White Cargo

9

“Cat? Bluey. I think I’ve found our airplane.”

“Great, Bluey. What’s it going to run me?”

“The neighborhood of seventy-five grand — that’s purchase price — we’re going to need an annual inspection for five hundred to a grand, a loran navigator, and a fuel-flow meter — call that another six grand. Plus, we’ve got some fuel modifications to do south of here; say, a total of ninety grand all found.”

“Okay, that sounds good. Can I have a look at her?”

“Sure, I’d want you to. I’m out at — what’s this bloody field called?”

“Peachtree Dekalb?”

“That’s the one. The airplane’s sitting out in front of the tower. She’s red and white; her tail number is 1 2 3 Tango.”

Cat laughed. “I like her already. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

At the airport, Cat parked near the tower and started looking for a light twin-engine airplane with the right tail number, but to no avail. Then Bluey came out of a hangar and pointed. Cat’s eyes came to rest on a single-engine Cessna, and he came to an abrupt halt. “Jesus, Bluey, you want to fly us over a thousand miles of open ocean in a single? That thing’s not much bigger than the little trainer I’ve been learning in.”

“Listen, sport,” Bluey said indulgently, “let me give you a fact or two about airplanes. First of all, the fatality rate for singles and twins is identical. Second of all, if you have an engine failure in a twin, you have a very difficult airplane on your hands. It takes a lot of practice to fly a twin on one engine, and where I’ve been, they didn’t offer that sort of leisure-time activity. And there are certain advantages in fuel efficiency with a single. Flying over water, I’ll take a well-maintained single any day.”

“Well...”

“This is a Cessna 182 RG, RG for retractable gear. It’s one hell of a lot more airplane than the 152 you’ve been training in. She does a hundred and fifty-six knots — that’s a hundred and eighty miles an hour — on about thirteen gallons of fuel an hour, and I can land her or take off in seven hundred and fifty feet of runway. She’ll lift anything we can put in her with full fuel aboard, and not many airplanes will do that. She’s only got four hundred hours on an engine that’s designed to fly two thousand between overhauls, she’s loaded with good equipment, and she’s got long-range tanks. We’re paying about five thousand over market value, but we’re in a hurry, and airplanes this good aren’t easy to come by. Now, if you want to hang around here for two or three more weeks while I find a decent twin and practice flying it on one engine, that’s okay by me, but this is a damned good airplane. What do you want to do?”

Cat threw up his hands in surrender. “Sold.”

“Good. How quick can you get back here with a cashier’s check for seventy-five thousand dollars, made out to Epps Air Service?”

Cat glanced at his watch. “It’ll have to be tomorrow morning.”

“That’s good. I’ll get them started on the annual inspection. If the mechanic doesn’t run into any unusual problems, we should be able to leave in about three days.”

“As long as that?”

“Yep, that’s good time for an annual and installation of the extra gear. We’ll be stopping in Florida for a life raft and another modification or two on our way. I’ll have you in Colombia in under a week’s time, if there’s not a hurricane in our way.”

“Okay, you’ll have your money first thing in the morning.”

“Cat, you’re going to need to take a lot of cash along.”

“How much?”

“Well, the Florida modifications will come to a few grand, we’re going to have to grease a lot of palms south of the border, and they don’t take American Express in the Guajira or the Amazon. We’re going to be buying goods and services from people who are used to dealing with customers who pay for things with fistfuls of hundred-dollar bills. You don’t want to get caught short down there.”

“I can probably arrange for my bank to wire me whatever I need down there.”

Bluey shook his head. “We’re liable to be in places where that won’t be convenient, or even possible.”

“Well, how much then?”

Bluey shrugged. “Well, I think you probably ought to have a hundred grand in walking-around money, just so people will take you seriously. Apart from that, well, we’re talking about the possibility of ransom, aren’t we? If we find your daughter alive, you may have to buy her from whoever has her.”

“I see,” Cat said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Cat had a busy three days ahead of him. He paid for the airplane, then he saw his brother-in-law.

Ben listened quietly to what Cat had to say. “Cat, this is a crazy thing to do, but in your shoes, I guess I’d do the same thing. You really don’t have another alternative, do you?”

“Thanks, Ben,” Cat replied. “You’ve still got my power of attorney. Do whatever you think is best with the business.”

“We’ve had a couple of feelers for a takeover. It would mean one hell of a lot of money for our remaining stock.”

“Whatever you think is best, just don’t commit me to an employment contract. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to concentrate on business again.”

