White Death (14 page)

The American continued, “I made arrangements for you to meet with the head mechanic at Opa-Locka Airport. His name is Sam Slaughter. You need to go by later, talk with him, give him a copy of your driver’s and mechanic’s license, and discuss likely jobs. He understands that the primary reason for your part-time employment is to keep the parole officer happy so you can work for us the rest of the time. Also, we are going to meet Marcus Sterling who is in charge of logistics, and is a principal in this operation. Be respectful and don’t ask too many questions. Follow his lead.”

We pulled into the parking lot of a real-estate company in North Miami. After climbing one flight of stairs, I looked at an office door that read “Ex-Pat Realty.” Underneath in Spanish Sterling had written with slightly larger letters
Volveremos
(“we shall return”). After walking past some cubicles, we arrived at the end door and knocked.

“Enter,” said the voice from within.

Marcus extended his hand to me and said, “James, finally good to meet you. You seem to be an interesting character, and your former cellmate gives you high marks. Fortunately, I can access the BOP database and did a little reading about you.”

I couldn’t tell whether the latter remark reflected concern, or should be accepted at face value. It didn’t matter now; I had made the leap.

“What did you do before your connection with the Mexican trafficker?”

“I worked for one of those small regional carriers, which pay nothing, and I supplemented my income as an aircraft mechanic. I also worked a great scam with a car dealer. We approached
Mexican illegals who had no documentation and offered them for cash, a car, tags, insurance cards, and a good-looking Oklahoma driver’s license.”

“Did you get caught?”

“No, a cash only business.”

Abruptly changing the subject, Sterling began, “Here is what you need to know, James. You will pick up a mixed load of cocaine and marijuana from an airfield about thirty kilometers west of Barranquilla, Colombia. The airplane is a Comanche PA-24-250. Are you familiar with that plane?”

“No,” I replied.

“No problem. I will ask one of our experienced pilots to make the first run with you. Will that be sufficient?”

“Perfect,” I said.

“From Barranquilla you refuel in the Bahamas and fly to a small airport on the coast of central Florida. Mr. Ortiz will explain the details. A truck will be waiting to help offload the product and drive it north. You, or another pilot, return the empty plane, depending on demand and personnel considerations. You won’t get stuck in Colombia. Somebody can drive you to the international airport in Barranquilla to rest in Miami for a while. Based on experience and the difficulties possible en route we don’t want tired or hung-over pilots flying. Do you drink, James?”

“Rarely and not to excess.”

“Excellent. Do you have questions?”

“What is my fee for each trip?”

“Five thousand at loading and five thousand after offloading at Valkaria, a small airport on the Florida coast.”

“When do I start?” I asked.

“First, take care of the paperwork with Sam Slaughter. We stay in business because we don’t make careless mistakes, James. Details are important. No product comes into Miami, and this is a legitimate real-estate company, in case you decide to relocate
here permanently. Later next week you and Jorge Ortiz, our most experienced pilot, will take a commercial flight to Barranquilla. Verify with Tony that the number you gave Ramirez is still the best number to reach you. A Comanche is sitting at the small airfield waiting to be loaded.”

Tony dropped me off at a Hertz place, where I rented a red Ford Galaxie with a 390 cubic inch motor and a four-barrel carburetor on top. I picked this car to because it was fast and flashy. Jamie was home when I returned.

“Nice wheels,” she smiled. “So, you’re taking me to dinner?”

“Sure. You must know a good seafood place around here.”

“Absolutely. Give me five minutes.”

That’s women speak for fifteen to twenty minutes. I put away the Sig and settled in front of the TV. Live footage from the carnage in Vietnam. I changed channels.

We found a quiet booth in a nearby seafood joint. Jamie wanted to share an appetizer, marinated alligator chunks on sticks. She told me it tasted like chicken.

“Next time,” I said. I picked the Grouper, and she ordered Red Snapper.

“You seem a little moody,” she observed.

