Sometimes I'm forced to wonder if the outrageous salary that I'm paid is REALLY worth what I have to put up with in this job. When I saw the two men dressed in off-the-rack suits heading across the tarmac of Bremerton Airport towards me, I knew it was one of those times. I sighed as they approached, resigned to what was to follow. That they were FBI agents was without a doubt. They all look alike. Did they really think that after all this time I would finally decide to tell them anything?

I turned towards the Lear Jet that I'd just parked in its accustomed stall. Its door was invitingly open. Maybe I could just hop inside and slam the door behind me. Maybe the two feds would then go away and bother someone else. But I would do no such thing. I've been briefed multiple times on how to deal with feds or other forms of cop. My boss was very thorough and specific in such things.

It was my boss that they were interested in of course. Anthony Ranturi III, head of the largest organized crime family in the Western Washington area. I am the pilot of Mr. Ranturi's personal Lear Jet, a position I've held for the past four years. I am not a member of the Mafia. I've never killed anyone, delivered any drugs, or done any other sort of criminal activity on behalf of my boss or any of his associates. I'm just a flyboy that Mr. Ranturi recruited when he purchased the Lear four years ago. Before that I'd flown Lears for an exclusive private company that catered to the stinking rich. It was there that I'd met my future boss, who'd been a frequent customer of the service.

Then, as now, Mr. Ranturi was one of the most personable and friendly people I'd ever met. He genuinely seemed to like me and, to give me a little credit, I had no idea what it was he did for a living back then. When he was alone during flights, something that had happened about half the time, he used to enjoy sitting in the co- pilot's seat chatting with me about anything and everything. He seemed particularly fond of stories from my Navy days, when I flew C-2 Greyhounds, which were large, bulky cargo planes, off of the USS Enterprise. It wasn't long before he was requesting me by name whenever he needed to fly. I didn't mind at all. Mr. Ranturi was much more pleasant than most of the rich pricks I flew and he was without a doubt the best tipper.

When you talk about the Mafia, you hear a lot of joking about offers that you can't refuse. Well, when Mr. Ranturi decided to increase his status and buy his own jet, he made me such an offer. The salary he proposed was more than SIX times what I was making as a corporate employee. In addition, he allowed me to pretty much pick out the plane and its avionics package. Now I wasn't dumb. I knew that such an offer had to have some sort of strings attached to it. So I asked him what the catch was.

With brutal honesty he told me exactly what the catch was. He explained that he was a Mafia boss with ties to organized crime that stretched around the globe. He told me that, though he didn't enjoy it, he'd ordered people killed before. He said that he thought I was an excellent pilot with a distinguished record (he then pulled out a file on me, explaining that he'd taken the liberty of checking a few things and he hoped I didn't mind), that he liked me, and that he wanted me to be his personal pilot. He told me that I would not be involved in any way with his activities, although I might overhear the odd snippet of information during flights, nor would I ever be put in any position where I was breaking the law. All he asked in return was simple loyalty and the keeping of my friggin mouth shut. If I chose not to take the position, he said, he would regretfully understand.

"So what do you say?" He'd asked. "Do you need a few days to think about it?"

"I think you got yourself a pilot Sir." I'd told him, already envisioning the new, very expensive house I was going to buy. There was no way in hell that I was going to turn down this once-in-a- lifetime offer.

For the most part Mr. Rancuri is an ideal employer. My schedule is much easier than it had been with the corporate service and the plane is much nicer too. He treats me well and has never broken any of his promises in regards to my involvement in his activities. Even his business associates, whom I'm often required to transport around from place to place, are polite and friendly in the same manner that he is. Very rarely do I encounter a snobby attitude in this position; something that had previously been an everyday occurrence.

I do however, have a few additional duties that I didn't use to have. I've been issued and trained to use several pieces of equipment that flying for a corporate service didn't require. Two types of electronic listening device detector are in my arsenal now and I check the inside of the plane as a routine part of each pre-flight check (I've been told that it's almost impossible to bug an airplane because of the engine noise but apparently you don't grow old and unimprisoned in the Mafia business by assuming anything). I also have a fuel checker, which I use to test a sample with each time I refuel the plane just to make sure nobody's been playing with the gas. Lastly, I have Seefor, a droopy eyed, three-year-old bloodhound that has been trained to sniff out explosives. Though I've never seen it occur (and hopefully never will) I'm told that Seefor (his name comes from C4, a type of explosive) can sniff out as little as a tenth of a gram of explosives. Seefor was given to me by Mr. Rancuri eighteen months ago, after his training was complete (Seefer's, NOT Mr. Rancuri's). He flies whenever I do. When we're not flying he stays at my house, where I feed and take care of him. My wife and two daughters love him to death and treat him as the family dog. Once a month or so he's required to go to a compound with a handler to keep up with his training. We all miss him terribly when he's gone.