“I understand,” Ben replied.

“I’ll call you from down there whenever I get a chance.”

“Good. I’ll let you know whether there’s anything important in the mail.”

Cat saw his lawyer and made a new will, leaving everything to Jinx, if she was still alive, a large bequest to his alma mater, and the rest to Ben, if Jinx was found dead. He specifically excluded his son from any inheritance.

On his way home from his lawyer’s office he stopped at a camera store and bought a solidly built aluminum camera case, with combination locks, the size and shape of a large briefcase. At home, he cut a newspaper into a hundred small pieces, measured them, and made some calculations. He was surprised at the result. He called his stockbroker and gave him a sell order and some brief, firm instructions, then called the head office of his bank and asked to speak to the president.

“Mr. Avery’s office,” a secretary said.

“My name is Wendell Catledge. I’d like to speak with Mr. Avery,” Cat said.

“What is this about, sir? Does Mr. Avery know you?”

“I’ll discuss that with Mr. Avery. We’ve never met.”

The secretary became officious. “I’m afraid Mr. Avery is in a meeting. If you’ll leave your number...”

“I have a business account with the bank. The company name is Printtech. Please go and tell Mr. Avery that Wendell Catledge wishes to speak with him at once.”

“I’m very sorry, but...”

“Please don’t make it necessary for me to come to his office.”

There was a short silence. “Please hold,” she said, exasperated.

There was a longer silence, then a man’s voice. “Mr. Catledge? Cat Catledge?” The man had been reading his Fortune and Forbes. “I’m sorry you were kept waiting. How can I be of service?”

Cat identified himself with the Printtech account number and his personal account number. He told the banker how he could be of service, explaining that the man could verify his instructions by calling him at the home number listed on his account records.

The man was uncomfortable. “May I ask... you understand, Mr. Catledge, that by law this sort of transaction has to be reported to the federal government.”

“I quite understand. I’ll be at your office at eleven tomorrow.”

The banker was still balking. “This sort of thing takes time, you know.”

“Mr. Avery,” Cat said, becoming exasperated himself, “you have nearly twenty-four hours. All I really want to do is cash a check. I’ll be at your office at eleven tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, sir,” the banker said.

Promptly at eleven the following morning, Cat presented himself at the bank. Avery took him into his office, then into an adjoining conference room. Another bank officer and a uniformed security guard were standing at the end of the table.

In the middle of the table was a stack of money.

“Twenty thousand hundred-dollar bills,” Avery said, still sounding doubtful, “banded into bundles of five hundred, as you requested. Do you wish to count it?”

“No,” Cat replied.

“There are some papers to sign.”

Cat placed his aluminum briefcase on the table and opened it. “Please put the money into this case while I sign the papers,” he said to the guard. Avery nodded and the guard began to pack the money.

Avery shoved some papers toward him. “First, please sign a check for two million dollars,” he said.

Cat signed the check.

“Then, I have prepared a release of all liability on the part of the bank. We don’t usually transact business this way, as you can understand.”

Cat signed the release. He noticed that the money fit nicely into the case, with a little room to spare. He had calculated correctly.

“That’s all in order, then,” Avery said. “I’d like our guard to walk you to your car. This is not the safest of neighborhoods, you know.”

“Thank you,” Cat said. “And thank you for doing this so quickly.”

Avery walked him to the door. “Mr. Catledge, if you’re in some sort of difficulty, I’ll do anything I can to help,” he said earnestly.

“Thank you, Mr. Avery,” Cat smiled, “but it’s nothing like that. I just have to do some business in a place where ordinary banking facilities aren’t available. Please don’t concern yourself further.”

The guard walked him to his car, looking nervously about them. Cat thought he might have been less conspicuous alone. When he walked into the house the phone was ringing.

“Hello?”

“It’s Bluey. We’re on for tomorrow morning. You all squared away?”

“I think so. I’ve just got to pack. What will I need?”

“Summer clothes for everywhere except Bogotá, if we end up there. Bogotá is at better than eight thousand feet of elevation, cool and rainy. A raincoat will be heavy enough. Bring a business suit, in case we have to impress somebody.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“You own a gun?”

“No.”

“Buy one. Buy one for me, too, come to think of it. Get me a .357 magnum with about a four-inch barrel and a shoulder holster. Get yourself whatever suits you.”

Cat felt a little queasy at the thought of firearms. He had been shot with the last weapon he had owned. “You really think I ought to be armed?” he asked.

