by Cap Daniels
“I think we should check in with Ginger,” I said.
Diablo’s eyes lit up. So far, I’d heard the man say less than a dozen words, and I’d only seen three expressions from him: grinning, somber, and glee at the mention of Ginger. He rarely focused on any one object for more than a few seconds, but every time he glanced at me, he stared as if he knew me from somewhere but couldn’t quite remember my name. I found the look unnerving, but I wrote it off as another peculiarity of a particularly strange little guy.
Ginger’s face filled the screen of the laptop computer. She called Leo, Clark, and me by name, but when she came to Diablo, she winked and smiled a devilish little smirk, displaying her gorgeous dimples. “You’re the only reason I hope to get kidnapped someday, Diablo. I just know you’d come rescue me.”
He blushed.
I wonder if women know how much power they have over us weak men.
“Okay, enough Love Connection. Where’s our ship?” Leo demanded.
“I thought you’d be calling about that very thing. She’s nine hours south-southwest of Isla Del Ray and making just under twenty-three knots.”
“Perfect,” I said, not realizing I’d actually said it out loud.
Everyone turned to me as if I’d been given the floor.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was just thinking about the timing.”
“It’s okay,” said Ginger. “I was thinking the same. Have you come up with a plan to get my little Latin god on that ship safely?”
Diablo smiled and continued staring at the screen.
“Yeah, we’ll put him on board tonight,” Leo said. “I figure they’ll be in the first set of locks at daybreak.”
“What else do you need from me?” asked Ginger.
“Are there any other ships in close proximity to the Pearl?” I asked.
“I thought you might want to know that little tidbit of information,” she said. “There are no ships anywhere near the Pearl; however, there’s a cruise ship steaming from the west that looks like she’ll arrive at the south end of the canal at about the same time as the Pearl. She’s a Holland America ship, and at the moment, they are a DAT at the southern entrance to the canal.”
“What’s a DAT?” I asked.
“Dead ass tie,” said Ginger. “They’ll get there at the same time if neither changes course or speed.”
I laughed. “Thanks, Ginger.”
Leo closed the connection. “We’d better get moving.”
We pulled down the camo netting, Diablo covered all evidence of the fire, and then we were airborne.
With the island of San Jose forty miles away, we made the flight in twenty-five minutes at barely above the tops of the waves.
“They’ve got pretty good radar up at International. I’d rather not have anybody wondering who we are.” Leo tried to explain the wavetop flying, but I think it was just an excuse to show off.
There was a dirt runway cut into the east side of San Jose, and Leo put the Huey down at the northwest end in a blinding cloud of red dust and sand. When the cloud settled, Leo said, “Come on. Help me with the gas.”
Leo had the most interesting fuel stops of any pilot I’d ever met. We rolled five fifty-five-gallon barrels of jet fuel out of the jungle. Leo attached a hand pump to the top of one of the barrels and connected the hose to the tank on the Huey. After cranking until I thought my arm was going to fall off, we topped off the Huey and stashed the barrels back in the tree line.
Diablo was lying on his side, sound asleep on the floor of the Huey.
“Does he always do that?” I asked
“That’ll probably be the last sleep he gets for the next few days.”
I wondered what went on inside Diablo’s head. Is he as wild as he appears to be? Is he insane? Am I?
We ate MREs, meals ready to eat, from thick, plastic bags, and thought about what the night would bring. The sun disappeared behind the trees, and the jungle environment of the island came to life with the sounds of animals that dared not make a sound in the light of day.
The demands that were about to be placed on our shoulders were greater than most men would ever bear, but we’d gladly shoulder the burden for the millions of Americans who unknowingly hid behind the protection we provided. They’d never know us, but we’d never stop beating back the wolves at the gates. Those wolves would never stop coming, and I prayed we’d never quit beating them back.
“Get some sleep,” said Leo. “Diablo will wake us up when it’s time to go.”