“I had company today. An American gangster named Tony and a Cuban they call No Name One. There are four of these thugs, all hired killers. I met with Marcus Sterling who gave me the basic details. He was cool, all business. Next week I fly to Colombia with another pilot to do a run to a small airport north of here. From there the product goes toward Washington by truck.”

“That’s great news. Call Roy when you get home. I’ll brief my people and the BNDD liaison.”

“That brings up another point. Sterling casually mentioned he had access to the BOP database and had done some reading about me. Obviously, my cover was airtight because I got the job
instead of a bullet. BNDD is only a year old. They brought in many people from the former Federal Bureau of Narcotics and added new hires, all of whom should be properly vetted. Many carried their clearances over from the old FBN, a potential weakness. In addition, BNDD issues a provisional clearance to some employees because the FBI cannot keep up with the high demands for clearances from so many agencies. Supposedly, those with provisional clearances do not have access to sensitive information. I’m concerned that the practical need for manpower might force some managers to bend the rules. If you were a drug trafficker, what would be your highest counterintelligence priority?”

“Penetrate BNDD,” responded Jamie without hesitation.

“BNDD has been helpful,” I said. “For example, they made the connection between Marcus Sterling, Ramirez, and the smuggling enterprise. I don’t trust all of them. I’m going to ask Ray to sanitize the information we give them, and marginalize them from this point forward. This narco-group is so successful because they are both smart and ruthless. Does that request sound paranoid?”

“No, actually. They don’t have a need to know the type of details which can get you killed. Let them contribute on a more strategic than tactical level, so they will perceive their supporting role as consistent with your justifiable concerns.”

“Well put. If Ray balks, can you talk to the Special Agent in Charge here?”

“Actually, this is supposed to be a Headquarters op, but he will support you on this. We have our own concerns about BNDD. Unfortunately, drugs are not an FBI priority.” We talked shop and more personal things until late. The call to Washington could wait until the morning.

As we walked toward the house, Jamie was brushing casually up against me. I was probably imaging things since female contact seemed a long time ago.

“It’s dark now,” she began. “Remember the drainage canal that runs along the side yard?”

“Yeah,” I said cautiously.

“It is full of alligators.”

“Gators? How big?” I walked a little closer to the canal to squint through the darkness.

Jamie snuck up behind me and grabbed me around the lower legs.

“Aaagh!” I fell backward and crosswise on top of her while she laughed aloud.

I rolled to one side of her and said, “I’ll get you for that. Are there really gators there?”

“I saw an eight-footer sunbathing close to this spot a few days ago.”

“Then what are we doing here?”

“Having a little fun.” She kissed me gently on the forehead and ran a hand down my side, letting it come to rest on my hip.

“This is dangerous,” I said.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “We’d better get away from the canal,” shamelessly playing with my words.

We were still smiling as we entered the house and flipped on lights, heading for the living room. I turned on the tube and sat in a Lazy-Boy. She scooted up between my feet, asking for a neck and shoulder massage. While it was only a massage, I found it slightly erotic. I sensed that she did too.

Twenty-seven-Thousand Feet Over the Atlantic
,
October 1969

Jorge Ortiz and I had seats together in a mostly empty Pan Am DC-8 jet doing a daily milk run from Miami to Barranquilla, to Bogota, and back to Miami.

“I’ll summarize a few important things about the Comanche,” offered Ortiz. “Obviously, we bought the PA-24-250 with the extended range ninety-gallon tanks. Gross weight is twenty-nine-hundred pounds. With ninety gallons of fuel, the payload is six-hundred-seventy pounds. Subtract out the average hundred and seventy-pound pilot and you have five-hundred pounds of cargo. But the cargo area is placarded at two-hundred pounds, so we removed the back seats, which give us more space and the ability to shift the center of gravity (CG) forward.”

“How can I do a proper weight and balance check prior to flight with these changes?” I said.

