The driver was leaning languidly against the side of his car. “Twenty bucks American if you can get me to the airport twice as fast as usual,” I declared.
“Yes sah!” he replied, straightening up and springing to action. We piled into the cab, and he started the engine. As the car lurched away from the curb, the gunman came around the end of the alley. We were out of his range before he could react.
The airport wasn’t far, lying alongside the sparkling blue sea less than a mile away from the town center. The cabbie got me there with a ride that a NASCAR driver wouldn’t dare try on the track, scattering dust, roadside trash, pedestrians and cyclists, and cowing all other drivers into making way. Across the runway sat a weathered Huey chopper, rotor idling. I had the driver shoot me directly to the passenger side, bounced out and slapped a twenty into his palm. As he gushed his gratitude, I saw the gunmen’s car arrive at the airport entrance. I cut his effusions off with a hearty wave and clambered into the chopper.
“Howdy, Fonko, long time no see,” said the pilot
DRAGONFLY! Sitting there big as life, togged out in camo cargo pants, a well-used safari shirt and a flight helmet.
No time for niceties. “The guy in that approaching car means to shoot me full of holes,” I said. “We ready to roll?”
“Up, up and away,” he remarked, and he hit the throttle. The rotor gained speed, raising us from the tarmac and accelerating us into the clear blue sky. By the time the car reached the helipad, trying to bring us down with an Uzi would have been a futile gesture, and the gunman was pro enough to realize it.
DRAGONFLY, you may remember from my first memoir, was the CIA code name for Clyde Driffter, the renegade CIA ex-agent I’d been dispatched to Phnom Penh by the Agency to find in the closing days of the Viet Nam war. He’d reluctantly ferried me and Soh Soon back to civilization from his stronghold in the Cambodian hills, after which I’d hoped never again to lay eyes on him. He’d been a crack chopper jockey for Air America, a key player in the Laotian War-That-Wasn’t before a B-52 bombing raid in Cambodia sent him over the edge. After that… well, aside from being an international gunrunner, a drug smuggler and a psychopathic killer he wasn’t a bad sort, I suppose. He still looked the aw-shucks Nebraska farm boy, though the ensuing years of outdoor work had weathered his face and left a generous crinkle of wrinkles around his perpetually combat-alert eyes.
“I don’t get it,” I said as we vaulted aloft. “What the hell kind of job is this?”
“I’m not sure, myself,” he said, “but it sounded like easy money, and I’m in no position to be choosy. “
“Okay, but what about me? How did I get involved?”
“I asked for you. They told me I should get a good man to ride shotgun. The amount they’re paying, I figured they wanted the best, and you’re the best.”
“What? After that Cambodia mess?”
“No hard feelings about Cambodia, Fonko. It was a dirty situation, but you played fair. We both come out clean. I’ve been keeping tabs on you since then, been hearin’ things. Cambodia was no fluke. The goddamn KGB has an operation keepin’ tabs on you. Those sonsabitches don’t fuck around.”
If you only knew, I thought. “Don’t put too much stock in things you hear,” I said. “What’s this job, then?”
“That suitcase you brought on board. We’re taking it to Cuba.”
“Cuba? Jesus Christ, you gotta be kidding! Nobody told me about Cuba. What are we delivering?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, I’m in no position to be choosy.”
We’d reached cruising altitude, whapping north over the shimmering sea. “You have anything to eat on board? I had to butt out in a hurry, skipped breakfast.”
“The guy on your tail didn’t give you a time out for a coffee break? There’s some chow in the locker behind us. Help yourself.”
I squeezed between the forward seats and found a cooler in the cargo bay. It held sandwiches, chocolate bars, apples, bananas, a jug of iced tea, some bottles of water. Beside it sat a small arsenal of assault rifles, sidearms and rocket launchers. I grabbed some grub and returned to my seat. “Expecting trouble?” I asked between bites.
