Talk about a zoo—Atlanta’s baggage claim locale is always a lesson in organized chaos. Sal is waiting with the other passengers for his bags to arrive as he mills around trying somehow to be low-keyed. He likes the old way of flying, when everyone checked their bags; the airlines seemed to do a better job of processing and tossing bags back then. He blends in with everyone in the crowd. Overhead, everywhere are signs pointing this way for Taxis, that way for Limos, and another way to Parking. Off to his left, down at the end of the area, he notes a sign—Flight Crew-Shuttle Area.
As he observes, hotel shuttle van after shuttle van pulls up to the curb. Teams or groups of pilots and flight attendants load up, tired after a full day of flying, headed toward their prospective hotels for the night. Sal is keying on the pilots while deciding if this might be a good place to watch for the hijackers or maybe our boys to show up. After awhile, his two bags show up and he departs for the hotel. Once in the lobby and having secured his room, he heads downstairs trying to decide what to eat and where to go for a drink or two, possibly the upstairs bar for a beer and a late night scotch.
Merely a short thirty minutes after he arrives at the hotel, Sal goes up to the front desk to see if he has any messages. A bit later, arriving back at the bank of hotel elevators after checking in, Sal waits at the west bank of elevators for one of the six to appear on the first floor. As they open, he waits for the gathering of people inside to spill out into the lobby. A few females get off followed by a man in a white dress shirt and black tie who exits into the lobby and heads toward the bar. It’s Captain Tom . . . unknown to Sal at this time, their paths are crossing and will cross again.
Chapter 9
Current Weather or current METAR: KATL
10012KT 9SM—RA OVC16 28/19 A29.88 or in plain language:
Winds are 100 degrees at 12KTS, 9 SM of visibility, light rain, overcast sky at only 1600 feet, temperature is 28C, dew point 19 and the area altimeter setting is 29.88
Atlanta, Georgia
Once inside his hotel room, getting settled in, Salvatore grabs the remote and next flips on the TV. As he is unpacking his black travel pro suitcase, the telephone rings. With his right hand, he reaches over the right side of the nightstand, and picks up the receiver. “Hello, this is Sal.”
An aggravated person, Vince starts talking on the other end of the phone. “Look, I’m still in Chicago, my flight is being delayed for over an hour so I might now get in till after midnight . . . one a.m.”
“Hey, no problem,” said Sal. “It’s fine—I can’t do anything actually until tomorrow morning anyway, so give me a holler in the morning.”
“Right, I’ll call tomorrow,” came back Vince’s reply.
Headed down to the hotel bar, Sal scans and recons the area: where are the exits, where is there a bit of cover precisely . . . in case some psycho starts to shoot up the place. Basically every day kind of stuff to Detective Sal, the kind of stuff all good cops do, real cops before they enter a business, a restaurant, whatever, his mind checks it all out before he passes through the entry door. He can’t help this . . . it is part of his DNA. He is the DNA.
Sal grabs a seat at one end of the bar, out of the main stream, drinking a beer, while looking over the bar’s menu. All about are numerous people, civilians and flight crews all, socializing, chatting, in and around the bar and lobby. Tom and four female flight attendants are seated in the lobby area waiting on John and the shuttle bus driver to take them out to a somewhat good area restaurant.
Sal notes everyone and everything around him as usual. He is still flipping through SouthEast’s in-flight magazine, sort of thinking and killing time. Inside the magazine are several high-quality print ads for cheap airfares to Las Vegas, Nevada. Cheap fares here, cheap fares there, from all the cities served by SouthEast Airlines. A bit bored, but starting to relax a bit, Sal finally orders a burger cooked well done and eats at the bar. In a corner, all by himself at the far end of the bar, Sal is enjoying the peace and quiet as he settles into the rest of his calm evening.
The next morning, back in his hotel room, Sal is shaving as the telephone rings. He grabs the receiver on the third ring. Vince advises now he has at last arrived at the airport.
