Luanda, Angola
1410 23 May 2005
Quite by accident, H. Richard Miller, Jr., a thirty-six-year-old, six-foot-two, 220-pound, very black native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was not only there when what he was shortly afterward to report as "the unauthorized departure of a Boeing 727 aircraft registered to the Lease-Aire Corporation of Philadelphia, Pa.," took place but he actually saw it happen.
Miller, an Army major, was diplomatically accredited to the Republic of Angola as the assistant military attache. He was, in fact, and of course covertly, the Luanda station chief of the Central Intelligence Agency.
But, with the exception that his diplomatic carnet gave him access to the airport's duty-free shop, neither his official nor covert status had anything to do with his being present at the airport when the aircraft was stolen. He had gone out to the airport-on what he thought of as his self-granted weekly rest-and-recuperation leave-to buy a bottle of Boss cologne and have first a martini and then a late lunch in the airport's quite good restaurant. Since this was in the nature of an information-gathering mission, he would pay for the meal from his discretionary operating funds.
When he went into the restaurant, he chose a table next to one of the plate-glass windows. They offered a panoramic view of the runways and just about everything at the airport but the building he was in. He laid his digital camera on the table, so that it wouldn't be either stolen or forgotten when he left, and where he could quickly pick it up and take a shot at anything of potential interest without drawing too much-hopefully, no-attention to him.
A waiter quickly appeared and Miller ordered a gin martini.
Then he took a long look at what he could see of the airport.
Parked far across the field, on a parking pad not far from the threshold of the main north/south runway, he saw that what he thought of as "his airplane," a Boeing 727, was still parked where it had been last week, and for the past fourteen months.
He thought of it as his airplane because when he'd noticed it fourteen months ago, he'd taken snapshots of it and checked it out.
Without even making an official inquiry, he went on the Internet and learned that it was registered to the Lease-Aire Corporation of Philadelphia. From a source at the airfield-an air traffic controller who was the monthly re-cipient of a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill from Miller's discretionary operating funds-he had learned that the 727 had made a "discretionary landing" at Luanda while en route somewhere else.
Miller was a pilot, an Army aviator-not currently on flight status because he'd busted a flight physical, which was why he had wound up "temporarily" assigned to the CIA and sent to Luanda-and he understood that a discretionary landing was one a wise pilot made when red lights lit up on the control panel, before it became necessary to make an emergency landing.
Miller had begun to feel sorry for the airplane, as he sometimes felt sorry for himself. A grounded bird, and a grounded bird man, stuck in picturesque Luanda, Angola, by circumstances beyond their control, when they both would much rather have been in Philadelphia, where he had grown up, where his parents lived, and where one could be reasonably sure that 999 out of a thousand good-looking women did not have AIDS, which could not be said of Luanda, Angola.
Still, unofficially-although after a month he had reported to Langley, in Paragraph 15, Unrelated Data, of his weekly report, that the plane seemed to be stuck in Luanda-he had learned that Lease-Aire was a small outfit that bought old airliners at distress prices (LA-9021 came from Continental); that it then leased them "wet" or "dry"; and that LA-9021 had been dry-leased to a Scottish company called Surf amp; Sun Holidays Ltd. Just to play it safe, he'd asked the assistant CIA station chief in London, whom he knew, to find out what he could about Surf amp; Sun. In two days, he learned that it was a rinky-dink outfit that had gone belly-up shortly after leaving 153 irate Irishmen stranded in Rabat, Morocco.
That seemed to explain everything, and nothing was suspicious.
And so every time during the fourteen months that Miller took his R amp;R and saw the once-proud old bird sitting across the field, he had grown more convinced that it would never fly again. He was, therefore, more than a little surprised when-peering over the rim of a second martini just as good as the first-he saw LA-9021 moving.
He thought, in quick order, as he carefully set the martini glass on the table, first, that he had been mistaken, and, next, that if it was moving, it was being towed by a tug to where repair-or cannibalization-could begin.
When he looked again, he saw the airplane was indeed moving and under its own power.
How the hell did they start it up? You can't let an airplane sit on a runway for fourteen months and then just get in it and push the ENGINE START buttons.
Obviously, somebody's been working on it.
But when?
When was the last time I was here? Last Wednesday?
Well, that's a week; that's enough time.
The 727 turned off the taxiway and moved toward the threshold of the runway.
There was a Congo Air Ilyushin transport on final. Miller knew there were two daily flights between Brazzaville, Congo, and Luanda.
Miller had two unkind thoughts.
Prescription for aerial disaster: an ex-Russian Air Force fighter jockey, flying a worn-out Ilyushin maintained by Congo Air.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Please remain seated on the floor and try to restrain all chickens, goats, and other livestock until the aircraft has come to a complete stop at the airway. And thank you for flying Congo Air. We hope that the next time you have to go from nowhere to nowhere, you'll fly with us again."
And then he had another thought when he saw that the 727 was on the threshold, lined up with the runway:
Hey, Charley, the way you're supposed to do that is wait until the guy on final goes over you and then you move to the threshold. Otherwise, if he lands a little short he lands on you.
The Ilyushin passed no more than fifty feet over the tail of the 727 and then touched down.
Before the Ilyushin reached the first turnoff from the runway, the 727 began its takeoff roll.
Hey, Charley, what are you going to do if he doesn't get out of your way? What do we have here, two ex-Russian fighter jockeys?
The rear stabilizer of the Ilyushin had not completely cleared the runway when the 727, approaching takeoff velocity, flashed past it and then lifted off.
Well, I'm glad you're back in the air, old girl.
I wonder what kind of a nitwit was flying the 727?
Miller picked up his martini, raised it to the now nearly out of sight 727, and then turned his attention to the menu.
Thirty minutes later, after a very nicely broiled filet of what the menu called sea trout and two cups of really first-class Kenyan coffee, he paid the bill with an American Express card, collected the bags containing the newspapers, magazines, paperbacks, and the goodies he'd bought in the duty-free shop, and started walking across the terminal to get his car.
What I should do is go home, get on the ski machine to get the gin out of my system, and then spend a half hour at least on the knee.
But being an honest man, he knew that what he was probably going to do was go home, hang up the nice clothes, and take a little nap.
On impulse, however, passing a pay telephone, he stepped into the booth, fed it coins, and punched in a number that was not available to the general public.
"Torre," someone said after answering on the first ring.
Having the unlisted number of the control tower, and, if he was lucky, the right guy to answer its phone, was what the monthly dispersal of the crisp hundred-dollar bill bought.
" Antonio, por favor. E seu irmao, "Miller said.
A moment later, Antonio took the phone to speak to "his brother," and, obviously excited, said, "I can't talk right now. Something has come up."
"What's come up?"