Chapter 33

I was up early this morning running my medium route that took me by the back of the Holiday Inn, around to the back of the business park, past the special housing area, and then back to the patio. I really pushed this morning because it seemed that I needed to. I had coffee with Steve until he turned the light on and then went inside to get the girls moving.

We had an orgy in the shower as I had some invasive fun with every one of the girls hoping it would help make them happy babes all day. I was going to be weak-kneed all day after that ‘orgasmathon’. My girls were all smiles and happy people when they had juice and coffee before a pastry and a breakfast sandwich. Mercy figured it out and said, “Okay, big guy, you made all your women feel good, but there are others with the same problem. Make us feel good. Steve used to drag us into the shower and almost drown us when he found out that we could play in there and not mess up any sheets or towels. He still will, but he gets up too early.”

This was only Tuesday, but it felt like it should be Friday. Janet had a noon pickup in Los Angeles going to the Island Paradise. She said this was perfect since the customer requested two hostesses because of their three small children. Both Sheena and Kissa were going to be busy all day and wouldn’t have to worry about what to do with themselves.

My plan was to get Hank to work with me on the Sikorsky S-76 so that I would be more confident and knowledgeable about an aircraft that CS&S might invest in buying more of. Some of the Bell helicopters were becoming expensive to maintain because of parts availability. Aftermarket parts had become scary after several key component failures. Bell made a lot of their operating capital from replacement parts on some of their early models that were still in use, but had problem of late with delivery and the secondary market quality wasn’t there yet.

I was told that the aircraft was going to be busy today, so he might not get the chance to work with me on it. Tiny said to me, “Go over to your new hangar and see what else you might need. We just finished sprucing it up, so it should be ready for you. You can figure out where you’re going to park your aircraft. Wes might even want to store your twin in there while waiting for the final certification. Your next CJ4 should be here this afternoon, so you’ll have to go over it to make sure that it’s ready for service. Give it to Jimmy and let his men check it out. He’ll probably want to fly it to make sure it’s right. You might as well start the aircraft out right. Tell Shawna if you want it painted, and let her make it as unique as all our aircraft.”

I asked Steve, “You guys don’t stop, do you?” when Tiny left for an appointment. “You are both pushing Janet and me into more and more. We’re so deep into what’s going on here that it’s as if we’ve been surgically attached to your family and your operation. Janet and I aren’t anything special or have any special skills, but you’re creating a growing company within a company. I’m going to be busy doing Marshal stuff, as well as for the other Agency, and will now be worrying about having four airplanes and a dozen pilots flying around the country. Janet doesn’t seem fazed by all the activity, but it does worry me.”

Steve told me, “You’ve proven how you can multi-task during crisis situations, so you shouldn’t have any problems. Tiny and I think that you will be doing a lot more charters to the Island Paradise, as well as more charters to Hawaii. The G650ER is perfect for coast to coast charters and trips to Hawaii. I can’t wait until you’ll have two 650s and a CJ4 all making runs to Costa Rica at the same time one of these days. Your demand is increasing and it’ll be that much more very soon. Those big money Hollywood types won’t have to pay their pilots to luxuriate in the Paradise crew hotel. They can charter their aircraft out, and cut some costs so they can stay down there to recuperate from their crazy filming schedule. Those same people will realize that it’s cheaper to charter with you for a week in Hawaii. A family can charter you and your aircraft for less than four or five first class tickets and be pampered the way you already have a reputation for. The courier demand is increasing, so you may be short on aircraft for that. The addition of a new CS&S twin is going to be big. Wes is planning on having Shawna paint it up to advertise the cheap operational costs and how inexpensive the aircraft is to buy new. You’ll get some revenue off what Wes sells, and might possibly be in line for another twin. Wes is planning on building eight hangars to build all his aircraft. He’s going to reduce his space where he’s at now so that he can use that one entire hangar for simulators and he’s going to keep the hangar where they’ve been working on the new helicopter they’ve been building. I’m not sure why, but he’s building three of them at once. Please know that your little growing company is going to be important to CS&S.”

Steve said, “Let me prove something to you.” He put his cell phone on speaker, and called the charter office. DeDe cheerfully answered, and was excited that Steve called. Steve asked, “Tell me about courier traffic today. How are you handling it?”

DeDe said, “The CJ4 is on one of those endless runs from base to base out west. They rented a B200 for a bunch of Midwest packages. We aren’t that busy, so I had the third team use the Phenom for the upper east coast and we were able to find another guy who has his new instrument rating as well as his commercial. He’s been through the CJ4 simulator and checkout, and is doing a bunch of pickups and deliveries in the southeast. CS&S is making a fortune renting some of our aircraft to the kids. I heard they were getting one of Wes’ twins, and a CJ4 should be here any minute. They need it. We have routes for five or six aircraft tomorrow so we’ll have to sub some out.”

