Caribbean's Keeper (24 page)

“Where’d you learn to fly?”

Murph took a deeper breath. “I started out in Florida at a flight school, but right about when I was ready to finish, I flew a little too low past a girl’s house and it kind of went downhill from there. I finally got my license but couldn’t really get a good job anywhere, so I packed up and made my way down here.”

Cole was quiet for a moment, realizing that Murph was just like him. He looked up ahead at the mountains and could see that the plane was climbing over them. The altimeter was spinning through 10,000 feet, that much he could understand. There were some dark buildups ahead at the peak of some of the mountains, and in line with where Murph was flying.

“Is that weather a problem?”

Murph looked up ahead and squinted before responding. “You worry a lot, you know that? I heard you’re some cowboy or something, shooting it out like the wild west and here you are asking me about puffy clouds and shit.”

Cole laughed. “Just seems a bit different in a plane, that’s all. And yeah, I guess I made a bit of a name for myself down here.”

Murph laughed too and seemed to ease up even more as their altitude increased and the cabin cooled. He seemed satisfied that Cole wasn’t all that bad of a guy. As they reached the top of the mountains and leveled out, the landscape disappeared beneath them. They were in the clouds and bounced around a bit more than Cole liked. Rain followed, and the plane jolted up and down at an alarming rate. When Cole had driven through a thunderstorm, he bounced around a bit, but a plane added a new uncomfortable dimension. Without seeing a thing in front of him, Cole felt the back end yaw left and right like it did on takeoff and he took a deep breath.

Cole mumbled, “Ain’t this some shit.”

Murph just sat there in his seat, occasionally twisting a knob on a small radar screen in front of him, but otherwise not seeming to give two shits about mountains or thunderstorms, or the rain that was pummeling the windshield. When the turbulence kicked them around even more, Murph pulled back on the throttles a bit, but just as soon as the plane settled again, he jammed them back up. Cole looked out at the propeller turning just feet away from him and saw the flicker of a strobe light every few seconds against the otherwise dark mass of clouds outside. He wanted to ask Murph about any more mountains since at that particular place and time neither of them could see shit in front of them, but knew Murph would just blow it off so he didn’t bother. Cole pressed his head against the seat and waited.

In a matter of minutes, they were through the worst of it. The clouds backed off and Cole caught his first glimpse of the Caribbean in front of him. From 17,000 feet, he could see clear across the coastline of Panama. The Caribbean shoreline, now darker with the sun behind the mountains and obscured by the clouds they’d just pushed through, was dotted with flickers of lights. Some were from ships at anchor, others from the small remote villages that dotted the north coast. The cockpit was cool and the plane settled in the undisturbed air, her propellers driving them eastward with a steady hum.

“Well, shit. This ain’t half bad,” Cole nodded.

“I’m glad it’s to your standard.” Murph reached behind his seat and pulled out a small collapsible travel cooler. Setting it down in his lap, he unzipped the top and pulled out two Dos Equis bottles, both sweating from a bath in ice.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Cole said in disbelief.

“Beverage service.” Murph passed one to Cole then opened his with a bottle opener that he pulled from the side pocket.

Passing the opener to Cole, Murph took a good long sip and set the beer between his legs before dialing in a new frequency and adjusting a few more switches in the plane.

“Is there a movie too?” Cole popped the top off his beer and held it out for Murph to toast.

Tipping the neck of his beer against Cole’s, Murph took another sip and talked to someone else on the radio before changing his course just a bit with the turn of a small wheel on the console between them.

Cole took another sip and asked, “So what do you move down here?”

Murph looked at him for a second then stared straight ahead at the dark night in front of them.

“Used to run drugs, like you. But the governments, Colombia mostly, got real good real quick at shooting planes down. Once they got their first taste of it, there was nothing stopping them. The U.S. was supplying them with equipment and it was a pretty lethal combo. This was right when I was getting into it. Guys were getting shot to shit and never heard of again.”

