2 Green to Go

by John H. Cunningham

“Ray, don’t even go there. Betty’s done, remember? And if you’re thinking of salvaging her to fix this beast—”

  “With the proper weighting and balance on the throttles, I think it can work,” he said. “The props are different sizes, but—”

  “It can work!” The old man said. “This man is a mechanical genius! He must be part Cuban!”

  Nina let loose a final barrage in Spanish and flew up the ladder two rungs at a time.

  The three of us stood facing each other, under the crumpled port wing of the Beast.

  “Nina aspires to run the Ministry of Agriculture,” Señor Maceo said. “She has always worried the Beauty might ruin that for her, and now she is certain this will happen.” He smiled. “Which is why we must get rid of it.”

  The two of them stared at each other with moon faces and goofy smiles. Ray reached into his shirt pocket and removed a piece of paper.

  “Here’s my list of what we need off Betty.”

  “I told you, Betty’s under guard,” I said. “More men are coming tomorrow, and I’m pretty damned sure Gutierrez will be with them.”

  The old man smacked his watery lips together, licked them, then smiled.

  “That leaves tonight to get what we need from the poquito Grumman.”

  I looked at Ray. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, Buck, we’re serious,” he said. “Not to mention determined.”

  They stood staring at me, waiting. Immovable.

  Fuck it.

  “All right, show me the list.”

  A loud stereo hoot filled the underground chamber, and the two men jumped up and down and hugged each other like kids who just scored a goal in a soccer game.

  Beauty

  or the

  Beast?

  34

  The three-quarter moon was partially covered by clouds. I’d left Ray in the truck near where Nina had waited for me hours earlier. Now nearly midnight, there was no activity of any kind unless you counted the mosquitoes that feasted on my exposed legs and arms. We’d synchronized our watches to give me time to get in position before Ray created the distraction I’d need to close the final distance. Negotiating the woods in daylight had been a lot easier—I was tripping my way through the darkness.

  I heard a stick crack up ahead followed by a harsh: “Sssshhh!”

  I crouched low and snuggled into a bush. As my eyes adjusted, I saw what looked like three figures, just inside the trees by the shore, not more than thirty feet ahead. I counted my blessings that I hadn’t blundered into them. Were they watching Betty, or were they thieves?

  A bead of sweat ran down my spine and made me shiver. I checked the time, worried Ray would drive into Puerto Esperanza before I was ready. One of the men sneezed.

  “Goddamnit! The hell, Peruvians allergic to Cuba or something?” A laugh, then: “You boys’d never survive in Iraq.”

  I was surprised he spoke English, even more surprised that I recognized the voice.

  “It’s past midnight, anyway, so I doubt Reilly’ll be coming back tonight. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  No doubt about it. Gunner.

  The men stumbled from the woods out to the beach without any attempt to conceal their movements. A voice called in Spanish from where I estimated Betty to be, and one of the men who’d just left with Gunner called back.

  Had Gunner teamed up with the Peruvians? How? And what about the slashed tires on the G-IV? Could the Peruvian bosses have been at the canal, waiting to rendezvous with the thieves? Could fate have drawn them together with Gunner when the Sea Lion never arrived?

  Did Gunner’s original client know? Had the Peruvians hired him? That’s the thing about mercenaries, they’ll change teams with the wind, so anything was possible. But how did they know I’d crashed here?

  A car started and a moment later its lights lit the wood where I was hunkered down. I slid lower, became one with the shrubbery, and held my breath. Ray would be—

  The car lights shifted hard to the right. The car drove up the road out of Puerto Esperanza, but the woods were too thick to see how many people were inside. I checked my watch again—time was running out. Maybe their hasty departure would provide the cover I needed.

  I stood up slowly, wiped the sweat from my brow, and took a tentative step forward. Richard fucking Rostenkowski, a.k.a. Gunner, had been right here—

  A stick cracked under my foot.

  “Halto!” A voice shouted.

  I stopped in my tracks, only yards from Betty. The remaining guard had his rifle pointed at my chest.

