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Sole Operator

## A Novel by Ian Farrell

# Departures

Incheon, Korea

October

The Seoul Incheon Airways Boeing 737-800 was parked on the south wing of Seoul Incheon Airport's Terminal One. The GPS clock on the cockpits forward instrument panel read 9:35 a.m. Check Captain and Chief Pilot Choi Jinho and Captain Han Bin waited patiently in their seats with thirty minutes to go until push back time. With a twenty minute slot time delay, it was almost a routine morning out of South Korea's Incheon International Airport. Han Bin gazed out the cockpit windscreen into the airport terminal through a wall of glass ten meters high and slanted outward at a fifteen degree angle. Just shadows of passengers moving behind the airport terminal glass. Captain Choi rolled his eyes toward Han, sitting in the Captains seat.

"This has been going on for too long, and they never give you the Air Traffic Control, ATC clearance until you're fully ready. Then they spring the delay on you, just like today. Wishful thinking we could get off this gate ten minutes early," Captain Choi said.

He had been monitoring delivery frequency since he arrived, and already informed the cabin and ground crew of a likely delay, even before they received their ATC clearance and slot time delay. Choi reclined his seat, crossed his arms and closed his eyes.

"Hurry up and wait, just like in the military."

With little to do for the moment, Han took a newspaper out of his flight case, Seouler Daily Informer. They arrived early from the airline crew briefing center, and had already gone through a choreographed, disciplined routine. First the aircraft log book inspection, followed by an exterior inspection and a preflight of the aircraft cockpit. They went through safety, security checks, and the aircraft FMS, Flight Management System, which had the downloaded flight plan uplinked from company operations. Captain Choi loaded the required data into the aircraft's FMS, and they both crosschecked it against their departure charts and printed flight plans. There were constant disruptions from refueling personnel, maintenance, the Bursar and Dispatcher with a barrage of minor discrepancies and updates. A constant flow of personnel came and went from the cockpit as Captains Choi and Han went through their routines. Yet as busy and hectic as their 450 mile per hour office could become, it was also hours and hours of sitting, monitoring and waiting. With everything done for now, they waited on a slot time delay. It felt no different than sitting in a holding pattern in the sky. Captain Choi leaned forward and pushed his arms up on the seat rests trying to get more comfortable and take the weight off his spine. His lower back arched inward and his face tensed up.

"I don't know how much more flying my back can take. Two compressed disks in my lower spine. The lumbar support on these seats just doesn't do it anymore. I need a parachute harness rig off the cockpit ceiling to keep the weight off my spine."   
"You flew fighters too, didn't you? F-4 Phantoms? Pulling G's and swiveling ones head around at the same time. That will do it," Han said.

"That didn't help either, but it screwed my neck up more. All of this sitting has just ruined my lower spine. Office workers can get up anytime they wish, but we are stuck to these seats for hours at a time."

"You know why I'm here, Han, and it's not to give you a farewell check ride. The CEO wanted me to try and change your mind about leaving. It's not easy, I'm sixty four; less than a year left flying and my career is done. Twelve years in the military, twenty five at Korean Airlines, 747 Check Captain, and just trying to manage flight operations at this airline until the retirement party when I turn sixty five. Then it's fulfilling all those promises to the wife. I honestly have no interest in travel, yet she does. I would rather settle down on a small farm in the country or out on Jeju Island."

"You have had a prestigious career. It is an honor to have my last flight with you," Han said.

"Back in the day, a resignation from a national airline was unheard of. But now you have pilots doing exactly what you are doing; getting their pilot in command time and going where the money is. And that is China, or positions like you have been offered, which this airline just cannot compete with their high pay scales."

Han had broken through 1000 hours of pilot in command time on the B-737 and his first offer came through with a Malaysian startup airline. It seemed better than anything he imagined. They offered him a Training Captain position on an Airbus A-319 and a deputy chief pilot position to go along with it.

It was Han's last two sectors with the company, from Seoul Incheon to Tokyo Narita, and then back to Seoul Incheon. It would be an uneventful ending to a short lived career of almost five years. But all things must come to an end, and leaving this job marked an exciting new beginning, just as leaving the military, seven years prior, had led him here. The decision had already been made.

"Your family?" Choi asked.

"Not to intrude, but are they OK with this new career move?"

"Just my parents and two older sisters. A ruined marriage and one successful divorce to go along with it. It lasted two years. I never liked her father, and now she's remarried to one of his assistants. It was a good outcome for all."

"I remember the incident with your father-in-law. It even made the back pages of the ChoJoongDong Newspaper. Did you really throw him down that staircase, as he claimed? An Evangelical Minister!"

"All charges were eventually dropped, and I was forced to take anger management counseling. I agreed upon a divorce or he would have taken me to court. As I said, a good outcome for all."