And then there's the FBI. They see me as a potential weak link in Mr. Rancuri's chain that they can exploit. They always try to approach me when I'm alone. They always try to offer me a deal that, when you filter through all of the legal mumbo-jumbo, involves testifying against Mr. Rancuri or some of his associates. Sure, like I would give up all of this to be put into a witness protection program and eventually killed anyway. When this fails they ask me to simply feed them a little information now and then as a confidential informant. They try to play on my sense of morality. They always fail. I speak to them politely, as I've been instructed, and tell them nothing, terminating the interview as quickly as possible. I then report the contact to Mr. Rancuri, as I've also been instructed.

As the two agents, undoubtedly from the Seattle office, approached me, Seefor, who'd been lying beside the open doorway gave a little "woof", raising his droopy eyebrows a tad.

"I see 'em Seef." I told him, sighing. They hadn't visited me in more than a year now. I'd figured that the word had spread that I was not as weak a link as they thought. However, some people never gave up apparently.

They introduced themselves, starting the interview in a polite manner. Special Agents Tanner and Jacobs were their handles. They commented on Seefor, who remained in his position by the doorway of the Lear.

"Did you know," Jacobs asked me. "That your dog here was trained at the same facility as our bomb dogs and the customs agents drug dogs?"

"No." I said simply. "That's very interesting. Seefor was a gift from my employer."

"An expensive gift." Tanner commented.

I shrugged, pulling out a cigar and lighting it, even though I was technically standing too close to an aircraft to legally do so. As I puffed away they went into their spiel. It was all quite predictable. When I'd heard enough I spoke up.

"Gentleman, what you're saying is all very enlightening and all, but I DO have work to do. If you'll please excuse me?"

"Mr. Tall," Tanner said firmly, "We'd really like you to consider... "

"Excuse me Agent Tanner," I interrupted. "Am I under arrest for anything?"

"Well, no." He told me. "But... "

"Are you going to be holding me as a material witness or anything like that?"

"No."

"Good." I said. "Then I believe our discussion is about at an end. If you wish to speak to me further it will have to be at your office in the presence of my lawyer. Have a good day, gentlemen."

"Think about what we said Mr. Tall." They advised as they left.

"I'll do that." I told them, shaking my head.

I looked at Seefor, who stared back impassively. "Why didn't you tell me," I asked him. "That you used to hang out with fed dogs? Does the boss know about that?"

He gave me no answer except for a moist fart. With another sigh I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out my cell phone, which, unlike a standard businessman's phone, was satellite linked and digitally encrypted with a better-than-commercial scrambling program. I punched in the number for Mr. Rancuri's office line. His secretary answered and immediately transferred me to his phone.

"Mike!" He said warmly. "Good to hear from you. Did my guests arrive safely?"

"Yes sir." I told him (I'd just finished flying three of his associates in for a meeting of some sort). "Randy is flying them to your house in the chopper right now. Should be there anytime."

"Good, good." He told me. "So what can I do for you?"

"Well Sir." I told him. "I just got a visit from a couple of FBI agents again."

"Really?" He said, his voice not the least bit surprised. "Well I suppose that's par for the course this week. I trust you handled it in the usual manner?"

"Of course Sir." I assured him.

"Okay." He said. "I've got an important meeting that's going to commence when my guests arrive and you've got my daughter to pick up from school in a couple of hours, don't you?"

"Yes." I told him. "I was just going to start prepping the Lear for that flight now as a matter of fact."

"Okay. Anything unusual about their questions today?"

"No Sir." I told him. "The standard federal drivel, although they did comment on Seefor." I explained what they'd said.

He chuckled at this. "It sounds like you handled it well. Why don't you just go pick up Lisa and bring her home? I'll debrief you when you get back."

"Sounds good to me Sir." I told him.

"Have a nice flight Mike." He said. "And take good care of my daughter."