“They told me to come prepared, just in case. Always a good idea to pack along some rations. As well as some Heckler & Koch G3s and Redeyes.” We flew along in silence while I finished eating. Then Driffter said, “Okay, let’s take a look.”
“Look at what?”
“What we’re carrying. Damned if I’m going to deliver something sight unseen. Must be valuable, what they’re paying us to carry it 200 miles and smuggle it into Cuba. Come on, open the case. Let’s see what it is.”
I was curious too. The latches were locked. Driffter reached into a pocket on his leg and came up with a switchblade knife. I popped the locks with it and raised the lid, and… what the hell? “It’s books. And some file folders. And these boxes…” I tugged one open. “… computer floppy disks.”
“Any identification on any of it?” Driffter asked.
I flipped through a file folder. Then I picked out one of the books and rifled through a few pages. “Some of it’s in English, but some’s in a foreign language I don’t recognize,” I said. “Columns of figures, big numbers. It seems to have to do with The Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Wait a second. I bet that’s the bank that was robbed last night.”
“Bank robbery last night? Where?”
“George Town, down the street from my hotel. The hotel porter was talking about it. Said he couldn’t figure out what they’d steal. There was no money at the bank.”
“Maybe that’s the stuff they stole. Lemme see one of those books.” I handed it to him, and he leafed through the pages. “BCCI,” he muttered, “The Bank of Crooks and Criminals… This is a ledger book. What about the others?”
I did a quick shuffle through. “They’re all like that one. What’s the deal with the foreign writing?”
“Urdu,” Driffter said. “That’s a Pakistani bank; that’s their language. International operation, huge scale. One of the biggest banks in the world, branches everywhere. Big Middle Eastern Arab oil money behind it. I’ve done some business with them. A lot of guys in my line of work use BCCI…” He looked more closely at the ledger columns and nodded his head.
“Can you make anything out of it?” I asked.
“Enough,” he said. “I picked up a little Urdu along the way. These are handwritten bank ledgers, seems like we have the last couple years’ books here. Put this back and hand me one of those file folders.”
The files looked all about the same to me, so I stowed the ledger and grabbed one at random and gave it to him. He laid it open on his lap, started turning through the sheets. He’d pick one up and hold it where he could read it, scan it and then put it back. Sometimes he’d nod his head. Most of the pages were written in, apparently, Urdu. The ones I saw in English were business correspondence. I couldn’t make out anything important in them, but Driffter was becoming increasingly animated. He finished the one file, asked for another and scanned some of the papers.
“Interesting…” he muttered. “…what the hell’s International Credit and Investment Company?” There were a dozen more files, but after he finished the second one he passed it back and didn’t ask for any others. There was no point checking out the several boxes of computer floppies. “So, somebody stole these out of BCCI on Grand Cayman Island,” he said. “It’s bank records and business agreements, and now we’re carting them to Cuba. For who?”
“Don’t ask me, I Just got here myself,” I said. “Does your chopper have the range for this trip? Cuba’s more than 200 miles from the Caymans. Hueys are good for what, about 250 max?”
“We’ll make it there with gas to spare. It’s got extra fuel tanks, and they were full when we took off.”
“That’s over 400 miles round trip. What about getting
back?”
“It’s an old trick; I fell for it the first time they pulled it. At the delivery point, they think they’ve got us over a barrel because we’ll have to refuel. They figure to hold us up for the return fuel, maybe stiff us on what we’re owed. Leverage on us, threaten to leave us high and dry in Cuba. Don’t sweat it, it’s covered. We’re gonna set down and refuel before we deliver.”
“You’ve got connections in Cuba?”
“Connections all over the place, Fonko. Thanks to some unfortunate circumstances my retirement plans turned to shit, and I’ve been workin’ hard ever since. There’s a landing spot manned by some soldiers with government gas to sell. Even with my expenses, I’ll come ahead on the half they down-paid, and I mean to head back home with the other half in my pocket. Hold on…” He peered into the rearview mirror, then craned around and looked aft, “…we may have some company…” I turned in my seat. A little plane, far to the rear, was gaining on us. “It must have come out of Grand Cayman. Cessna 210, if I’m not mistaken. About 60 knots faster than us. Overtake us in five minutes. Go back there and grab one of them H&Ks. They’re military models. Use full-auto. Open a port on both sides. You ever do air-to-air combat?”