“Too bloody right. I’d take a bazooka if I could get it in a shoulder holster.”

Cat went to the gun shop where he had bought the little shotgun for the yacht. The place was a wonderland of death, with every conceivable sort of weapon. He picked out a magnum for Bluey, but balked when choosing something for himself. The only handgun he had ever fired was the .45 automatic the Marines had given him, although he had fired Expert with the pistol and a carbine. He didn’t want anything as big as Bluey’s magnum, and finally he accepted the salesman’s recommendation of a very expensive Hechler & Koch 9-millimeter automatic pistol, because it was light and held a fifteen-round magazine. He bought the appropriate shoulder holsters and a box each of ammunition and left the shop with everything in a brown shopping bag, feeling foolish.

• • •

By seven in the morning they had the airplane loaded, and Cat followed Bluey around the aircraft, learning the preflight inspection.

“You been taking lessons, huh?” Bluey asked. “How many hours you got?”

“About sixty. I was supposed to take my check ride for my private license a couple of weeks ago, but all this got in the way.”

Bluey nodded. “Okay, you fly her. Let’s see how good you are.”

“What?”

Bluey shoved him into the left seat and climbed in beside him. “It’s not all that different from the trainer you learned in. You’ve got a couple extra knobs, that’s all, for the landing gear and the constant-speed propeller. Anyway, I’m the hottest instructor who ever came down the pike.”

Cat shrugged. “Well, I guess my student license is good.” He buckled in and, with Bluey reading the checklist and pointing at things, got the engine started. The tower wasn’t open yet, so they checked the wind sock and taxied to the runway. Bluey announced their departure on the Common Traffic Advisory Frequency and nodded. “We’re off. Full throttle.”

Cat shoved the throttle all the way in and marveled at how the airplane accelerated, compared to the less powerful one he had been flying. As instructed, at sixty knots of airspeed he pulled back on the yoke and the craft rose into the air.

“Retract the gear,” Bluey ordered. “Flaps up. At five hundred feet reduce throttle to twenty-three inches of manifold pressure — there’s the meter, there — and trim the propeller back to twenty-four hundred rpm.” He glanced at a chart. “Now start a turn to the left and aim for Stone Mountain. Climb to three thousand feet.”

Cat did as he was told and picked out the giant granite lump that was Stone Mountain, rising through a patch of early morning mist.

Bluey got on the radio and called Atlanta Flight Services and opened the flight plan. “I filed for Everglades City,” he said, winking, “but we’re not landing there.”

“Where are we landing?” Cat asked, while trying to concentrate on leveling out at three thousand feet.

“A little place near there. A friend of mine runs it,” Bluey said mysteriously. “You’ll see when we get there. When you get to Stone Mountain, turn right to one eight zero degrees and hold your altitude. We’ve got to get past the Atlanta Terminal Control Area before we can climb to cruising altitude.”

Twenty minutes later, Cat climbed to nine thousand feet and leaned out the engine. Bluey switched on the loran navigator and punched in the three-letter code, X01, for Everglades City. He pressed two buttons on the autopilot and sat back.

“Okay, let go the controls,” Bluey said.

Cat let go and the airplane flew itself.

“Great thing, loran,” Bluey grinned. “Now it will fly us straight to our destination at nine thousand feet, giving us ground speed and distance remaining. I’m going to grab a nap. Wake me when we’re fifty miles out of Everglades City.” He cranked the seat back, pulled the brim of his hat down over his eyes, and seemed to be instantly asleep.

Cat sat and stared at the instrument panel of the self-operating airplane. This was the biggest aircraft he had flown, and he was very pleased with himself. A decent takeoff, a good climb — his instructor would be proud of him. He sat back and gazed out over the clear, Georgia morning, at the green, lake-dotted earth below him. The loran clicked out the distance remaining and their ground speed, a hundred and sixty-seven knots. They must have a tail wind, he thought. It seemed a good omen.

When they were over South Georgia and the Okefeno-kee Swamp, Bluey opened an eye, glanced at the instrument gauges, then went back to sleep. The Gulf Coast of Florida appeared on their right, then the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. After three hours of flying, Cat woke Bluey.

“We’re fifty miles out of Everglades City,” he said to the Australian.

“Right,” Bluey said, yawning. He scanned the instruments again, then pulled out a sectional chart of Florida and pointed to an area west of Everglades City. “Spike’s place is about here,” he said.

