The Third Rule of Ten

by Gay Hendricks

  I crossed the road after checking both sides for oncoming traffic, though getting hit by a car might be preferable to what lay ahead. I entered the office of Premier Charters. The décor was ‘coptor-centric, with several framed aerial photographs of Los Angeles on the walls and a small tin helicopter dangling from the ceiling like a toy bug. I counted two small offices to the left and a fridge and coffee maker to the right. A hidden speaker blared an old Doors song, “Riders on the Storm,” which I recognized because Valerie, my mother, played it incessantly when I was a child.

  Maybe I’d get lucky. Maybe Premier Charters owned only one of the choppers outside. I approached the counter, where a young, bouncy blonde, her hair streaked with purple, peered at a computer screen as her jaws worked a wad of gum.

  “Good afternoon? Can I help you? I’m Amber?” she chirped, in that adolescent singsong that lifts every statement into a question. She reached under the counter to lower the volume of Jim Morrison’s wail.

  “Yes,” I said. “How do I go about finding out where that helicopter is going?”

  Instead of eyeing me with suspicion, hers widened with excitement. “Omigod, I knew it, I knew that was her. Are you the paparazzi?” She removed her gum and looked around for somewhere to stash it, settling on folding it inside a glossy tourist brochure.

  Rather than answer, I smiled mysteriously. She was free to interpret in any way she wished. What I did say was, “Did you know that paparazzi pay real cash for good tips?”

  She looked around, although we were the only two people there. “I think I may have heard that? Like, with TMZ?”

  Chaco’s tutelage aside, I’ve traveled in and out of India most of my life, so bribery has been a necessary evil. In any case, it didn’t take a black belt in Green Fu to melt this girl’s heart. I slid two Benjamins across the counter. She picked them up, her expression reverent.

  “This is my first time,” she said, fingering the $100 bills. “We’ve never had paparazzi here before.”

  I waited. I didn’t want to sully the purity of the moment for her.

  “Right,” she said, suddenly officious. “So, do you just want the coordinates, or would you prefer to charter your own helicopter?”

  My vocal chords tightened. “You have more than one?”

  “Oh, yes, we have three helicopters? They’re all AW109’s? Two for passengers, one for rescues?”

  She pecked on the computer and squinted at the screen. “Sam’s available right now?”

  This was good news for my case and disastrous news for my equilibrium. I inhaled deeply and let my breath out slowly. “How much to follow that other helicopter?”

  More pecking, more squinting. “That will be, well, about five hours total? Round trip? Two down, the same coming back, plus you pay for wait-time if he sits there longer than fifteen minutes?” She tapped a few keys and said, “Okay, um, seven thousand. Do you want me to book it for you?”

  I shuddered at the thought, and the cost, but I did.

  I gave her my credit card, which had recently been bumped up to a $30,000 limit, as if the powers that be had learned about my new nest egg, even though my savings account was with a different bank. I wouldn’t put it past them.

  She ran the card, which didn’t burst into flames at the unusually high charge. Then she turned away and had a quick conversation on her office phone, her cheeks pink from all the excitement. Within moments, a helicopter pilot with hair the color of a raw carrot emerged from one of the small side offices and strode directly outside to one of the remaining parked choppers. He disappeared inside.

  Amber passed over a form to fill out. “For the passenger manifesto?” She opened one hand. “Passport, please?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I need your passport,” she said. “For coming back?”

  “Coming back?” I was starting to sound like her.

  “Across the border? You’re going to Mexico?”

  Well, shit on a stick, as Bets would say.

  I peeled off eight more $100 bills. “I, um, I forgot my passport? But I think I can get a copy of it sent here?”

  She nodded. She understood me perfectly.

  I filled out the information.

  An hour later, I was strapping myself into a luxurious leather passenger seat the same rich cream color as the helicopter. As Bill likes to say, all systems were go, once I had managed to rouse Mike from bed so he could e-mail Amber a PDF of my passport. Luckily I’d sent a color scan of it to him, photo included, for safekeeping when I traveled to India to be with my father. At Mike’s urging. Now I owed him two favors.

