Chapter 3

1000 feet over Brazil approaching (LTM) Lethem, Guiana

“Curtiss November-Niner-Niner Zero-Zero-Zulu is approved for landing at Lethem, we are cleared for a straight in approach on runway Two-Niner.” Mimi said repeating the very ‘British’ sounding controller who was actually in Georgetown the capital city on the coast not Lethem.

Lethem was a small market town of maybe a thousand souls as far inland as you could travel from Georgetown without entering Brazil. Georgetown on the coast, was the capital and largest city in Guiana, which until recently had been British Guiana. Unlike Belize to the north, Guyana’s relationship with Britain was not a friendly one. In our descent to earth we would lose radio contact with them momentarily, if we had not already.

Mimi adjusted the two throttles and their attendant mixture controls. “Flaps,” she called.

I moved the Flap Selector Handle up to unlock it and then down to lower the flaps to the first keyed position. “Flaps,” I confirmed after checking the indicator on the instrument panel. She was fine tuning the flight controls, adjusting the three trim wheels, aileron, elevator, rudder.

As we approached the airfield facing the low early morning eastern sun we were in Brazilian airspace. We flew over the Brazilian mining supply town that was the actual destination of our load. Bonfils, population maybe four hundred, and then over the Takatu River and the international boundary before touching down at the airfield a quarter mile inside Guyana.

Lethem Airport was not IATA (American), or ICAO (UN), compliant. With an unlighted runway only six-thousand feet in length, no staffed control tower, and no facilities whatsoever. Basically, it was a big flat space with a couple of decrepit old buildings. It was theoretically a five hour twelve minute flight, so we would always leave ARU in darkness to arrive after dawn maximizing daylight hours to unload, load and get off the ground before dark.

Mimi turned the yoke and added a tiny bit of pedal to visually line the airplane up with the runway, crabbing the airplane in the crosswind.

“Landing gear,” she said.

I lifted and pushed down the handle. Then I watched the indicator and the lights. Calling out their separate confirmations as they occurred.

“Down ... Locked ... Three Green Lights.”

Mimi was an old pro. She flared at half of our wingspan give or take two inches and the wheels barely chirped as they gently touched and began rolling on MacAdams asphalt and aggregate invention. She reversed both propellers slowing us down more quickly than usual in deference to the shortness of the runway before calling out to me.

“Flaps Up.”

I returned the Flap Selector Handle to ‘ZERO’ as she moved the propeller pitch handles to ‘NEUTRAL’ and shut off the flow of fuel to the big radial engine on her side by using the mixture control. Once its propeller had stopped spinning she moved the throttle control allowing centrifugal force to purge the eighteen cylinders of potentially dangerous liquids. Then she maneuvered the airplane using the number two engine’s throttle and pitch control.

“Flaps Up,” I confirmed.

We had flown into the wild west carrying gold dredging equipment and mining supplies. It wasn’t even a max load because without facilities at Lethem we had to carry fuel for the outbound journey inbound as well. It was to my mind a bad scene all the way around, the only place I really hated to fly into.

We tried to be prepared, in addition to our ever-present Colt Government Models we had a pair of XM-177s secured to the radio rack on board the plane and bandoliers of ammo for them, but three against the world ... Those odds truly sucked, I didn’t want to be here in the first place let alone stranded here overnight.

As the number one engine’s propeller came to a halt she shut off its master switches. Once we stopped moving with a gentle application of the main wheel brakes George got up and walked back through the cabin. He manually unlocked and then he used the control panel to open the airplane’s cargo door.

We kept the number two engine going to provide hydraulic pressure to operate the door. Once it was open and locked open he waved to me. I gave Mimi the thumbs up and Mimi moved the number two pitch selector, to the neutral position, cut off its fuel with the mixture control and adjusted its throttle so the windmilling propeller would purge its cylinders.

I saw our customers waiting. It looked like break-time at a poorly-cast Hollywood War Movie set. Two Guyanan Army jeeps with heavy machine guns, some Toyota pickups with heavily armed men and several forty-year-old DUKWs, amphibious versions of an Army deuce-and-a-half truck.

The DUKWs would carry, meaning smuggle, the load we had on board across the Takatu River once the proper official palms were greased on both sides. By weight we could load out four of them, there were five, that was good. One trip they only had two and on that day we rolled the last 20 drums off ourselves rather than wait for the DUKWs return.

Lethem was a case study in how totalitarianism and anarchy could co-exist. One government was basically a communist puppet state and the other was decidedly fascist, but they were both equally corrupt, and organized crime on both sides of the river was rampant. Since they agreed that they were the ‘most equal of the pigs,’ and everyone else was merely bacon, everything between them was usually pretty copasetic.

The big mining company paid well to play on both sides of the river, and was therefore untouchable. I felt a sadness for those living here. None of this phased Mimi, after all she was one of the few female pilots to fly into Utapao Thailand for Flying Tiger Lines. Hauling equipment and parts for the B-52s that she called Buffs, Big-Ugly-Fat-Fuckers, that the Strategic Air Command had stationed there bombing the north.

There were a few rebels in the hills of Guatemala, but troops and private security personnel were everywhere in the city, there was no street crime to speak of. There was street crime in Belize City, but no rebels, the airport was safe, Hopkins and the highway were safe, and the resorts were safe.

In Belize tourists were convoyed from the airport, maybe to a nearby plantation for a tour, then to the old colonial city in daylight and there put upon boats to enjoy a week of fun in the sun. They were spared having to see a real country with real issues, dysfunction and poverty. Lethem was different, there was just no law there. Locals said there were five passport checkpoints inside Guyana on the 350 mile trip on a mud road to the coast.

I never left the relative safety of the airport at Lethem, and I never wanted to. I had heard the stories about the gold miners on the other side of the river. Members of adversarial indigenous tribes, they supposedly raided their rivals, stealing the young women to provide unwilling staff for the many whorehouses at the mines. I didn’t know if that was true, where I grew up the salacious nature of a rumor was valued approximately five times as highly as its veracity, but I didn’t care to find out.

But the devastation that the hydraulic dredges did to the savannah and the ensuing destruction of the Vaquero’s, cattlemen’s, way of life ... That devastation was a scar on the earth clearly visible from the air, and I felt dirty for being a part of it. As intense as our games were, we were informed consensual players. We studied reviewed film, planned it before we did it. While we were extreme; our playtime was invigorating, passionate and sustainable.