The ride covered about 60 miles over the central mountains. I gather Puerto Rico is lushly scenic, but I didn’t see enough in the dark to appreciate it. We arrived in San Juan’s central district somewhat before 10 p.m. I took a chance that surveillance teams had chucked it in for the night and asked a well-dressed passerby where I could find a nearby businessman’s hotel. He mentioned several and recommended one where, he claimed, salesmen from around the region stayed when they came to town. That suited me—my cash was running low, and salesmen typically traveled on the cheap so they could pocket their per diems.
I spent some time that night and the next morning strategizing my egress. This could be my make-it-or-break-it, so I wanted it to come off. If they had my passport, they also might have my picture, a passport photo anyhow. Sketchy resemblance, but why take a chance? After breakfast, I found a barber and had my hair restyled. I bought an eyebrow pencil at a pharmacia and used it to thicken my eyebrows and dab on a sleazy mustache, aids to blending into the local flow. Then I undertook to recon the strength and disposition of the opposing force. Dressing in a shirt I’d bought in Santo Domingo that no one had seen me wearing, I rode a cab to the airport. A scan of the departures board showed a number of flights to various cities in the U.S., by a variety of carriers. In normal times, I’d simply pick out a flight, go to the ticket counter with my AmEx card, pop over to Miami, and that would be that, no problemo. Too bad times weren’t normal. I strolled around the departure lounges, no clues there. People awaited their boarding calls, sat in anticipation of arriving loved ones, or were reading or having a bite to eat. No telling who, if anyone, was staked out for me. The time to find out was now, rather than when I showed up with boarding pass in eager hand.
I’d have to flush ‘em out. An information brochure provided airport phone numbers. I located a bank of phones with a white courtesy phone nearby and called the airport information number. “I need to reach a passenger with an urgent message. He is there in the airport waiting to board his flight. Could you please page Mr. Jake Fonko for me?”
They could. The page went out. After a credible interval, I picked up the courtesy phone. “This is Jake Fonko. You paged me?”
“Yes, you have a phone call,” said the operator. “I’ll connect you.” I heard a click, then “Go ahead.”
“Jake Fonko here,” I said into the courtesy phone.
Dropping my voice an octave, I replied into the pay phone, “Mr. Fonko, I am the contact you were told to meet. The password is ‘Day O’. It is urgent that I meet with you without delay.”
“That’s the password, all right. Okay. Where do you want to meet?”
“By the Hertz rental car desk. In five minutes. And bring your package with you.”
“Could you make it ten minutes? I can be there in ten.”
“Okay, ten minutes, by the Hertz desk. Do not fail.” I hung up the pay phone, and then the courtesy phone.
I noticed men stirring at departure gates and in bars and eateries and duty free shops around the building. Several got up from lounges and casually strolled in the direction of the rental car desks. I estimated it would take about three minutes to reach the rental cars, so I took the long way around and joined a clutch of arriving passengers. I sauntered past Avis, Budget, Hertz and National and out the door to the sidewalk, scoping the situation with peripheral vision. Holy shit! The collection of hoods and thugs milling around, affecting bored disinterest while looking sideways at each other, was a tableau worthy of Hitchcock. At least two mafiosi viewed one another with wary suspicion from opposite sides of the room. Slick Latinos loitered languidly. Pasty-faced Iron Curtain Europeans shifted their gaze behind sunglasses. Mustached Arabs and furtive Pakistanis lurked here and there. Military types in mufti glanced around alertly. Bureaucrats—government? corporate?—kept a nervous eye on the others. No East Asians that I noticed—they must have their own crooked banks. Several in the crowd seemed familiar, may have caught a glimpse of them on previous islands. A number of them consulted a sheet of paper as they scanned passersby. INTERPOL could have scooped up the lot for their haul of the century. Too bad they’re never around when you need them.
I emerged onto the sidewalk, kept right on sauntering to the taxi queue and took the first one available back to my hotel.
I later heard about the melee in the San Juan airport, touched off by hotheads from two rival South American political movements. The newspapers never reported it. Must have been unsettling for the tourists seeking vacation wheels.
This required further analysis and planning.
The problem of returning to the States loomed largest, but also my cash was drained. I’d been on the run now for a week, and even traveling on the cheap, it’s not cheap. Puerto Rico being practically part of America, my credit cards and California ID would work here—nobody would insist on a passport. Of course, the minute I used either, my name went public, blowing my cover for any minion who’d been hit up for information about “Jake the Gringo.” My recon tactic served its purpose, but it also alerted the hostiles that I was on site. I’d registered as Zak Fahnke, an alias I’d used comfortably since my Iranian gig, so my hotel room was secure enough for a while but I’d be wise to do a Speedy Gonzales out of Puerto Rico. I couldn’t catch a flight back to the U.S. out of the international airport, nor could I do much else about alternate transport home with the legions looking to intercept me. At this point, I couldn’t even ditch the BCCI loot and just head home without it. Pursuers would waylay me and beat the crap out of me to find out where it was. The only thing for it was to keep moving and work out an escape plan.