“Hello, yeah, yeah, OK, OK,” Sal is trying to get off of the phone and back to his shave.
Vince, still talking continues, “I’m finally here at the friggin’ Atlanta airport waiting on my luggage.”
“Good, good. I’m about ready to hit the ground, why don’t you meet me in the restaurant in about thirty minutes for breakfast.”
The voice on the other end offers. “Sounds good to me, see ya’ in the cafe.”
Replacing the receiver, Sal turns and heads back to the bathroom. “Geeze!” is his retort as he heads back to the bathroom so he can finish his shave and get ready.
Down in the hotel’s restaurant, Sal is seated at a small table for four, out of the way in a back corner, reading the morning USA Today newspaper as Vince exits the elevator and walks over. Sal is already drinking his coffee and across from him is another cup on the table for Vince. Standing up, he greets Vince with a firm right hand as they shake each other’s hand.
Vince still shaking hands starts talking, “What a night, after hours and hours of waiting, they finally canceled my flight so I had to wait until this morning to get here.”
A quick quip, “That’s the airlines for ya’,” is the comeback from Sal.
“Yea, well now as I am here, what do you hold for me?” Vince is too excited to wait . . . he simply has to ask.
Sal, softly, quietly starts, “well, I’m rather sure these guys work for the airline I told you about, SouthEast Airlines, LLC and I’m 99% sure they are pilots. I mean they could be flight attendants, mechanics, or something along those lines, but my money is on the pilots.”
Vince is ever more excited now. “OK, Let’s go right over to their home office and get some answers.”
Sal trying to put the brakes on this excited rookie, offers, “Hey Lieutenant.”
A puzzled Vince offers, “No? Not a good idea?”
“No sir. If we make that move, we’ll be playing our trump card . . . you play any card games or poker?”
“No, not much, but I think, uh . . . I understand . . . what do we do?”
Sal continues, “Well, first off, they only maintain about 125 pilots. I figure, within a few days or so, we should be able to take a look-see on 50-60%, figuring in days off, vacations and so on.”
Vince now catches on, “Yea, I get ya’. Like running division of men, shift work, factoring in days off, vacation days, sick days, and so on. Then what?”
“I’m working on my next move, come on . . . let’s eat; it’s a buffet,” comes the response. Walking over to the stack of clean plates, Sal reaches in and grabs a hot plate off the top of the stack. He, like the four other folks in front of him waits his turn to order a fresh made to order three-egg ham and cheese omelet, with a bit of onions sprinkled on top.
They move about to the somewhat long buffet line and start to fill up their plates. A bit of this, a bit of that, a couple of pieces of toast, some fruit. A nice big ham and cheese omelet for Sal and two over easy for Vince: wheat toast, skim milk, a big glass of orange juice, maybe a small cup of yogurt . . . a semi healthy breakfast.
Sal rushes through his breakfast including his tall orange juice and a second cup of coffee. He is ready to go, but has to wait for Vince to finish up.
Back at the airport, headed toward the baggage area, Sal and Vince are strolling along talking for a while. On Sal’s lead, the men settle into a couple of chairs to sit and to observe for a moment: To watch, to examine, to gather raw intelligence.
The conversation continues, as Vince asks, “. . . so these Airline Pilots fly all day long and finally when they are through, they just park their airplanes then catch
a hotel shuttle van here. Are you sure?” Vince said.
“Well, more or less. From what I did find out this airline keeps three home bases where the pilots work out of. Here, in Atlanta. This is their main one. Another one back in Dallas and the other is over in Phoenix. Each base arranges contract hotels where the crews can stay at a discounted rate while they are stuck on the ground overnight.”
A now informed Vince adds, “OK that seems reasonable, but, uh . . . OK, well that sort of seems like we will only get to view a third of them . . . and of course it means if . . . we get lucky?”