He took another sip from his beer and rubbed his lip with his thumb. “I figured what the hell, I’ll give it a try. I made two runs out of Colombia before they caught me. I had this crotch-rocket of a plane come up from behind and wag his wings right next to me. I mean, I could literally see the fucker’s face. I flicked the guy off and figured I was done. He was calling out on the radio for me to land, but I was getting pretty close to the beach line and figured I would make a run for open water, trying to get to twelve miles.”

Murph quit for a second, looked at one of the gauges, and took another sip. Cole kept quiet as he had a sense that this story was going somewhere and that his adventures to date paled in comparison.

“So anyway, sure as shit, he pulls behind in a loose trail and lights me up. I mean, I can hear bullets tearing into the plane. It was just a single engine Cessna, no match at all for whatever he was shooting me up with. And then the engine started smoking, fuel was leaking out of the wings, and I put her in a descent to the jungle. He blew right past me one more time as I was descending to rub it in my face. I killed the engine and lined up to ditch on a flat part of the landscape.”

Cole was struck by it. “Shit, man. That’s one hell of a story.”

They were both looking straight ahead and the silence was uncomfortable. Murph seemed like he was replaying it in his head.

Cole pressed. “You gotta tell me the ending. I mean you’re still here, so what the fuck happened?”

Murph paused and shook his head back and forth as if to say he didn’t even understand it himself. “I don’t really know. I put her down in the jungle and somehow walked away from it. The plane was a wreck, but I climbed out through the windshield that was busted out and waited.”

Cole was puzzled. “You waited? You just sat there and waited?”

Murph laughed and replied, “Yeah, I fucking waited. I was in the middle of the damn jungle wearing a pair of flip flops. What else was I gonna do?”

The two laughed. It was a hell of a story and the two seemed to appreciate each other’s company for the next two hours. Cole laid out his whole story about
Delaney
, the migrant runs, and his decision to press further south. Murph seemed somewhat impressed with Cole’s stories as well and before long they were starting a slow descent down into the island of Curacao.

Having never been there, Cole focused his attention outside the cockpit and strained to make out details about the island in front of him in the dark Caribbean sky. Murph took her off autopilot and handled the plane like a pro. He’d cut them both off at one beer for that leg, but had promised another once they were wheels up.

As they neared the airport, Murph called out, “Gear down.”

Taking that as his cue, Cole reached down and flopped the same lever down. Similar clunks followed and the plane surged just a bit before the three indicators all displayed ‘down’ and Cole was happy with his first flying lesson.

Murph eased the plane onto the runway and from a pilot’s view, Cole saw firsthand the balancing act of bringing a flying piece of metal back onto the ground with grace. He was impressed. The landing was far more involved and intricate than tying a ship up to a pier. They taxied clear of the runway and over to another empty ramp, where a lone blue van waited in a corner. Taxiing over towards it, Murph instructed Cole to hop out the back with both of the briefcases behind his seat and give them to the guy in the van.

Cole complied and in a matter of minutes they were taxiing again with Murph flipping switches and tuning radios. He paused briefly and pointed again up past the runway to a large hangar and some monstrous planes sitting on the dark ramp.

“See them, that’s a U.S. base down here. Those planes are the ones out looking for you every night.”

Cole squinted to make out the silhouettes of the planes, but in the darkness he couldn’t see clear enough to make much out of them. He wondered if that same P-3 wasn’t parked up there somewhere. It was an odd twist of fate that he was now practically kicked to the curb by David, and here he was twice in one day and in very different places looking practically eye to eye with the same guys trying every night to catch him.

The planes were huge, sitting quietly on the ramp as Murph taxied them past. It was asymmetric warfare in every sense of the term. Cole set out with a boat, a motor, and a GPS. In front of him was an array of some of the most technologically advanced warplanes in the U.S. inventory, all focused on finding guys just like him and slowing the flow of drugs to North America.

Murph spun the plane around again and lined up on the dark runway, this time waiting until he was lined up properly before gunning the engines. Seconds later they were accelerating. The plane’s landing lights lit the pavement in front of them and an array of different colored lights marked each side of the runway with a single row of lights down the centerline. Other than the runway, it was dark. Cole felt the nose pitch up briefly before the familiar thump indicating they were in the air.