“Well, you can’t exactly. So, I did some test flights adding weight with dumbbells and other known weights at different moments in inch-pounds to determine an approximate CG at four hundred and four-hundred-fifty pounds.”

“Jesus. That scares the crap out of me.”

“Being scared tells me you’re well-trained. I explained this to three pilots; two hardly reacted to this trial-and-error method. The other one freaked out and wanted to quit.”

“What happened to him?”

“Well, he had seen too much, knew too much, and met too many people. One of the No Names arranged a fatal accident.”

Returning to the original subject, Ortiz asked me, “Have you
ever taken off in a plane only to discover you had an aft CG problem?”

“Once, as a favor I ferried two fat helicopter pilots back to their home base. They had no baggage, so I thought: I’m within weight, but maybe toward the aft CG corner. Later, I calculated my CG limit and was lucky to have survived.”

Ortiz continued, “The plane can land at max gross weight and needs less than fifteen-hundred feet to land with 32 degrees of flaps. Therefore, if you sense a CG problem, make one-half standard rate turns to return and rearrange or remove cargo, and keep your speed up making those gentle turns. The landing strip is twenty-five-hundred feet and paved – almost commercial grade.”

“How large is the cargo door?” I asked.

“Twenty inches square. The marijuana is in bales of fifteen-by-eighteen-by-forty inches and weighs about fifty pounds, so it fits through the door. We have to arrange them by climbing over the seat. The other product is more compact and dense, and rides in stacks behind the pilot. Usually we take off with less than four hundred pounds of cargo and 15 degrees of flaps. You’ve flown Pipers before, so be careful when low on fuel about uncoordi- nated flight maneuvers that might uncover the fuel outlet in a tank. It is always kind of scary when the engine stops. Piper also recommends burning the aux tanks dry before switching to the main tanks. Finally, to prevent inadvertent gear retraction on the ground, you must move the handle aft before moving it upward. Now, you are an expert.”

“Do you have a proper Pilots Operating Handbook
¹⁰
(POH) for me to study?”

“We can drive over to the strip when we arrive, and I’ll take it out of the plane for you to look over tonight, but I want to leave early tomorrow so we don’t have to dodge thunderstorms in the dark, a mistake we made during an initial run.”

I still had questions, but studying the POH would help a lot.

The Trip

One of Ortiz’s men picked us up, and we drove directly to the private airstrip about thirty kilometers west of Barranquilla, where two Comanches were parked. One was down for maintenance.

In the nearby motel, I studied the POH, a process I’d done for many planes. Fatigue finally took its toll. I slept hard until the phone rang with a wakeup call. I understood nothing she said, except it was time to get up.

Ortiz and I drove to the strip in silence, drinking coffee. The airstrip looked better in daylight. No numbers were painted on the ends, which indicate compass direction if you add a zero. For example, runway 27 faces 270-degrees or due west. Ortiz said this runway was approximately perpendicular to the coastline, thus accommodating nocturnal winds from the differential heating of the land and sea.

I insisted on weighing each bale, but the coke was in one-kilo bricks.

“This weighing shit is going to slow us down,” groused Ortiz.

“Yeah, well it might mean that your load arrives intact along with two pilots,” I said, being in no mood for estimates.

“Also, does either of your assistants speak English?”

“I do,” said a man called Juan. “I or one other worker who speaks English will help you on trips when you come alone.”

“Thanks,” I replied. For a reason just beyond my reach, I was in a foul mood. Maybe it was the long, boring trip with Ortiz, almost thirteen-hundred miles with a fuel stop in a plane that tops out at one-hundred-fifty knots. Alternatively, I learned nothing here except the name of one laborer. I shrugged it off to do the preflight inspection and oversee the cargo layout. The more dense cocaine was toward the front, behind our seats, and the bales were in back. The procedure seemed to work out better than I expected.

“Three-hundred and fifty pounds,” beamed Ortiz.

“We are still over gross with two pilots.”

“You gringos worry too much.”

