Chapter 40

The period of time it took to get Andrea on her feet was really short considering that she probably should have died in that crash.

We found that her entire electronics package had died and somehow shorted out, even the battery feed from the two engines. The aircraft had become dead in the air only a few minutes from Jacksonville while still over Ocala National Forest. Andrea had attempted restarts, but there was no power, and therefore lost altitude faster than she expected. She said that she had tried to aim for an open area on the other side of some heavy brush, but didn’t make it. Andrea had initiated all the emergency landing procedures, but couldn’t notify home or anyone because all her electronics were totally dead. She activated one of the emergency beacons on a survival vest, and that’s what we heard which allowed us to find her.

This beauty had a lot of scratches and bruises, but no broken bones or even bad sprains. She was asking if she could go back to work the very first day out of the hospital. The doctors told her that she needed two weeks down time, and told her that her class ‘A’ physical was downgraded to a ‘B’ until she was approved by an FAA-certified flight physician. She could fly right seat with Janet on G650 flights though, and did that to earn as much as she would have if she’d been flying courier.

I flew a couple weeks of courier duty all over the west coast because that pilot needed the time off for family affairs. Fran was having a blast, as she had purchased a new Nikon digital camera and a Sony digital video camera. Best Buy saw her coming and sold her a display screen that would show all her pictures, and she had an app for her phone to play all the videos she had taken. It took her thirty seconds to figure out that she could watch the video on her IPad as well as on her IPhone.

The second week I worked courier seemed to be all in South Texas and southern New Mexico. After being out for most of the week, we had a pickup at Grant County Airport, in Silver City, New Mexico on Friday morning. The FBI had a package of evidence that needed to be processed by the center in St. Louis. This would be on the way home, so I was all for this one.

We were in the Phenom 100 because that was what was available as the backup aircraft for this area. You have to constantly refuel this bird because its range is so limited.

We were waiting for the FBI courier to deliver the package when a couple of County Sheriff’s cars came out to the aircraft. There were two Deputies in each car and they told me they were going to search the aircraft. A large Deputy backhanded me hard enough to knock me off my feet when I protested.

My sport coat flopped open and my shoulder holster and Glock was displayed. Two Deputies instantly had their guns out of their holsters and were holding them on me. I tried to tell the Deputies who I was, but the same big one gave me another backhand that loosened some teeth. They cuffed me this time and stretched me over the very sun-baked hot hood of their County car.

The Deputy pulled my ID and discovered my badge wallet. The man started laughing as he tossed it to his partner. “This guy has a fake U.S. Deputy Marshal ID and badge. I wonder how many years he’ll get for that. Don’t mess the babe up because the Sheriff may want to take her for spin. Just cuff her and we’ll let him decide.”

The FBI courier showed up with the evidence carrier and began arguing with the County Deputies. They were manhandling the smaller courier and told him, “Maybe you’re just as guilty as this guy. Whatcha’ got in the box?”

The courier began to tell the Deputy, but was backhanded the same as I was before. The guy made a mistake and was going to pull his weapon and the big Deputy hit him hard enough to knock him out. They cuffed the courier and threw him in the back of a Sheriff’s car.

One Deputy was curious and opened the case with the evidence and began going through it. He said, “That guy may be FBI. This is all bagged and tagged for some kind of processing. And here is a triple bagged bunch of white powder. I’ll bet that’s dope.”

The big Deputy said, “If that’s dope then we have a real case on this airplane jockey getting ready to take delivery of an illegal substance. You, Mr. Fake Marshal man, are under arrest for possession and transporting narcotics. You just lost your airplane, Buddy. Just like that little weasel lost a car. Let’s figure out a way to lock this airplane up and get these three to the Sheriff’s office.”

The four men were looking at the cell phones the FBI guy and I had and were discussing if they could be cleaned for them to use since they were the newest IPhones available.

They had not been watching Fran closely and she had used her cell phone to call the contact and get across what was happening. From where I was sitting on the ground leaning against the front of the Sheriff’s car I could see what she was doing. She put her cell phone that was still connected on a small ledge by the seat, and stuffed her Glock and clip-on holster down inside the cushions of the seat.

The big burly Deputy said, “Come on, we got to get these three back to the Sheriff’s office before the pussy spoils. He might want some fun this evening and he’s going to want to see his new airplane.”

I thought to myself that this could become a very fatal mistake being made by these men. They had no idea how Fran had previously overcome her captors.

