Tapia's or Bust

The plane that followed us into Costa Rica. Lou landed first and took three shots, this is one of them.


It is early in the morning, maybe four or five, and there is a plane circling overhead. I can hear it. At first it is high and I think it is passing us by. But then it comes in lower, and then lower still on the last pass.

"Lou... "
He snorts and then continues snoring.
"Hey, Lou, wake up."
"What... what's the matter?
"There has been a plane making passes for the last ten minutes or so." I swing out of my hammock and walk to the cargo door and open it. A moment later both Lou and I are on the ground looking up into the night sky. It is getting light on the horizon, but not enough to make out anything but wing lights. My hand goes to the pistol in my belt and rests there.
"What do you think?" Lou squints at the lights as they make a wide turn miles down range and head back up west of the airfield.

It takes a few minutes, and the wing tip lights almost fade into the starscape when we both see it turn and head straight back toward us. It gets lower and lower until it makes a pass at high speed at maybe five hundred feet.
"Well, if he wasn't sure about us he is now."
"No shit... what the hell was that? Feds?"
"I don't know and I don't want to find out. Lets roll the hell out of here."
Lou heads for Naomi as I pull the chocks on Abby. "Hey, follow me out and leave all of your lights out except for your control panel." I toss the chocks in the door and climb in. Lou has Naomi's side door open and he turns.
"Where are we going?"
"We need to head out over the Pacific and out of Panamanian airspace. As soon as we're up we throw the coals to it. Stay low, follow my lead."

As we fire up the girls, the plane makes another long turn and then comes back lower than before. It keeps going. Now's our chance. I get my headset on and hope that Lou turned on his radio.
"Lou?"
"Yeah?"
"You set up right? Everything look good to go?"
"I'm good to go."
"Why don't you get up first and then I will take you and you follow me, Good?"
"Roger."

I am right behind Lou and Naomi as he powers onto the runway and takes off. I give him a ten count and I hit the gas and roll out. I am so pre-occupied with the plane that overflew us moments ago that I forget to lock my tail wheel. Abby gets squirrely on me for a second or two until I get her wheel locked, then about ten seconds later I am up and don't give a shit about it after that.
"Lou, you okay?"
"It's all good. Flaps are up, gear are up, boost pumps off... " He gives me a little more of this before trailing off.
"Do you see our friend?"
Silence, then "No... you?"
"When I was rolling he was still headed south and hadn't made his turn. Even if he did when I started my take off he wouldn't be able to see us go without nav lights."
"So where to?"
"Just stay on my left wing. We are going to head southwest for about twenty miles, and then north. That should get us out of Panamanian airspace."
"How far does their airspace run?"
"I'm not really sure. It is usually twelve miles I think... at least that is their jurisdiction on the water. We have to clear the bay before we worry about the twelve mile mark."
Two idiots. We better have luck on our side. And it seems we do. We fly low, about five hundred feet and head out over the bay toward open ocean.
"Why didn't we just go for the Caribbean? We were close enough to smell it at that airfield." Lou tells me as I make a course correction and leave him temporarily. Moments later he is on my wing again.
"If we were to head out into the Caribbean from Panama, or Colombia, or Venezuela we would be under the scrutiny of the DEA and everyone they have enlisted to help them. This way we are heading away from trouble."

I tell Lou to stay on frequency and I'll be back in a minute. I do a quick check of the bandwith and find a conversation that doesn't seem to be tower communications or normal radio traffic. I make note of the frequency and then ask Lou to investigate while I wait for him. He comes back and I can hear the excitement in his voice.

"That has to be them, man. They made reference to the fact that the aircraft have left the field, or something like that, and they aren't sure which way they went."
I look at my altitude. In all of this I am over a thousand feet. "We have to get down below radar. Shit, I know not to go this high."

We drop down a few hundred feet off the water and head northwest. "What the hell do they want? Get back on that frequency and see what else you can find out."

It is about ten minutes an I still don't hear from Lou. I get him right on my side and use the Maglite to signal him from the cockpit. It is dawn now, and the night sky won't hide us any more. I keep flash the light on and off and he finally gets back on the radio with me.
"There is more than one of them. They aren't Panamanian Feds. I think they are drug runners, or pirates or something. They are looking for us all right. They followed us out of Caracas, but had to make an emergency landing and lost us. I think they just followed the course we were on and hoped to spot us along that track."