“Being careful keeps me alive.”

“Okay, let’s get out of Dodge,” said Ortiz. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, if you like cowboy movies.”

We got in and began the checklist, leaving the door open for ventilation.

“Fuel selector on right tank, mixture rich below three-thousand feet…”

“What are you doing?” demanded Ortiz.

“I’m trying to start the goddamn plane. Here’s an old west saying for you from Jessie James: ‘Who’s robbing this train anyway?’ I read the POH, and you don’t start with aux tanks. You switch to aux after altitude. Finally, I talk to myself when reading checklists so I can compare what comes out of my mouth with what I’m doing physically.”

Ortiz slumped back in his seat with two helpful comments. “The book says rotate at fifty-six knots. I recommend sixty-five knots plus 15-degree flaps because of the weight. I’ve had the nose wheel bang down on me trying to get off at fifty-six.”

“Thanks.” We had agreed that Ortiz would navigate and only assist with piloting duties. He had made this over-water run before, and we intended to fly low near the shore, which minimized reception of available navigation aids. Since international flight is illegal without a flight plan, we planned to stay at about a thousand feet until over the ocean to avoid detection. The Navy would pick us up on radar at Guantanamo, but we were drug runners, not a military threat.

“I’m setting 20 degrees on the heading bug,” said Ortiz. Fly that until you pick up the 12-degree radial off the Barranquilla vortac. The heading should work for about twenty-five miles to give us a wind correction angle, then we just dead reckon until
we pick up a crossing radial off GITMO’s vortac. Better to fly over Navassa Island on western Haiti than get in Cuban airspace.”

“Time off is 8:50 p.m.,” I began. “Mixture rich. Prop., forward. Three greens on the wheels. Fuel pump on. Flaps at 15 degrees. Full power. Oil pressure green. No warning lights. Coming up on sixty-five knots. Rotate. Positive rate of climb. Retract gear and flaps. Level off at a thousand feet. Power back to 75 percent. Turning right to intercept the 12-degree radial. Trim off excess control pressure.

“Now, not much to do for the next three hours until we enter the Windward Passage,” I said to myself.

Ortiz reached behind his seat, “We try to think of everything for pilot comfort. Here’s a one-liter mason jar with a top for used coffee and drinks.”

“Thanks.”

The hours over open water with no features were grueling. We calculated a wind correction angle and stayed on that course. Ortiz had put in the GITMO navigation frequency and turned the volume up in hopes of hearing the Morse code identifier. Soon, we heard a faint pattern of dots and dashes.

“The needle is unstable,” I said. “What do you think of popping up to three-thousand feet to get a bearing, and then drop back down?”

Ortiz didn’t respond immediately. “Do it. Better to piss off the U.S. Navy than the Cubans by getting too close. Port-au-Prince radar can’t see this far west.”

Unfortunately, we were too close. The wind had shifted direction, pushing us westward toward Cuba. I dropped down to five-hundred feet and, after a quick calculation, flew almost due east at full power for 15 minutes, then back to one-thousand feet.

“We’re crossing the 120-degree radial,” said Ortiz. “Let’s fly a wide DME arc until we can see Haiti off to the right. Crossing 110
degrees, 100 degrees. I see Haiti on my side. We’re okay. Turn right to 15 degrees. No, make it 18 degrees for wind. That should take us close enough to Matthew Town on Great Inagua to pick up the non-directional beacon at the airport north of town, another hundred-and-fifty-five miles. Time now is 1:10 p.m. They’ll be open for fuel, but if one of our boys takes care of us, we give him the hundred dollars.”

An hour later, we were on the ground. It felt so good to stretch and walk around. The runway was lined on either side with white sand and salt, beyond which lay nothing but the scrubby, low brush that could tolerate this environment. The economy of the island is based on massive salt deposits, a main supplier to Morton’s Salt. The base operator’s office and fuel truck were on the far west end of the runway. One of the boys was taking care of us. The plane doors were locked, and a tarp lay on top of our cargo. We walked in, bought some peanuts and candy, and used the bathroom.

