White Cargo

38

The windshield was down on the hood of the jeep, and the breeze felt good to Cat. “Just drive at a normal clip,” he said to Meg. He had a tight grip on Prince’s collar and he let it go. “If you move or say anything to anybody except what I tell you, I’ll shoot you right through the back of the seat, do you understand?”

“Yes,” Prince said, “but where the hell do you think you’re going? There’s nowhere to go but jungle.”

“We’re going out of here in your helicopter,” Cat said. “Now shut up.”

They drove up the path from the tennis courts toward the main house.

“Jinx, are you okay?” Cat asked again, uncertain, and not wanting to get slapped again.

“Oh, shut up,” she said.

“Don’t you know me?” he asked, bewildered.

“Of course I know you!” she said. “Where have you been all this time? Don’t you know what’s been going on?” She was clearly furious.

“Well, look, we had to find you first, you know—”

“Vargas!” Meg suddenly said.

Cat looked up, and as they approached the main house, he saw Vargas running out the door, waving them down. “Okay, Meg, stop, but be prepared to leave in a hurry.” He yanked Prince’s ponytail. “Handle him, or you’ll die here and now.” He lowered the gun between his legs.

They drew up next to Vargas, who was waving excitedly. “Anaconda,” he said, breathlessly, “something is wrong. The duty operator has disappeared, and someone has been tampering with the radios.”

“Not right now,” Prince said to him. “We’ll talk about it later.”

Then Vargas noticed Prince’s smashed mouth. “What has happened? What...” He was looking from Prince to Cat, then he was looking down between Cat’s legs.

Cat raised the pistol and, keeping it low, pointed it at him. “Get in the jeep,” he said to Vargas, sliding over and pulling Jinx with him to make room in the back seat.

Vargas stood frozen to the spot. He looked at Prince.

“Do as he says,” Prince said. Vargas climbed into the back seat, and Meg drove on toward the clearing.

“What is happening?” Vargas wanted to know.

“Just shut up and sit still, Vargas,” Cat said, looking around. There was no one else in sight. Meg drove the jeep down the jungle track toward the clearing. In the distance, Cat could see the helicopter. He began to feel something like hope.

As they made the clearing, Dell stumbled out of the bush, pushing a man ahead of him. “Our pilot came to work real early,” he said, grinning and holding his pistol to the man’s head.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Cat said. “Prince, this is my son, Dell.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Dell grinned. He held up a canvas sack. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve helped myself to five million bucks of yours. Actually, two million of it is mine and my dad’s.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Cat said.

Meg had stopped the jeep a dozen yards from the helicopter. As Cat started to get out, Vargas pushed him. Off balance, he fell sideways, landing on a shoulder and dropping the gun. He scrambled for the weapon, found it, then found Dell on the ground with him. As they both got to their feet, Cat saw the pilot running toward the helicopter, and Vargas with a hold on Jinx’s wrist, dragging her away from the jeep, a gun in his other hand. The pilot reached the helicopter and grabbed something from inside. Cat had just recognized it as a gun when Dell fired three quick shots at the pilot.

One caught the pilot and spun him around, throwing him against the helicopter; another struck the door behind him, and another struck the fuel tank. The helicopter vanished in an orange bubble of flame, and the explosion knocked both Cat and Dell down again and sent all sorts of wreckage flying around them.

When Cat found his feet again, Prince had Vargas’s gun and Jinx. “Get back to the house!” he shouted at Vargas. “Get some help down here!” Vargas began to run toward the house.

Cat shot him, catching him squarely between the shoulder blades. Vargas pitched forward onto the ground and did not move again.

“Hold it, goddamnit!” Prince screamed. “I’ll blow her fucking head off unless you do as I say!”

Cat crouched behind the jeep trying to get a grip on things. Meg crawled out from under the jeep, and he pushed her down, motioning her to stay there. Jinx started to struggle like a wildcat, clawing at Prince’s arm, which was clamped around her neck, as he used her as a shield.

“No,” Dell shouted, standing up and letting his pistol hang on his index finger. “Don’t hurt her.”

Jinx continued to struggle.

“Take me, instead,” Dell said, stepping from behind the jeep and holding up the canvas bag. “I’ve got the money. I’ll do what you say, just let her go.”

