Perilous Skies (Stony Man)

by Don Pendleton

  As Pyo made lazy, wide circles around the Great Escape, the three college boys and their female companions emerged on deck, hands in the air, ready to surrender. Pyo ordered the man in the copilot seat to make a phone call. The traitor phoned up the United States Coast Guard on the satellite phone. He called in a mayday and gave the Great Escape’s GPS coordinates.

  They waited for an hour, idly circling the Great Escape. Once, when the college boys got the smart idea of starting the engines and trying to get the hell away from there, Pyo swooped in on them, machine gun peppering the deck and inadvertently tagging one of the coeds in the foot. Her screeches could be heard even in the aircraft as they sped away. But the boys got the message. They didn’t try to motor away again. They didn’t even try to go belowdecks. They wrapped the coed’s shattered foot in a dirty shirt, then pretty much ignored her. None of them seemed to notice that she’d gone into shock.

  Abruptly Pyo broke off and headed northeast. On the boat they heard no more than a loud hush as it accelerated and vanished in seconds, the self-camouflaging fuselage fading into the light blue Caribbean sky.

  The would-be lawyers waited five minutes, just to be sure that the aircraft was not going to return, then started the engine on the Great Escape. They had traveled less than five miles, and were still deep in a frantic argument as to the best way to dispose of the bodies of the dead crew, when another aircraft appeared. It was not quiet; it made a thunderous racket as it descended on the Great Escape, and the command from the Coast Guard came simultaneously through their radio. They were to prepare to be boarded.

  * * *

  HOURS LATER, ADELMO FELT the aircraft landing. By then, his hands and his feet were screaming in pain. His entire skeleton ached from being stuffed into the miserable compartment, where the shifting containers had split up against him and half crushed his body, and as the hours went on he had less and less strength to shove them away.

  He certainly did not have the strength to turn and crane his neck to look out the little windows. He didn’t think it would have done him any good. They were on the ground for no more than fifteen minutes, taking fuel. He heard the clunk of the nozzle going into a space above his head. He heard the curious sound of aircraft fuel trickling down through the fuselage all around him. The fuel piping and tanks seemed to be built into the walls and the belly of the aircraft.

  He heard his brother and the traitor conversing briefly outside the cargo hatch. It seemed that the traitor wanted to let Adelmo out to stretch his legs and take water.

  “He can have a glass of water when we get to Colombia,” Pyo argued.

  Adelmo’s heart sank. They were going to travel all the way to Colombia in this aircraft? He didn’t think he would survive it. His hands and his feet had swollen, and the circulation was all but cut off; his limbs would be dead if he didn’t get these cuffs off in another few hours. And he really wanted a drink of water.

  But he didn’t get one.

  It was dark when Pyo took the plane down to land on a pebbly, rough stretch of asphalt. The air became stifling hot and thick, and it smelled like a swamp. Not, Adelmo thought, like Colombia.

  The hatch opened. The heat intensified. Adelmo was instantly swarmed by little biting bugs. A sweaty, greasy man began offloading the cocaine without giving Adelmo much more than a glance.

  “Want some water for your friend?” the man asked. He spoke English. He sounded like one of those white men from the rural parts of South Florida. That’s where this must be, Adelmo thought. Florida.

  But flying an aircraft unnoticed into the United States was virtually impossible now. They used drones to patrol the airspace. They tracked every flight by GPS and became very suspicious of strange behavior—and Pyo had landed on a street, of all places. The swamp was close on either side of the crumbling road—it must be an abandoned swamp road.

  “He’s fine,” Pyo answered.

  It took all Adelmo’s will to not break down and beg his brother for a sip of water.

  He entertained himself with the fantasy of rolling out of the cargo hatch and across the pavement for a few feet until he splashed into the black, murky slime of the swamp. If he did that, would Pyo fish him out again or let him drown?

  Pyo, Adelmo knew, would fish him out. Pyo wasn’t done tormenting him yet.

