kids?"
"No kids, and the ex-wife is too damn good a shot to get close to."
Again, I laugh. We BS about the service until I glance at my watch and see it's time for Madsen to arrive. I move on down to the luggage carousel that's receiving baggage from the flight from Miami, and don't have to wait long.
Chad Madsen is my height, thin, looking like a runner, with a sharp nose and penetrating green eyes. But like Alvarez, he's got a handshake that would crush a billiard ball. And he, like Alvarez, is cocksure and full of piss and vinegar.
"What's the job?" he asks right off. "We gonna steal a MIG from Moscow, or what?"
These guys are gonna be a hoot to work with. "No, no Moscow. Just a nice little ride that I hope we're taking out of South America."
"Little ride? That can't be worth my time."
"Little G5 ride."
"That's more like it. You flying the right seat?"
"Nope. I'm a passenger, I hope. But you know the guy who is. You remember Everete Alvarez—"
"Wetback. Damn right I remember him. We were on the Independence together."
"He's over against the wall. Let's go get him, then go get a beer."
"Or six," he says. He heads over to Alvarez and has a hand out before I can catch up.
By the time Pax is ready to close the office, Wetback, Madman and I have told enough war stories to fill a small library and downed enough beer to float the Independence. I'm liking these guys a lot, and my team is set.
I call Carmen with their passport numbers and info on the flight Pax's girl has got us set up to travel on. It's a little over seventeen hundred bucks, round trip, open return date—which I hope I won't need—with a stopover in Panama. Twelve hours flying time.
She gives me a small piece of information that plasters a smile on my face that you couldn't blow off with C4, even though it's going to cost me a cool five grand, under the table to a friend of hers in the Paraguayan embassy. I'll be travelling with a 'diplomatic exclusion. Which means I can get aboard without being searched. I'd love to strap my sniper rifle on my back, but that would be a little obvious…so it'll have to be confined to a couple of handguns.
I should be able to get a real schooling on Paraguay during the long flight, and should be a lot more prepared when I arrive, thanks to the reading I'll be doing, to Carmen, and to the diplomatic exclusion stamp on my visa and passport.
14
It's barely light when we board the first leg to Panama City. We arrive there at three PM then leave for Asuncion after a short layover, arriving at Paraguay's capital just before midnight. It's hard to figure looking at a map, but Paraguay, in the center of South America, is five hours earlier than Los Angeles, two earlier than New York. Midnight there is only seven PM L.A. time, so the flight's not quite so bad as it seems. Carmen's arranged to have family pick us up and deliver me to my hotel, La Mision, a converted old mansion with a newer five storey annex. She's staying with an aunt and uncle.
Copa is the national airlines of Panama. Pax is happy with it and tells me it received some award for the best Central-South American airline, and believe me, what experience I've had they cover the spectrum from awful to exquisite. Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru have flights and service to rival any in the world. From Copa's location in the Tom Bradley International Terminal to their service I'd rank them right up there, of course, when you're flying first class you expect the best.
I relax when I find we're travelling in a 737, and one that appears to have great maintenance, at least from what I see on the interior. And the Latina who's working the first class section is a major wow...if their mechanical maintenance is half as good as her personal maintenance has been, we're fine.
Carmen and I are seated side by side in seats almost fully reclining, and each has a screen for movies, TV and games. She's wisely dressed in a velour suit, soft slipper loafers, with her hair tied back. This isn't her first rodeo.
It's good it's early as I want to grill her for a few hours, and do, all the way to Panama City. I'm pleased to learn that her father is an admiral in the Paraguayan Navy, and she has an uncle in the lower house of Parliament—the Chamber of Deputies—like our Congressmen. Her cousin is a helicopter pilot in the Air Force, and I silently thank God he's not the pilot of one of their two attack choppers. Paraguay has almost three dozen surface ships—old, but serviceable—due to their access to the Atlantic via the Paraguay-Parana Rivers, with their main base being in Asuncion. Most are river patrol boats, not qualifying as ships.
Carmen is like an encyclopedia on her country/ Pax couldn't have done better by me.
She finally gives up after we've been fed an excellent supper, and sleeps. I'm too keyed up, going into a situation that could make me over a million bucks after all my expenses, or could cost me my freedom.
I'm pretty sure the powers that be in Paraguay won't much give a damn that the airplane I plan to steal, is, in fact, a stolen airplane. Brought to mind is an old buddy of mine who often said, "I don't much give a damn if you steal something I bought, just don't steal something I stole." Seems he thought stealing something took more effort than buying something.
And even though the Paraguayans filched the airplane, if they in fact did, they think they're justified in doing so, as CalGeoCyber didn't do their job. Or so it's believed.
I'm not here to judge. I'm not being paid to judge, I'm only paid if and when I return the airplane.
My hotel is as classy as
it appears on the web, and a bottle of fine Chilean vino rojo is awaiting in the middle of a basket of fruit, some of it, the likes of which I've never seen. I hope I'll have some time to get a taste of the country and the local eats, but if I could find the airplane tomorrow, then call my guys and get them here and get the hell out of Dodge with the goods, I'd do that in a heartbeat.
When I was dropped off by Carmen's uncle, Manolo Juarez, a stately gray haired gentleman with a military bearing but a little short on English, her last words were "don't call me before noon." Which is fine with me as I plan to visit the American embassy before my search for the G5. Manolo, she's told me, is her father's brother, so I presume Carmen's been married before as her name is Diaz. The subject never came up as we were too busy talking business.
It's almost two AM when I get in my room, but I'm still awake with the sun, and am soon showered, shaved, dressed in an open collar and coat, but a light one, as it's February in South America. The seasons are opposite so it's the dead of Summer, only slightly cooler than January, a little over thirty degrees centigrade average, which is over ninety degrees Fahrenheit. You'd think that the country was high altitude, with the Andes not far away, but it only varies from a little over sea level to a little under three thousand feet elevation. So the elevation doesn't cool things off much. As a result of great fertile plains with an excellent shallow aquifer, Paraguay is the fourth largest producer of soybeans in the world, and a great agricultural cornucopia of other crops.
Some of this I've learned from Carmen, some I've read.
I doubt if the rest of the country eats like I was served for breakfast: cafe con leche, coffee with milk; cocido con leche, yerba tea with milk. Chipa, a kind of cheesy bread made from yuca flour; some guava jam with that. Toast, butter, cheese and jam. And medialunas, croissants, with yogurt and fresh fruit. I was offered bife, battered beef steak called milanesá, and empanadas, wonderful pastries of flaky crust full of meat, but I was too full.