  I was seated directly behind Pilot Sam. He turned from the blinking electronic console. “Buckled up? Ready?”

  I nodded. Another lie. My stomach was telling me the opposite. Many things in nature have wings on them, from pesky mosquitoes to majestic eagles. But as far as I know, nature has yet to evolve a creature, hummingbird aside, with a spinning object on its head that propels it straight upward, turning the whole flying deal into something completely unnatural. To my primitive mind, anything that rises straight up is equally capable of returning to earth in a vertical plummet. I’ve been told that helicopters don’t drop like a bowling ball if the engine quits, but then, I’ve been told a lot of things that turned out to be dead wrong.

  Sam motioned for me to put on the aviation headset lying on the empty seat next to me. Ever since I’d lined his pockets with an extra $500, he was Mr. Share-the-Helicopter-Love. My plump earphones crackled to life as Sam exchanged takeoff chatter with the tiny control tower. He goosed the engine, and we lifted off, smoothly enough. Despite that fact, my stomach flipped over, registering the unlikely defiance of gravity. We banked left, and I attempted slow, steady breaths, trying to reunite with the bottom third of my stomach, the part that was pretending I was still on the ground.

  “Off we go,” Sam said.

  I opted for silence.

  We pulled out of the L.A. haze and headed a few miles offshore. Then Sam banked left again and took us southward, hugging the coastline. I popped two pieces of spearmint gum in my mouth, a parting gift from Amber, and focused on chewing and counting breaths. My single goal was to keep the choppy waves of anxiety from turning into an embarrassing mini-tsunami. Just in case, I had mapped out the location of the white barf bag tucked into a compartment under my seat.

  After 35 grim minutes we alighted on a runway just north of the main Tijuana International Airport Terminal. Sam did a little of this and that, before turning to me.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  I waited. He was in and out of an official-looking customs building in about five minutes.

  “That was fast,” I said.

  “General Aviation Building. These guys know us well. They approve of our job: ferrying rich tourists to Mexico to spend mucho dinero. By the way, anybody asks, you’re going fishing in Baja for the day. Like they do.” He chuckled to himself, an inside joke.

  “Okay, then,” I said. “I’m going fishing.” It wasn’t untrue.

  After I’d done another hour of white-knuckle battle with my dread, I saw Sam murmur into his mouthpiece. He leaned right, as if to check on something outside. He turned to me and pointed to his headset. I put mine on and heard, “There’s Jack, our other pilot, coming back. He wants to know where I’m going.”

  Just then, our twin flew past us, some distance away and a half-mile or so closer to land. Sam answered my concerns before I could express them. “Don’t worry. I got this covered.”

  He switched to a different frequency to have a private conversation. Then he was back. “Jack says good luck.”

  “Good luck?”

  “With the fishing.”

  The flight stabilized slightly, along with my stomach, as we moved farther inward, chopping our way south down the western peninsula of Baja California. The signs of civilization, from housing to smog to green irrigated fields, fell away, replaced by a dry landscape dotted with gnarled creosote and the
occasional cactus, arms up as if imploring the cloudless sky for rain. We passed a tiny village. Then, nothing. No wonder Sam chuckled about our fishing expedition. We had crossed into a waterless land.

  Soon, I’d have some answers.

  I was curious. “How far south of the border are we now?”

  Sam glanced at the GPS coordinates and punched a button. “A couple hundred kilometers, maybe?”

  The helicopter slowed its course, and Sam’s voice was loud in my ears. “Getting close. We should be there in about ten more minutes.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I want you to hang back a little, if you can. I’m not sure what we’ll find. And I’d rather not be seen.”

  “Will do,” Sam said.

  I assessed the rumpled terrain below. No roads. No houses. No obvious signs of civilization. No easy way in or out, except by chopper.

  An idea niggled.