“I stood in as door gunner in Nam a few times, but it was mostly M-60 suppression fire at ground targets. Can’t say that I ever hit much of anything.”
“Air-to-air geometry is tricky. They’re moving, and we’re moving, and there’s a hundred fifty knots of wind resistance. Those clips have no tracers, so you can’t track your rounds. That Cessna ain’t a combat plane. They’ll have to pass alongside and shoot from the windows, same as us. If it comes to shooting, lead ‘em a little more than if we were stationary. Your fire will be movin’ forward, because we’re movin’ forward, but wind resistance will retard it. Not likely you’ll hit ‘em, the idea is to keep ‘em at a distance. Put on a helmet and get yourself braced. I may have to bounce us around some.” He turned the radio up, bringing hisses and crackles. We got a hail from the plane as it closed on us. Driffter ignored it.
I went back to the cargo bay, donned a helmet and hoisted one of the guns, clicked in a clip, chambered a round. Twenty rounds to a clip. Short bursts only. We waited.
“They’re comin’ in on the starboard side,” Driffter said. “Don’t shoot on the first pass. Let’s see what they do. No way they’re gonna hit us, shootin’ out a window.” With a 60 knot differential they buzzed by as fast as a car would go by if you were standing beside a freeway. It was a spiffy civilian single-engine plane, high-winged, the tropical sun sparkling off its bright-white surfaces. Was it the guy with the Uzi? Didn’t get a good look. “Nothin’ happenin’.” Driffter said. After a minute he added, “They’re loopin’ back around. Looks like they’ll pass to port this time. If they get within fifty yards give ‘em a burst, otherwise leave ‘em be.”
The Cessna approached at one hundred yards away, then weaved in closer. I saw flashes at the window behind the pilot, but we took no hits. Following Driffter’s instructions, I tried to lead them a little more than normal, aiming slightly high, and tapped the trigger as they zipped past. It startled me. Aerial combat commenced and was gone in seconds. Nothing in my jungle warfare experience compared. It would take a lot of training, not to mention superfast reflexes, to be any good at it. They veered away, and again we waited.
“Here they come,” Driffter announced. “Looks like they’re approachin’ high, going to pass to port again, descending as they pull abreast. Lead ‘em forward and low, don’t wait for them to fire first this time.” This time, I was better prepared. The Cessna came in as expected, a gun barrel out a window. They were going to brush closer in this time, and I let go three short bursts, starting as soon as they cleared our rotor above and behind us, leading them all the way through the pass. The last burst emptied the clip. I quick-swapped it for a full one, but by that time they were gone. Instead of returning for another try the pilot peeled away and headed back where they came from. “You might have hit something, but leastways you discouraged ‘em. We’re more than halfway there now, comin’ up on Cuban airspace. I think that’s the last visitors we’re gonna see for the time being.”
“Cuban interceptors?”
“Naw, that’s covered. We’re expected.”
I put the rifle back in the stack and took the co-pilot seat. “Fill me in, Clyde. What’s been happening? You said something about unfortunate circumstances.”
“It’s the way of the world,” he sighed. “You win some, you lose some. I’m a trader—find the markets where the money is, line up suppliers, buy low, sell high, deliver the goods. So I was doin’ right well in the Golden Triangle with arms, drugs, gold, gemstones, what have you. Made a pretty good pile, stashed it in a Swiss bank. Never had no experience in managing finances, but I figured my money was in good hands. If your Swiss banker jumps out a window, follow him and you’ll make money, you ever hear that one? So I left it to them to invest it. They put it into an investment plan called IOS—International Offshore something, or maybe Investors Offshore, I don’t know, didn’t give a shit. It was Swiss bankers, after all. Wasn’t paying much attention, busy as I was with my trading operations. Well, some skunk named Vesco took control of the fund and stripped its assets, ran off with $200,000,000 including my stake, and I lost every last dime. So I kept on pluggin’, and by the time you paid your visit in Cambodia, I’d accumulated a good inventory of high-end weapons, drugs, gold and rubies. Had it all in the chopper when we hauled ass out of Cambodia. It was enough to tide me over, get me launched into business somewhere else.