I assured him that I would and broke the connection. With that I began prepping the plane for my flight to Palo Alto Airport in California where I would pick up Lisa Rancuri. Lisa is my boss' nineteen year-old daughter who is a freshman at Stanford University (and classmate of the President's daughter, interestingly enough). My task that day was to bring her home for Christmas vacation. Two days later I was assigned to fly her to Hana on the Hawaiian Island of Maui, where the Rancuri family maintained a quaint little six thousand square foot beachfront house on the leeward side. It was a house that my family and I had stayed in more than once on vacations; a pleasant perk of the job (I don't believe the witness protection program offers anything like THAT). There were similar houses in Rio de Janeiro, South Lake Tahoe, and Cabo San Lucas. We'd stayed in them all over the past four years. Lisa however, had an affinity for Hawaii.

I've known Lisa since she was fifteen years old. She's a cute, dark-haired Italian girl with more than her share of intelligence. I'd been horrified during the early years of my employment to find that she had a crush on me, figuring that Rancuri would have me killed on general principals for such a thing. But the boss knew about her infatuation and laughed it off, occasionally making joking comments on how he'd hate to have such a fine pilot as myself murdered for violating his daughter's virtue. Though the comments were joking I was certainly smart enough to read the small grain of truth that resided within these statements. As Lisa matured and developed interests of her own, her infatuation with me seemed to recede and gradually fade away. I saw less of her once she'd gone away to college, where she was studying pre-law, eventually destined to join the family business as a mouthpiece.

I roared into the sky at 1:35 PM that day, bringing the plane up to 38,000 feet and heading nearly due south for the San Francisco Bay area. I touched down two and a half hours later at Palo Alto, keeping the plane idling on the tarmac while a limousine delivered my boss' daughter to the doorway. She climbed aboard, carrying two large suitcases in her hands. She was wearing a red Stanford sweater and a tight pair of blue jeans which clung to her alluring lower body nicely. Her black hair was tied back in a ponytail. She greeted me with a broad smile, fawning over Seefor as I stowed her luggage in the storage bin.

I'd never been alone in the plane with her before and, like her old man, she asked if she could sit in the co-pilot's seat for the flight. I answered in the affirmative. With Seefor dozing on the floor between us, I taxied to the runway and took off once again, heading north back to the Seattle metropolitan area.

My assigned altitude was 39,500 feet. Once I leveled off and engaged the autopilot, I sat back in my chair and relaxed while Lisa chattered to me about her college experiences.

"California is so bitchin'." She told me. "It doesn't rain all the time, the kids I go to college with are SO cool, and the shopping is premo."

"So you like it there, huh?" I replied.

"You know it." She told me. "Have you ever smoked California bud? Whooo. It's the absolute best herb you'll ever find anywhere. It's even better than the shit you get on Maui."

"Really?" I asked, somewhat taken aback. "I don't really smoke it anymore. It's not a very good idea when you're a pilot that's constantly on call."

"I suppose not." She told me. "But you don't mind if I smoke some do you? You wouldn't tell Daddy?"

"You mean here?" I asked. "Now?"

"Yeah." She nodded, smiling. "I've got a joint on me that I'm just itching to burn. You're a cool guy, aren't you?"

I thought about it for a moment, finally deciding that if she wanted to smoke a joint in the plane, it wasn't my concern. After all, her old man was known to snort a little cocaine on occasion (and believe me, unless you're very rich, it's almost impossible these days to acquire powdered cocaine) while we were up in the air. He always offered me some, which I always declined, which always seemed to impress him. Cocaine had never been my forte' anyway.

"Go ahead and fire up." I told her, fishing out an ashtray. "But if Daddy catches you stoned you did it in the bathroom and I knew nothing about it."

"Oh you." She said, slapping at me playfully. "You know I wouldn't rat you out."

She smoked out expertly, filling the aircraft with the smell of Humbolt County Skunk Bud, an odor I associated with my college days at Chico State University in Northern California. I'd probably smoked a pound or two of that very impressive variety of cannabis as a young aeronautical engineering student there. The smell triggered pleasant nostalgia of a time when sex and drugs seemed to be the only things that really mattered.

Somewhere over northern Oregon she asked me, "How bad do you think Daddy's going to flip out over this?"

She pulled her sweater upward to just below her breasts, revealing her smooth, tanned and unlined stomach. I saw that a silver stud was inserted in her navel. I couldn't help but be slightly aroused by the sight. [Image] [Image] "You got a belly-button ring?" I asked. "When did you do that?" [Image] "A couple months ago." She answered, smiling. "Isn't it bitchin'?"