by Jim Johnson
She stuck her tongue out at him.
They walked past the late Ford pickup and back toward the mobile tower. When they neared the other Cessna, the two aircrew were standing staring at them. It was obvious they didn’t know what to do. One spoke to the other, he nodded, and they turned and ran toward the short tower.
Tommy fired a round from the Desert Eagle and it knocked a barrel over in their path and ricocheted off into the distance.
Both stopped on a dime.
Tommy motioned to them. “Over here. We don’t need any loose ends.”
They came hesitantly.
“We’re out of handcuffs,” said María Elena. She pointed to the Jeep. “Get in and drive.” The copilot sat in the driver’s seat and she gestured the pilot into the passenger seat. She and Tommy climbed into the back, thankful that the cover was down.
The pilot looked over his shoulder in awe. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Jesus, lady, you’re crazy.”
“Then you need to do what I tell you.”
She directed them to the headquarters building. As they threaded through the compound, the extent of carnage was highly visible. A couple of burned buildings still smoldered and bodies sprawled everywhere, in various positions.
The parking area immediately in front of the headquarters building appeared as a vacated battle zone, with dead soldiers and shot up vehicles sitting askew. One wounded 13 soldier moaned and his arm flopped on the ground.
The pilot said, “Jesus,” and shook his head.
They avoided bodies and buckets of blood on the landing as they climbed the stairs and stepped gingerly on the surface.
They all trooped inside, the aircrew first.
Susan Quantrell saw them first, her eyes going wide. She was still limp on the couch, and Doctor Henderson had her feminine hygiene bandages off and was applying some kind of solution around the wound.
Linda Lavender had not moved. Her head was lying back against the top of the couch. She popped an eye open. “God, now what?”
Suzie waved them over.
Tommy pointed to a pair of metal chairs and the aircrew went and sat obediently.
She and Tommy went to stand next to the couch.
Her voice was difficult to make out, but María Elena watched her intelligent eyes and they were clear.
“We came here to investigate rumors of mutiny and were ambushed by whom we don’t know yet. Some citizens and other JTF 13 ‘assests’ assisted us in the firefight. Those citizens and assets left abruptly.”
“Fine by us,” Tommy said immediately. “We’re glad to be out of here, thank you very much.”
Not that they had any choice, thought María Elena. She and Tommy were the only ones left standing. She looked at Linda. “You okay with this?”
Linda smiled wanly and nodded. “It’s been fun.”
Tommy pointed his Desert Eagle at Henderson. “And the doc?”
The man nodded, his comb over still in place. “I, ah, concur. We’ve had a discussion and my boss will buy off on it.”
The Attorney General.
Susan Quantrell grinned as if this were her greatest accomplishment.
Linda held up a card. María Elena took it. It had a symbol with a 13 and JTF on it with a phone number and email address. She pocketed the card.
Voice failing, Suzie said, “We need assets in the new and coming Cuba. If you’re available when normalization comes, it could be you both.”
María Elena cocked her head.
The agent fell silent and Linda Landover took over. She nodded at the pilots across the room. “They will take you to a secret landing strip in Costa Rica and somebody will meet you and take you to a safe house until we can make arrangements.”
María Elena looked at Tommy and he shrugged.
The FBI agent pointed at the two pilots and waved them over. “Remember the landing strip we went into two years ago February, down in Costa Rica?”
The pilot nodded. “In the jungle, maybe as long as this one.” He pointed.
Linda said with a finality, “Take them there. Now.”
The pilot opened his eyes wide.
“You know nothing, you just did as you were told,” Linda said. “And you stay down there until the smoke clears. We’ll pick up the Cessna later. Got it.”
The pilot fidgeted. “I dunno.”
“Gordo?” whispered Suzie Q.
He shifted from foot to foot. “I guess orders are orders.”
Suzie Q gasped the words, “Your orders are to fly these agents to Costa Rica so they can undergo, ah, training and language prep, and prepare for later insertion into Cuba.” She coughed lightly.
“Yes, ma’am, that ought to cover us.” The pilot shrugged; obviously he was grateful they’d have legitimate reasons for flying across the Gulf and half the Caribbean. “Good thing we have the gravel runway kit installed,” he grumbled.
María Elena turned to look at Tommy once again. His eyes were guarded.
Should they trust the women and the pilots? There were a lot of holes in this plan. On the other hand they were in jeopardy here right now, big time jeopardy.
“Whatever, let’s just get the hell out of here.” Tommy’s voice was decisive.
The pilots went out back to the jeep and María Elena and Tommy began to follow.
“Hey,” whispered Linda. “Good luck.”
Tommy nodded. “Watch your step, FBI, the floor’s slippery.” He ameliorated the joke with a wink.
“Christ, I need a smoke,” said Linda.
María Elena gave her a smile. Her eyes picked up the table recently vacated of weapons.
“I forgot a bag,” she said.
Quickly she retrieved Diego García’s other duffle full of dollars and pesos. She stepped over his body to get to the doorway and didn’t give him a second look.
A final glance over her shoulder showed Linda watching closely. She understood without knowing. A faint smile crossed her face. María Elena shrugged as if to say, “I am his widow, his only heir. Therefore, this belongs to me.” María Elena went out the door.
The pilot drove them back to the runway and to their Cessna.
Tommy tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. “The pickup.”
The pilot nodded understanding and raced over to the carcass of the Ford in the middle of the runway. He put the Jeep’s bumper on the rear bumper of the pickup and pushed it off the runway.
It ended up on the coral base toward the crashed U. S. Marshal’s aircraft. The four men there stood and watched.
María Elena worried about that but there was nothing she could do. She could only hope that the power of the Attorney General would keep the lid on this whole thing. Otherwise, she and Tommy once again would be hunted.