So… where next, and how do I get there? This being a businessman’s hotel, the desk clerk would know about connections to other islands. He had an up-to-date airline directory as well as a list of other airfields on the island. There were a couple dozen, some servicing local short-hop airlines, others private aircraft at resort sites, and some handling both types. The nearest field of any consequence was on the east coast at Fajardo. My bankroll would cover cab fare out there and back, but not much else. For lack of any better ideas, I cleaned off my fake mustache, returned my eyebrows to normal, and set out after an early lunch.
The commercial terminal at Fajardo hosted several small Caribbean airlines providing puddle-jump flights to islands down the Antilles chain. That made sense to me: I couldn’t retrace my previous route, so I might as well head further out and see if I could make something turn up. However, a discreet inspection of the departure area revealed a few lurking thugs like the ones I’d flushed out at the main airport. Somebody or other seemed to be on hand to thwart me at every turn. I eased out of the main terminal and inconspicuously found my way to the hangars for private aircraft. A man in an office there explained to me about chartering a plane. Pretty expensive, and you couldn’t just walk in and take off. “What about people with private planes?” I asked him. “Where do they hang out?”
“They don’t really hang out. They fly in here, go about their business, fly back out. Usually they land close to where they stay. A number of them own places down here. Some come to resorts. The Cessna over there, it belongs to a guy who likes to fly around the islands.” He pointed to a spiffy high-wing plane, smaller than the one that attacked us off Grand Cayman.
“He planning any flights out soon?”
“You’d have to ask him. I thought I saw him over by that hangar.”
I thanked him and ambled over where he pointed. It was shady inside the hangar but not much cooler, had that greasy rubbery musty smell of mechanical equipment. It housed a few small planes and various kinds of plane-tending gear. A short, pudgy middle-aged man sat at a desk filling out papers. “Excuse me, sir,” I asked him. “Is that your Cessna out there?”
“What about it?”
“Fred in the charter office told me you fly around the islands a lot. I wonder if you might be planning a flight any time soon?�
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“What about it?”
“I need a ride to another island. If you have room for a passenger, I’ll spring for your gas.”
“What island did you have in mind?”
“I’m flexible, just doing the grand tour. Where you headed?”
“Sint Maarten. Ever hear of it?”
“To be honest, no. I’m new in these parts. What’s the story on Sint Maarten?”
“Half French, half Dutch. Quiet place, so-so beaches. Has casinos. The food’s good on the French side.”
“It very far away?”
“Hour and a half.”
“Sounds like a place worth visiting. I’m Jake. If you’ve got an extra seat in your plane, I’d sure appreciate a ride over. “
He looked me up and down. “I’m flying alone. I wouldn’t mind a little company if you’re traveling light. Not much room for luggage. I’m Homer.” He extended his hand, and we shook. “I was fixing to leave this afternoon. That suit you?”
“Couldn’t be better. I’ll have to go back to San Juan and get my gear. Be back in maybe an hour?”
“That’ll work. We can take off as soon as you get back.”
I’d have to work quickly. I had a taxi take me to the American Express office in town, told him to wait outside with the motor running. I got two thousand in t-cheques on the strength of my card, hopped back in the cab and directed him to my hotel. Told him to wait with the motor running. Threw my stuff in my pack, settled my bill, cashed some t-cheques for mad money and scrambled back into the cab. Had him hightail it back to Fajardo. I’d used my name twice, and there was a chance somebody’d noticed the cab, but I gambled that I had enough of a jump to avoid a high-speed chase with guns blazing.
We made it back to Fajardo within the hour I’d stipulated, encountering no trouble en route. Homer stood in the shade outside the hanger, catching a little breeze, sipping a styrofoam cup of coffee. When he saw me approaching, he tossed the dregs out and dropped the cup in a trashcan. “That was quicker’n I’d expected. Most folks don’t estimate their time that well. You want to take a piss before we take off? No restroom aboard. In the hangar there, past the office door.” A thoughtful suggestion.
When I came out he was waiting by the plane. He’d opened the passenger door for me. “Toss your pack behind the seat and climb on in,” he said. I did so, he took the pilot’s seat, and he turned the engine over. After a little warm-up, we rolled out onto the runway. A couple cars arrived in a hurry at the door of the little airport terminal, their riders hopping out and bustling in, but of course cars are always arriving at airports and they could just be travelers running late. My cab had already picked up a fare and headed back to San Juan. No one was going to question the driver right away. I’d stayed inconspicuous, and with luck nobody noticed me departing. Homer taxied out to the end of the runway, lined his craft up, hit the throttle and had us airborne in a jiffy. To my great relief, I’d gotten away from Puerto Rico free and clear. Except that I’d overlooked that Homer had filed a flight plan.
“So after I restructured the company and got my people in place,” Homer was telling me, “it turned out they didn’t need me on hand much at all. So I decided it was high time I enjoyed life a little. Took some flyin’ lessons, something I’d always wanted to do. Liked it so much I bought this plane, started flyin’ it around to see what the U.S. looked like. Oh, I’d traveled around before, but for business. Land in some city, take a cab to a hotel downtown, take another cab to some factory in the industrial boondocks, spend the day cooped up indoors, fly back to home. Never took time to see the sights, enjoy anything. Always had some other urgent business to attend to.”