  The drug buyer got in his vehicle and drove away. Pyo waved a stack of bills in Adelmo’s face. “You were getting, what, five million? Here is ten. And I did not pay for any stupid gang of college kids to smuggle this into the United States for me. And I never would have had to make a ridiculous exchange on some Caribbean island. I could fly it directly here, to the United States, and get my money and turn around and fly right home, like I will right now. And you know what, Adelmo, this is the proof—proof that I will run the operation better than you. Safer, and with more profit and less overhead. And less risk. See?”

  Adelmo said nothing.

  “I am better, see?” Pyo insisted.

  Adelmo did not look at him.

  “Fuck you! Fuck you!” Pyo shouted in his face. “We’ll see how you feel when we get back. You can just stay in your ties until then.”

  Adelmo went into a place of endless agony. Now he had the cargo hatch all to himself, and found himself crashing into the walls when the aircraft changed position. His hands had gone numb, and he was sure they were dead. His tongue was swollen in his mouth.

  They landed finally in Colombia and the cargo hatch was opened. Adelmo flopped onto the pavement, barely conscious. He heard his mother scream.

  Pyo must have lured her out of her damned bedroom. First time in weeks.

  “What did you do to him?” his mother demanded.

  Adelmo heard Pyo speak. “Less than he deserved. Should’ve killed him for what he did to this family. He’s a traitor.”

  Adelmo’s mother was in hysterics. “You are the traitor!”

  Adelmo opened his eyes with great effort, just in time to see Pyo backhand their mother. The richly dressed woman crumpled. And now she has been struck by both her sons, Adelmo thought.

  But Pyo was holding up his precious stack of cash, and the family’s top men—what was left of them—were gathering around him and congratulating him. Even the traitor Jorge was all smiles now. And their mother—when she saw that money—it was as if her madness evaporated. And she had nothing but smiles for her eldest son, Pyo.

  Adelmo could feel the poison from his gangrenous hands seeping into his bloodstream and he thought it would be acceptable to die soon. But from his pathetic broken body he looked and saw that the aircraft was parked on the football fields on the grounds of the family mansion. Adelmo and Pyo had played soccer here, together, when they were boys, before they hated each other.

  Now the professionally maintained turf was gouged by the presence of equipment. A fuel truck and several of the family Hummers. And another one of those small, camouflaged jet aircraft was rolling over the grass in their direction. One of the family’s top men was practicing driving it around the grounds.

  Pyo seemed to be assembling his own little air force.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Even a country as poor as Bolivia had its well-to-do population. Even in the city like La Paz, where most of the population was destitute, there were a handful of those who were affluent. And there were always businesses to cater to the affluent. Jewelry stores selling million-dollar baubles. Restaurants serving hundred-dollar plates accompanied by thousand-dollar bottles of wine. Hotels with spacious suites, fine furnishings, twenty-four-hour concierge service and, for the truly ostentatious, gold-plated plumbing fixtures.

  The Hotel Europa was one such business—a high-class lodging operation in one of the newest high-rises in the city center. The hotel occupied the top fifteen stories of the thirty-story building, and it included a vast diamond-shaped glass window at a steep angle that served as the upper roof.

  Behind that window on the twenty-eighth floor was one of the most expensive restaurants in Bolivi
a, where a dinner for two cost as much as most Bolivian families made in the year.

  Behind that window on the twenty-ninth floor was a chic little spa that offered yoga classes, massages and specialty beauty treatments. A complete makeover at the spa could cost as much as one thousand U.S. dollars, and in La Paz the dollar was the preferred currency. The spa also sold designer clothing for both men and women. If desired, a couple could arrive at the spa and have a complete makeover over a two-hour period, including a complete new outfit suited for their body type.

  In the late afternoon the spa closed for an hour, the merchandise and fixtures were cleared away and new fixtures brought from storage to transform the spa into a chic club.