  “Sam, do you happen to know if your company has recently contracted with any major new corporate clients? Like GTG Services, for example?”

  He shrugged. “Not my area of expertise. But Jack’s a part owner. He mentioned there might be something big in the works. He’s hoping that means they can get another couple of birds, maybe the new AW169 ten-seater, plus a second aeromedical chopper. I have no idea who the deal’s with, though. I just fly these things. If I was any good at business I’d be running my own charter company, and my kids would be in private schools, you know?”

  “You have kids?”

  “Two. Boy and a girl. He’s six, she’s eight. Both already much smarter and better-looking than their dad, thank God.” Sam’s wide smile transformed his face, and I was exposed to another example of what unconditional fatherly pride looks like.

  He pointed to two o’clock on the horizon: “Look. Over there.”

  In the distance, a white building shimmered; it was the size and shape of a medium-sized warehouse. Two pristine concrete helipads, marked with bright yellow circles, sat a short way beyond the building. The helipads were brand new, the cement barely dry.

  Sam hovered the chopper in midair, keeping his distance. The spinning rotors caused the sandy terrain to riffle out in gritty waves right below us.

  I fished for my binoculars and scanned the surroundings.

  The building looked as if it had been dropped from the sky, right in the middle of a vast cactus- and mesquite-riddled wasteland. Two narrow, rutted dirt roads angled out from the building into acres and acres of flat desert.

  I focused on a tall, three-pronged saguaro by one corner of the building. I sharpened the image, a memory tugging. Was I imagining things, or was this cactus the twin of the tall, three-pronged saguaro in Culver City? Another memory twanged: a third visual of a third cactus next to a third warehouse, in San Diego.

  This cactus wasn’t a twin, it was an identical triplet. I zoomed in for a closer inspection, and the bright sunlight emphasized some oddities. Each “limb” of the giant saguaro had a horizontal seam midway through it, as if it had been manually attached. The “skin” of the cactus was waxy and roughly ridged to look real, but free of any actual spines. The limbs themselves were too perfectly asymmetrical to be natural. This saguaro and two more like it were both masterfully camouflaged and clearly man-made. But what purpose were they man-made for?

  I recalled the mysterious electronic hum I’d heard but been unable to identify at the Culver City warehouse. And then the answer strummed loud and clear, an unmistakable chord of truth. The cactus was not a cactus at all, but a cell tower disguised as a succulent. Three cell towers, in three separate locations. Chaco Morales had built, and now controlled, a personal, covert telecommunications network. Which also answered a second mystery: why Mike hadn’t been able to link Sofia’s, Clara’s, and Mark Goodhue’s cell phones to any known service providers. Our hydra had a secondary set of tentacles—invisible, wireless ones. Who knows how far they reached.

  “Oh, my God,” I said.

  “What?” I’d forgotten that Sam could hear me.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just, I think I figured something out.”

  I swung my lenses back to the main structure. The row of narrow windows winked at me in the afternoon sun, as if to say, “The joke’s on you!”

  How does one even begin to challenge such a man? I shook off the feeling of hopelessness threatening to engulf me. You got this far, didn’t you? Take advantage. I continued my risk assessment. A lone Hummer and a smattering of four- wheel-drive jeeps dotted a narrow parking area along one side of the structure. No security cameras. No barbed wire. No armed guards, at least none visible. This didn’t have the feel of anybody’s command center. So why was this building constructed here? Not to mention, how? And what were Mark Goodhue and Bets McMurtry doing inside?

  “Can you move just a little closer, Sam? I’d love to know what that thing’s made of. I can’t imagine anybody trucking heavy materials across this terrain.”

  “Oh, I can tell you that,” Sam said. “You’re looking at one of those instant buildings from China. They ship the modules over in containers and then basically just bolt them together. All you need is a foundation, and you can have yourself a warehouse in under a week.”

  “No kidding. I’m surprised I haven’t seen one of these before.”

  “You can’t build them in California.”

  “Why not?”