Prince looked greedily at the bag. “Get over here!” he shouted at Dell. “Throw the gun away. Put the money on the jeep.”

“No, don’t do it, Dell!” Cat shouted. He stood with the gun held out before him, ready to shoot, if he got the chance. Jinx was still struggling to get free, and he thought Prince wanted to be rid of her. “He won’t shoot Jinx; he knows I’ll kill him.”

But Dell tossed the canvas bag onto the hood of the jeep, threw the gun away, and walked toward Prince. When he drew near, Prince shoved the struggling Jinx aside and grabbed Dell, spinning him around. Dell stood perfectly still, his hands in the air.

“Get away from there, Jinx!” Cat shouted. She ran around the jeep and threw herself down beside Meg.

“Throw your gun down and walk over here with your hands on your head, all of you, or I’ll shoot the boy!” Prince shouted.

“Do it, Daddy!” Jinx cried. “He’ll kill Dell!”

“No he won’t!” Cat shot back.

“Looks like we’ve got a stand-off,” Meg said quietly.

“Dad, listen to me,” Dell said. “Take Jinx and get out of here! Please,” he said, “do it!” Everyone stood still where he was for a moment. No one spoke.

Cat looked around him desperately. The helicopter was still burning, sending up a column of black smoke. That would guide the Colombian troops in, but it would bring guards down from the main house, too. He had to move. He made a decision, the hardest one he had ever been faced with. “Meg,” he said, as firmly as he could, “you and Jinx run over to that airplane and get the camouflage net off it. Get it completely out of the way, then get into the airplane. Do it right now.”

“No!” Jinx said. “Stan will shoot Dell!”

“No, he won’t,” Cat said. Not yet, anyway, he thought to himself. “Now get going, both of you!”

Meg grabbed Jinx and got her running toward the Maule. They had about thirty yards to cover. Cat crouched behind the jeep, and took careful aim at what he could see of Prince’s head.

“Stop them, Catledge, or I’ll shoot him!” Prince shouted.

“You do, and you’re dead,” Cat shouted back. He glanced over his shoulder. Meg and Jinx had reached the airplane and were tugging at the netting.

“Dell, break away from him and give me a shot!” Cat shouted. “He won’t shoot you! Just drop!”

Dell shouted, “Run, Dad!” then threw his feet out and fell backward onto Prince.

Cat stood up, trying to get a shot, but Dell was on top of Prince, who had an arm around his neck and was trying to get the gun to Dell’s head again.

“Get out of here, Dad! Get Jinx out!” Dell shouted again.

Cat stood frozen for a moment, his pistol pointed at the two struggling men, then he made his decision once again. He turned and ran toward the airplane.

When he got there Jinx was in the back seat, and Meg was in the right seat. He flung himself into the airplane, grabbed the key from the clipboard in the map pocket and, trembling, got it into the ignition switch. The same engine as his Cessna, the pilot had said. Cat shoved in the mixture, propeller, and carburetor controls and pulled on the primer. One, two, three, four strokes of the plunger. He flipped on the master switch, then looked back toward the jeep, where he had left Dell and Prince. They were both standing now, fighting over the gun.

Cat turned the ignition key. The propeller turned a few times, then the engine caught and roared to life. Cat throttled back and looked again toward the jeep. Dell had started running toward the airplane, zigzagging, and Prince was on the ground, scrambling toward the gun.

He’s going to make it, Cat thought. “Run, Dell!” he shouted. He opened his door and waved at him. “Come on, Dell, come on!” Jinx was yelling from the back seat, too.

Dell was only twenty yards from the airplane when he went down. Prince had regained his feet and fired. Cat couldn’t tell where Dell had been hit, but he was getting to his feet again. Cat struggled with his seat belt; he had to help Dell. But then, Prince squatted, took careful aim, and fired again. Cat saw a pink cloud explode from the back of Dell’s head.

“Nooooo!” Jinx screamed. Cat froze, looking at his dead son’s crumpled body. Then he jerked, as Prince put another bullet through the side window of the airplane. Prince kept pulling the trigger, but nothing was happening. He was out of ammunition.

Cat shoved in the throttle and started to taxi wildly to the other end of the clearing, the airplane bumping over the rough ground. He had to get as long a ground roll as he could manage.

Dell is dead, Cat said to himself. Dell is dead, but Jinx is alive. I have Jinx.