“You spend much time down here in the islands?” I asked.
“Just gettin’ started on that. First I wanted to see America. Great place. Every state’s a little different from the others, always something interesting.”
“You don’t bring your family along?”
“No family to speak of. Divorced. Wife said I paid too much attention to business, not enough to her. She was right. Kids are grown up, livin’ their own lives, not close, I was always away on business. Can’t complain. Doin’ what I want to do now, floating along on dividend checks, consulting fees, investments, what have you—the money rolls in. Reapin’ the rewards of my youthful energies, you might say.”
“So what kind of company did you put together?”
“Manufacturing. Plastic and rubber items. Small things. Household items.”
“Any products I might have heard of?”
“Sure. Urinal screens. Ever look down while you’re pissin’ and see a Barnard Co. urinal screen? Those little rubber mats with holes in it that stop the butts from cloggin’ the drain?”
“Now that you mention it, I’ve noticed them here and there… Ummm, not that’s any of my business, but I don’t think I’d put my name in a situation like that.”
“Neither would I,” Homer chuckled. “My name’s Buckle, not Barnard.”
“So Barnard was one of those companies you bought?”
“No, that’s my own company. I named that particular product myself, in honor of Jon Barnard. Jon, you see, was high school class president and football star, rich man’s son, arrogant asshole. I was the class nebbish, grew up poor, studyin’ hard, workin’ after-school jobs, determined to get ahead in life. Jon was into fun and good times, treated me like shit, made me the butt of his jokes. I had a girlfriend for a while, not homecoming queen but good enough for me. Jon took it on himself to romance her, just to show me up, took her away from me, and I never got her back. Anyhow, when I developed that product line I thought back on Jon Barnard. It’s my little joke. Fact is, I’ve always had the last laugh on him, doin’ work I liked and now enjoyin’ my money while he never left our hometown, still slavin’ away in an auto parts store, stuck with a fat wife and paying alimony to his former high school sweetheart, the homecoming queen. Turned out ugly as sin and twice as mean.”
Thus we passed the time. Homer flew as low as regulations allowed, following the scenery rather than a strict flight path, taking in the sights like a kid on a carnival midway. We skimmed by St. Thomas and St. John in the American Virgins, then reached the British Virgins. “Great little bar down there,” Homer said, pointing to an island north of St. John. “Foxy’s. On Jost van Dyke Island. New Year’s Eve you can walk across the anchorage from one deck to the next. Provided you’re sober enough to walk.”
We were aloft above a string of emerald gems in a deep azure setting—Tortolla, Virgin Gorda, Anegada—with a parallel string across the channel and a sprinkling of neat little cays scattered around them. A goddam paradise on earth lay before my eyes. And I’d been impressed with the California seacoast? You could fit the whole thing from Malibu to Huntington Beach around one of these beauties. Catalina Island? I thought about other islands off California, and it dawned on me that Catalina is the only inhabited island on America’s entire west coast, from the Mexican border to the mouth of Puget Sound, and it amounted to peanuts compared to any one of these. A scrub-covered patch of hills 25 miles off Long Beach represented the best we had? I hadn’t been overwhelmed by Paradise Island in the Bahamas, where the Shah holed up, but the Antilles reached a higher dimension. Too bad an all-star team of the world’s hoods dogged my trail. I could really stop and enjoy this place.
“Up yonder is Sint Maarten.” Homer pointed to another island in the sun, emerging over the horizon. “We’ll touch down there in a jiffy. Jake, from what you’ve said and not said, I get the impression you’re on the run.”
“Some people are after what’s in my backpack. It’s nothing personal.”
“Running contraband? Illegal substances? If I’m in danger of being busted for drugs, tell me before we land, and I can deal with it.”
“There’s nothing illegal about the stuff; it’s some business records, that’s a
ll. Transporting stolen goods is the worst they could accuse you of, and you know nothing about that because I didn’t tell you.”
“Business records? What business? Some kind of offshore shenanigans?”
“It has to do with BCCI. I guess you could say it’s some kind of offshore shenanigan.”
“You picked a winner—BCCI, the crookedest bank in the world. I’ve never done business with BCCI, always kept my affairs on the up-and-up and the straight and narrow. So, what are you planning to do on Sint Maarten?”
“No plans. I’m just trying to get away from the guys who are after me and find my way back to the U.S. Every shady outfit in the world wants those BCCI records, and they’re just a few steps behind me. My passport got left in my hotel room on Grand Cayman, so they know my name and probably have my picture. It seems people are tracking any banking I do, and spies ask about me everywhere. I hoped to get back home from Puerto Rico, but they had the airport staked out. If I can find a bolt hole for a spell, I’ll maybe be able to work out a way home.”
“Why don’t you just go to the U.S. counsel here and get your passport straightened out?”
The Jake Fonko Series: Books 4, 5 & 6 Page 12
