Muy Peligroso

Climbing out after take off from Tapia's





By the time we get to the ranch house with the maps and charts Jerry has already been medicated. Luckily he is awake, but man is he fucked up. We walk in and Mari is by his bedside.
"Tapia communicated with the men that are holding us." Mari tells us as she checks the dressing on Jerry's hand. "They say that when you fly out of here we can take these boys out of here and get them to hospital in Belles."
I don't like the sound of this. I am being forced into this flying gig and I don't like it. "Jerry... I don't know if I can do it, man."
Jerry answers but doesn't open his eyes, "Sure you can, Jake. You made it here, didn't you."
"Come ON, Jerry. I almost got us killed." I look down at him. He is pale and his wrist is still bleeding through the bandages. Mari tells me she is afraid to wrap it too tight because of the shattered bones. Jerry has an armful of morphine to take the edge off. I doesn't make him stupid, but leaves a permanent grin on his face.
"They want us to fly to Colombia, Jerry... Cali.
"Yeah, man... Colombia is nice this time of year."
I look at Lou, then Mari. "How much of that stuff did you give him?"
"He is in a lot of pain, Jake. He needs to get to hospital or he may not use wrist and hand again."
"Good thing I'm right handed." Jerry says from behind closed eyes. "Cali, alot of mountains."
"Any advice?"
"Don't crash."
"Jesus Christ, Jerry, I don't think I can do it."
"Watch for up drafts when you get near the mountains. Bad wind conditions. I don't know where you will be landing so I really can't think of anything to tell you." He moved a little and winced with a quick intake of breath. "These guys aren't operating in the middle of town. They are usually in the foothills or worse. Bring that guy in here, their leader."
We grab "Jack" and have him come in to talk to Jerry. With Jerry talking and Jack listening, Jerry has him point out on our chart of Colombia where exactly they are going. For good measure Jack pushes Mari and Lou out of the room and then shows us on the chart. Jerry asks him a couple more questions and then waits for the answer in hand signals, questioning him on some of the meaning.
"It looks like you will be going into the mountains. Sometimes they do that to make it hard to find them from the ground and by satellite."
"Well that's just fucking great." I look at Jack and he peers at me from behind the red bandana and the brim of his fatigue cap. "Did you tell him that I'm not a pilot?"
Jerry looks at Jack while he talks to me, "He understands everything you say. He speaks English... or at least understands it."
"Well what the fuck then?"
"He doesn't have a choice. You're as close to a pilot that he has right now. He was suppose to have this shipment back to Colombia by now. He will be lucky if they don't kill him and his crew."
A flurry of hand movements from Jack and a couple of jabs at the chart yield more information. Jerry seems to know what he is getting at.
"He says once he explains what you did for the men he works for, they will pay you handsomely."
"I don't give a shit if I get paid, I just want to get out of this alive."
Jack points to himself and nods.
"You too, huh?"

I think they are rushing it, but the guards fuel the wing after three hours and it seems to hold. That is on the ground with no vibration. Who knows what will happen when she starts, or even worse when we get her in the wind.
Now that I know Jack understands us, I let Lou know not to talk in front of him. I also tell Jack that I won't fly this thing with a gun stuck in the back of my head. He seems to understand.
Lou and I give Abby a quick walk around. When we are out of earshot from Jack, I tell him about Jerry's pistol.
"What are we going to do with that?" Lou says as we round Abby's tail and I give the elevators and rudder a shake.
"Nothing, I hope. But it is there if we need it. Jerry usually keeps one in the chamber so its ready to fire."
Lou nods. "Let's go through the checklist to get her in the air."

Mari brings out two baskets, one for Jack and the guards and one for us. Tapia has our charts and a old wooden rack of pop bottles. "You boys take these four up front." He winks and Lou stashes them in a side pocket. "The brown ones are Cokes, the other two are homebrew."
He hands me the charts we removed earlier and I put them in their perspective places. "Jerry says to stay at ten thousand feet and fly at the heading I wrote on this chart." He hands the chart to me and I look at the heading, then at him.
"This scares the shit out of me, Tapia."
"It is going to be okay, Jake. Jerry says you can do it. You can do it." He reaches out and grabs my hand to shake it and then pulls me in for a hug. "You be careful mi amigo." He turns to Lou, who extends his hand. They shake hardily, "Vaya con dios."
I look back from the cockpit and see the four of the six men seated on the floor up in front of their cargo to balance our load. Jack and one of the other men are sitting in the hammocks. I turn back to the instruments, "Well... let's do this."

Below us Tapia gives us the thumbs up for us to start Abby's engines. I turn to Lou, "Keep an eye on what I am doing, you never know when you might make left seat." I set up the switches and then give Tapia a thumbs up and fire the engine. Number one fires up after a few revolutions and runs up to idle. I check the guages... all good. I look down a Tapia and he give me a thumbs up for number two. This one worries me a little. I hope that it doesn't fire. In that instance I wish I would have managed to sabotage it when I had the chance. But it fires up and runs to idle like it never had a problem. A quick check of the guages... all good. I look out at Tapia and wave him closer to the window.
"Check that wing patch. See if it is leaking." I yell at the top of my lungs.
He disappears from view and comes out with a thumbs up. No leaks. I give him the sign to pull the wheel chocks and he disappears once again. Then behind me in the cargo bay I can hear them clunk in through the door. "Good luck, Amigos" he calls.

This is it. I look at Lou and he gives me a wink, "Let's fly."
I scoot Abby forward with the throttles and make sure I am lined up with the airstrip, then lock the tail wheel and set the brakes. I check the flaps and check pressures and indicators, then give Abby a pat on the dash and throw the coals to her. Both of her engines spool up and start rumbling the fuselage. I try not to think about it.
Brakes off.
Abby jumps and we're off. She makes quick work of the three thousand feet of dirt strip. I plan to use almost all of it, afraid I might stall it or do God knows what else. Abby lifts off three quarters of the way down and I gently pull up and gain some altitude.
"That a girl." I pull back a little more and chance a quick look out the side window. We are already up about five hundred feet.
"You're doing it, man, you're doing it." Lou shouts over the roar of Abby's engines.
"Gear up."
Lou reaches over and retracts the gear. I set the flaps to full up and a check my engine cowl setting. We climb at about five hundred feet per minute. She is running like a swiss watch. I head her off in the right direction and we continue to climb.
"Fuck yeah... you did it man." Lou reaches in the side pocket and pulls two of the bottles that Tapia gave us, one Coke and one homebrew and uncaps them. "Time for a drink."
"I not so worried about taking off. It's landing her that is the hard part." I take a hit off the home brew and then the Coke.
"Well, we don't have to worry about that for a while, now do we."

We hit ten thousand feet and level off and trim her up for cruising. I set the heading Jerry gave me in the auto-pilot and try to relax. "Jack" appears behind us and I turn. He gives a thumbs up and a nod, then turns and heads back into the cargo bay.
After the third passing of the bottles, I am starting to relax a bit. If the patch holds, if the engines continue to hum, if the landing strip isn't in the middle of some chasm of a valley, if we don't crash her on the way... the approach... or the landing, and if we manage not to be shot dead just for laying eyes on some druglords private airstrip, we might just manage to make it out of this alive.