At the edge of the clearing, he slammed on the left brake, and the airplane spun around. He stopped and looked at the controls. Twenty degrees of flaps, he said to himself, taking hold of the handle and pulling. No time for a run-up. Mixture rich, brakes on, full power. The little airplane shuddered as the revolutions climbed. Cat looked up and saw Prince climbing into the jeep.

The engine roared to full pitch, and Cat released the brakes. The airplane shot forward.

Prince had gotten the jeep started and roiling.

Cat pushed on the yoke, and the tail came off the ground.

Prince whipped the jeep around and pointed it directly at the airplane. They were rushing toward each other now.

Cat tried to watch the airspeed and Prince at the same time. The canvas sack of money was still on the jeep’s hood, on top of the folded windshield.

He’ll pull out of the way, Cat said to himself. He won’t drive the thing into us. Thirty knots was showing on the airspeed indicator. It wasn’t enough to fly; he needed forty.

Suddenly, inexplicably, Prince looked straight up. He was no longer watching the Maule. He would drive straight into the airplane. At almost the same moment, the ground a few yards to the right of the jeep exploded. The jeep and the airplane were only yards apart.

Cat yanked instinctively back on the yoke. The little aircraft came off the ground. There were two quick, dull jerks, something struck the airplane’s windshield — Prince’s head, Cat realized — and the windshield suddenly turned red. Hundred-dollar bills were plastered over nearly the whole area. The whole airplane began to vibrate wildly.

Cat glanced at the airspeed indicator. Only thirty-five knots. He pushed forward on the yoke to level the airplane, looking out the side window to orient himself. He had no idea how far the trees were ahead of him. The airspeed indicator hit forty knots. Cat yanked back the yoke and simultaneously pulled the handle back for full flaps. The airplane turned its nose to the sky, and Cat felt as if he were in some sort of lunar rocket.

But before they could gain much altitude, there was a hard jolt, and the airplane’s nose came down again. Cat looked out the side window and was stunned at what he saw. The landing gear had hit a tree, pulling the nose down, and they were now, literally, skimming the treetops. Cat pulled the nose up, but immediately the airplane was jolted again.

“Cat!” Meg yelled. “We’re being fired on by a helicopter!”

That was crazy, Cat thought. Prince’s helicopter had exploded. Then he saw a shadow on the trees in front of him, and a huge, olive-drab helicopter with two rotors rushed past them and banked hard to the left. They were turning for another pass. Cat banked into a hard right turn, pulling on the yoke to stay out of the trees. He reduced flaps to pick up speed. The throttle was still wide open, and the airplane was vibrating so much that he thought it would come apart. The propeller must have been bent when it decapitated Prince, he thought.

He stayed low and turned sharply to the left, glancing over his shoulder at where the helicopter had been. It was right behind him. He got a glimpse of other helicopters back toward the clearing, sinking below the trees. Cat cut back to the right, nearly standing the little airplane on its wing. The moment he could straighten up, he turned left again and looked for the helicopter. It was flying in the opposite direction, back toward Prince’s camp. He could see columns of smoke rising from the camp.

“The Colombian troops!” he shouted at Meg. “They found the place!”

He turned back to the right and glanced at the compass, bringing the airplane on a heading of due south. The blood had blown away from much of the windshield now, and although there were still a lot of hundred-dollar bills stuck to it, he could see reasonably well.

Cat eased back on the throttle. He had to get rid of some of the vibration, or the airplane would break up. He came back from full power to twenty inches of manifold pressure. There was still vibration, but it was not nearly so bad.

“Where are we going?” Meg asked.

“We can’t go back there,” Cat said. “They don’t know who’s in the airplane. They’ll blow us out of the sky. I’m going to make for the Amazon. It’s the only place to go — there’s nothing but jungle for hundreds of miles.”

He got the airplane trimmed and as settled as he could, then looked at the fuel gauges: less than a quarter of each tank. How far was it to the Amazon? A hundred and forty-five nautical miles, he estimated. They were flying at about a hundred and ten knots. A little more than an hour. He eased back on the yoke and gained some altitude, taking the airplane up to a thousand feet or so. He didn’t want to be high enough to attract the attention of another Colombian army helicopter, but he wanted some gliding room if the fuel ran out.