“That’s great, DeDe, but tell me how are we being compensated for the extra work you guys are doing to help them keep up?”

DeDe had a smile in her voice, “Tiny set up a cross payment method for us to help them out until they get their own person. Shoot fire, Steve, we girls in the office love the idea of selling ourselves to Chuck and Janet. They are fun to work with. We would all like them to take advantage of our availability too.” There was a giggle then, “But I’d rather have my Wes and Star instead of someone else.”

Steve laughed and said, “Thanks, DeDe, I just wanted to see how it was going out there with the new company.”

DeDe asked, “So what are they going to name themselves? They need to have a name so that we aren’t just referring to them as the kids.”

“I’m sure they’ll pick a name soon. Keep looking for pilots for all their aircraft. They might be shopping for another 650 since they’ve been so busy.”

My eyes glazed over with the thought of another sixty to seventy million dollar aircraft.

My cell phone began ringing. It was a local number, so I answered, “Miller.”

“This is Wanda, Chuck’s office manager. The station has a problem and Chuck is in a meeting in DC. I need you to go help them. Find a pen and write this number down. This is the man who is leading the team that has a problem. I haven’t called the Agency, but they would call you out on this anyway. Help the station, Chuck.”

“No problem, I’ll change and call the number on the way to make this happen.”

Wanda said, “You don’t have to go far. The problem is out your way, so call the team leader and find out where to meet him.”

I called the number and said, “This is Chuck Miller,” after it was answered. “Wanda said you could use my help.”

“No shit, we need your help. Chuck would know what to do. I hope you do too. We were picking up a guy on a warrant, and he has two hostages in the Bargain Barn out on 41, just a little farther out than where Chuck lives. The man is being a total asshole about giving up, although he knows he’s in a no-win situation. How soon can you be here?”

“Fifteen minutes. I’ll help get it fixed.”

I put nice clothes on so I would be favorably compared to Chuck. Fran had changed to business clothes and followed me to the car. We arrived to find the Marshal Service, County Sheriff’s department, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and all the local TV networks represented.

We spent five minutes getting briefed on what had been done so far, and then I said, “Let’s see how volatile the situation is.”

I went out in front of all the cars and took my sport coat and shoulder rig off. I put my badge on its lanyard and hollered at the building. “I’m coming in to talk to you. You can see that I’m not armed. Let’s talk a minute to see if we can work this out. Let me get up close so others don’t hear what we’re agreeing to.”

A voice from the barn hollered back, “Keep your hands in view and don’t do anything stupid. I don’t want to go to jail, so I will shoot. I’d rather be dead than in jail for ten or fifteen years.” I could understand how the man felt.

I stopped when I got up to the door that was open and saw the two petrified hostages who were thinking the man might shoot them. The two hostages looked to be Latin, and were holding their hands clasped in front of them. I smiled at them, and said “Hola.” They both smiled and seemed to relax a little.

The man said, “Forget these two beaners or wherever they’re from. I want a car, a little cash, and you guys to leave me alone so that I can make a getaway. That has to be worth the two lives I have here.”

“It is worth that. Tell you what, I’ll get all these people to pull back about a half mile, and give you a clear path out of here. We’ll find a car for you and you’ll be on your way.”

“No tricks or I tap these two, Bud. You’d kill me anyway, so wasting a couple of Mexes is no big deal. They could be Ricans or Cubans, but who cares.”

I told the man that I care. I said to the ladies in Spanish, “When the man takes you from here to the car I will point at you and you both drop to lie down on the ground. We’ll take care of the man so that you won’t be hurt. It will be easy. I point, you drop.”

The two ladies smiled, and I told the man holding them, “I told the ladies that you would let them go at the first rest stop you took.”

“Smart. I won’t be stopping soon. Get me a car.”

I backed away and went to the group of law enforcement. I told them, “I said that we would back away about a quarter mile to give the man what looks like an open avenue to leave. We need a car for him to think he’s going to make a getaway, and then I have a way of disabling him. Do we have a car to use?”

All those men just looked at each other. One Marshal Deputy said, “We didn’t bring any stakeout cars because this was supposed to be an everyday warrant.”

I said, “I’ll give him my Mercedes. I handed Fran the key fob, and said, “Put the fob in the console and use the starter button. I’ll tell him the same thing. I had backed up to the car where my Glock was in my shoulder rig. I pulled the gun and put it in my back waistband without turning my back on the building. All the law enforcement did as I asked and moved away. Fran parked about thirty feet out in front of the building, got out of the car, left the doors open, and walked back toward the other law enforcement people.

I told the man inside, “Okay, this is my car. You only need to push the start button that is just to the right of the steering column. The tank is full, so you have about five hundred miles before you need gas. Be careful with the car and don’t wreck it. My sister gave it to me. So get out of there. You only need one hostage, so only take one.”

