“Ok,” I said. “Fill up the wings and let’s get out of here.”
“Joseph, do you know anyone who works around any of the pools at any of the hotels?” I asked him.
“Ya, mon, my friend Paul, he take care of pools at a few of the hotels here.”
“Great,” I said. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Ya, mon, what you need?”
“I need some chlorine.”
“What you gonna do with that?”
“I just need a gallon of pure chlorine. Not bleach but chlorine.”
“Ya, mon, I can get that for you.”
“Ok,” I said, “and I also need about six one-gallon plastic jugs and a roll of aluminum foil. It’s got to be aluminum foil only.”
“No problem,” he assured me.
As Joseph headed off my attention quickly refocused on to getting the airplane ready to fly.
“Chlorine, aluminum foil?” Tom asked.
“Yeah, man, you know we’re going to need some sort of diversion.”
“That will do it,” Tom replied.
With the fuel in the wings and the battery hooked up, I drained the fuel system’s lower drain plugs again looking for water. This time only a small amount of water came out of each of them.
“That should do it,” I said.
“Are you ready to fly this thing?” Tom asked.
It had been at least ten years since I had last flown an airplane.
“Yeah, it’s just like riding a bike.”
Tom had been the very first person I ever took up in an airplane when we were kids. Now, here we were in another part of the world getting ready for a first flight in about ten years and he again, was my first passenger.
Joseph was back quickly from his quest for the chlorine and as I took the six jugs from him I realized they were kind of on the heavy duty side. “Problem?” he asked.
“No, these are good,” I assured him. We loaded everything into the plane.
“Joseph?” I asked. “Can you drop these gas cans back at André’s shop for us?”
“Ya, mon, and the tools, too?”
“Let me see that tool bag a minute.”
I then decided to take a couple basic tools with us.
“Let’s see, screwdrivers, a couple wrenches and a pair of vice grip pliers. Ok, that should do it. Ok, let’s do this!” I shouted.
I was getting a real rush of adrenaline and ready to get this task in motion. As I did a quick walk around the airplane checking the ailerons and rudder controls, it dawned on me that I never got the keys for the plane from André.
“Damn!” I yelled out.
“What’s up?” Tom wanted to know.
“The keys,” I said.
As I rounded the back of the plane, I could see Joseph pulling out and onto the main road and too far from us to call for him. Fortunately, as I got to the side door of the plane I looked through the window and saw a key in the ignition switch.
Man, I thought to myself, calm down, get focused.
With everything loaded up I turned the mag switch to ‘On’, pumped the primer a few times and turned the key. The engine fired right up. Damn, I thought, that’s a good thing.
The runway was old and had a lot of weeds growing through the cracks that had formed there through many years of neglect. The runway was long enough but with the uneven surface it took a little longer to get up enough airspeed to get off the ground.
I lowered the flaps about 10 degrees and pulled back on the yoke with just a little pressure and within a few hundred feet we were in the air. The engine sounded good, I banked to the left at a few hundred feet and we were instantly over the water and away from the island.
I then realized that the airport was a lot closer to the coast of the island than I had thought. Even at a few hundred feet we could see our destination right there in front of us and that it would be a quick flight over to St. Barts.
Flying had always been the most exciting form of adventure for me. I really liked riding motorcycles but an airplane truly affords a real sense of freedom. In unrestricted air space one could get as mild or wild as their abilities would allow. There in the air there were no traffic signals or speed limits. You could fly over areas of the ground that you could not see from any other perspective. I thought as a kid I would pursue a flying career but after returning home from the service I had gotten very disillusioned with the establishment and my personal appearance of long hair and beard didn’t lend well to a flying career.
“What’s the plan?” asked Tom.
“Well, I figure we’ll climb to 1500 feet and over fly the airport so I can get a look at it. Then we can see which way we want to go in.”
I pulled back on the yoke and trimmed the plane for a couple hundred feet per minute climb figuring we’d be about 1500 feet by the time we were close to the island. In a short time we were at 1500 feet and as we got close to the island I could see the tiny airport tucked away between two hills.
Damn, I thought, André was right when he said ‘challenging’. We could see an obvious wind direction indicated by a large orange wind sock that was outstretched showing a wind from the east.
“Ok, ready?” I asked Tom
“Yeah, let’s do this.”
With that I pulled back on the power and eased the nose of the airplane over. As we got lower I could see that our approach had to be right over the main harbor that we had entered yesterday. From there the approach was over a large hill that dropped right down to the end of the runway.
As I banked the plane to the left we were right over a group of large private boats that were at anchor there in the harbor. As I looked down my attention was drawn to a beautiful woman who was sunning herself on the bow of one of the larger sailboats. I could see her actually shade her eyes with her hand to look up at us as we passed right over her.
“Damn, that’s a nice approach,” I said.
“Yeah, well, do you see that mountain in front of us?” Tom wanted to know.