We were driving for about twenty-five to thirty minutes before we got to the Sheriff’s office. The FBI Agent was awake and aware, and wanted to talk but I kept wagging my head ‘no’ to him. We were forced to sit on a bench outside an area they used to process new prisoners.

When we were alone I asked the guy, “How long before you’re going to be missed?”

The man had a dejected look and said, “Probably not until morning. I was going home after the delivery. I’m a new Agent, just finished training.”

I told the Agent, “My people will hopefully quickly react. We may be in some serious trouble. These people seem to be living in their own world.”

Voices were being raised in a room nearby. “You dumb motherfuckers. That guy is really an FBI Agent and that pilot is a real U.S. Deputy Marshal. You should have confirmed his identity with the phone numbers in his badge wallet. We can be in the shit on this one if we don’t cover our tracks really fast. Jones, take the FBI car to Jimmy’s and have him crush it and pile it under the rest of his junk. Give him a fifty and have the car buried among all the other junk. Smith, go out to the airport and get that plane in a hangar. I’d really like a jet of my own. I’ll have to find a pilot for me.”

“Anderson and Peters, think of a place to put the two Feds while we figure out where to keep or bury them. You guys could have gotten us into some real shit this time. You have to investigate more before you jump to conclusions. Let me interrogate this female to see what she knows. Bring her into my office with three more sets of cuffs. That ought to do it.”

I asked in a very subservient way, “I need to pee real bad,” when the two Deputies came from the Sheriff’s office. “Can one of you take me to the bathroom? I promise to be good. I’m not looking to cause trouble.”

The one guy named Peters pulled me up and pushed me toward the bathroom. He put me in front of the urinal and unlocked the cuff on my left hand. As soon as he stepped back for me to unzip and do my thing, I swiveled and caught the man with my flattened hand coming straight across his neck. I heard the snap and knew I was alone in the bathroom. I used the key still in his hand to take the other cuff off. I slid the cuffs and key into my pocket, and pulled the man’s service pistol, a Glock, from his holster and shoved it in my back waistband.

I did have to pee, so I did my thing and wanted to piss on the now dead Deputy’s corpse, but didn’t.

I probably shouldn’t have taken the extra time, because when I opened the door and came out with my hands behind me, the Deputy named Anderson was in front of the FBI Agent stuffing his dick down the throat of a very unwilling man.

That was too much for me and I pulled the weapon from my rear waistband and fired a single round through his head. How can people be so cruel?

I used the key I had taken and un-cuffed the now beaten and bruised Agent. I told him, “Go over to those phones and call your AIC and ask for a team to come to us. This is Silver City.”

The door to the Sheriff’s office opened at that instant, and Fran came from there with a crazed look on her face and a letter opener dripping blood. Fran hugged me and said, “I thought I was over there again and looked for anything I could use. The guy was pulling my pants down without unbuckling my belt and couldn’t get them over my hips. The letter opener was right there so I turned and killed the son of a bitch.”

There was a loud racket at the back area of the office that caused all of us to crouch down to see what was coming. A team in BDUs came down the hallway looking in every direction. I hollered our password and the team straightened up. I stood and said, “We made it this far. There are two men who are disposing of the FBI man’s car. They are going to make a run for it when they see you.”

The Agency team made a sweep through the building and found a safe in the Sheriff’s office that held several dozen IDs of people who would have to be researched. There was a stack of currency in the safe that told of numerous arrests and confiscations.

The Sheriff’s car was a newer Mercedes and several of the Deputies cars were BMWs, Mercedes, and Cadillacs. These peace officers rode in style.

It took a while to find my wallet case with my badge as well as the FBI Agent’s identification. No one had ever investigated Fran’s purse, so she was never fingered as an Agent. We were able to capture the other two Deputies and recover the FBI Agent’s and my phones.

The hangar where the plane had been towed was full of cars, a couple of motor homes, and another light plane. It was going to require a lot of time to figure out what happened to the former owners of these items.

The FBI was all over the office and all the Deputies. Not all of them were guilty of what the Sheriff was doing, but enough that were required that there had to be an ad hoc election of a new Sheriff so that the County would have law enforcement people. The New Mexico State Police had to bring a squad to temporarily take over.

Fran and I didn’t get home until the next Wednesday. We finally had to beg to get out of there so that we could go home. We had to refuel on the way, and did it in Panama City. We almost decided to hole up there to get some rest, but we both wanted to get home to our family.