He bought that, which I thought was strange, but this guy wasn’t an experienced runner. He looked around and was still holding his pistol to the woman. I noticed the hammer wasn’t cocked on his pistol so he probably didn’t have a round in the chamber. I still liked my idea, so I stepped back a step to invite him out.

The man came from the building looking all around him and eyeing the Mercedes. He looked back at me and then toward the Mercedes. I pointed at the woman as I pulled my pistol from my back. She dropped to the ground which surprised the man, but it gave me enough time to put two in his chest and one between his eyes.

The woman screamed, but I was right there to pick her up and hold her. There wasn’t a lot of blood spatter from the rounds hitting the guy. The other woman ran out to hug the woman and me. Both of them kept thanking me in Spanish for saving them. I actually felt bad because the man couldn’t have shot me without cycling the slide. Better him than me so I left it for the other groups to clean up.

Fran came up and got into the driver’s seat. I gave a sort of salute to the Deputy Marshal Team Leader, and let Fran drive us out of there. Fran said, “Don’t you think you should let a sniper do some of that work?”

I told her, “I didn’t know the man didn’t have a round loaded or I might have. I couldn’t take a chance that the guy could have shot a hostage. The man seemed to want a way out, so I gave him one, but he still wanted to wave his gun which is the scary part. He died because I felt he was a threat to innocent people.”

Fran nodded and finally said, “Do exactly the same if I’m ever a hostage. Point at me and I’ll drop like a rock. I know what you told those ladies. I heard you. That guy might have shot you for just suggesting that they escape if he had understood Spanish. It all worked out though. Now another report we have to write.”

We arrived at the patio in time for the lunch time party. Chuck’s running kids were all sitting and being good while having a small bowl of soup and two quarters of a sandwich. The boys were stuffing themselves, and the girls were eating slower with them all having some great conversations about their morning. It seems that they were all in class with the older kids up at the recreation building. This made them all feel as if they were almost big kids.

(I’m sure that we can all remember when we were age three or so and wanted to be a big kid.)

Chuck came in and went down the line of that age group, and gave them each a kiss that made them all giggle from the intimacy. Chuck gave his ladies a kiss before he went to check out the pile of crawlers who had been fed and were now falling asleep.

The man came over to me, and said, “I get emotional every time I come back to my family because I’m so proud to be a dad to so many. I’m proud to be the man for these women as well. Two hours in DC, and I feel like I want to just kick back, be with my family, and not do any of that other stuff. Oh yeah, I heard you took care of a volatile situation the way I would have. It was clean, and I don’t think anyone is going to bitch. Good going. Make sure you send a report.”

The man was right back to his women and talking to Lisa about doing something in the studio. I wished I was a musician like him so that I could contribute to their creativity.

Fran told me, “You know that something is happening to me here. I’m hearing your thoughts and almost know what you’re going to do before you do it. I’m not sure what’s going on, but Mercy wants to talk to me about this. It’s almost scary, Chuck. Shoot, I’m even thinking I want to snuggle with you at night. That ain’t happening, but I’m thinking about it.”

“Only keep thinking about it, Fran. We can’t be doing anything like that together. We’re too dependent upon each other for our safety.”

I was laying down with the crawlers as they pulled on my nose and ears, and then lay on me to go to sleep. There is no way on earth to feel more loved than have a bunch of babies lying on you. The T-shirts helped as they identified the kid, as well as the mother. I drifted off to sleep hearing my sister telling me, “Mercy is going to tell you about your partner. You’re amazing, Brother. You keep finding people like us. It’s as if Mom is still giving us special people for us to be with.”

Lips were kissing me. I looked up and saw Mercy as she was still over me with some misty eyes. She told me, “You need to get up. Your phone is ringing on the bar, and no one wants to answer it. Fran doesn’t even want to.”

I moved the little ones from on top of me and was able to get on my hands and knees. I went to the bar to look at my phone. It was one of the Agency numbers. I did a redial and said, “This is Miller.”

“Good, I’ll bet you were having a midday nap, you lucky dog. You need to get out to Oakland where we’ve discovered a problem. This may not be as easy or cut and dried as your previous stuff. Tom and Chuck think you can handle it. Take Fran and get out there. Download the file when you get in the air.”

I called out to the airpark to get my CJ4 ready, but it was out. The new CJ4 Tiny promised wasn’t in yet. I was still at the bar when Chuck came up to me. “Take the ten. You can fly the ten if you can fly the four. Sign your logbook off with the type certification and I’ll ratify it if anyone asks. You’re needed, so get. I have something to do today, tonight, and probably tomorrow. Go get it done.”