  Shit!

  He kept asking me questions, in Spanish, but I had no idea what he was saying.

  I lifted my hands up. “I fell asleep back there. Where’s Gunner?”

  The guard jabbed his gun at me, then swung it to the side.

  I got it. I moved forward slowly, kept my hands held high, and exited the woods next to Betty. She was dead and I was captured. Perfect.

  “Americano?” he said.

  He pointed the gun down toward the beach. I bent down slowly and got on my knees, keeping my arms up. The guard reached around his back, but I couldn’t see what he—a bright light suddenly blinded me. He had a flashlight in my face.

  “I don’t remember another American with the big one,” he said.

  His English surprised me almost as much as Gunner and the Peruvians had.

  “The Peruvians dropped me in the woods just up the road so I could keep watch,” I said. “I sat down to rest and fell asleep. When are they coming back?”

  “Not until morning.”

  He hadn’t lowered the gun all the way but had taken a couple steps backward.

  “And Gutierrez?” I said.

  “What about him?”

  “When will he be back?”

  The guard lifted the rifle. “Show me some identification.”

  “Hold on, compadre, what’s the—”

  “The other American, the big one with the tattoos, he said he was looking for an American named Book Reilly. Colonel Gutierrez said the same thing. Neither of them mentioned—”

  Just then a bright light from the road lit us up. The guard swung around. Headlights came toward us! The guard swung his rifle toward them and I sprang forward on my knees, grabbed him by the waist, and drove him into the ground, hard. The rifle flew out of his hands before he could fire a shot. I rabbit-punched the back of his head as the twin lights stopped in front of us, blinding me while I punched the man until he stopped squirming. Was it Gunner, or—

  “Should I turn the lights off?”

  It was Ray.

  “Yes!”

  He jumped out of the truck. “You kill him?”

  “He’s just unconscious. I don’t kill people, Ray, jeez. Give me your belt.”

  I used both our belts to wrap his wrists and ankles together, then dragged him up in front of the plane.

  “You’ll never believe who I saw here, Ray.”

  “If they were in that car that sped past me up the street, tell me later. I want to get this over with.”

  “Right,” I said. “Back the truck around then. Let’s do it.”

  Ray positioned the bed of the truck under Betty’s port wing. I jumped into the truck bed, tossed the tools over the side, and stacked the hay bales inside up under the engine. They didn’t quite reach, but it was close enough.

  “Here’s your list,” Ray said. “I’ll take care of the wing.”

  I was glad it was night. Pillaging my girl would be a little easier if I couldn’t see what I was doing. I had the first few items memorized, so I climbed inside the open hatch. It was open—and we’d locked it when we left with Señor Maceo.

  What I saw inside hit me like a kick in the balls.

  “Bastards!”

  Whoever had done it—the guard, the fishermen, Gunner, the Peruvians—the gutting of Betty had already begun. Her seats were gone. My hands went numb and I wanted to punch someone, but in the back of my mind I knew this made t
he job ahead of me easier.

  “Ready?” Ray said.

  I forced my thoughts back to the task at hand. I checked the fuel gauges and found the dump valves open. The gauges showed empty. I remembered dumping the fuel when we crashed but needed to make sure.

  “Go!” I said.

  The sound of a hand saw cutting through Betty’s metal was excruciating, but I checked off the first item on my list and moved to the next one. I cranked the wheels down, manually. Time flew by and I was only mildly surprised that none of the fishermen came to see what was going on. With the PNR sentry out here and the promise of more to come, they were keeping their distance. I periodically checked the bound guard and used some of the wire I’d stripped from the instrument panel to better secure his limbs so I could put my belt back on. I also jammed an old rag in his mouth.

  Two thirds down my list, I suddenly felt the plane rock hard to the starboard side. A loud boom shook the darkness. I scurried out of the hatch, now angled toward the sand, and found Ray in the bed of the truck.

  “Help me with this thing!”

