Irene sat with her bum in the damp leaves for a full five minutes before she dared raise her head. Her attention was focused back along the pathway but neither Jack Namath nor Hanz Skorjas were anywhere in sight. She looked back toward the airstrip and saw Toby dropping down from the cargo hold. Standing, she brushed dead leaves from her jeans, straightened the seams and stepped out onto the main pathway. Toby was concentrating on locking the plane’s hold, a heavy crescent wrench in his hand.
“How’s it going, Toby?”
Toby started at the sound of her voice. He straightened and pressed a hand into his lower back. “God, the creaks are catching up with me,” he said, stretching his spine. “Just going over the lug nuts. Don’t want you droppin’ a wheel on some diplomat’s head down in Colombia. Not good for US foreign relations, eh?”
The light touch was wasted on Irene. “Who was that I saw you with? The big guy?”
Something hooded passed behind Toby’s eyes but he recovered quickly. “Oh, the bloke? Yeah. He used to work for me. A grease-monkey on my crew when I was back in Miami. Mediocre skills as a mechanic but decent enough. Thick in the arm, thick in the head, as we used to say in the RAF. When he left Miami he moved up to your neck of the woods, I heard tell. Got a job in Atlanta. Is that it? You know him?”
Irene crafted her words carefully. “Might have seen him around. You got a name?”
“Sure. Hanz Skorjas. Worked for me about four, maybe five years, all told.”
“Skorjas? What is that? East European?”
“Naw. He’s from South America. From Bolivia, Borneo– one of those ‘B’ countries where it’s friggin’ hot all the time and they vote with their guns. You know the kind of place. His wife is German. Probably the daughter of one of those Nazis that hid out in South America after the war. Hanz moved to Cuba for a time; made his way up to Miami. You said you know him?”
“No I didn’t.” Irene caught herself, tried to back off a little. “He looked familiar, that’s all.” But Irene could tell Toby was tuned in, was carefully analyzing her responses. “So he’s a friend?” she asked.
“Naw. Nothing like that. He flew in a few days ago for a little R&R and heard I worked on the island so looked me up. We agreed to a beer, later.” Toby chuckled to himself. “When he thinks he’s softened me up some, he’ll ask me for a job, I’ll wager.”
“And he didn’t go near the plane…”
If Toby was surprised by the question, it didn’t show. “Nobody gets near this plane, love. You know that.”
“He didn’t touch the turbofans? Never went aboard?”
Toby ground her with a look. “Irene, we haven’t known each other long or you would never have asked that question. Trust me. No one gets near my plane. Not ever!”
Irene felt her insides slide. He was over reacting. “Sure, Toby,” and she reached for him, “I just needed reassurances, that’s all. Thank you.”
Toby was wondering about her bazaar behavior but smart enough to keep his mouth shut and instead, enjoy the heat coming off her body, melting right through his coveralls. She clung to him a little longer than he would have deemed prudent, but he was not about to complain. “You’re fueled, the batteries are up, and the hydraulics are tight. I’ve run my fingers along every blade of the turbofans. There’s not a nick or crack anywhere. I’ve re-calibrated your nav-computer and checked all the rest of the instrumentation. This bird is ready to fly.”
“Thank you, Toby,” Irene stepped back from his arms, “thank you.”
“You ever fly one of these?” Irene posed the question to Brad English as he pondered the last of the pre-flight checklist.
There was the ripping sound of compressed air and first one and then the other jet turbine came to life, turning over easily with the healthy whine of well-tuned engines.
“You kidding me? I wasn’t even born when this thing rolled out of the assembly hanger. You’re on your own sweetie,” Brad laughed.
“Figured as much.” Irene adjusted her headset. “Toby? We free?”
“Electrical disconnected. You’re away,” she heard his voice, loud but tinny over her headphones. “All clear.”
“Roger. Rolling.”
Irene dropped her hand to the steering tiller and disengaged the brakes. The DC-9 lurched and began to roll, waddling like a mother-duck toward the end of the runway. Irene pulled a tight U-turn in the circle and lined the nose up with the end of the runway. She re-applied the brakes.
“Half-throttle run up,” she announced, notching the throttle levers forward. “30%… 50%…”
“50%,” Brad confirmed watching the instruments. “Oil pressure good. Hydraulics. Engine exhaust temperature. Fuel flow. All good. We’re ready to fly.”
“Roger,” Irene indicated over the sound of the whining engines. Irene backed off the throttles. The DC-9 was straining at her brakes like a bronco in the gate. “Brakes,” Irene announced.
“Roger. Takeoff roll.” Brad confirmed her decision for departure.
Irene released the brakes and the DC-9 made a lurch down the center of the runway. “Set thrust.”
Irene placed her hand on the levers and Brad covered her hand with his. “Setting thrust.” he confirmed and together, they moved the levers forward.
The spooling engines began to clatter and the G-forces pressed them into the command seats. “Eighty knots,” Brad read out the speed. “Velocity 1”
“Roger. V1,” Irene confirmed. “Rotate.”
