The Lion's Game (53 page)

The two men walked toward each other, and Satherwaite put out his hand. They shook, and Khalil said, “I was delayed at my last appointment in Charleston.”

“No problem.” Bill Satherwaite saw that the man carried a large black canvas bag and was dressed in a gray suit. He asked, “You got any other luggage?”

“I have left my luggage in my hotel in Charleston.”

“Good. You don’t mind my jeans and T-shirt, I hope.”

“Not at all. Whatever is comfortable. But as I said, we will be staying overnight.”

“Yeah. I got an overnight bag.” He motioned to an Air Force bag on the dirty floor. He said, “My girlfriend will be here later to watch the store and lock up.”

“Good. You should be back by midday tomorrow.”

“Whatever.”

“I have left my rental car near the main building. It will be safe there?”

“Sure.” Satherwaite walked to a sagging bookshelf and scooped up a stack of rolled charts, then retrieved his overnight bag. “Ready?” He followed his customer’s gaze, which was fixed on the poster of Gadhafi. Satherwaite grinned and said, “You know who that is?”

Asad Khalil replied, “Of course. My country has had many confrontations with that man.”

“Yeah? You got into it with Mr. Moammar Shithead Gadhafi?”

“Yes. He has threatened us many times.”

“Yeah? Well, for your information, I almost killed that bastard once.”

“Yes?”

Satherwaite asked, “You’re from Italy?”

“I am from Sicily.”

“No shit? I could’ve wound up there once if I’d run out of gas.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s a long story. I’m not allowed to talk about it. Forget it.”

“As you wish.”

“Okay, if you open that door for me, we’re outta here.”

“Oh, one more thing. There has been a slight change in my plans that may necessitate some change on your part.”

“Like what?”

“My company has ordered me to New York.”

“Yeah? I don’t like flying to New York, Mr.... ”

“Fanini.”

“Yeah. Too much traffic, too much bullshit.”

“I am willing to pay extra.”

“It’s not the money, it’s the bullshit. Which airport?”

“It is called MacArthur. You know of it?”

“Oh, yeah. Never been there, but it’s okay. A suburban airport out on Long Island. We can do that, but it’s extra.”

“Of course.”

Satherwaite put his things down on the desk and looked for another chart on the shelf. He said, “Funny coincidence—I was just talking to a guy on Long Island. He wanted me to stop by—maybe I’ll surprise him. Maybe I should call him.”

“Perhaps a surprise would be better. Or call him when we land.”

“Yeah. Let me get his phone numbers.” Satherwaite flipped through a tattered Rolodex and extracted a card.

Khalil said, “Is he close to the airport?”

“I don’t know. But he’ll pick me up.”

“You may take my rental car if you wish. I have a car reserved, as well as two motel rooms for us.”

“Yeah. I was going to ask you about that. I don’t share rooms with guys.”

Khalil forced a smile and replied, “Neither do I.”

“Good. As long as we got that straight. Hey, you want to pay up front? You get a discount for up-front cash.”

“How much will this amount to?”

“Oh ... now that it’s MacArthur, plus the overnight and I lose some flight instructing time tomorrow, plus gas ... let’s say eight hundred in cash should do it.”

“That sounds reasonable.” Khalil took out his wallet and counted eight hundred dollars in cash, then added another hundred dollars to it and said, “Plus a tip for you.”

“Thanks.”

That was most of the cash that Khalil had, but he knew he would get it all back soon.

Bill Satherwaite counted the money and pocketed it. “Okay. Done deal.”

“Good. I am ready.”

“I gotta take a piss.” Satherwaite opened a door and disappeared into the toilet.

Asad Khalil looked at the poster of the Great Leader and noticed the dart in the forehead. He removed the dart and said to himself, “Surely no one deserves to die more than this American pig.”

Bill Satherwaite came out of the toilet, picked up his charts and bag, and said, “If there’s no more changes, we can get moving.”

Khalil said, “Do you have any beverages we can bring with us?”

“Yeah. I already put an ice chest in the plane. Got soda and beer—beer’s for you if you want. I can’t drink.”

Khalil clearly smelled alcohol on the man’s breath, but said, “Do you have bottled water?”

