Soon, he knew that doing things this extravagantly would be the norm not the exception. He just had to make sure everything went according to plan.
The flight attendant returned with a steaming cup of hot coffee on a silver platter. Literally, a silver platter, McClain thought. He accepted the cup, as graciously as possible, and picked up one of the sugar packets lying next to a tiny carafe of cream.
She lingered nearby for a moment to make sure everything was to his liking. "We should be in Buenos Aires around 9:00 pm tonight. In Argentinean time, it will be 11:00 pm."
A brutally long flight. But necessary. No way he would ever try to fly that far in economy class. Not anymore. But doing it this way? No problem.
He sat back and took a long sip of his coffee.
It wasn't bad after all.
13
Sean's flight seemed to last all night. By the time he arrived in Buenos Aires, it was well past one in the morning. Fortunately, the flight had been a comfortable one. The seats aboard the private airplane folded down into beds, which allowed him to get some light sleep along the way. Sean rarely experienced a solid eight hours of sleep. Naps, however, were something he could do effectively. During the long flight, he got at least four to five hours of sleep, when it was all added together.
After another three hours of sleeping in the hotel, he was taken back to the airport and flown to the southern town of San Sebastián by seaplane.
During all of his adventures and missions, Sean had never actually been on a seaplane before. He'd started to think that they only existed in movies and television shows. The pilot was a gruff man in his late fifties. He had a scruffy beard with thick patches of gray mingled in streaks of brown, and went by the name of Kurt Dothan. A tattoo on his right forearm told Sean all he needed to know about his pilot’s toughness. It was a skull with a lightning bolt through it, sitting atop a black shield. The words Airborne Rangers wrapped around the image.
There was a small airport outside San Sebastián, but getting a flight there unnoticed had been tricky. With a smaller aircraft, they could fly in and out without too many prying eyes bearing witness. Not to mention flights in and out were rare. Flying in with the government jet would get a lot of attention.
Sean was starting to rethink that logic as the noisy, dilapidated contraption muscled its way through the lower reaches of the atmosphere, nearing the coved city.
"The landings can sometimes be a little rough," the pilot informed him. The only thing missing from the guy's smuggler-like appearance was a cigar and a sidearm. Sean figured the man's weapon was probably in a glove box somewhere within reach. "All depends on how the sea is acting that day."
"Good to know." It was rare when Sean sat in a plane cockpit. He didn't mind it, though it lacked the lavish luxuries of the private jet.
Out the window, the majestic hills rolled into low mountains. Snow covered two thirds of them. Sean could see skiers and snowboarders coasting down the slopes of a nearby resort. From such a distance, the people looked like tiny, pleasure-seeking ants. He'd always wanted to come to Argentina for some "summer snowboarding" but the chance hadn't presented itself yet. He was glad he'd brought a jacket on the trip, but going deep into South America in the heart of their winter would mean he'd need to visit a local store and buy a heavier coat.
Reading his mind, the pilot informed Sean that the local temperature in San Sebastián Bay was a balmy thirty-seven degrees Fahrenheit.
The pilot looped the plane over the bay and back out beyond the coast, sizing up where the water would be calmest. The beaches were completely vacant, an odd site for such a picturesque place. Sean imagined that in the summer, thousands of people would cover the white beaches, soaking up every ounce of warm sunshine they could. The bay, too, was absent of any activity, save a lone fishing boat that seemed either anchored in the middle of the cove or happy to stay within the confines of the surrounding hillsides.
"How'd you come to live in Argentina?" Sean asked out of sheer curiosity.
Dothan sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "I grew up in Alaska. Been flying these kinds of planes since I was a boy. I used to work for the government."
Sean's eyebrows rose slightly, but he let the man continue talking. The pilot laughed. "Nothing cool like a spy or anything like that. I did deliveries for different government branches in Alaska."
"That's a long way from here," Sean said, staring out over the setting.
"That was the idea," Dothan said.
"You live in Buenos Aires?"
The pilot nodded. "Yep. I usually make one or two of these runs a week. Takes care of the bills and keeps me in the air, which is where I prefer to be."
"Any particular reason you chose Argentina?"
Dothan glanced over at Sean as he leveled out the plane and began the final descent. It was the kind of look that wondered why he asked. "Have you seen the women down here? Absolutely stunning."
An awkward moment passed before Dothan broke out into laughter. Sean smiled, and allowed himself to chuckle at the comment. "Point taken."
The plane's floats skidded over the top of the dark-blue water, cutting through the choppy surface with relative ease. As the aircraft started to settle deeper into the sea, it began to bounce around.
"Water's a little rough today. Nothing out of the ordinary," Dothan informed his passenger.
Sean gripped a handle on the side of the cockpit but trusted what the pilot said. Their speed slowed rapidly, and Dothan cut the engines down to a high idle, steering the plane to an outlying dock off the outer coast of the bay. At the land end of the wooden structure, a small red building had been constructed. Sean wasn't sure what its purpose might be, but it appeared to be unoccupied at the moment.
"I'm going to let you out over there," the pilot said. "You'll need to huff it into town from here. Shouldn't take you more than twenty minutes."
For a second, Sean longed for the comforts of a car that could drive him around, but he didn't complain. He'd been in worse conditions. Although now getting that heavier coat would definitely be his first priority.
"You just gonna hang out here?" Sean asked.
"I'll be in that red building if you need me." He pointed at the structure Sean had noticed earlier.
"That's yours?"
Dothan shrugged. "Me and a few of the fishermen use it from time to time when the need arises. We call it our safe house." He winked from behind the sunglasses in a "just between us guys" sort of way.
Sean didn't ask why they called it that. For the time being, he just assumed it was a place they used to get away from their families for a few hours after a hard week of work. Most people went to a bar. These guys had their safe house.
The pilot cut off the engine after he'd lined up the aircraft with the dock and let it coast slowly toward the shoreline. He hopped out and stepped on one of the runners, grabbed a rope with a loop on the end of it, and tossed it at one of the pilings. Dothan performed the move easily, like someone who had done it a thousand times before. The rope tightened, and the plane stopped drifting. Dothan moved to the back of the pontoon and grabbed another rope, repeating the process. He used the second rope to pull the plane closer to the dock. Once it was close enough, he hopped down to the platform and resecured the two ropes to the moorings to keep the aircraft a little tighter to the dock.
Sean got up and crawled into the back. He grabbed his rucksack and backpack then stepped down onto the pontoon and across the one-foot gap onto the wet dock. A coastal breeze blew steadily across the water, blowing his hair around wildly. The cold wind cut through his light jacket. Dothan zipped up a slightly heavier coat and jumped back onto the plane's float, reached in to grab a small satchel of his own, and then returned to the platform.