By simply flying south, he would come to the river, eventually. He thought that was better than trying to aim for Leticia, which lay south and slightly west — he might miss it. He would find the river, then turn right and fly along it until he came to the town. Simple enough, if the fuel held out. If it didn’t, he was going to have to put this airplane down, and there didn’t seem to be anyplace to put it except into the treetops.

“I managed this,” Meg said, holding up the canvas-and-leather grip.

Cat laughed aloud. “Terrific! We may need some travelling expenses!”

Jinx looked at them both as if they were crazy. “Daddy,” she said, “when did you learn to fly an airplane?”

Cat looked back at her and laughed. “I’ll tell you all about it later, kiddo! Right now, both of you get your seat belts on. We may not have enough fuel.” They did as they were told.

Cat relaxed a little, but not much. He still couldn’t believe they were alive, and they weren’t out of it yet. He thought about Dell and a lump gathered in his throat. He wondered what it would have been like if he had made it out. Would it have been different? Better? He would never know. He thought about Bluey Holland. He would have to explain about Bluey and his daughter to Jinx. The man had died trying to find her. He thought about Meg, sitting beside him. He’d have to figure that out later.

Cat glanced at his watch. They had been flying an hour and seven minutes. He strained his eyes ahead and thought he saw a brown streak across the jungle. The engine coughed. Straight and level, he told himself, straight and level. Get the most out of the fuel. The engine coughed again. They were not going to make Leticia, but they might make the river. The brown streak was wider now. It was out there. Eight, nine miles, maybe? The engine stopped, then started again. He checked the altimeter: a thousand feet. What was the glide ratio? Two miles for every thousand feet of altitude? That was for the Cessna, but the Maule had fixed landing gear, creating more drag. Surely, it wouldn’t glide as far.

He turned to the two women. “Listen, we’re almost out of fuel. I’m going to try for the river, and if we make it, we’ll have to ditch. The airplane will probably turn upside down when the landing gear hits, so tighten your seat belts. Since the tanks are about empty, the airplane should float, at least for a little while. Wait until we stop moving, then unbuckle and get the hell out, okay?”

Meg and Jinx nodded.

Cat looked at the river; it was only a couple of miles now. They might make it. As he thought that, the engine coughed and died. Cat held back the yoke and let the airspeed bleed away. Best glide speed for the Cessna was eighty knots, probably a little slower for the Maule. He looked at the river and saw what seemed to be a little passenger steamer headed upstream, toward Leticia. He pointed the airplane at it.

When they crossed the riverbank, he still had a hundred feet of altitude. He made a right turn and aimed the gliding airplane upstream. They shot past the steamer, a couple of hundred yards to his left. The river seemed about five miles wide here. He glanced around at Meg and Jinx. Both were staring, wide-eyed, at the brown water ahead, rushing up to meet them.

Cat grabbed the handle and put in twenty degrees of flaps. The airplane floated a little and slowed down. When they were twenty feet off the water, he put in the full flaps, then put both hands on the yoke. The stall speed must be something like thirty-five or forty knots, he reckoned. He held the nose up, bleeding off speed; until the stall warning horn went off. He let the airplane down from there, keeping the horn going, right on the edge of a stall. When they were almost skimming the water, he brought the yoke back into his lap. The nose came up slightly, and he felt the airplane’s tail bump the water.

A second later, the airplane’s nose dropped, and the world turned upside down with a wrenching jolt. Suddenly, all Cat could hear was the sound of rushing water.

“Is everybody okay?”

He got two positive answers. Bracing a hand against the ceiling of the airplane, he got his seat belt undone, then helped Jinx with hers. Meg was already free and opening a door. The high-winged airplane was floating, high and dry. Cat helped Jinx out Meg’s door, then grabbed the canvas-and-leather grip and went out his side.

They stood on the airplane’s wings and looked around them. They were drifting with the current, the trees on shore a hundred yards away moving past them. Cat looked upstream and saw the steamer turning downstream toward them.

“Hey, Cat!” It was Jinx’s voice. She sounded like her old self.

He looked across the inverted airplane’s fuselage at her. They all looked ridiculous, he thought, standing on an upside-down airplane’s wings in the middle of the Amazon river, dressed in tennis clothes. “What is it?” he called back to her.

“You could lose your license, you know, doing this to an airplane!”

Cat roared with laughter. “Are you kidding? What license?”