“I thought I’d got away with it, but then your Chinese girlfriend had her daddy locate me, and she guided a CIA raiding party that took it all while I was away. Wasn’t much I could do, not so much because of the CIA, but her daddy is Old Man Poon of Hong Kong, a customer I wouldn’t want to tangle with. Well, there I was, dead broke and stranded. Had to take what work I could get, mostly runnin’ guns for Africans dead set on slaughterin’ each other. Spent a number years workin’ south of the Sahara, sellin’ guns to anybody with something to trade. Zimbabwe. Liberia. Uganda. Angola. Congo. Mozambique. Zaire. Nigeria. The things I saw, fit to gag a battlefield buzzard. Goddamn, what a filthy place, a fuckin’ pesthole. And don’t get me started on the UN so-called Peacekeepers. Pedophiles sans Frontiers,” he snorted, “with rules of engagement to avoid engaging with anybody. Give me Southeast Asia any day of the week. At least folks there keep themselves clean and serve decent food.
“Then I heard things was percolatin’ around the Caribbean. Drug traffic shifted from the Golden Triangle to Colombia and Mexico. Independence movements in the islands, takeovers and revolts in Salvador, Ecuador, Nicaragua, just about everywhere. So I bailed out of Africa, happiest day of my life, couldn’t clear out fast enough. Came away with a stake to set up shop here, found it more to my likin’. Shit, blue-haired old ladies come down here for vacations; the place is a damned paradise. So I’ve been movin’ drugs and money around, runnin’ arms for the revolutionaries, as well as for the governments they’re revoltin’ against. Small scale stuff, a lot of competition, get too big, and the Big Boys come after you… just makin’ myself useful, you might say. I take what work I can get. This job we’re on looked like easy money, one day’s work plus prep time and expenses. After that go-round with the Cessna, I’m not sure that it’s gonna be so easy, though…”
An interesting tale Driffter told. At least now I had an idea how Soh Soon paid for her Jaguar. It was a two-hour flight from Grand Cayman. Driffter and I passed the time swapping war stories, and as you can imagine from what I’ve said about him, he had some amazing stories to tell. Umm… try “horrifying”? Our chat didn’t set my mind at ease, far from it. With every mile we covered, I regretted more and more having taken on this job. And as I was to discover, the shootout in George Town and our duel with the Cessna only marked the beginning of my adventure.
Land soon loomed in the distance. Cuba’s the biggest island in the region, 750 miles east to west, with as much area as the state of Pennsylvania. From where we approached it stretched from horizon to horizon, might as well be a mainland. I scanned one of Driffter’s maps to get a fix on location. We were coming in a little west of center, near a coastal city, Trinidad. Driffter got on the radio and made a couple calls. He then checked his bearings and altered course a little east. We flew in low over the coast, passing across some islands, a few inviting beaches, and a lot of swamp. We presently set down at a little airfield inserted among crop fields. Didn’t see much activity as we landed. A squad of Cuban soldiers hustled over with a battered, grease-stained tank truck and set about refueling the Huey, wasting no time. The job done, Driffter passed a handful of hundreds to their leader, and the troops drove away happy. Communism hadn’t entirely killed the capitalist spirit, it seemed.
“Delivery’s scheduled in an hour at a landing strip about twenty-five miles further inland,” Driffter said. “Take it easy, Jake. Have some lunch. Stretch your legs. And make sure those weapons are loaded.”
The Jake Fonko Series: Books 4, 5 & 6 Page 2