“Actually,” starts Sal, “since this is their main base or home office the majority of their flight pass through here about every third day.”
“OK what do you think we should do?”
Detective Sal continues, “Well . . . I want to hang out around here and study this area afterwards. I’ve got an appointment at 3:30 pm over at the home office.
“Good, that makes sense to me. I can’t wait to see their faces when we tell ’em there are a couple of bank robbers flying for them.”
In an effort to once again to slow him down, Sal says, “Sorry Lieutenant, that’s not the way we’re gonna’ play it.”
A puzzled Vince, scratching his head, queries a gentle, “It’s not? Huh?”
As he says this, Detective Sal pulls a business card out of his shirt pocket and hands the white card over to Vince, and Vince reads the front. Even more puzzled as to whose name and information printed on it, he scratches his head and came across as in a bit dazed.
“Now I’m totally confused,” Vince asks, “Who’s this?”
Sal simply responds, “Uh, me. At 3:30 pm today, I’ll be Jack B. Watson, freelance magazine writer and I’m going to do an interview for an upcoming article I’m working on.”
“Just like that?
Uh, well,” Sal continues.”Yea, before I worked Robbery, I was an undercover vice cop for about a year. I learned how to lie with the best of them: even learned how to make fake IDs and business cards long before there were computers and laptops. It has come in handy more than once over the twenty-five years.”
A confused Vince is starting to not like this guy very much.
A bit later in the afternoon Sal is standing right inside the lobby, the lobby inside of the SouthEast Airline’s headquarters on the south side of the Atlanta’s big Airport. With a motion of the receptionist’s hand Sal is seated in a small office. The office has glass walls starting at about three feet off the floor. The office door is open. On the door which swings open to the right is a sign which reads, Public Information Office.
Seated behind a desk is a rather nice looking lady, professionally dressed, in a conservative blue suit and low heels. She is around fifty years old, he figures, a bit gray showing in her hair and wears dark colored reading glasses on a lanyard draped around her neck. Her perfume reaches Sal’s nostrils as soon as he walked into her office. It was pleasant at first and later somehow it, the fragrance seemed to drift about . . . a bit too much for this time of the day.
Sal is speaking, “. . . as I was saying, my readers want to comprehend what it’s like to work for SouthEast. Yes they want to hear about the glamorous lives of the airline pilots and all the beautiful flight attendants, that sort of stuff. A bit vain, if I might add, but that stuff sells lots of magazines and pays us writers rather well.”
“Yes, I understand. Well, here is a public information booklet . . . some call it a media-packet I can give you. The packet should answer a lot of your basic questions.”
Sal carries on the little charade. “Excellent, that will help, but tell me about your pilots. Maybe I could get a list of them, their backgrounds, you know if they served in the military, any Eagle Scouts . . . unique sort of stuff?”
Her reply was a quick “Sorry, their personal information is classified . . . company policy.”
Followed by Sal’s sad and awfully weak response, “I understand.”
Under his breath, a bit peeved Sal fires off, “Shit, that didn’t work!”
She continues, “Well, as you may already know, we started this airline with only 3 planes and 15 pilots. Over the years, we expanded our operations and now we have 129 pilots and 35 airplanes. I can tell you many of our pilots are ex-military some who actually flew combat in Vietnam and Desert Storm.”
Rummaging through her desk, looking for something, she said. “We like some other airlines, tried to concentrate on the markets which seemed ready for expansion or underutilized, like Las Vegas.
“There is always room,” she chuckles, “for another airline operating in and out of Las Vegas.”
“Ah yes, Las Vegas. Do ya’ll have many flights out to Las Vegas,” asks Sal?
“Well not as many as we would like, but somewhere around thirty or so per week. We are trying to up that number just a bit at this time.”
Playing a little dumb or naive, Sal asks, “How do you decided who gets to fly where?”
“Seniority, is the key, it’s all based upon seniority. Overall seniority is how planning is done at all the other airlines as far as I know. The same goes for the flight attendants.”
