Working on Abby

Our captors on Tapia's ranch. The leader is this guy with the red bandana covering his face.



We are up until the early hours of the morning trying to convince these Colombians that we can't fly out of here without fixing Abby and getting some fuel... and a pilot. These La Segunda Vida aren't the trusting type.
The whole bunch of us are exhausted, including our captors. They don't seem interested in killing anybody. They just want us to fly their cargo to where ever it is they are going. According to Tapia, they are actually flying payment back to Cali, Colombia. Fucking Cali... that place is a death trap. The whole justice system is owned by the Cartels from the cops to the highest judges. Jerry would never fly into Cali, never. You could lose your life just looking out a window. But now it looks like that's where we will be going.
Lou has retired for the evening, his face hidden beneath a big straw sombrero that had been hanging on the wall. I decide to opt out of this situation myself and just close my eyes in the chair. We have to wait until daylight to work on Abby. We have to find fuel, which really isn't my problem. These dumbshits should have thought about that before they lit up their plane last night.
Tapia is still talking in the kitchen with the leader. They are the only ones in the ranch house that are still awake, aside from me... but they don't know that. I pick up small pieces of Tapia's exhaustive responses. I think he is telling the leader that it will all have to wait for sunrise.
"He is telling that tongueless fucker that this whole bunch of shit will have to wait until sunrise." Lou says from beneath the sombrero as though he were reading my thoughts.
"I actually got that much."
"You think you can fly her to Colombia?"
"No."
"Can you take a bullet and make it to the door?"
"What?"
"Go to sleep. Take it while you can get it."
"Right."

The morning comes with just a little light and the leader smacking the bottom of my feet with a rifle barrel. I open my eyes and see Lou and Tapia at the table drinking coffee. Mari comes out of Jerry's room with some bloody dressings and some other shit on a tray. I get up and make it to the table. A cup of coffee steams in front of me.
"How is Jerry?" I ask Mari as she dumps the contents of the tray in the trash.
"His wrist is shattered, Jake. I cannot make it right, not here." She fixes a plate of food for him and pours him a cup of coffee. "Did you get any more medicine for him?"
"The doctor... what the fuck, she wasn't a doctor, not even a nurse... anyway she gave us morphine and a syringe and those Ketamin tabs."
"Jerry is in a lot of pain. He needs something. I don't think this Ketamin will be good for him after he get so sick. So maybe we try a little of the morphine. Do you have it?"
"It is in Abby, but I will go get it right now." I turn to Tapia, "Tell him I need to get some medicine from the plane for our pilot."
Tapia relays the message and we all walk down to the plane together. The man that the leader put on the plane had been there all night, nothing to eat or drink. With a few croaks and clicks he sends him up to the house to get food and water.
I open Abby's hold and climb in. Lou does a quick walk around on Abby, looking for anything obvious. I hear him call to me from the starboard side of the aircraft. "Great, maybe it will be something to convince these pricks to take another plane," I say to myself. I dig through Jerry's bag he has back behind the cockpit where I am pretty sure I saw Lou drop the morphine. There it is, the medicine and the syringe are right on top. It is then that I feel something big and heavy in the interior side pocket, I unzip it to see Jerry's pistol.
Behind me I sense that I am being watched and I zip the pocket back closed and turn with the morphine and the syringe, holding them up for the leader's inspection. When I climb down out of the plane the leader takes the medical supplies from my hands and gives them to Tapia to deliver to the house. The leader gives me a little shove off in Lou's direction and I find him under the right wing.
"Here's where we lost the fuel. And I assume this is oil?" He rubs some on fingers and smells it."
"It's a synthetic blend, doesn't really smell like oil." I tell him. I look at the damage. Two lucky shots out of however many they fired at us. One of them hit about two feet from the fuselage and about the same back from the leading edge. Whatever fuel we had in that tank was streaming out of a hole about the size of my little finger. The other shot was in the side of the engine cowl, more of a glancing shot with an oblong entry in through the cowl.
"Tell Segundo there that we need the truck to stand on."
Lou relays the message and we get the truck positioned next to the engine. As I lift the cowl I am hoping to see some perminant damage that will keep her grounded. We set the hold opens and then start looking for damage. I feel the truck give a little shake as the leader takes up position behind us.
The oil line from the tank to the engine has been nicked by the round and about a third of the diameter of the line has been breached. I know I can fix it. It isn't a pressurized line, just gravity feed to the pump. The fuel tank leak I have patching material for in my kit on the plane. You pretty much have whatever you would need to fix things like this when you go where we go. Now for the dramatics.
"Well, its shot. We won't be going anywhere with this engine."
Lou looks at it, "You can't fix that?"
I give him a hard nudge, "NO... Lou, I can't fix that without a new line. With that said, I get knocked in the back of the skull, although lightly, by the leader's rifle barrel. He squezes between me and Lou and proceeds to point out, a few hand signs and signals, that the line isn't pressurized.
"Great, this guy is a terrorist and a mechanic."

I start to work on Abby's number two engine and have Lou prep the hole in the fuel tank before we seal it up. The patch on the tank should sit for twenty four hours, but I have the feeling these guys aren't going to wait that long. As far as the oil line goes I may have enough slack in the feed line to cut it right at the hole and slide it on up. If not I can use materials on hand to patch the line and seal it up.

Me and Lou work for several hours on the plane with the big Cahuna standing over our shoulders. We slide the line up on the oil tank after taking a clamp off. I try to take as much time as I can. When I have Lou tell him we don't have enough fuel to make it out of here then none of this will mean shit.
While we are finishing up the touches on our repairs, one of Tapia's trucks pulls up loaded with fifty five gallon drums and a hand pump. Tapia climbs out of the cab along with one of the guards.
"What the fuck." I turn to Lou, "Is that fuel?"
Tapia walks up with the answer, "I am sorry my friend. My cousin flew in with this fuel the day after you left us last time. It is his for long hauls. He is to pick it up next week."
I lost it. "Well then have HIM fly this guy's shit out of here." I turn to the leader, "I can't fly this shit out of here. I am NOT a pilot, Jack, never have been."
The leader looks at me and then his men, then gestures to the fuel and the wing. His boys back the truck up and ready the pump and hose.
"You can't put fuel in the tank, the sealant has to cure." I tell him, expecting Lou to translate.
"Shit Lou, do you think this guy learned English since this morning."
"No fucking way."
"Tell him what I said, god damn it."
Lou translates and the leader steps over to the wing and examines the patch, then looks at his watch.
"What the hell, this guy knows how long that sealant needs to cure?" I ask Lou rhetorically.
The guy walks back over to us and points to his watch.
"Twenty four hours." I tell him. Lou translates and he shakes his head and holds up three fingers.
"It'll leak, Jack." I tell him.
He holds his men off and then relays the information to them. Then he climbs into the plane and I follow.
"What are you looking for?" I ask him.
He steps into the cockpit and sees Jerry's bag on the deck. When he reaches for it I stop him.
"Mapas?" I call.
He turns and nods. I step up and reach behind the co-pilots seat and pull every chart we have just to get him out of there. He follows me and we step out of the plane.

Lou is next to one of the trucks smoking a cigarette he bummed from one of the guards.
"Lou, tell him we need to go to the ranch house to talk to Jerry."
The message is translated and the three of us are on our way. I have to talk to Jerry, find out if he will be able to fly. If he can't then I will have to convince this guy that we aren't his best option.