Gordita Conspiracy

by Lyle Christie

  “No, thank you, I’m fine.”

  “Good, because we don’t have any,” he said, laughing as he walked to the back of the plane.

  The leg room was limited, so I was curious if I might be able to get comfortable enough to actually sneak in a nap. I stretched out my legs as far as they would go and accidentally bumped the seat in front of me.

  “Sorry, just trying to get comfortable,” I said.

  “No problem,” the man said, in lightly accented English.

  Strangely, his voice was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it for the life of me and figured he probably just sounded like someone I knew or perhaps even a famous actor. I pulled my feet back a little and hazarded a glance at Farid to see how he was fairing and was surprised when he pulled a brand new issue of some tabloid magazine out of his jacket pocket.

  “Where the hell did you find that?” I asked.

  “At the oasis. One of the girls gave it to me for the flight. They have regular mail deliveries and get magazines and all kinds of goodies flown in every day.”

  “Oasis indeed,” I said, leaning back in my chair, hoping to get a little shut eye.

  “America, here we come,” Farid said, happily as his eyes fell upon a picture of a chesty blond starlet.

  Generally, I found it nearly impossible to sleep on a commercial flight, as, even with the seat in the fully leaned back position, my head inevitably rolled to one side or the other and instantly brought me awake. Even leaning against the window or tray table proved equally unsatisfying, but, somehow, at this moment, perhaps because of all the exercise I had gotten over the last twenty-four hours, I found a sweet spot, closed my eyes, and soon drifted off into a pleasant nap.

  Approximately an hour later the plane hit some turbulence, and I was jostled awake and realized I needed to pee. I stood up to headed aft to ask Rafi if they had a bathroom or, worse-case scenario, a hole in the side of the plane. I found him kicking back on one of the pallets, and he was of course playing a game on his smartphone.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I’m looking for the bathroom.”

  “Right there,” he said, pointing at an orange five gallon bucket that had an old grubby shower curtain to provide privacy—though privacy was probably way too optimistic of a term.

  “Lovely,” I said.

  “Well, that depends on whether it is a number one or a number two,” he said, with a laugh.

  “Thankfully, it’s a number one.”

  I walked to the bucket, took out Tag Junior, and saw that there was already at least an inch of urine sloshing from side to side with the motion of the plane. Before I set about adding my soup to the stew, I looked back over my shoulder and caught Rafi smiling.

  “Welcome to first class in the third world,” he said.

  “I’d hate to see coach.”

  After a moment of doing my best to relax, the urine finally came, and its pungent odor rose up from the bucket and filled my nostrils. Fuckinzee—this was about as far away as you could get from the Vandenberg jet and Emirates Air’s first class, but such was life. As I stood there, I unconsciously took a look around the immediate area and noticed everything from the rusty rivets in the plane’s fuselage to the emergency kit whose door was dangling open because it was improperly mounted to the wall. It certainly wasn’t doing a lot to instill confidence in our ride, and I had to wonder why in hell Matheson had booked us on this flying disaster.

  At last I finished and put Tag Junior back in my pants, then decided to add to my growing unease by expanding my inspection to the rest of the plane. I ventured up to the front and saw that the door to the cockpit was wide open. I guess the paranoia of 9/11 hadn’t quite reached this airline yet. I glanced inside and saw that both pilots were dining on some kind of soup. The one, who I assumed was the captain, smiled and said something in Arabic that I didn’t understand. The other pilot turned around and translated.

  “Sorry, we don’t have any food for the passengers.”

  “Oh, no problem, I was just stretching my legs.”

  They continued eating, and I realized that I had seen all there was to see, and decided to return to my seat. On the way back, I glanced around the cabin, curious about our fellow passengers, wondering who in the hell besides us would patronize such a dingy third world airline. The vast majority appeared to be the Middle Eastern version of the average Joe with their simple, light colored clothing and predilection for beards. I was nearly to my seat when my eyes fell upon a particular passenger, and my heart skipped a beat as recognition set in. Sitting in the seat directly in front of mine was none other than Sheikh Emir, and he had a great big silver plated Desert Eagle 44 caliber pistol in his hand. It was a rather shitty turn of events, though now I knew why his voice had sounded so familiar.

  “Sheikh Emir, it’s so nice to see you again,” I said.

  “Please return to your seat,” he said, gesturing with his pistol.

  I did as he said and sat beside Farid, who was still engrossed in his magazine and had missed the entire interaction.

  “Oh, Farid,” I said.

  “What?” he asked, slightly annoyed.

  “We have unexpected company.”

  “Who would that be?” he asked, finally looking up.

  “The guy in that seat in front of us,” I said.

  At that moment, Emir stood up and pointed his ridiculously large pistol at us.

  “How good to see you, Farid.”

  “Fuck me. What in the hell are you doing here, Sheikh Emir?” Farid asked, folding up his magazine and placing it in his suit jacket pocket.

  “I’m here for you and this piece of camel dung,” he said.

  “But how in the hell did you find us? I don’t even know where we are,” Farid said, looking painfully confused.