  The idea was that wealthy clients could lunch at the restaurant, come to the spa to have a complete makeover and to acquire a new wardrobe, have dinner at the restaurant and return to the spa location to find it an ideal spot for an evening’s entertainment.

  It was therefore possible, the hotel literature claimed, to experience the best of Bolivia without ever leaving the Hotel Europa.

  Behind the window on the thirtieth floor was the presidential suite and penthouse. An extremely wealthy couple, after their day of spa treatments and fine dining in the floors below, could make love in a fifteen-foot-wide master bed and look directly out through the top of the diamond window onto the city of La Paz and the high mountain plains in which she was nestled.

  From thirty stories up, even the greasy cook fires in the hillside La Paz slums looked like twinkling stars.

  * * *

  THIS NIGHT, THE TOP STORY of the Hotel Europa was exceptionally busy and crowded. The penthouse suite had been dedicated to a single event, along with the penthouse courtyard facility, which was an airy, open outdoor social area with enough plantings to make it feel like a garden.

  Renting out the entire top floor of the Hotel Europa was a huge expense—unless one owned the hotel. Adan Neruda was the majority owner in the Hotel Europa and he had acquired it primarily for the purpose of staging his annual birthday party. He used the entire top floor space to create a number of party spaces so that all his guests, old and young, millionaires and almost-billionaires, would be comfortable and, most importantly, impressed.

  There was no lovemaking happening in the vast master bed this night. A mound of rich brocade pillows filled the center of it, turning the edges of the bed into a long, luxurious cushioned bench. The bedroom itself was transformed into a very classy and elegant lounge area, with a bar and a small stand for a Bolivian classical guitarist.

  Truth be told, there would be lovemaking in that bed this evening—later, when the guests loosened up. Adan Neruda had spread rumors that at past parties the hippest young people would surreptitiously burrow into the great mound of pillows and have quick sex, just a few feet away from other guests sitting on the bed and enjoying their cocktails.

  It was the kind of story that turned a party into an event. It stoked people’s expectations of the party. It made the party into one of the can’t-miss events on the upper-crust La Paz social calendar.

  If anybody had once thought it was odd that Adan Neruda threw his own birthday party, they got over it years ago. The party wasn’t even about him, really. He didn’t make a star of himself at these events; the parties were about his guests. No expense spared.

  He could afford it. He was one of the wealthiest men in the country, in fact in all of South America. It had been a hard road to get here. His life had been one struggle after another, constantly battling for another measure of control, always fleeing from one enemy or another, until finally power consolidated around him and the enemies became afraid to approach him. When all the pegs fell into their holes, he was transformed from a man on the run and scrabbling for funds to a power broker with a steady flow of revenue from hundreds of sources. Gas interests. Land interests. Distribution of almost any product that came into and left Bolivia. And the drugs. Of course, much of his income came from the drug trade. He was a franchise-holder of many lucrative distribution rings, and that’s where the real cash came from.

  Adan Neruda was himself somewhat surprised when his years of ambition began to pay off so handsomely. But he knew how to consolidate and hold his power. To retain power, one must have the support of the powerful. Support the powerful, and the support of Bolivia, just as in any other nation in the world, was easily purchased.

  When Neruda began the annual tradition of throwing himself a birthday party, and inviting the most important people in the country to come out and celebrate, there were some mutterings of derision. Now it looked like a work of genius.

  Everything about the event was appealing to the self-important and power-hungry. Neruda would fly in chefs from Europe and America and from Rio, and bring in rare specialty foods that even the wealthy didn’t often get their hands on. The wine was always special. Each year he would buy a complete wine collection, usually worth a million or more, and open up the complete inventory to his party guests. Sommeliers came from France and New York to serve it. Neruda had artisans craft hundreds of special gifts, and ensured that every guest left with a valuable and unique memento of the event.

  It was a chance for even the aristocrats of Bolivia to sample rare and unexpected luxuries. And everyone went home with a priceless little gem of a party favor.