  “Earthquake codes.”

  “They don’t have earthquakes down here?”

  “Oh, yeah, plenty of earthquakes,” Sam said. “Just no codes.”

  I snapped a series of pictures with my digital camera.

  I took a closer look at the scrubby surroundings. Other than the insta-building, there wasn’t much to see, certainly no paved roads suitable for ordinary vehicles. I didn’t see any airstrips for landing small aircraft, either. Helicopters were the only practical way to bring people in and out—practical being a relative term.

  “What do you want me to do?” Sam asked.

  An idea shoved its way to the front of the line. I could have Sam drop me off at the nearest village. I thought I’d spotted one about 15 miles north of here. Perhaps I could find the local law and get them to talk about Chaco, with the help of my greenback persuaders.

  Good sense pushed back. This was a very bad idea. I’d never heard of anyone speaking fondly about doing time in a Mexican prison. If Chaco had the clout necessary to build something out here in the middle of nowhere, as well as outfit it with his own personal cellular network, he was likely to own the local law enforcement authorities. He was a drug lord, with an army of illegitimate and legitimate soldiers. I was an ex-monk with a .38 and a 17-pound Persian cat.

  “Let’s go home,” I said.

  Sam nodded and executed a 180-degree turn so that we were facing north. We flew in silence for some time.

  “So what are you, exactly?” Sam’s voice broke in.

  Good question.

  “I’m … I’m just a man,” I said, “trying to do some good.”

  Sam twisted around to look at me. After a moment, he returned his gaze to his console.

  “Cool,” he said.

  We flew steadily for an hour or so. I was actually growing accustomed to the experience of acres of ground rushing beneath my feet. With a pang, I realized how much Heather would enjoy this slight inner shift. During one long night of pillow talk early on, trading professional war stories, Heather had described to me in some detail insights she’d gleaned from her Psych rotation, specifically, the wonderful results of “exposure” therapy in treating people with phobias. I had been skeptical at the time, but now I was a believer. After several hours of intense chopper-exposure, I was actually able to lean my head against the plush leather headrest and fall into a light doze.

  “Crap.” Sam’s voice broke into my nap, followed, oddly, by the word “Brown.”

  “Wha … ?” I pushed upright.

  He motioned to the right of the curved window. A second helicopter, army green, was keeping pac
e, maintaining a soccer field’s distance between us.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Feds, I’m pretty sure. That’s a Bell 407. Probably just took off from Brown. It’s close.”

  “Brown?”

  “U.S. Customs checkpoint, at Brown Field Municipal Airport. Shit. Look at that. He’s definitely tracking us.”

  “Why? You aren’t doing anything illegal,” I said.

  He glanced at me with something less than warmth. “I know,” his voice rang in my earphones, “but how do I know you aren’t?”

  He switched channels and proceeded to hold a tense conversation with someone on the other end. He didn’t speak again until he had set the helicopter gently down on one of three small helipads just southeast of the Brown Field control tower. He cut the engines, and we watched as the ATF chopper settled on a helipad adjacent to ours.

  “Showtime,” Sam said. He moved behind me, swung open the door, and stepped outside. By the time I had my own feet on the tarmac, a man and woman were striding toward us, wearing black ATF windbreakers and grim expressions. The woman was sturdy, with strong shoulders and a crop of curly brown hair. She was a few inches taller than me and a few years older. The male agent was well over six feet and lean, sixtyish, with a gray comb-over that wasn’t faring well in the whipping wind.

  Behind them, a uniformed pilot descended the steps and started spot-checking his machine.

  The male agent flashed his badge, and I caught a glimpse of a Glock G22 holstered to his waist. “Agent Willard, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. This is Agent Gustafson.” Neither offered their hand.

  Sam handed Agent Willard his card. “I’m the charter pilot,” he said. He motioned toward me with his chin. “He’s the customer.”

  Willard waved Sam inside. “Go do your thing,” he said. “I’ll talk with you in a minute.”