  “The Middle East can be a small place, and it just so happens that the man who owns this airline is a friend. All it took was one call to learn that two men were being picked up just a few miles inside the Saudi Arabian border. That might seem like a meaningless detail were it not for the fact that two men just happen to have gone missing from the Emirates the night before. It was therefore as though Allah himself had brought you back to me.”

  “Why can’t we just shake hands and make up? Make a brand new start of it,” I said.

  “Why don’t I just shoot you right now and be done with it.”

  Rafi walked over, but stopped in his tracks when he saw Emir holding the pistol.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked nervously.

  “Nothing that concerns you. Just relax, do your job, and everything will be fine. We will be taking a slight detour after your delivery in Jordan.”

  “What kind of detour?” he asked.

  “A small one—to the United Arab Emirates. But don’t worry, you and your airline will be adequately compensated and free to continue on once we reach Dubai. My only concern is these two men.”

  Emir turned back to Farid and me with a smug look on his sour face.

  “Oh, and in case you were thinking about trying another one of your stunts, I’ve brought a little help.”

  Three men, two in front and one in the seat behind me to the right, stood up and flashed their pistols in our direction.

  “As you see, there is absolutely no way for you to escape this time, and, Farid, you will have a lot of explaining to do to Prince Hamza.”

  Farid looked over at me and scowled.

  “Dude, I take it all back. It is seriously not awesome hanging out with you again.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  A Walk in the Clouds

  LIFE ALWAYS HAD a way of biting you in the ass when you least expected it, and, right now, it was latched on to my backside as tightly as an enraged lion, and it was tugging me ever closer to my own sad demise. Yesterday, when we parted ways with Emir and his goons, I never imagined we would ever cross paths again—least of all, the next fucking day. Unfortunately, we were now reunited, and Farid an
d I were officially fucked, as we had four armed antagonists surrounding us in a rickety old plane that was flying along at several thousand feet above an inhospitable desert. There were not a lot of options at the moment. Sure, I still had my pistol, but it was in my bag, and, even if I could get to it, the odds of taking out four armed adversaries without getting shot myself were very small indeed—least of all without harming any of my fellow passengers or the plane’s crew.

  Back in my Agency days, we had been trained in escape and evasion tactics, but, unfortunately, we never covered scenarios involving four hostile gunmen in a rickety forty-year old cargo plane. Still, as long as I lived, breathed, and had intelligent thought, there was hope for survival. That meant I needed to fully assess our surroundings in the hope of making use of this oddly challenging environment. I started by thinking about the layout of the plane, the placement of Emir and his goons, the available materials and tools, and the fact that our plane would be making some kind of air drop in Jordan before continuing on to the Emirates. I let all that swirl around in my mind and then Bingo! I had the beginnings of a plan, but the final piece ironically would come about from what some might consider to be a personality flaw. In this case, however, it was a valuable asset, and, as a person afflicted with a mild case of obsessive compulsive personality disorder, I often found myself taking inventory of generally erroneous details such as the poorly mounted emergency kit just beside the toilet bucket. The door had been hanging open to reveal its contents, and I now realized that it held the final piece of the escape puzzle, though it would all still depend upon proper timing.

  I therefore patiently waited for my opening, which came when Rafi checked in with the cockpit. That was the sign that we were approaching the air drop in Jordan, and he soon reappeared and headed aft to prepare the palettes. A short time later, the copilot poked his head out of the cockpit.

  “Five minutes to drop-off, Rafi,” he yelled over the din of the droning engines.

  It was go-time, but, as I stood up, Emir’s closest goon glared and pointed his gun at me.

  “Sit down,” he said.

  “Easy, falafel face, I’m just going to take a piss,” I said.

  Emir turned around and addressed his man.

  “It’s OK. Let him piss. We’re on an airplane. Where could he possibly go?”

  “You sure?” the man asked.

  Emir thought for a moment before responding.

  “Yeah, but just to make sure it’s not a trick, see that he actually takes a piss, and, if not, shoot him.”

  I walked past him to the bucket, and he kept his eyes on me the entire time, and, even as I unzipped, he refused to look away.

  “Do you mind? Having a dude stare at me doesn’t exactly stimulate a lot of flow,” I said, pulling the curtain out an extra few inches.

  Perfect, I was mostly out of view, and now all I had to do to complete the facade and not get shot was to pee. I pulled out Tag junior and stared at the amber liquid sloshing back and forth in the bucket, but still the pee wouldn’t come. Fuck. I looked back out at the goon, and he cocked his pistol and smiled.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “Can you make a sound like running water?”

  “No.”

  “Whistle?”

  “No.”

  “How about a menacing stare?”

  Nothing broke the goon’s composure, but the brief exchange fortunately brought peace to my bladder, and golden urine began filling the bucket. Meanwhile, I reached over with my right hand and rummaged through the emergency kit’s contents, which were obviously intended to be used in the event of a crash landing. That meant it contained a radio, medical supplies, a utility knife, and, more importantly, a flare gun. I grabbed the gun, loaded it with a flare cartridge, and slid it into my shoulder holster before zipping up and returning to my seat, hopeful that none of the goons saw the bulge under my tuxedo jacket. I made it back safely and sat and waited for about two minutes until Rafi announced that he would be opening the rear cargo ramp, and that we should all remain in our seats with our seat belts firmly fastened. It was officially time to bring Farid in on the plan, so I lightly elbowed him, and he glanced over at me.