I rolled out my sleeping bag to provide at least some measure of padding. I didn’t understand how Diablo could sleep on the hard, aluminum floor of the Huey. I draped mosquito netting over myself to avoid falling victim to the swarms of insects that owned the night in the rainforest.
To say that I slept would not be accurate. It was more like a restless, slow-motion wrestling match with my sleeping bag. Perhaps I caught a few minutes of sleep, but certainly not enough. Diablo left the chopper and faced the northern sky. The cup of the Big Dipper was falling below the horizon, indicating that it was almost midnight at eight degrees north of the equator. Diablo’s clock was far more dependable than my watch.
I folded my mosquito netting and rolled my sleeping bag into a tight ball while Diablo woke Clark, then Leo, who’d been snoring for hours. Clark stretched his arms over his head and yawned broadly. Diablo knelt beside Leo and whispered something, and then they turned to look at me. I didn’t like whatever was happening.
Leo climbed down from the Huey after completing his preflight inspection. “Are you boys ready to go play hide the devil with the Chi-coms?”
Diablo was wearing a pair of black cargo pants and a long-sleeved, skin-tight black shirt, looking like the ninja he was described as being. He took up his position as far back in the chopper as possible, while Clark and Leo climbed into the cockpit. I took my seat just behind the cockpit and pulled on my headset. The old chopper whistled to life, and the rotor blades turned slowly, but soon they were nearly invisible in their racing arc above the fuselage. The cloud of dust had settled, and we were soon clear of the rocky coastline of the island.
Leo pulled a pair of night vision goggles down over his eyes and flew the old chopper along the tops of the waves at nearly two miles per minute.
“You ready to talk some Chinese bullshit, there, Baby Face?”
Clark cocked his eye at Leo, who looked like a mustached bug beneath the night vision goggles. “You just worry about finding that ship, and I’ll worry about talking us in and back out, old man.”
“Old man?” Leo scoffed. “I’ll show you that an old man can kick your young ass if you don’t start showing me some respect.”
“Sure you will,” laughed Clark. “As long as you don’t break a hip.”
The lights of the coast were invisible soon after takeoff. It was easy to believe we were the only humans on Earth, but as Diablo sat motionless, silent, and perched on a Pelican case, I doubted he was actually human.
Diablo wasn’t the only silent one aboard. As if an unseen force had consumed the chopper, no one spoke a word as we scoured the horizon, searching for the AAS Pearl.
How hard can it be to spot one of the largest freighters to ever sail through the Panama Canal?
Finally, the lights of the gargantuan freighter came into sight, and Leo playfully punched Clark’s shoulder. “Well, look what I found, Baby Face. It’s time you turn on that Chinese charm and earn your keep.”
Diablo was tying a small dry bag around his waist and peering through the windscreen toward the Pearl. He pulled on a pair of thin black gloves and crawled toward the door of the chopper. He moved like a cat, his every movement perfectly intentional, and the look on his face was one of utter concentration.
The nose of the Huey rose, and the bulk of the massive freighter loomed in front of us. As we climbed toward the superstructure of the ship, I saw a terrifying view of the windscreen full of cargo containers. Leo flipped
the switch, sending voltage to the powerful searchlight mounted beneath the nose of the chopper.
Clark yelled, “Bāng wǒmen! Wǒmen mílùle! Tǔdì shì nǎ tiáo lù?” into the handheld, marine VHF radio.
My Mandarin is terrible, and what I know of Cantonese would fit in a thimble, but I was pretty sure that roughly translated to, “Help us! We are lost! Which way is land?”
Leo tried to look like a lost, frightened pilot and shined the searchlight directly into the bridge of the freighter.
The ship’s radio operator said, “Guān dēng! Dōng!”
Even in my limited understanding, I knew that meant something like “Turn off that damned light and fly east.”
Leo kept the bridge illuminated and yelled over his shoulder, “Vaya con Dios, Diablo!”
Diablo grabbed my arms and looked at me. He said, “Olvidate de las esclusas. Protege el puente. Archie estaría muy orgulloso de ti.” Then he lunged through the open door and plummeted into the night.