“Rotate,” Brad repeated, feeling the thrill of the take off. It didn’t matter how many times you flew, there was something special every time the rubber left the pavement.
“Elevators,” Irene announced her right hand on the yoke. “We’re coming up.”
The nose of the plane lifted and Irene removed her hand from the tiller. “Climb thrust.”
“You’re away.”
“Gear.”
“Gear up and locked.” Brad confirmed and the Bikini-Bus rocketed out over the ocean, dipped, turned with the trade winds and ramped up to forty-thousand feet. Irene activated the nav-computer and set the autopilot. The plane did a slow drift to the south-east.
She hit the intercom switch.
“Welcome aboard Crack-Jax’s charter flight to the beautiful historic City of Cartagena. This is Captain Irene Ross at the controls with First Officer Brad English sitting beside me and doing duty as your Co-pilot. We are currently at forty-thousand feet and enjoying the effects of a strong tail wind. We will be landing in Cartagena in two hours and fifteen minutes where the temperature is a pleasant eighty-six with a breeze off the ocean. Those of you sitting on the right-hand side will soon be treated to bird’s eye view of the majestic Blue Mountains of Jamaica. Please sit back, enjoy a drink, something from the menu cart, and enjoy your flight.”
She flipped the switch off. “How about a coffee?” she asked Brad.
Brad released his seat restraints and got out from behind the yoke. “Think I need something stronger.” And with a wink, he plucked his fancy uniform jacket from the backrest where he had draped it to avoid wrinkles.
In any commercial airline, a pilot drinking would be grounds for instant dismissal. But this was, in fact, his charter which, in a strange twist, made him the boss though Irene outranked him with four bars on her shoulder. It was an unusual situation and Irene chose to ignore the ramifications.
“Say ‘hi’ to the girls for me,” she said glumly.
Brad smirked, straightened his jacket and disappeared out the cabin door.
Irene slumped back in her seat and watched Jamaica increase its dominance over the emerald-colored waters of the Caribbean Sea. It was a stirring sight; the mountains a verdant green, like velvet, their upper slopes wreathed in clouds. She exhaled deeply, so glad to be away from Cracker-Jax and the omnipresence of one Hanz Skorjas. With luck, when she returned from Cartagena in three days’ time, he would be back in Atlanta with other skirts to chase.
There was a rap at the door and Alex poked her head in. “Lonely at the top,” she quipped, eyeing the empty right-hand seat. “Got coffee.”
Irene turned. “Bless you,” she said as Alex stepped through, a steaming mug in each hand. She handed one across and positioned her butt against the armrest opposite.
“How’s Pamela working out?” Irene was taking a personal interest.
“Don’t worry, she’s a natural. Everyone just loves her. She’s so little. Even the woman passengers have taken to her. And she’s having a whale of a time, chatting and exchanging jokes. If you see her as a temporary replacement, you might have to readjust your thinking.”
“That’s good to hear,” Irene smiled into her coffee. “She’s a good kid, but still in school.”
“And I have a request for a Royal Audience.”
“Royal Audience?” Irene questioned, her brows knitted.
“Yeah. Someone wants to come forward and meet you.” Alex plucked a business card from the elastic of her swimsuit bottoms and passed it across. “Though I think he may just want rescuing.”
Irene felt a tremor of trepidation as she took the card from Alex’s fingertips but instantly found herself giggling at the sight of the printing: Jack Namath, Vacation Properties
“He’s onboard?”
“Yeah. Bev has him corralled against the window. And if there was any possibility of that window opening, he’d be sitting out on the wing.”
Irene had the vision of the pixie blonde with the big shades and sensual overbite crowding Jack Namath with her pointed questions and suggestive body language. Poor Jack, she smiled inwardly.
“You want me to send him forward?” Alex broke into her thoughts.
“Sure. But no hurry. Enjoy your coffee. Let Bev soften him up.”
Alex shifted, trying to get comfortable. Neither woman spoke and the silence was just becoming uncomfortable when Alex cleared her throat. “I guess I owe you an explanation.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Irene said back, not meeting the woman’s eyes.
“Oh don’t stop me…” Alex said on the end of a short bitter laugh. She closed her eyes and turned her face away, taking a moment.
When she turned back, moisture glistened on her eyelashes. “I need to do this,” she said softly.
“I know,” Irene exhaled. “I told you I was here for you. And I meant that. But I don’t know how I can help.”
“You saw the photographs?” Alex asked.
Irene felt a void opening up. “I saw one, Alex. Yes.”
“Oh God.”
Irene took a moment to fiddle with the radio; giving Alex time to collect her thoughts.
“When I first moved to the island,” Alex began, “I stayed with Ditz in the cabana. She had Brutus.” She choked on an embarrassed laugh. “He was just a big goofy oaf of a pup back then. Hardly intimidating. We didn’t even call him Brutus, Ditz called him Wanker for heaven’s sake. But he was Scirocco’s dog and, while I didn’t know it at the time, he had sent the dog to Ditz to be trained.”
“Trained how?” Irene asked.
Alex swirled her coffee, looking for answers in her cup. “Scirocco wanted the dog to develop a taste for women.”