“I see your Comanches here often,” said the booming island voice from behind the counter. He looked fit, in his early fifties, and of mixed racial origin.

“I appreciate your business, but how come you don’t buy one of those fancy jets and fly direct?”

I decided to answer. “The fancy jets are several million dollars we don’t have. We operate on a narrow profit margin, so these planes cost about three-thousand dollars and burn a lot less fuel.”

“Well, better for me you stop in regularly. Nice to see somebody other than salt cargo planes. Looks like fuel is just under two-hundred dollars; let’s call it fifty cents for the nuts and drinks and two-hundred dollars for the whole thing.”

We climbed back in and set the heading bug for 340 degrees. Only six-hundred-and-fifty miles to go. This time the Bahamas lay in front of us. A direct course would take us over Nassau and into big trouble. The plan was to skirt the land masses on the north side, then turn west to 290 degrees after passing Great
Abaco Island. From there it’s only a hundred miles to Valkaria airport.

We dropped down to two-hundred feet about fifty miles offshore, to penetrate the military air defense identification zone that lies off both coasts of the United States. If military radar picked us up, the operator would conclude the sole aircraft was too slow to be military, and thus a civilian law-enforcement problem.

Soon the small barrier islands of the coast came into view. With the help of land-based navigation aids, I believed the airport was at our 12 o’clock, just out of sight. Although we listened to the local frequency, nobody was on the air. With the strong onshore winds we knew runway 9 would be in use.

Valkaria was a typical World War II military airport with long runways for that time, which roughly formed the shape of an overlapping, equilateral triangle. This was a variation with an additional north – south runway in the middle of the triangle. Four airstrips of about four-thousand feet attested to its value for the military during the war. Shore reconnaissance aircraft and anti-ship planes were launched from here for both the Gulf and the southeastern U.S.

“I got it at 11:30,” Ortiz almost shouted. “Let’s pull up to one-thousand feet and do right traffic for runway 9.”

“Sounds good,” I replied. I had already shoved in some power to bring us to traffic pattern altitude and looked forward to a smooth landing. I dropped the gear on the downwind leg of the pattern. All planes, big or small, normally fly a rectangular configuration before they turn onto the final approach. This explains how you sometimes see the airport out of your window in good weather and wonder why the pilot is flying past it.

“Shit! I’ve only got two greens,” exclaimed Ortiz. One of the three wheels was not down and locked, a serious problem.

“Exchange bulbs,” I ordered. “I’m breaking left and climbing to two-thousand feet while we sort this out.”

“I switched them, and it’s not the bulb,” said Ortiz.

“Have you had this problem before in this plane?” I asked.

“Once it flickered for a while, and then gave me a solid green.”

“I’m at two-thousand feet. Any objections to shaking the plane to make it lock?”

“No,” said Ortiz. “Let’s try that before the manual gear-extension procedure. Head a couple miles south, the alligators there won’t report anything unusual.”

“Are you ready?”

Ortiz nodded. I began a series of violent side-to-side oscillations to try to force the unlocked main wheel to move into place.

“Stop! It’s green,” yelled Ortiz. “Let’s get this thing on the ground before I puke on your shirt.”

Ortiz gave me taxi instructions to the backside of an old hangar where we tied down the Comanche. Two men and a truck were waiting. He had made an international call from the Matthew Town airport with an estimated arrival time. In fewer than ten minutes, the four of us had transferred the cargo. One man was Latino, the other a black American.

“Sweep out the plane. I don’t any want drug traces,” ordered Ortiz to the truck drivers.

I introduced myself to both men, but was more interested in the American. When I said my name was James, the black man looked briefly at me but did not smile.

“You two are
tocayos
, ‘the same name,’” chuckled Ortiz. “Kinda like namesake. When somebody else has your first name, you have a special relationship.”