I went back to our suite and woke Fran who was enjoying an afternoon siesta. I explained what was going on and she wanted to know if she should dress in nice clothes the same as me. I called the contact and asked if this was pure Agency work, or was my being a Deputy important on this. The contact said, “Wear your BDUs as there will be others from the Agency who will be following your lead. You can change into regular clothes if the situation requires it.” I hoped that I wouldn’t ruin any more good clothes. We both dressed in BDUs, packed some extra clothes, grabbed our equipment cases, and waved goodbye as we left the patio.

Fran asked me, “What’s the deal? Do you know what we’re going to be doing?” on the way to the airpark.

“I don’t know yet, Fran. We are supposed to call in an hour after takeoff to get our instructions. You call our contact when the time comes and see if we can be briefed.” I filed a flight plan to Oakland while Fran put our bags away. One of the maintenance techs was going over the aircraft. It had already made a roundtrip to DC today and now we were going to push it to California.

This was definitely an ‘Up, up, and away’ flight as there seemed to be an urgency, but my internal alarms weren’t going off. An hour out Fran used the satellite phone to call in. I put the conversation over the intercom so I could hear. The contact said, “We’ll be able to brief you in about twenty minutes. We’ll talk then.”

We were flying at about five hundred and fifty miles an hour so we would be almost two hundred miles closer.

Fran said, “We have company on my side. There’s a military looking airplane next to us.”

I looked to my left and saw another aircraft on my port side. Those frequency numbers were embedded because of the way I had been flown into their location that first time. I put in the frequency number and keyed my mike on the headset, “Are you a mother’s helper?”

“Hey, No Gas, we were waiting for a CJ4, but it looks like you have Chuck’s ten. Cancel your flight plan, drop to ten thousand feet, shut your transponder off, and follow us in. I think you’re here for some more training.”

Fran asked, “That was a pretty sneaky way to get us to move fast. It’s as if someone is always watching us so they can pull our chain when we’re trying to relax.”

I had to agree with her and said, “It does seem that way, but you have to remember Wanda, Chuck’s office manager, knows what we’re doing all the time and I’m sure she reports in to these folks.”

We landed and parked the big ten where directed. A couple of men with rifles came on board the aircraft and looked around. One man said, “Bring your toiletries, another set of BDUs and your equipment cases. We’ll get you checked in before you begin your training.”

I didn’t know what this was going to be about so Fran and I took what was directed and got aboard a cart that whizzed through the hallways that I wanted to call tunnels and stopped at the entrance to the quarter’s area. The man said to leave our equipment cases and bags and he would drop us off at the locations we needed to go to.

We went to an area only marked as ‘Briefing’. He told me to go in and I would be directed from there. He took off with Fran, who I could hear, as she was thinking to me about where she was going to go. That was confusing, as when did Fran find the ability to talk to me? I needed to find out about this.

A man greeted me and said, “Go into the door at the end of the hall. You get to learn some fun things.”

I opened the door, an older man greeted me, and said, “You already fly helicopters, but you’re now going to learn how to fly helicopters from other countries. Have a seat and let me start this first video. Pay attention to the different aircraft so that you know which one will do what.”

I watched two hours of videos about Russian helicopters. The announcer was very exacting about the various instruments and locations of necessary controls. The instructor quizzed me about the controls of each of the aircraft that had been shown when the videos were over. He used a large projector to point at various controls and asked about their function. He then handed me the pointer and asked where certain controls were. I’m sure glad that I stayed alert and listened well during the videos. I think all the computer classes I had taken helped me to absorb and retain information when given in this manner. The single biggest difference in terms of actually flying the aircraft was that the main rotor spun in the opposite direction on the Russian (and French, I was told) helicopters, so I needed to make pedal movements with power changes in the opposite direction from what I was used to on US helicopters.

The man looked at his watch, and said, “You’ll meet your partner for supper now. You’ll also be having supper with your primary contact and backup, along with one of your training pilots.”

It was a little after seven back home, but only a little after five here. Fran was standing at the door of the chow hall waiting for me. She said to me, “We have to find a private place to talk about what’s happening to us,” before we went inside. “I’m hearing you, and I think you’re hearing me. This is something like what Mercy and her kids do. This is supposed to be hereditary. My mom came from a small town in the Midwest. She met my dad in college and I was born right after they were married. I lost both in an automobile accident right after I joined the Navy to become Recon medic, so I can’t ask her or Dad about this. Mom never did talk much about her youth, other than she was glad to be away from that town. I never did meet my grandparents.”

I told her, “Let’s not openly talk about this while we’re here. I think we should talk to Mercy and Missy about the problem. Chuck’s aunt Etta is very knowledgeable about this thing they call a ‘gift’. Let’s wait to delve into it.”

We entered the chow hall and decided to let our contacts find us since we didn’t know what they looked like. We walked toward the serving line but were stopped by a man in a flight suit. He said, “Come sit with us for a while before eating. You’ve been here before, so get something to drink if you want.”