“No. Why spend money for water? Water is free.”
Idiots and fairies buy bottled water
. “You want water?”

“It is not necessary.” Khalil opened the door, and they went out into the sweltering air.

As they walked across the hot concrete ramp toward the Apache parked a hundred feet from the office, Satherwaite asked, “What kind of business you in, Mr. Panini?”

“Fanini. As my colleague told you when he called from New York, I am in the textile business. I am here to buy American cotton.”

“Yeah? You came to the right place. Nothing’s changed here since the Civil War, except now they have to pay the slaves.” He laughed and added, “And some of the slaves are Spanish and white now. You ever see a cotton field? Talk about shit work. They can’t find enough people to do it. Maybe they should import some stupid Arabs to pick cotton—they love the sun. Pay ’em in camel shit, and tell ’em they can take it to the bank for money.” He laughed.

Khalil did not reply, but asked, “Do you need to file a flight plan?”

“No.” Satherwaite pointed to the clear sky as they continued their walk toward the airplane. “There’s a big-ass high-pressure area across the entire East Coast—great weather all the way.” Thinking he might have a nervous passenger, he added, “The gods are shining on you, Mr. Fanini, ‘cause we’ve got a great day for flying all the way to New York and, probably, when we come back tomorrow, too.”

Khalil did not need to hear this man tell him that Allah had blessed the Jihad—he already knew it in the depths of his soul. He also knew that Mr. Satherwaite was not flying home tomorrow.

As they continued to walk, Satherwaite said, as if thinking to himself, “I might check in with New York approach control radar when we cut across the ocean south of Kennedy Airport on the direct route to Islip. They’ll keep us away from airliners inbound to JFK.”

Khalil thought a moment of how he had been inside an airliner on that very route only a few brief days ago, yet it now seemed almost an eternity.

Satherwaite added, “And I’ll call Long Island Tower for a landing clearance. That’s it.” Satherwaite waved his hand around the nearly deserted Moncks Corner airfield. “Sure as hell don’t have to talk to anyone to depart from here,” he said with a laugh. “Hell, there’s no one around to talk to, except my own student out there in my own piece-of-shit Cherokee. And that kid wouldn’t know what to say if I called him on the radio anyway.”

Khalil looked out to where the pilot was pointing at the small single-engine airplane that was now lined up and descending toward the landing runway, wobbling slightly from side to side. He could see that the airplane very closely resembled the type that he had chartered out of Jacksonville with the female pilot. The memory of her crept back into Khalil’s thoughts, and he quickly pushed her image from his mind.

They stopped at an old blue and white two-engine Piper Apache. Satherwaite had earlier untied the ropes, removed the control locks, and put aside the wheel chocks. He had also checked the fuel. That was all he ever checked, anyway, he thought, mostly because there were so many things wrong with the old airplane that it was a waste of time finding anything more. Satherwaite said to his customer, “I checked it all out before you got here. Everything’s in tip-top shape.”

Asad Khalil regarded the old aircraft. He was glad it had two engines.

Satherwaite sensed some concern on the part of his paying customer and said, “This is a very basic machine, Mr. Fanini, and you can always depend on it to get you there and back.”

“Yes?”

Satherwaite tried to see what the prissy foreigner saw. The Plexiglas windows of the 1954 airplane were a little dirty and crazed, and the paint on the fuselage was a bit faded—in fact, Satherwaite admitted, it was now hardly more than a hint of what it had previously been. He glanced at the foppishly dressed, sunglasses-wearing Mr. Fanini and gave him more encouragement. “There’s nothing complex or fancy about it, but that means that nothing of importance can go wrong. The engines are good, and the flight controls are working fine. I used to fly military jets, and let me tell you, those things are so complex that you need an army of maintenance people just to launch on a simple one-hour mission.” Satherwaite glanced beneath the right engine where a growing puddle of black oil had accumulated in the week since he’d last flown the Apache. “In fact, I took this to Key West and back yesterday. Flies like a homesick angel. Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Satherwaite threw his overnight bag on the wing, then with the charts under his arm, he climbed onto the Apache’s right wing, opened the only door, and retrieved his bag. He threw his bag and the charts in the rear and said to his passenger, “Front or back?”

“I will sit in the front.”