  “Be ready to drop to the floor and crawl like a weasel,” I whispered.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me, now be ready,” I said.

  I glanced briefly towards the back of the plane and saw Rafi making his final preparations. It was go time, so I slid out the flare gun and noticed Farid was looking particularly nervous.

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to shoot them with that!” he whispered nervously.

  “No, but I am going to use it to create a nice distraction.”

  “Dude! Seriously! Don’t do it! You’re going to bring down this plane!”

  “Too late.”

  I aimed the gun upward at a slight angle and pulled the trigger, and the flare shot from the barrel and bounced off the ceiling and ricocheted back and forth across the plane, hissing and filling the compartment with a massive cloud of red sparks and white smoke. Everyone panicked and ducked for cover, which meant I had a moment to drop to the floor, pull my pistol out of my bag, and start crawling towards the back of the plane. Farid followed, and we emerged from the chaos and smoke to find Rafi readying the pallets, but, due to the fact that the rear ramp was open, the noise of the rushing wind left him oblivious to all the commotion in the passenger compartment. He finished what he was doing then turned around and looked a bit startled when he noticed us.

  “It is too dangerous for you to be back here with the ramp open!” he said, as he walked over to us.

  “Yeah, I know, but we needed some fresh air,” I said, pointing back towards the cloud of smoke that had enveloped the plane.

  “What’s going on up there? Is there a fire?” he asked nervously.

  “No, it’s just a little smoke from the flare that some idiot set off.”

  “But…”

  “Trust me. Everything is fine, but right now my friend and I need to get the fuck off this plane, so we’re going to hitch a ride on those pallets!” I said.

  “You’ve got be fucking kidding me!” Farid protested.

  “No, and believe me—it’s our only hope of escaping this plane alive.”

  Rafi shook his head and sighed.

  “No, Little Gelding is right. It is a crazy idea. These parachutes are designed for the pallet and its cargo’s specific weight, and they will fall a lot faster with you on them.”

  “Maybe, but it’s better than facing the goon squad,” I said, pointing back towards the passenger compartment.

  Rafi shrugged.

  “Well, I suppose it is your life to risk,” he conceded.

  Ravi pushed the pallets right up to the edge of the ramp and had everything ready to go, but, as we prepared to make our hasty exit, Emir and his three goons unexpectedly arrived. Our situation has just become a bit of a shit fucker, and, in order to deal with the shit, this fucker was going to have to get creative. A plan came to mind, and I slipped behind Farid and placed my gun to his head.

  “Dude!” he protested angrily.

  “I’m sorry, it’s the only way,” I responded.

  “Drop your gun and move away from Farid!” Emir growled.

  “No chance.”

  “Then I will be forced to shoot you both!”

  “I sincerely doubt that, Emir, as I suspect that you have at least some knowledge as to how valuable Farid here is to Prince Hamza. You harm one little hair on my friend’s head and the prince will take you and your men out to the desert and roast marshmallows over your burning ball sacks.”

  Emir apparently believed me and, therefore, seemed unsure how to proceed. This unofficially led us into what they called a Mexican stand-off—a confrontation in which two opposing parties had no obvious advantage over the other. Emir had superior numbers, but I had the golden goose, and I made damn sure Farid stayed in between me and the goon squad.

  “
Put down your gun and let go of Farid! You have nowhere to go!” he bellowed again.

  Apparently, Emir still hadn’t figured out why we were back here, which was probably a good thing, as it gave us the advantage of surprise. I leaned in close and whispered in Farid’s ear.

  “When I give you the signal, we’re going to each grab hold of a pallet and push ourselves off the ramp.”

  “Fuck you, I can’t do it! I’m afraid of fucking heights!”

  “Do you want to be motor boating your long lost love’s bosom’s or Prince Hamza’s butt cheeks?”

  “I won’t be able to able to motorboat anything if I’m dead.”

  “Exactly! So, remember to hold on tight!”

  Emir cleared his throat and spoke.

  “Gentleman, it is time to head back to your seats before someone gets hurt.”

  The light beside the door turned green, and an alarm sounded to signify it was time to drop the pallets.

  “OK, Farid, when I give you the signal, I want you to…”

  Before I had even finished talking, he bolted right past me and pushed his pallet off the end with his scream trailing off as he disappeared from sight. Part of me was extremely proud of how courageously he faced his fears and leapt from the plane, but another part of me was pretty pissed off that I was now entirely alone and facing off against our armed antagonists. I, therefore, did the only thing I could do, which was fire two shots over Emir and his goon’s heads to make them panic and scatter for cover. It worked, and it gave me the opening I needed to slide my gun into my waistband and push the remaining pallet off the back of the ramp. I held on to the rope webbing for dear life as the pallet and I went airborne, and I made the unfortunate mistake of looking down at the desert floor looming several thousand feet below me. A deep dark jolt of fear shot through my entire body, and all I could think was what in God’s name had I gotten myself into?