I dived for the door and watched him fall toward the containers and onto the deck of the mighty freighter. I remembered my descent from a helicopter onto the deck of a similar but smaller ship northeast of Havana. The impact of landing on the container had sent waves of pain through my legs and into my back. My fall had been ten feet, but Diablo had just fallen at least twice that distance and landed like a pouncing cougar. His motion never stopped as he continued forward, rolling over the edge of the container and scampering down the side like a spider. He disappeared into the chasm of darkness between the containers.
I felt the Huey bank left and pick up speed. Leo kept the light trained on the bridge as we clumsily flew away toward the east. Once clear of the mountains of containers on the deck, we dived for the surface of the ocean and continued accelerating until the freighter was nothing more than a flickering dot on the western horizon.
Diablo’s words finally hit me. I was so surprised to hear him speak in complete sentences that I hadn’t let his words sink into my head.
He’d said, “Forget about the locks. Protect the bridge.” That was simple enough, but the last thing he said was, “Archie would be proud of you.”
My father, James Alan Fulton, had been such a fan of the Archie cartoons that everyone who knew him well called him Archie. Diablo had just told me that my father would be proud of me.
A shiver of emotion ran through my spine as I tried to piece together how Diablo could’ve possibly known my father. And more importantly, was it possible that he knew the truth about what happened to my family?
Does he have the answers I’ve been seeking for over a decade? How will I be able to pin him down and get him to tell me what he knows? Will I ever see him again?
12
Negotiating 101 in Panama
The hour-long flight back to Bona felt like it took all night. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Diablo had said, but I was going to have to find a way to push that to the back of my mind. There was far too much to do over the coming forty-eight hours to be focused on something a madman said just before he jumped from a helicopter and onto the deck of a freighter.
The clearing where we’d landed on Bona was a challenging landing site in the daylight with no wind, and the night delivered a whole new set of challenges. Leo had night vision goggles, but it was still windy, and there was no visible moon. Apparently, he was up for the challenge. He set the Huey down as gently as if it were a calm summer day.
“Not bad,” offered Clark.
Leo chuckled. “You do anything long enough, and you’re bound to get good at it or die.”
We tied the blades and waited for the engine to cool before hauling the camo netting up and over the chopper again. Our cook was aboard a Chinese freighter somewhere at sea, and we were famished. It was MREs again, but I would’ve preferred another snake.
Clark had anticipation in his eyes. “So, what do we do now, boss?”
“We finish our shopping trip,” I said.
Clark cocked his head as if he wasn’t following.
“We never finished our boat shopping trip. We got interrupted by a couple boatloads of plastic explosives.”
“Oh, yeah. You’re right. Leo said he knew a guy if we had the cash.”
Leo yawned. “We’ll go see him as soon as the sun comes up. I’m going to get some sleep ’til then. Since our perimeter guard is learning his way around a Chinese ship, I guess it’ll be up to you two to make sure nobody sneaks up on us.”
“Well,” said Clark, “since you’re in charge, I guess I’ll stand watch. Besides, I don’t need as much sleep as you soft civilians do.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” I said. “It’s good to be king.”
Either no one cared that we were there, or Clark held the bandits at bay. No unexpected visitors surprised us overnight.
As the sun began heating the morning jungle air, we lifted off and headed north. I was surprised when we landed at the Panama Pacifico International Airport and actually bought fuel from a real fuel truck. I’d begun to believe Leo had an endless supply of jet fuel stashed all over the Central American jungle.
“Your Spanish is pretty good, right, Pretty Boy?” Leo raised eyebrows at me.
“Yeah, I’d say it’s a little better than pretty good.”
“Good. In that case, I need you to listen up when we get to where we’re going. Let me know if anybody says something like, ‘Shoot the old guy with the helicopter,’ or ‘That’s him. Get him.’”
I laughed. “Okay, I can do that. But where are we going?”
“To get you a boat, kid. Try to keep up.”
We lifted off from Panama Pacifico and headed north again, but we were back on the ground in less than two minutes. Leo shut down the Huey and cautiously stepped to the ground.