Back at the JTF jet, they boarded and soon the pilots had run their checklist. Tommy went forward and slid the accordion door closed. “Don’t bother us until we get there. Okay?”
“Yes, sir,” said the pilot with a bit of trepidation. After María Elena had faced them down in the middle of their takeoff roll, they were believers.
“I’ll be doggoned,” said María Elena as Fluffy jumped off a seat and trotted over to her. She scooped him up and scratched his head.
“What do you think, college girl?”
“I dunno, Tommy. It was short and quick and it’s full of holes.”
He nodded. “I give them credit for helping. They didn’t have to do that thing.”
“I suspect it was politically expedient,” she replied. “The best outcome would have been for us to become casualties. That would make things so much cleaner.”
“It was the best they could do short of killing us,” he said, fiddling with his seatbelt. The inside of the small jet wasn’t luxurious, but it wasn’t anything like flying tourist. There were eight seats configured four to a group, two facing each other. “Nice ride,” he said. He kicked at the duffle María Elena had brought along. He looked inside for the second time.
“Nice doggy,” Mar�
�a Elena said.
“He belongs to them, the two agents.”
“A strange pair.”
“Not one you want to cross,” said Tommy enigmatically.
María Elena cocked an eye at him.
The aircraft continued to taxi south to the far end of the runway.
“The thing is, with this deal, we are not in charge of ourselves, not much anyway.”
“No,” said María Elena. “I’ve been worried about that.”
“And we’d be in a foreign country. Stand out bad.” He scratched his head with the muzzle of the Desert Eagle.
“I could get along. But you are distinctive,” María Elena said.
“Well, I should hope so.” He looked out the small window near him. “There’s an old Bantu proverb: ‘The road doesn’t enlighten the traveler as to what he may find at his destination.’”
She shook her head. “The famous Cuban writer, Jose Marti said, ‘A grain of poetry suffices to season a century.’”
He grinned at her. “I’ll try to tone it down, Pocahontas.”
“On the other hand, Tommy, that’s part of your charm.”
The Cessna 560 Encore was at the very end of the runway and beginning to swing around.
María Elena sensed a growing concern in Tommy. They simply had not had enough time to think this through, to plan.
“Given a few days,” she said, “I think I could find the CUBAN BEAUTY. It’s a nice time of year to take a cabin cruiser around the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.”
“We’d have to change her name,” Tommy pointed out as the engines came up to 100 per cent and take off form.
“Right after we change my name,” she said. “I’m a widow, you know.”
He popped off his seat belt. “Well, we still have a motel room over in Weston.”
“Done, Tommy.”
Tommy stepped to the accordion door and pulled it aside a bit. “Hey! Throttle back.” He waved the Desert Eagle vaguely.
The pilot did so. “Now what?”
Tommy said, “The dog needs to walk for a minute. Or you clean it up.”
“All right, all right.”
Tommy went to pull the door closed again, then stopped. “Like I said, we don’t want to be interrupted. She’s gonna walk the dog and when she gets back on I’ll close the door and you go ahead and take off. Got it?” Tommy scratched his temple with the sight at the tip end of the Desert Eagle.
“Yes, sir.”
“You can wake us when we land in Costa.”
He nodded and Tommy closed the door.
He turned to María Elena. “Run forward so you don’t get caught up in the jet intake. Let the dog do its thing and make sure you bend over and show them a fine show.”
“And you?”
“You’ll see.”
Tommy grabbed the handle and opened the forward entry door. The ladder fell into place. He helped María Elena down and she ducked and carried Fluffy away from the aircraft. She bent over and set the dog down. Fluffy must have been full, for he peed like a racehorse. María Elena shook her head. She thought she should have peed herself before they left. She bent over the dog and purposefully let her shirt ride up her torso.
She glanced back at the aircraft and saw Tommy scrambling under the low fuselage toward the rear, carrying the duffle. He ran to the edge of the runway and tossed the bag into the brush. Then he ran back.
María Elena scooped up the dog and hurried back to the Cessna. The pilots were watching her closely.
She set the dog back inside and Tommy motioned her under the aircraft to exit as he’d done. She did so, knowing that the pilot likely couldn’t see her since the access door opened toward the cockpit.
He spoke into her ear. “Keep low and insure the fuselage stays between you and the marshals up the landing strip. We don’t need witnesses.”
When she was safely away, Tommy folded the boarding ladder up into place, slammed the door and locked it from the outside. He ducked quickly under the fuselage and ran toward María Elena. The aircraft’s engines gained power and Tommy dodged aside at the last minute.
They knelt together in a clump of two and three foot tall torpedo grass watching the jet roll down the runway faster and faster, go airborne, and then dwindle into the distance. They kept their heads down so the marshals far up the runway couldn’t see them.
“It’s maybe a thirty minute walk through the woods and we have a motorcycle to ride to the hotel.”
“I know where there’s a nice bar for sale,” she said. “After we spend some of Diego’s money.”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I’m thinking of retiring. After our boat trip, that is.” He grinned at her. “I got a few hundred grand and in that duffel bag your, ahem, dowry, is maybe ten times that.”
“Whatever, but I need a shower worse than anything right now.”
“Me, too. Let’s.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JAMES B. JOHNSON has written seven novels: Trekmaster, Habu, Mindhopper, A World Lost, Daystar and Shadow, Counterclockwise, and When the Pirate Prays, all of which are being published by The Borgo Press. Mindhopper was optioned twice for a movie, and three of his books were translated into French and German. He has also penned numerous short stories and articles. Jim has sold advertising, worked for the Post Office for fifteen years, and spent eleven years in the Air Force. He lives in Sarasota, Florida, with his wife Beverly.