  He was hanging onto the raw edge of the wing, trying to shimmy it deeper into the truck’s bed amongst the hay bales. I pressed with all my might against what had been Betty’s port engine, and between the two of us, we finally got the job done. Once we’d repositioned the bales to provide as much support as possible, I threw the other items inside the bed. Wheel assemblies, electronics, brake cylinders, hydraulic pump, batteries, magnetos, starters, loose wiring, bolts and screws, alternators, circuit breakers, the transponder, radio, gauges, loose handles. I climbed back inside to retrieve some final items from the instrument panel.

  “These sons of bitches won’t have anything left to steal off you, girl,” I said.

  Maybe it was crazy, but since I’d convinced myself that I was saving her from Cuban looters, the process of gutting my beloved Betty became just a little bit easier.

  I crawled under the panel and something caught my eye. I didn’t have Ray’s technical expertise, but I knew Betty’s mechanical workings pretty damn well, and what I saw here … I reached up and felt the shaft, about four inches long, duct-taped behind the yoke. It peeled off easily. A tiny red light blinked on the end of the tube.

  Son of a bitch.

  “It’s almost four a.m., Buck, we need to get out of here,” Ray said.

  I put the metal tube in my pocket and got up on my knees. I was down to the last item on my list.

  “Ten more minutes.”

  “We don’t need anything else—”

  “I said ten minutes!”

  Once the port wing was gone, the weight of the plane had rocked it onto its starboard wingtip, now bent at a 45-degree angle. Using the farmer’s antique wrench, I nearly busted a gut removing the half-dozen bolts on the starboard float, which slipped off the lugs that held it in place.

  “Give me a hand with this!”

  Ray ran over and we each took one end, carried it over to the bed, lifted it, then laid it down at an angle on one of the hay bales. We stepped back and I noticed how low the bed was.

  Uh-oh.

  There was minimal clearance above the tires. Ray threw the tarp over the bed and tied it down. What if we blew out a leaf spring on this relic? Or got a flat tire? There was no choice but to give it a shot. If we had to jettison stuff as we went, so be it.

  “Ready?” Ray said.

  “I’ll drive.”

  I put the truck in first gear and we lurched forward to the sound of gravel shooting out from behind the tires.

  “Don’t spin the wheels! You’ll get us stuck,” Ray said.

  The truck felt like it weighed twice as much as before. The cargo had to exceed its capacity, but based on Ray’s inventory of the Beast, we needed just about everything we’d taken. I let the clutch out slowly, and the transmission caught. We lumbered ahead to the grassy area past the beach, then onto the hard-packed dirt of the road.

  “What about the guard?” Ray said.

  “Screw him. He’ll have a story for his grandchildren. That is if Gutierrez lets him live.”

  “I mean, what did he say that freaked you out?”

  “Either my good friend Governor Raul Acosta of Panama got in bed with the Peruvians or they have the luck of the Irish, because they—”

  “What’s that have to do with the PNR guard?”

  “He confirmed what I saw. Gunner and the Peruvians were in the woods by Betty, waiting for us.”

  “Gunner!? How could he—why would he—”

  “Those were the same questions I kept asking myself, but when we were stripping Betty down, I found this.”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the four-inch metal tube. It looked just like the Lojack I used to keep on my Turbo Porsche, back in the day.

  “It’s a tracking device. That’s how he followed us around the Bahamas and all the way to Panama,” I said.

  “And all the way to here,” Ray said. “Why’d you bring it with us, won’t he be able to follow it now?”

  “I took the battery out.”

  “But I still don’t see how he’s connected with the Peruvians, or why he’d be waiting for us here, especially after he found Betty crashed on the beach.”

  “My guess is they think we took the treasure off the Sea Lion. I don’t know why they’d think that, but it’s the only thing I can come up with. Raul might have told them that if he was trying to get them out of Colón.”

  Ray was quiet for a moment. “If it was Gutierrez who unloaded half the treasure and he heard we intercepted the Sea Lion, it must be why he wants us so bad.”