Looking forward I could see we were going to need some more power to clear the hill that seemed to get taller as we got lower. I quickly added some power and headed for a saddle that seemed to be carved out of the top of this hill. As we flew through the saddle a sudden updraft coming up the other side of the mountain threw the plane around violently and I found myself suddenly serious about controlling the plane.
I could see the end of the runway and nosed the plane over and pulled back the power. This was definitely more than I had anticipated and I was relying on my rusty skills now to get this plane on the ground safely.
By the time I got low and slow enough to land, we were halfway down the runway and I could see the beach that was at the other end getting closer to us real quick. I then remembered these Cessna 172s as ‘floaters’ meaning they just seemed to drag slow in flight before giving up flying. With that memory I slammed the throttle forward and retracted the flaps. By the time the plane had enough airspeed to actually climb we were over the beach at about 3 feet.
Wow, I thought to myself, am I that rusty or is this runway that challenging?
“What do you think?” Tom asked without a waiver in his voice.
“Damn, man,” André was right. This freakin’ airport is a tough one.”
“Maybe you’re just being complacent,” Tom said.
“What?” I asked.
Now Tom was not one for mincing words, but I couldn’t remember that particular word ever coming out of his mouth before.
“Complacent?” I said. He was right. As much as I would like to have thought he was wrong, he was right.
“Ok,” I said. “This time.”
On the second approach we passed right back over the same sailboat and the same woman doing the same thing with her hands. This time I was prepared for the updraft. Once over the hill, I cross controlled the plane and slipped it down quickly towards the approach end of the runway.
“Here we go,” I said aloud.
This tim
e I got slow, low and flared on the first third of the runway. As the wheels touched down, I retracted the flaps.
”And that’s how it’s done.” I boasted.
“Yeah, well what happened the first time?” Tom wanted to know.
As we pulled off the runway onto an adjoining taxiway I could see the airport’s office and part of the little building next to it. I saw a door with a sign over it that said ‘Customs’.
“Oh, fuck!” I shouted.
“What’s wrong?” Tom wanted to know.
“We never cleared customs when we left St. Maarten,” I informed him.
“Oh, fuck is right,” he said. “Now what?”
“Well, we either fly out of here right now or try to explain it.”
“What do you think?” Tom asked.
“Well, we could just try to explain that we forgot. I mean what can they do? We’re here.”
“Our passports do show us being here yesterday.”
“Let’s try explaining and see what happens.”
We made our way over to a tie down area and as we were securing the plane I looked around at the dozen or so other airplanes that were there. None had the numbers on them that André had given me as the tail numbers for Bishop’s airplane and none of them were a 210 Cessna. That wasn’t encouraging.
We left everything in the plane and walked over to the customs office with our passports in hand. As we entered we were politely greeted by two customs officials. As we handed them our passports, they casually offered us a seat and said to make ourselves comfortable. I wasn’t’ going to say anything about anything unless asked.
After a couple of minutes one of the guys asked, “Who’s the pilot?”
“I am,” I offered up.
“Are you a licensed pilot?” he asked.
“Ah, yes. Yes, I am.”
I was thinking that they had witnessed our first approach to land and that perhaps it was the reason for the question.
“May I see your license, please?” he asked.
With that question I looked at Tom as he was turning to look at me and it was one of those memorable moments.
As I’m looking at Tom I replied, “Ah, yeah, sure,” and I remember the look on Tom’s face.
Now for me, there were a few really proud moments in my life. Times that I was proud of myself for accomplishing something I really wanted to do. One was getting my driver’s license on my 16th birthday.
When I was growing up in Pennsylvania you had to be 16 to get a permit, you learn how to drive, take a written and driving test and when you pass you get your driver’s license. I got my permit and asked to take the tests on the same day.
The people at the driver’s license bureau weren’t even sure if you could do that but they let me take the tests and I passed. Little did they know that I had actually been driving illegally for years.
Pretty much the same with the pilot’s license. For the private license you needed 20 hours of solo time and 20 hours with an instructor. I took my test with 40.5 hours. Same thing – got the license but had been flying for untolled hours before that.
Even better than a driver’s license – once you get it – that was it. You have it for life unless your health fails or you get caught doing something stupid or illegal. Now to stay legal, you need to take a flight review every two years to stay ‘current’ but that’s not mentioned on the actual license.
As I stood up I reached for my wallet and produced my pilot’s license which I had carried with me since day one. As I handed it to the official I turned to see Tom smiling and shaking his head in disbelief.
“Very good, have a seat, please,” the official said as he took my license. “And what brings you to St. Barts?”
“Well, we were out flying a friend’s plane and we figured we would fly over here for some lunch.”
“Your friend’s plane? And who might that be?”
“André,” I offered up. “He has the cargo planes over on St. Maarten.”
“Yes, I know André,” he replied.
The tone in his voice sounded positive and I figured that might play out in our favor. He then went on to say that his brother in St. Maarten worked for André and that André came here himself quite often in the airplane we were flying. That figures, I thought to myself.