We were inundated with videos from our escapades once again. Fran had a copy of everything from the office in Silver City. There was a video camera in the bathroom, a camera in the hallway, and a camera in the Sheriff’s office so that the pervert could watch himself attacking female prisoners. Fran’s videos of what happened at the airfield, and then the rest of the videos gave us some knowledge about how far these bad guys would go.

Steve and Chuck were almost hovering around me. Chuck said, “This is constantly more than I wanted you to experience. You’re becoming less forgiving with each event, and eliminating your opposition faster each time. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

I told my mentor, “You’ve taught me to evaluate the situation and the men we’re against. The opposition should be eliminated without hesitation if we are being fired upon. Waiting one additional second could cause a friendly casualty. I pray that I will always instantly act to save the life of someone who’s part of that lifesaving group.”

I told my boss, “Truthfully, Chuck, all someone has to say in a situation is ‘gun’, and I’m ready to start shooting. Fran recently beat me to the draw on one, so I don’t think I’m too bad. We’re going to stand down for a while and become human again. I’ll do some courier flying and keep learning the PX so that I can fly at Mach 3. I had a couple of hours in our long range fighter bomber simulator and loved the hell out of it. The tech on the desk said that bird can almost fly at Mach 4, and was approaching that speed with full armament during this last month of test flights.”

Chuck smiled at me and said, “There’s something about you that says you should be a pilot of one of those fast attack birds. Who knows, we might have you teaching pilots out at Pendleton. Steve and Wes think that we might be able to win this bid and build the aircraft ourselves. Steve is pushing to see if we can build here in volume. He figures that we can buy some land and build a manufacturing plant and a test field out away from the population if we can do it here. It would be easier to keep secure, and we can do the test flights over water to be sure we are not shaking the earth as we go through Mach 1 if we put it near the Atlantic. One thing that might make it possible is that laying up a composite fuselage is almost all hand work that can’t be automated economically, so we aren’t behind the power curve on plant and equipment.”

On the other hand, if we can come up with robotics that can lay up the carbon fiber and then blow mold the resin we will have a big future in the aircraft industry.

“Embraer has the perfect place because they test their new planes over water. They keep making changes which require Sal to have to go over the entire aircraft to get it to stay quiet. They just don’t understand that the original design was done to keep within a certain profile and they keep wanting to change that profile. They know that our design works as they have built one aircraft exactly to our spec, and it’s as quiet as a 737 at Mach 2. Their engineers and interior designers who want interior and exterior changes are the ones who can’t leave the aircraft alone.”

Janet stayed home for a couple of days to help Fran and me get our heads on straight. I was thinking of some courier flights, but was called by Wanda who told me that my name was coming up for a situation.

I waited most of the day for the call to come and I was very surprised when it did. The contact said, “This is unusual, but something that we encounter all too often. I need your team to go to Andrews and pick up a State Department Agent and fly to the Netherlands. We’re not on a secure network, but the State Department person will have the information you’ll need. This isn’t going to be an easy one, and it’s going to cost some casualties. You’ll need Janet and Fran to make this work. Chuck and Lisa would be optimum for this, but they’re in Hawaii again and we need to respond instantly.”

Fran had heard most of the conversation, but Janet was out at the airfield working with Kissa. I called Janet’s cell phone and asked her to come home as we had an op to do for the agency. I called back to the airpark and asked for the availability of a G650ER as that was what we would need. They had one of ours just coming out of maintenance and would hold it for us.

The kids swarmed Janet as usual when she walked into the patio, but she was able to get them to go back to doing the games they were playing.

The three of us had a mug of coffee while I told Janet, “This is going to be different. The Agency called and we are to pick up a man from the State Department in DC and fly him to Europe. I’m not exactly sure where yet. This is obviously something multi-national for us to be involved. Chuck told me that this could happen and also told me that we needed to act quickly when the State Department had a problem.”

We all packed for three to five days, gathered our weapons, and went to the airpark. I did the exterior inspection and confirmed a full load of fuel. Janet went over the maintenance write-up and found that it was just a periodic inspection. She was spooling the APU and starting the electronics. I had stopped in the charter office to file a flight plan and was met just outside the door by Kissa who wanted to tell all of us to be careful and come home to her. I think Fran and Janet enjoyed that the most.

I pulled the door closed and slid into the left seat. I was taxiing the aircraft toward the runway soon after buckling up. All the student traffic was away from the airpark, so we were quickly able to takeoff.