  After several years, it had become a status symbol to have attended an Adan Neruda birthday party. Even the wealthiest members of Bolivian society went to great lengths to display their Adan Neruda party favors in their homes.

  It also became politically or socially ruinous in some circles to be snubbed.

  Every year, as a result, there were those who attempted to get on the list. Party invitations had been forged. Neruda had been offered as much as one million dollars a ticket. He didn’t take money, although he had been known to take favors. Those who were left out often felt that their careers, as well as their social lives, were at an end. As a result, at least three suicides had been attributed in past years to an Adan Neruda birthday party snub.

  The suicides, Adan Neruda decided, were the best possible publicity that his parties could get. They generated word-of-mouth that enhanced his reputation the way that no ten-thousand-dollar knickknack could.

  But the ten-thousand-dollar knickknacks were strategically important, as well. This year he had commissioned a team of Chinese artists to create one hundred root carvings. Each of them was made by hand, carved from hundred-year-old pieces of mangrove root wood, all with the Chinese longevity character but also with something extra—a special symbol or totem dictated by the shape of the root and the imagination of the artist. This meant they were all unique, enhancing their value even more. Expertly carved, and beautifully stained and lacquered and hand polished, and each set with a single perfect gemstone in a star carved as part of the symbol. Some were set with emeralds, some with rubies and some with diamonds. All the stones were as near to perfect as possible. Adan Neruda had let it be known, indirectly through a gossip leak, that each little piece of art would indeed have an international collector’s value of upward of ten thousand U.S. dollars.

  Tonight’s earliest entertainment came in the form of two teams of chefs, one from France and one from Japan, and they would have a secret-ingredient cook-off battle. He had provided them with some of the freshest food and produce that the world had to offer. Never mind he had to charter a jet from Alaska to bring in crab, and from Hawaii to bring him tuna.

  Adan Neruda never bothered to worry about the cost of his party anymore, because the party always paid for itself in his own enhanced security, in new connections, in new obligations by the guests. It made him someone that everyone wanted to be friends with, and that was a kind of power that money couldn’t buy.

  It was barely 7:00 p.m. and Adan Neruda had already determined that this would be his best success yet. The guests had oohed and aahed over the display of artworks that officially started the party. They were all eager to get their hands on t
heir own party favor to see which gemstone had been chosen for them. They were all eager to try the special blend of Scotch whisky that had been commissioned and barreled more than a year ago, specifically for this party. Adan Neruda had informed his guests that only enough of the special blend had been made to serve at the party tonight, plus an extra half-dozen bottles, which would be awarded as special prizes.

  The only thing Neruda was worried about now was how he would top this party in another year.

  He never dreamed that this party was already almost over, and that there would never be a Neruda party in La Paz again.

  * * *

  HE STROLLED THROUGH the penthouse library, which had been transformed into a tasting room for the finer liquors imported for the event. He glad-handed with several business leaders, clinked glasses with two of the power brokers in the national government and shook hands with a visitor from Brazil—one of the biggest crime bosses in Latin America.

  They all seemed happy to see him. They all had complimentary words for his booze and his women.

  A more raucous bar has been set up in the adjacent parlor. Here several acrobatic bartenders were tossing bottles and spinning glasses as they mixed colorful drinks, mostly for the wives and daughters of the invited guests. In another room, a dance floor was set up and a German techno group, apparently one with several major hits in Europe and Japan, was playing to a packed crowd of forty or fifty young people.

  He emerged through an open archway and crossed a small garden, leaving what was technically the presidential suite of the hotel and entering the courtyard. Here half the roof was removed at this time of year to admit the mild nighttime air. The banks of plants turned the courtyard into a true garden, and here the real mingling took place. Tuxedoed waiters brought drinks, and small knots of the most powerful people in the country talked and joked comfortably. A quartet, hidden behind a display of planters, played just loud enough to entertain, but not so loud as to interfere with conversation.