“Shit!” Rodgers said with feeling. Briefly—but only briefly—life wasn’t quite so sweet anymore.
The wise money said to fly around it. The engines of the DC3 were already chattering like they had teeth and twice he’d thought they were going to cut out altogether. Rodgers bet the entire fucking aircraft was held together with no more than string, spit, and chewing gum.
If he went head-on into what was up ahead, he was going to end up in the matchstick-making business and that wasn’t the business he was interested in building into a career. Which course, then? Wise money again said even more abruptly to go eastwards, over Haiti, and hope he could get around the blockage and still cut westward to come down on the Matanzas airstrip.
Except the bastard Colombians had short-changed him on the fuel, knowing the gauge was faulty and that he couldn’t really challenge them. It was fucking amazing: every run worth a minimum of $50 million, and they had to cheat on nickels and dimes.
Westward then? Less chance of being driven out into die Atlantic, with nothing between him, paella, and die bullfights of Spain but three thousand miles of empty ocean. But the Americans were shit-hot around the Gulf: not just radar on the ground but AWACs planes in me air and spot-the-druggie training forming a permanent part of all air-force and naval exercises.
The DC3 began to buck and shudder, the stick sluggish in his hands and me rudder bar spongy underfoot. Decision time. Rodgers turned west; there might be a lot of guys in white hats, but this way there was also Mexico, and if the fuel got crucial, there were more safe illicit airstrips than fleas on a brown dog.
Rodgers had always had a nasty feeling about having to ditch in the sea and get his ass wet. Besides, there was the cargo to think of: almost five hundred kilos of high-purity cocaine could be better used on dry land—even if it weren’t the dry land upon which he was supposed to put down—than to clear the sinuses of the sharks and barracudas.
He still intended, if he could, to deliver in Cuba.
Rodgers kept right against the storm edge—able to see clear sunlight to his left, rain-lashed blackness to his right—riding the up and downdrafts, teeth snapping together with the suddenness of the lifts and drops. The ancient aircraft groaned and creaked in protest, those sounds overwhelmed by the crashing of the storm outside.
One of his wipers quit—fortunately not that of his immediate windshield—and then he went too close and was engulfed in the cloud, and the crack of the lightning strike was so loud it actually deafened him, making his ears ache. On the panel his instrumentation went haywire; the compass was whirling like a roulette wheel and the artificial horizon showed him falling sideways, although the altimeter had him at two thousand feet. If that were his correct height, then he’d been driven too low, Rodgers realized: dangerously too low. Not necessary to worry too much. He’d be difficult to detect, mixed up in this sort of shit.
Rodgers had the cans off his ears, held by the headpiece around his neck; through them came the occasional screech of static and in a sudden but brief moment of absolute clarity he picked up Miami airport sending out a general warning of a severe and unexpected storm in the Caribbean basin, setting out its longitude and latitude.
“Thanks a bunch, fella!” Rodgers said aloud. If anything in the goddamned airplane worked and he had any charts, he might have been able to find out how far, and how deep, he was into the storm.
The bright sunshine to port dazzled Rodgers, making him blink, and he turned out toward it, wanting to clear the cumulus and prevent the plane breaking up. The transition, from practically uncontrolled bucking to level-flying calm, was startling, and Rodgers heard his own breath go from him, unaware until that moment how tense he had been.
He watched eagerly for the instruments to settle, wanting a positive bearing, uncomfortably aware that by taking the course he had he had placed the storm—the storm that was still raging and growling to starboard—between himself and Cuba. And if it didn’t dissipate, which it showed no signs of doing, he was going to put himself dangerously close to the American mainland by flying around it.
He’d fucked up, Rodgers decided. The storm was stationary, a positive barrier. If he’d gone eastward in the first place, he could have come easily up over die Grand Bahama Bank, made a perfect three-pointer at Matanzas, and by now have been drinking the first rum and lime with the $100,000 delivery fee snug in the arm-strap money wallet that now hung empty and waiting, like a shoulder holster, beneath the sweat-blackened shirt.
“Son of a bitch!” he said bitterly. And then, when he saw it, he said “Oh fuck!” even more bitterly.
The first plane was a jet, a spotter, which circled and buzzed and tried to come close for a look-see but wasn’t able to because it couldn’t go that slowly. Very soon the rest of the squad, the smaller propeller-driven aircraft, swept in from the north and swarmed around him like killer bees. There were three; two pulled up close, either side, and although he couldn’t see, he guessed the third was above and behind, ready for any unexpected avoidance routine. The two alongside had U.S. Customs markings, as well as their government insignia. At an obvious signal each plane gave the wing-wobble follow-us instruction, and just in case he’d misunderstood, the pilot to starboard mimed the hand gesture.
“Fuck you,” said Rodgers. hoping the man had understood what he’d said. To himself, looking away, he said. “Sorry guys. What I ain’t got, you can’t find.” It seemed a criminal waste, dumping nearly half a ton of coke into the sea.
Rodgers put the controls into auto and groped his way toward the rear of the aircraft. The drug occupied very little of the cargo space, all easily accommodated near the port door. Such a waste, he thought again. He tugged at the handle. The bar was unlocked but it didn’t budge. He yanked again, feeling the sweat break out on his forehead, looking around for something solid with which he could smash at it. There wasn’t anything. It was only the fact that he was holding on to the handle, making another attempt to open it, that saved Rodgers from being hurled the complete length of the aircraft. It suddenly went nose-up, when the auto pilot slipped out, then began pitching downward. Rodgers let go, allowing the angle of the plunging aircraft to slide him back to the cockpit, snatching out for the controls to pull it back level. The sea was so close he could see the silver glint of the sun on the wave tops and make out a startled couple in a yellow and blue cruiser. Momentarily he was alone and then the escorts were alongside again; they would have thought he was trying to evade them, Rodgers realized. He put the auto on again, waiting, and at once it disengaged. He tried again. It disengaged again. It was a pretty simple choice, Rodgers recognized: death—injury at least—or discovery. From either side there was another wing wiggle and a hand gesture and this time Rodgers raised his hand in acknowledgment.
They put down in Tampa. By the time they landed the radio-alerted Customs had the airfield prepared, civilian as well as official vehicles blocking him the moment he stopped.
Rodgers sat where he was after turning off the systems; they had to hammer, too, to get through the jammed door. A stream of investigators came into the aircraft, some immediately coming up to the flight deck, others staying around the cargo.
“Well lookee here!” said one, in a thick, southern accent. “Why didn’t you dump it, you stupid bastard!”
Rodgers sought out the man who looked to be in charge. “I think we’ve got things to talk about,” he said.
EIGHT
IT WASN’T getting any better; worse, in fact. O’Farrell knew that he was still outwardly holding himself together—almost literally—and that no one, not even Jill, had guessed how his nerves were tightening up, but inwardly that was just how he did feel, stretched tight as if he were being gradually pulled apart on some medieval rack.