Cat looked at the chart. “That’s the Everglades swamp,” he said. “How the hell are we going to land there?”

Bluey grinned. “Oh, we’ll put her down on a crocodile, if we have to,” he said. A few minutes later he turned to Cat. “Reduce power for a five-hundred-foot-a-minute descent,” he said. “The loran and the autopilot are still aiming us at the airport.”

Cat eased back on the throttle, and the nose of the aircraft dropped. “I see an airport dead ahead,” he said after a few minutes.

“That’s our supposed destination,” Bluey said. He waited another five minutes, then called Flight Services. “This is One Two Three Tango; I have the field in sight; please cancel my flight plan.” He changed frequencies and announced, “Everglades traffic, One Two Three Tango, on a five-mile final for Runway One Five.” He turned to Cat. “Switch off the autopilot and line up with one five. Make a normal, straight-in approach.” Two miles out, he said, “Drop the gear and put in ten degrees of flaps. Let your airspeed drop to one hundred.” One mile out, Bluey said, “Twenty degrees of flaps, eighty knots. Keep her at that speed and aim for the end of the runway.”

Near the end of the runway, Cat started to flare for a landing, but Bluey took hold of the control column.

“Give me the airplane,” he said. He punched the transmit button. “Everglades traffic, One Two Three Tango going around.” He pushed in full power, flipped up the flaps a notch, and retracted the landing gear. He climbed to a hundred feet and made a sharp left turn. “Take the airplane,” he said to Cat. “Maintain one hundred feet.”

“One hundred feet?” Cat took the controls as Bluey began to tap a new longitude and latitude into the loran.

“There we go,” he said, flipping on the autopilot and pressing the altitude hold button. “Let the autopilot take it and keep a sharp lookout for radio towers.”

Cat stared wide-eyed at the low swampland rushing past the airplane. “Jesus, Bluey,” he said, “we’re supposed to maintain five hundred feet above the nearest obstacle. Do you want to lose your license?”

“Are you kidding?” Bluey snorted. “What license?”

Cat tried to stop thinking about Federal Air Regulations and look for obstacles in their path. The distance to destination read twenty-seven miles on the loran.

A few minutes later, when the distance was down to three miles, Bluey said, “I’ve got the airplane.” He switched off the autopilot, dropped the gear, and put in ten degrees of flaps. “Watch for traffic,” he said, “although I don’t think there’ll be any.”

Cat looked around them. It all looked like swamp to him. Where the hell was Bluey planning to land? His answer was a sixty-degree bank to the left and a loss of altitude. Then, as the wings came level again, he saw what seemed like an extremely short expanse of treeless ground, a small clearing, really, dead ahead of them.

“Full flaps, airspeed sixty-five knots, cut throttle,” Bluey recited aloud to himself. The airplane skimmed some treetops, then dropped into the clearing. The landing gear touched the ground, and the moment the nose wheel touched, Bluey dumped the flaps and shouted to himself, “Brake hard!”

Cat held his breath as the trees on the other side of the clearing rushed toward them. The airplane seemed to float for a moment, then Cat felt his safety belt press into his chest as the brakes quickly brought their speed down. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. It had been a textbook short-field landing. He began to feel some confidence in Bluey Holland.

Bluey turned left and pointed at some more trees. A man waved from their shelter.

“There’s old Spike,” Bluey chortled. The man was waving them toward him. Finally, he held up crossed arms. Bluey spun the airplane a hundred and eighty degrees and killed the engine.

Cat climbed down from the airplane. Bluey waved him over to where Spike was standing.

“Spike, meet me mate—”

“Bob,” Cat said quickly, sticking out his hand. He had already decided to use the Robert Ellis cover in Colombia. He might as well start now. From the looks of this place, the cops could arrive at any moment.

Spike was small and scrawny, but his hand was surprisingly big. “Howyadoin’?” he asked, as if he didn’t really care. “Let’s get this bird into the trees.”

The three men pushed the airplane backward under a camouflage net.

“Welcome back to the world, Bluey,” Spike said when they had finished. “What can I do you for?”

“Oh, let’s see: a fifty-gallon auxiliary tank, a raft, a couple jackets, and some new paperwork and numbers ought to do it. Fuel, too. What’ll that run me, and when can I get out of here?”

“Two grand for the tank, three for the raft and jackets, five for the paperwork and numbers, and ten bucks a gallon for the fuel. I got to bus it in here on an airboat. I’ll throw in a bed and a steak.”

“How quick?”