Murph called for the gear and Cole flipped the same lever again without missing a beat. Once pointed east and on autopilot, Murph pulled out two more beers and the two of them toasted the evening. “I assume you didn’t want to stay in Curacao?”

Cole took a sip and replied, “No. Let’s see what else El Caribe has to offer.”

From 19,000 feet, it was total darkness below and above. There were some scattered thunderstorms along the route, but nothing like the ones they’d pushed through over Panama. Cole could see the stars above him and enough of the moon was out to bounce some light off the Caribbean below. Cole was now adjusted to the hum of the engines and compared to running a boat hundreds of miles, an airplane was certainly an easier ride.

The flight to Martinique was just about two hours, and Cole pressed Murph for more details. Murph in turn laid out the pros and cons of running drugs by air. It had taken the better part of a day for anyone to find him after he’d ditched the plane. By the time the Colombian military arrived, he’d burned the whole thing down to ashes and, from the story he told, he met the Colombians with open arms and a shit-eating grin on his face. Without evidence, they had nothing that could have proved Murph’s guilt, as it had all gone up in flames. The Colombians put him in jail anyway, but in a matter of months, he was out and on his way.

Since then, almost eight years ago, Murph had been moving mostly above-the-table shipments around the southern Caribbean. Sometimes he flew people from place to place, picking them up, dropping them off, and waiting for days at the nicest hotels money could buy. He told Cole that the two briefcases were nothing more than checks and documents as far as he knew. Like any other business, there was a paper trail. It was well guarded, but there was still a paper trail, and that was Murph’s niche in the business. If he wasn’t chauffeuring the middle management from meeting to meeting, he was moving their administrative necessities. From time to time he’d test out a new route or move cocaine if David was in a pinch, but it was a good life that Murph had carved out for himself.

Cole was relieved that the cartel had kept its word and hadn’t sent Murph on his way empty handed. He compared his situation to Murph’s and the two agreed that Cole still had a decent chance of making something of it. In the interim, Murph would show him a good time in Martinique once they landed. As they started their descent into Fort-de-France, Cole couldn’t help but smile.

Murph touched down again and taxied to a smaller ramp lined with planes similar to their King Air. He shut down quickly and the two stepped off the plane into the nighttime sky. Cole took a deep and long breath of the air. It was tropical just like Panama, but a strong steady breeze blew from the east and the air smelled fresh and full of salt. There was no city stench like Panama City nor was there the constant thumping of dance music from Habana’s. It was peaceful, at last. With his bag over his shoulder, Cole followed Murph inside the small terminal where Murph had a green Volkswagen rental car waiting, and the two were off.

Murph drove like a madman through the streets, entering and exiting rotary intersections like he’d been at it his whole life. He grinned and giggled with each hard turn. Cole couldn’t help but laugh as well with his window down and the cool evening air in his face. The local radio station played something in French and Murph cranked it up as he hit red line speeds on the straightaways then played the gears down in the turns.

Even though it was dark, Cole could sense the island was far different from the western side of the Caribbean. A refreshing breeze rolled in undisturbed from the Atlantic. The smell took him back to the first night he’d beached on the north coast of Cuba. The tops of palm trees moved with the wind, and the buildings were more spaced out and colorful than the congestion of Panama. It was getting late, but people were still lingering around the small cafes that lined the roads.

Murph pulled off the main highway, and Cole strained to read the street signs. It was all foreign to him, a new language. He hoped that enough time would pass here that he would come to learn a few phrases. With one last hard turn, Murph settled the car into a parking spot and the two hopped out and walked into the entrance of the Hotel Bakoua. The lobby was open-air and had smooth tile floors. Soft music played from a radio behind the desk. It was remarkably quiet and Cole was again struck by the contrast. In broken English, the woman at the counter checked both of them into their rooms and gave them keys. From the reception area, the two walked around a corner, down some steps, and to the bar that overlooked the pool and the bay below. They were elevated on a cliff and Cole fought for a moment to keep a smile from creeping across his face.