Clark’s eyes were wide, and he was obviously thinking the same thing I was. “What is this place, Leo?”
Leo looked around nervously. “This is Naval Base Vasco Nuñez de Balboa. This is where we’ll find my friend with your boat . . . if we don’t get shot first.”
“What do you mean, if we don’t get shot first? Is this guy your friend or not?” I demanded.
“Yeah, Pablo’s my friend, but I have a bit of a history with the Panamanian Navy. I’m not their favorite hombre. As long as we can get to Pablo before we come across anyone else who knows me, we’ll probably be fine.”
“Probably?” Clark and I echoed.
Before we’d made it twenty steps away from the chopper, two Panamanian sailors pulled up in what looked like part of an old Datsun truck with no glass and no bed. A pair of wooden pallets were strapped to the frame behind the cab. I listened closely, hoping nothing like “Shoot the old guy” came out of their mouths.
“Buenos días, señor,” one of the sailors offered in a friendly, unthreatening tone. Around their waists were green web belts with holstered sidearms. A pair of rifles rested on the seat of the truck.
“We need to see Pablo, el hombre del barco,” Leo said without offering any greeting. I thought that was bad form, but I was a long way from home and in someone else’s backyard.
“Sí, sí. Ven con nosotros,” said the driver.
Leo glanced at me.
“They want to take us to Pablo,” I said, pointing toward the wooden pallets.
We climbed aboard and headed east toward the canal. We rounded an old, dilapidated building with rusty siding and only part of a roof.
“Pablo esta ahi,” said the driver.
“Pablo’s in there,” I said.
I thanked the driver and slipped him an American ten-dollar bill. He smiled and drove away, leaving a cloud of white smoke behind him.
We rounded the corner of the decrepit building and found a shirtless man sanding the bottom of an old metal patrol boat lying upside down on the dirt floor.
“Pablo! Mi amigo! Cómo estás?”
Pablo’s eyes lit up over his dust mask. He threw down his sander, wiped himself off, and ran toward Le
o. The two embraced and had a little reunion.
Pablo’s English was good; certainly much better than Leo’s Spanish.
“Guys, this is Pablo, the boat guy. Pablo, meet Pretty Boy and Baby Face. They’d like to rent a boat from you, but they only have American dollars. You still take American dollars, don’t you?”
Pablo’s eyes lit up even more at the mention of good old American greenbacks.
“What sort of boat do you want, my friends?”
“Something relatively fast—maybe sixty or seventy kilometers per hour—and something we can use as a dive boat. We’ll need to be able to climb back into the boat from the water without much problem.”
“Sí, sí. I have just the boat for you, amigos. Follow me.”
We walked out of the building and toward a fenced compound full of every variation of boat. Some were barely recognizable as boats, while others looked almost new.
“Are all of these for sale?” I asked as I scanned the compound.
“No, no. Just the one you want. You cannot have all.”
I laughed at the misunderstanding brought about by the language barrier, but I supposed he was correct.
“Oh, I don’t want them all. I just want that one.” I pointed toward a rigid hull inflatable boat in the corner of the compound with “La Seguridad” stenciled on each side of the partially deflated tubes. Most of the time, appearances are accepted as fact, and needing to belong anywhere I wanted to be on the water, that was the cover I needed. No one would question a safety boat.
“Oh, very good choice, amigo. I will take off writing on boat for you. Is for you two thousand dollars U.S. because you are amigo for Leo.”
“How much is it if I’m not Leo’s amigo?”
“Is only one thousand then,” Pablo said, then burst into a fit of laughter so hard he could barely stay on his feet.
Leo stuck out his bottom lip, demonstrating his best hurt-feelings look.
“Come, come, amigo. I am only kidding with you.” Pablo patted Leo’s shoulder.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” I said. “You leave the writing on the boat, and I’ll buy the boat from you for three thousand dollars U.S., but if I bring it back to you within three days, you’ll give me back a thousand dollars. How does that sound?”