Choi nodded his head as if to find the diagnosis.

"A busy five years. Maybe if you read the ChoJoongDong, your whole perspective on things would change. Even on this job move. I always keep mine in my flight case."

"I hope you're not offended, but that's a conservative old man's newspaper."

Choi let out a laughed.

They sat in silence, waiting out their slot time delay and a revised load sheet, due to three lucky passengers that showed up late and got on board due to their delay. The load sheet had the aircraft's weight and balance information once all fuel, cargo and passengers were on board. It was a final confirmation of all they had on board the aircraft, and contained critical numbers such as the aircraft's stabilizer trim setting.

"The Seouler Daily Informer, I've never heard of it. It looks like one of those hobby publications for things like toy boats or model airplanes," Choi said.

"It's been in circulation since 1982. You could call it tabloid, but that would do it an injustice. It's a nice diversion from the big syndicated news, like the kind in your flight case. An old Army buddy of mine works there as a reporter. He has been sending me a free subscription for a few years now. "

No response from Captain Choi. Silence rejected Han's comment. Choi pulled out the company flight plan and buried his head in pages of NOTAMs, Notices to Airmen, with taxi way closures at airports they would not be going to, artillery and naval exercises thousands of feet below their cruising altitude and a sea of information with little value besides the occasional 'gotcha' item buried deep in the fine print. The terminal and area weather forecasts called for CAVOK, Ceiling and Visibility O.K., a blanket term for severe clear.

Hot Night in Uptown Love Shack.

The front page had a well-known K-pop star punching a Seouler Daily Informer reporter, his camera in the air, girl in the background. Action and scandal. She was married, but not to him. A picture on the back page added to a list of names. You would think the newspaper staff, but it was a list of missing persons. A new face with photo. Park Taeri. Missing for almost two months. Last seen boarding a flight from Gimpo International Airport bound to Osaka, Japan. Han glanced it over, thinking nothing of it. There were too many people with the family name Park in Korea. He flipped through the back pages. Russian, Chinese, Japanese and English. It wasn't just a paper for locals. The back pages were a sea of back ally advertisements, dirtier than the rundown neighborhood their office was located in.

"You know, you're going to find the same thing anywhere you go. It's human nature; like office politics, inefficiencies, cronies, incompetents in high places, only to be replaced by even more incompetent people. If you think you are going to escape that, you're not. It will chase you around the world, right back here to Seoul. And then you won't have a job and possibly more troubles than you ever imagined. You will be an Ex-Patriot too, and that means no protections from your country or pilot union. You will be a sole operator, a mercenary pilot if you will, subject to what could be a hostile work environment and no citizens' rights! "

Han's lips tightened up. He understood this old pilot's logic, but he also knew his glorious career was almost over, and did not face the uncertainty he would going forward.

"I have an offer with far better pay and an Airbus type rating to go with it. It's going to be a Training Captain position, and they have funding for up to fifty aircraft over the next five years. It will someday be a good sized low cost airline out of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I should be the Director of Operations by then. Maybe after I am through working there, I will come back to Korea and take a managerial job at an operation like Seoul Incheon Airways, or work for KOTSA, the Korean Transportation and Safety Authority."

"Well you certainly have stamina, Han. I guess you got that from being a former infantry man. I suppose if you could get into an aircraft cockpit from packing a rifle on the DMZ, you can handle something more challenging. Most pilots here are ex-military pilots, like myself, or young fresh cadets out of flight academies with absolutely no experience. You're a special case, Han, so maybe you will thrive in a more dynamic environment. But as I said, on behalf of this company's CEO, we would like you to reconsider this move. We will do our best to promote you accordingly, even into our training and checking team, if you so desire."

Han thought little of Captain Choi's offer, and glanced down at the clock again. As much as they were up on time, it didn't mean they wouldn't be rushed before their new push back time. They were still in a dead space with little to do but wait. A time when all is done that needs to be done, and they waited for last minute paperwork or something else blocking them from progressing on with their time sensitive duties. When the aircraft parking brake was released, the aircraft was officially off blocks. Han could time his actions down to the minute when it came to on time departures. He could even fudge in sixty seconds for communications delays, either with ground control or the tug crew, hooking up to the nose wheel intercom system for pushback. A smart Captain could even beat the clock by coordinating an early breaks release with the ground crew to start the block out time early before pushback. But today, the delay was on Air Traffic Control, and there was little pressure to get off the gate for an on time departure.

"I understand, and respect your offer, but the decision is made. I will be leaving next week for my new position. Please wish me luck, if only my career is half as glorious as yours, I will be a happy man."

Han bowed his head slightly in respect to his Chief Pilot and Senior Captain on the flight deck.