I flashed on the men that were watching us at that nightclub. "What the hell. Why would they want us?"
"Not us. I think they want the plane, or something inside it."
"Naomi?" We didn't feel the need to do too much looking when Bear offered her to us. I just assumed that anything of value would have been removed before she was given away. "Lou, there must be something in the plane that Bear missed. Something they want."
"So what do you want to do, land and let them take her? I get the feeling that they don't plan to leave anyone talking once they get whatever it is they want."
"Well, we don't have to worry about that if they don't find us."

Famous last words. Time passes as Lou and I make our way up the coast outside the territorial limit, then come in and follow the beach over Costa Rica. It doesn't seem like they know where we are. But then I spot them.
"Lou, look at your two o'clock."
"Shit on a stick, is that the plane?"
It is only one plane, high wing twin turbprop. Faster and more manueverable than us, out about two miles and high.
"You better get back on the radio and listen."

There doesn't seem to be another plane, at least not nearby. This one is flying solo. Maybe the other plane is looking elsewhere. Several plans run through my mind.
"Jake... "
"What do you have?"
"That's them. The other plane is hell and gone from here. Probably looking in another direction, you know... covering more ground."
As Lou talks, I can see the plane closing the distance between us until it is close enough to see the man in the door with the automatic rifle.
"Oh for Christ sake, will this shit ever end?" I am between Naomi and the chase plane. The man with the rifle aims. I back off the throttles and his shot crosses in front of me. "Motherfucker... " I key my microphone, "LOU, get on the radio and find out what these guys want. They're shooting at me."
"I'm on it."
There is radio silence for me as Lou gets on the line with them and tells them to cease fire. It takes a few heartbeats, but the man in the door backs off and pulls the barrel back inside the plane.
"They want us to land, Jake."
"Where, in the fucking jungle?"
"They say there is an airstrip outside of Golfito. They want us to follow them."
I weigh our options... which takes all of a second or two. "Well, I guess we follow."
"Jake, I can knock them out of the sky."
"With what, Lou, an empty tequila bottle?"
"No, with the rifle I bought from Dia."
"You bought a rifle from Dia?"
"Yeah, a nice Remington 308."
We change course with the chase plane and now head toward the airfield somewhere ahead of us.
"When did you have time to buy a rifle from Dia?"
"You guys were gone a long time. She took me back to the house to get beer. I gave her three hundred for it."
"Jesus, Lou, when were you going to tell me about that?"
"Never got a chance to, I guess. So what? What should we do?"

Lou speaks with the chase plane once again and they tell him that they will follow us in. We line up with Lou in front, then me, and I assume the chase plane is behind me. I give Lou lots of room and he touches down a quarter mile ahead of me, brakes hard and ends up in the grass along side the runway. As I approach, I see Lou with my camera taking pictures. What in the fuck is he doing taking pictures. I come in hot, gear up and ready myself for a high speed fly by. The next thing I see is Lou with the rifle, waving me off to my left. I pull up and to the left and nearly scrape my port wingtip on the ground. What happens next I only know from the aftermath.

I make a hard left and circle back just in time to see the fireball as the number two engine blows and takes the wing with it. The plane must have seen my evasive action and done so itself. However it worked, Lou managed to pop a couple of rounds through the number two engine, causing a catastrophic failure that took the wing with it. Before it impacted the ground, Lou was back in the cockpit and readying himself for take off.

I fly over the fireball and watch as Lou gets back on the runway have way down and powers up. He lifts off as I fly by overhead. It all happened so fast.
"Lou... Lou?" I key the microphone a few times. "Lou, you on this thing?"
"WOW, I didn't expect that one." He pulls up beside Abby and levels out. "I was trying for the engine, you know? Force them to land and we head out. But that wing coming off, that was a bonus."
"Well, we better high tale it out of here. There may have been someone in those hangers."

It is a little after nine o'clock in the morning and we have already killed how ever many people were on board that plane. I can't imagine anyone living through that one. But then again, I don't think for a second that these guys were just going to let us fly off on our way. They would have shot us in that field down there and left us for the birds.
"Lou?"
"Yeah."
"What were you doing just before you grabbed your rifle?"
"When you came on in with both engines blairing, gear up, so fucking low that the grubs were ducking... it looked shit hot, man. I had to get a picture."
"You're crazy, you know that?"

We head northwest, following the shoreline. I think we have about seven hundred miles to fly to get to Tapia's. I think it is over. All of this crazyness is behind us. It isn't long before I hear singing in the radio, and a little wing movement from Naomi. Lou was into the Walkers, or the tequila, or whatever else he might have smuggled into his cockpit. He might have just saved our lives back there. Those pirates were after something. When we get to Tapia's we will do a search of our own and find out.