“Then you’ve seen this plane here before,” I offered up.
“Yes, many times, but never with someone else flying it.”
I was sensing that he was looking out for André and his interests more than anything else.
“How long will you be here on St. Barts?” he then asked.
“Well, we will be leaving sometime later today,” I replied.
“Ok, then you are free to go. Enjoy your stay,” he said handing back our freshly stamped passports along with my pilot’s license.
As we closed the door on the way out, I felt relieved that the lack of a customs stamp from St. Maarten had never been mentioned. Oh, well, I thought, that’s a good sign.
We went next door to the fixed base operator’s office where I saw a sign for car rentals. After another exchange of passports and driver’s license, we were handed the keys to a small white car parked right next to the office.
“Can we drive the car over to our plane to get our luggage?” I asked.
“Yes, by all means,” he replied.
The last thing I wanted was for him or the two customs officials to see us unloading plastic jugs and our duffel bags from the airplane. The whole time we were in customs and handling the paperwork on the car rental, not one airplane had landed or departed from the airport. But while unloading our supplies from the plane to the car, a small regional airplane landed and unloaded a group of six people.
“Now that’s how you’re supposed to do it,” Tom said watching the pilot land.
“Well, he’s probably done it a thousand times,” I quipped in defense of my own pride.
As we pulled out of the airport, I looked around one last time for any sign of Bishop’s 210. It wasn’t there. We hadn’t eaten anything yet that day and decided we would eat before getting involved in anything.
Before going to breakfast, we found the address that Bishop had given to us the day before. As we drove by, we could see that it afforded a good bit of privacy with a gated drive entrance. The drive wrapped around a hill which blocked any view of a house.
I then remembered him mentioning that his property backed up to some bluffs and his mention of a private beach. With that thought, we had decided that coming in from the backside would be to our advantage.
Over breakfast at a small open air café in Gustavia, we started to lay out a plan of just how we were going to execute our mission of freeing Bruce from his captors. We had decided to park the car about a quarter mile from Bishop’s place where there was an easy access to the shoreline that would take us to the back part of his property.
“What about dogs?” Tom asked.
“Got it covered,” I assured him.
“How’s that?” he wanted to know. With that, I pulled out of my pocket a prescription bottle I had gotten from Bruce’s father as part of our first aid kit on the boat. The prescription was made out in my name and was for fifty 5mg valium.
“Right here,” I said, showing him the vial.
“And how are you going to get a dog, or dogs, to swallow a pill?”
“No problem,” I said. “We serve it with steak.”
“Steak?” Tom asked.
“Yeah, you’ll see. Let’s get out of here,” I said as I finished the last of my coffee.
Our next stop was the local food store. There I headed for the meat department.
“Here you go,” I said. “What dog could resist this?” It was a thick slab of meat that could have had any dogs interested.
“How many do you think?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know, let’s get four or five just in case.”
We purchased five of the largest pieces of meat we could find and a couple rolls o
f duct tape. After our stop at the grocery store, we decided to drive past the house one last time.
Nothing had changed. The gate was still closed and not being able to see the house made it difficult to determine just what was going on or how many people we might encounter once we stormed the house.
After the second drive-by, we headed down the road to where we had earlier determined we could gain access to the shoreline. There was a place we could park and leave the car without drawing attention to ourselves. Once parked, I opened the trunk and we went through our supplies to determine what we had and what we needed.
The three weapons we had were a Smith and Wesson .38 Special, a Mac 10 automatic and an old Colt .45 that had a conversion kit enabling it to be used as a .22 caliber. I decided to break down the .45 and change it over to a .22. I reasoned that it would still look as impressive and intimidating as a .45 but would be much quieter should I have to shoot it.
Having guns on the boat had afforded us a certain level of comfort but here on land, on this island, they could put us in prison. This was serious shit and Tom and I decided that we were fully committed to the task. We could have just called Mr. Saxton and told him of the situation and still walked away with a fortune.
But now, it went beyond that. I was pissed off. This guy had set out to hurt, if not kill, me and I was going to make him pay. Tom and I had also decided that if we could actually put Bruce and his father face to face, it would seal the deal and there would be the maximum payout.
“Let’s not forget this,” Tom said handing me the ten pounds of meat we had bought.
“Oh, yeah, let me see that.”
I took each piece of meat and with my trusty Randall knife sliced small folds into the meat in such a way that I could tuck the pill inside. The pill would stay there even if I had to toss the slab of meat some distance.
“How many?” I asked Tom.
“I don’t know but if in doubt, more is better.”
I tucked five pills into each piece of meat before rewrapping them in the butcher paper. We then filled each of the plastic jugs half way with the chlorine Joseph had procured for us earlier. I put half the jugs in one duffel bag and the others in the second bag so neither would be too heavy to carry. I then put the meat, aluminum foil, duct tape, guns and ammo into the third duffel bag.
Adventures In A Pair-A-Dice Page 14