“I understand,” was Sal’s response, “so whoever is the most senior gets to request the best flights, time of day, and so on.”
“Yes, overall seniority is basically how we do it.”
Quizzing, trying to steer the conversation his way, Sal adds, “So I guess if a pilot wanted to, he could fly back and forth to Dallas or Las Vegas day after day?”
“Yes, that is correct. However, but most of them get bored going to the same cities week after week. So basically every 30 or 60 days or so they are given the option to change . . . or to bid a different schedule if they want to. Again, this is pretty common around the airlines.”
“I hope I was some help today, but as I told you earlier, I have a meeting I need to make across the street . . .” Now, getting up to leave Sal reaches out his hand.
“Well I want to thank you for all of your help . . . I’ll send you a draft copy for your approval as soon as I get the print down on paper . . . again under his breath, he chuckles to himself, “that’s a good one . . . a real whopper, he mumbled.”
“Good, let me know if there is anything else you need,” she says as she exited her office.
Later in the day, in the hotel bar, a nervous and aggravated Vince is seated at the bar waiting on Sal to arrive. Unlike Sal, Vince simply picked a bar stool in the middle of the bar. He does not have his back against a wall and is not close to an exit, should something bad happen. He is an ex-Lieutenant of Police, of the greater Los Angeles Police Department and a well respected insurance investigator; he is not used to being treated this way, not used to being kept in the dark. He was also merely a regular nine to five cop; a nine to five police officer. Not a 24/7 lives and breathe it cop like Detective Sal and the others in the Robbery Unit. By golly, I’m the boss here! He lights up a little at the sight of Sal walking toward the bar.
A bit worked up and perhaps a little bit peeved he offers, “I was starting to get worried.”
Sal starts with, “Sir, I am sorry I didn’t come straight back here. I decided to go over to the terminal area and snoop around for a bit.”
“And?”
Sal, not letting on as he can tell Vince is aggravated offers a simple. “Well, I didn’t get very much from the interview, but I’m ready to go to Phoenix next.”
“What, When? I thought you wanted to stay here,” fires back, Vince.
“No . . . while I was at the airport, I booked us on the morning flight at 09:30 hours,” was the reply.
Gathering himself, Vince asks, “OK, what can you tell me?”
Sal offers back, “Actually, nothing more than yesterday. I’ve just got this feeling that I’m close, I mean we’re close. I need to c
heck over the Phoenix base of operations . . . maybe, I mean I feel there is something at that base.”
“The PIO lady actually had the basic stuff, you know who we are, how long they have been in business, and so on. What I in fact wanted was a list of their pilots, but she balked at that . . . I’ll get it one way or another. I have some sources, back home in Houston I may contact.”
Vince is now steaming inside, but keeps his mouth shut. He is deeply concerned because he doesn’t understand what in the world is going on. He’s getting pissed off, but for this time he is still willing to bite his tongue and not say anything. At this time . . . yes, but his patience is getting rather short. “Hell, no one treats me like a rookie,” he thinks. “I don’t care what kind of hot-shot Detective you think you are.”
* * * * *
Another day calls out from the dark and these two men are seated on a different airplane. Salvatore and Vince are seated on another SouthEast DC-9-32 series airliner. They are headed west bound towards Phoenix. Vince is reading the morning Atlanta newspaper, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, while Sal is flipping through the morning issue of the USA Today’s. Basically the paper is a different day’s paper, but no real earth shattering news, and he finished it in short order. He subsequently grabs the in flight magazine. It too is a bit different than before, but basically the same ads and information with a new cover pasted to it.
As he digs through the periodical, he once again spots all the ads for Las Vegas. Many of the ads are pictures of people shooting dice, winning on the slot machines, hitting a “21” on Blackjack and so on. All of this starts him to thinking as he sips his morning coffee.
Con Trails/200 Sky Obscured Page 14