  I didn’t know which was the biggest shock, or who would want us worse. Gutierrez was bad enough, but the Peruvians would want our necks, and Gunner would be happy to hand over our heads on a bayonet if it meant getting some of the loot. The smell of blood was in the water, and unfortunately it was ours.

  We drove on in darkness, but I could see the wingtip hanging over the roof of the truck’s cab above the windshield. It was the hardest salvage job I’d ever done, cutting up my own plane. Once on the main road we drove at a modest speed, nothing like Nina’s earlier. We didn’t say much, exhausted from the work, the late hour, and the lack of sleep. I caught a whiff of something rancid and realized it was me. I’d give Ray’s left arm for a shower. The thought made me laugh, and when I looked over at Ray I saw he was asleep.

  I found the road south, turned off the coastal road, and headed toward farm country. A thought dawned on me that lifted my heart. Betty was an organ donor. She’d died in an accident but her parts would be used to restore the life of a distant cousin. Ray, her trusted mechanic, would perform the surgery, and I, her partner and pilot, would either fly the rejuvenated Beast back home or we’d die together in the process.

  With that happy thought I turned up the old man’s driveway, just as the sun appeared through the trees.

  35

  I awoke to the noise of a distant yet steady pounding. I had to reorient myself, having dreamed of flying low over Bahamian waters in search of an isolated beach and woken up on the floor of a Cuban farmhouse. I heard the squeak of the front door followed by voices that rose in volume and intensity.

  Nina … and a male voice.

  Was this it? Had they found us? I heard a crack in the man’s voice—emotion, not accusation.

  A few minutes later the door closed with a squeak and Nina rushed into the kitchen. I was still lying on the cool tile. Her face and neck were deep crimson, almost purple. Her fists were clenched, and she let loose a barrage of Spanish that sat me up straight.

  “In English, por favor?”

  She bit her upper lip, stopped, and took a deep breath.

  “That was the fisherman from Puerto Esperanza. Juan Espedes, the one who took you in the night you crashed.” She paced around the small room and waved her arms as she spoke. Then she spun and bent down to look directly in my eyes. “Colonel Gutierrez from MININT is in Puerto Esperanza and he’s c
razy with anger! He’s furious that his man was attacked and your plane was taken apart with only a shell left behind!”

  I imagined Manny Gutierrez as I last saw him, his slick little moustache, athletic build, incendiary eyes—and pictured him stomping up and down the beach in a tantrum. First the Peruvians and Gunner appear, then me, again. He must be incensed. Problem was, he’d be ruthless with the fishermen if he learned they’d rescued Ray and me.

  “Is Juan still here?”

  “And that’s not all he said, either!”

  “I know about the Peruvians—”

  “The head of MININT, Director Sanchez, appeared in Puerto Esperanza to inspect your wreckage, too. And, yes, there were Peruvians too, and they asked many questions of the fishermen.”

  A spasm made me cringe at the sound of Sanchez’s name. We’d crossed paths before, and his goons beat me senseless with rubber hoses. I’d rather have Gutierrez find me than Sanchez. Gutierrez may have provided the intel on the Atocha museum, but Sanchez was more likely the ringleader.

  Why would he come out in the field, though?

  “Did Gutierrez tell Sanchez about—”

  She held up her palm.

  “They weren’t together. In fact, that is the strange part of what Juan said. Sanchez asked about you but he also asked if the fishermen had seen Manny Gutierrez, who had also been searching for the wreckage.”

  “Maybe they hadn’t spoken?”

  “Juan said it seemed like the director was concerned about Gutierrez, too. But not with worry, more like anger.”

  I swallowed a smile. Had Gutierrez double-crossed Sanchez? Maybe, maybe not, but something was awry between them. Who had been more surprised about the Peruvians showing up? And what about Gunner?

  “Is Juan still here?”

  “Are you crazy? I told him I hadn’t seen you. I told him I’d given you a ride to Puerto Esperanza yesterday and dumped you out when you tried to steal my truck. But the PNR, the one you attacked last night, he said there was a vehicle, he thought it was a truck! They will find out sooner or later and come here! Damn you, Buck Reilly!”