“Okay.” Bill Satherwaite sometimes helped passengers up, but the tall guy looked like he could manage. Satherwaite climbed into the cockpit and maneuvered himself across the co-pilot’s seat into the pilot’s seat. It was hot in the cabin, and Satherwaite popped open the small vent window on his side, waiting for his passenger. He called out, “You coming?”

Asad Khalil placed his bag on the wing, climbed up onto the skidproof surface, which was worn smooth, retrieved his bag, and slid into the co-pilot’s seat, placing his bag on the seat behind him.

Satherwaite said, “Leave your door open a minute. Buckle up.”

Khalil did as his pilot instructed.

Bill Satherwaite put on a headset, flipped some switches, then hit the starter for the left engine. After hesitating a few seconds, the prop began to swing around, and the old piston engine sputtered to life. Once the engine was running smoothly, Satherwaite hit the starter for the right engine, which fired up better than the left. “Okay ... beautiful sound.”

Khalil shouted over the sound of the engines, “It is very loud.”

Satherwaite shouted back, “Yeah, well, your door and my window are open.” He didn’t tell his passenger that the door seal leaked, and it wouldn’t be much quieter with it closed. He said, “Once we get up to cruise altitude, you can hear your mustache grow.” He laughed and began taxiing out toward the runway. With the money in his pocket, he reflected, he didn’t have to be overly nice to this greaseball. He asked, “Where’d you say you’re from?”

“Sicily.”

“Oh ... yeah ...” Satherwaite remembered that the Mafia was from Sicily. He glanced at his passenger as he taxied, and it suddenly dawned on him that this guy could be in the mob. He immediately regretted his high-handed manner and tried to make amends. “You comfortable, Mr. Fanini? Do you have any questions about the flight?”

“The time of the flight.”

“Well, sir, if we get good tailwinds, which is what has been forecast, we’ll be at MacArthur in about three and a half hours.” He checked his watch. “That should put us on the ground about eight-thirty. How’s that?”

“That will be fine. And must we refuel along the way?”

“Nope. I got extra tip tanks installed so I can go about seven hours, non-stop. We’ll refuel in New York.”

Khalil asked, “And you have no difficulty landing in the dark?”

“No, sir. It’s a good airport. Airlines go there with jets. And I’m an experienced pilot.”

“Good.”

Satherwaite thought he’d smoothed things out with Mr. Fanini, and he smiled. He taxied the Apache to the end of the active runway. He glanced up and through his windshield. His student was going around again in the traffic pattern for Runway Twenty-three, doing touch-and-go landings in the crosswind and apparently not having any problems. He said, “That kid up there, he’s a student pilot who needs a double-ball transplant. You know? American kids have gone way too soft. They need a kick in the ass. They need to become killers. They need to taste blood.”

“Is that so?”

Satherwaite glanced at his passenger and said, “I mean, I saw combat and I can tell you, when the Triple-A is so thick you can’t see the sky, and when the missiles are cruising alongside your cockpit, then you become a man real fast.”

“You have experienced this?”

“Lots of times. Okay, here we go. Close your door.” Satherwaite ran up his engines, checked his instruments, then looked around the airport. Only the Cherokee was there, and he was no conflict. Satherwaite taxied the Apache onto the runway, pushed up the power, and they began to roll. The aircraft picked up speed and with half the runway remaining, lifted off.

Satherwaite said nothing as he made adjustments in his throttles and controls. He banked the aircraft and turned to a course of 040 degrees as the plane continued to climb.

Khalil looked out the window at the green countryside below. He sensed that the aircraft was more sound than it looked, and that the pilot, too, was better than he looked. He said to his pilot, “What war did you fight in?”

Satherwaite put a piece of chewing gum in his mouth and said, “Lots of wars. The Gulf was the big one.”

Khalil knew that this man had not fought in the Gulf War. In fact, Asad Khalil knew more about Bill Satherwaite than Satherwaite knew about himself.

Satherwaite asked, “Want some gum?”

“No, thank you. And what type of aircraft did you fly?”

“Flew fighters.”

“Yes? What is that?”

“Fighters. Fighter jets. Fighter-bombers. I flew lots of different kinds, but I ended up on something called the F-111.”