“I’m not too busy. You can take off tomorrow night.”

“Do it, sport!” Bluey bellowed. “Now, point us at the beer. I want to get outside a pint or two in a hurry.”

A few minutes later they were settled into a small, comfortable cabin with a supply of Swann’s Lager, an Australian beer. “Spike was down under a few years back,” Bluey chortled, “and now he won’t drink anything else. Christ knows where he gets it.”

Shortly, Spike joined them. “Where you bound for, Bluey?”

“I need a window at Idlewild the day after tomorrow.”

“I’ll make the call after dark,” Spike said, sucking on a beer. “Jesus, Bluey, I thought you got hard time for that last one. What you doing running around loose?”

“Parole, mate. Model prisoner, and all that,” Bluey laughed.

Spike turned to Cat. “Hell, Bob,” he said, “this crazy old digger put down a DC-3 in a farmer’s field up at Valdosta, Georgia, a couple years back. No engines! At night!”

“Didn’t put a scratch on her, either,” Bluey added, graciously accepting the praise.

“Shit, they should of give him a medal!” Spike crowed.

Cat looked at Bluey. “A DC-3? You mean a C-47? With no engines?”

Bluey nodded. “Worst piece of luck I ever had,” he said. “Little miscalculation on the fuel.”

Cat winced at the idea of putting the big twin-engine airplane down dead-stick in a field at night. He hoped Bluey would do a better job of calculating fuel the following night.

Spike left the cabin, and Cat turned to Bluey. “What’s this about a ‘window at Idlewild’? You talking about Kennedy Airport in New York?”

Bluey shook his head. “Nah. Now Idlewild is an airfield in the Guajira Peninsula of Colombia, a sort of aeronautical Grand Central Station for blokes in the business.” He took a long swig of the Swann’s. “Spike’ll call down there tonight on his handy little high-frequency radio and get us a window, half an hour or so when we can land. It’s the sort of place where it’s best to be expected.”

Cat nodded. “I think I’ll take a little run around the clearing out there. That okay?”

Bluey nodded. “Stay near the trees, though. If you hear an aircraft, get yourself under some cover. Spike would like for folks to continue to think of this place as a deserted chunk of the Everglades.”

Cat changed into some shorts and running shoes and left the cabin. He walked past an open-sided hangar where a twin Piper was being worked on by a man. There were already two men working on 1 2 3 Tango. He reached the clearing and started to jog. It was high noon, hot and sticky, but Cat wanted the exercise. He didn’t like running — he had done too much of it in the Marines — but there was no pool here, and the nearest water had unfriendly creatures in it.

He wanted to run, too, because he felt the paralysis of fear sneaking up on him, and it was best to move around when that happened. He tried to think of the last time he had felt that feeling coming over him and realized it must have been at boot camp, a long time ago. For Cat, exercise had always been an antidote for fear, and fortunately, as a shavetail ROTC lieutenant, there had been plenty of exercise available, because there had been plenty of fear to go around, too: fear of the drill instructors; fear of not being able to do what they wanted him to do; fear of humiliation before the rest of his company; fear of dying of what they had done to him — done to everybody — at Quantico.

Now he felt the fear he had associated with Colombia since the yacht had been sunk. He didn’t want to go back there, and he especially didn’t want to go back there in a single-engine airplane with a convicted drug smuggler. He had to go, he knew that, but now he was thinking of getting himself to Miami and taking Eastern Airlines to Bogotá. He could meet Bluey later. But what would Bluey do if he was left here with ten thousand dollars and an airplane with new numbers and papers? Jim had told him not to give the man a passport until necessary. Wasn’t money and an airplane even more tempting than a passport?

After two laps around the clearing in the heat and humidity, Cat was dragging. He went back to the cabin, took a cold shower, and lay down on his bunk for a few minutes, wrestling with this one, last decision. Bluey sipped a Swann’s and read a paperback spy novel.

Finally, Cat got up, went to his luggage, and got the brown paper bag. “Here,” he said, tossing the .357 magnum to Bluey.

Bluey caught it and nodded with approval.

Cat tossed him the shoulder holster and ammunition, then sat down at the table in the middle of the room with the 9-millimeter automatic. He took a deep breath, opened the manual, and started to fieldstrip the weapon.

Bluey watched him appraisingly from across the room. “You’ve done that before, have you, mate?”

Cat nodded. “A long time ago, in a galaxy far away.”

He hadn’t thought he would ever have to do it again.