*****

It was good to be done in the evening, but Han felt hollow. Not like other flights in the past five years. Seoul Incheon Airport was past its peak evening traffic and the terminal was near empty. The cleaners had started on the floors, and two security guards in black uniforms carrying K-2 rifles walked by in lock step as Han shuffled through the wide expanse of the modern terminal for the last time. It was a nice terminal with beautiful open arched metal scaffolding that curved around the front entrance. It was wide and open, like many in East Asia. It couldn't compete in its immensity to Beijing's terminal, but nothing in the world could. You just had to walk through it and see its jaw dropping ceilings. He pondered what Captain Choi had said. He did not push or plead him to stay, but just laid out his own matter of fact predictions. Being chased right back to Seoul with no job. It got Han hot under the collar, just like being reminded of his father-in-law, divorce, and one year mandatory anger management counseling sponsored by his own airline.

'What does he know about me or my future? What does he know about working outside his protected, prestigious union career? Nothing! I'm out of here.'

# Tailspin

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

March

The elevator opened to the third floor offices of Cheetah Airlines company headquarters in Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. Han entered the reception area with his company ID badge, black slacks with a white short-sleeve shirt and thin silk tie. He was dressed for Malaysia's heat and humidity. A tall woman accompanied by three men placed the company logo aircraft model of an Airbus A-319 into a box for shipment. Two men were dressed in tight brown uniform shorts and matching tops. A third man stood with his arms folded around his chest, peering over the receptionist huddled behind her desk. He was a muscle man, not a package man. An intimidator, possibly hired by the woman to snuff out any protest or questions from the reception lady, or any other office personnel, including Han. Karen Sandusky made eye contact with Han, and the receptionist gave him a nervous nod as he walked into the office area.

The company CEO branded his image as an upfront, approachable man with an open door policy. Today's meeting was expected to bring in a high percentage of the company's ninety three employees for some straight talk by a CEO that brandished his image to the likes of other hardnosed, low cost airline managers from Ryan Air, Easy Jet, Jetstar, Tiger and Southwest Airlines. The companies two Airbus A-319's were towed into an undisclosed hanger a week prior, and all flights canceled until further maintenance inspections. It seemed quite suspect, as both aircraft were brand new and factory delivered from Toulouse, France.

There was no one in the dispatch or crew scheduling departments, and no one in the training or safety cubicles. Even recruiting and human resources were not in yet, but the CEO's office door was open, just as he had advertised. The lights were turned off, and as Han peered into his office, he noticed his desk was cleared and the shelves empty. He checked his company phone, and there were no calls or messages. He shrugged his shoulders and went into the conference room and took a seat in the fifth row of foldable chairs. The receptionist sat silent and paralyzed as bubble wrap and tape packed the Cheetah Airlines A-319 miniature for shipment to Karen's home in Seattle, Washington. It would join her collection of over two hundred similar models she had collected throughout her years in the aviation industry. Her collection of company logo aircraft began with the shutdown of her own airline, Pan American. After almost a decade of dedicated service, she ripped a company model Boeing 707 from its stand, and with tears running down her mascara and no job; she pushed the clumsy model into her 1986 Honda Accord and drove off the Pan American training center lot in Miami, Florida. The year was 1991 and she was twenty eight years old. Almost ten dedicated years and a used Honda with a Boeing 707 in the trunk. Even her husband, a newly minted Captain with twenty years in the company and divorced three times, the last with her encouraging assistance, was also out of work. Loading the aircraft in her car, she discovered on its underbelly a dedication placard from the Boeing factory and the aircrafts history as the first Boeing 707 wind tunnel testing model. It was presented to the companies CEO, Juan Tripp in 1958 with its hand painted Pan American paint scheme. Juan Tripp's signature adorned the fuselage, dedicating it to Pan American's training department.

The shutdown of her own company marked a sobering new chapter to her life, and launched a new career as an airline pilot crew leasing and training contractor. To Karen, Pan American was an American brand as strong as Coca Cola. Its Intercontinental Hotel chain, wholly owned by Pan American, represented luxury and class the world over. It brought the American Empire to every countries doorstep without deploying a single soldier or diplomat. Today, Intercontinental Hotels was owned by a UK based company with the largest hotel chain in the world, and included such brands as Crown Plaza, Holiday Inn, Staybridge and the old Intercontinental Hotels established by Pan American. The Intercontinental brand meant little to Americans, and Pan American Airlines became nothing more than a television sitcom in later years.

Her former husband's theory as to why this had come to pass made as much sense as any she had heard. Its threat to America was that it flew away, and was out of reach. It was an Airline with no borders or country. It was too pioneering to be American. It was just easier to piece it out to less hostile domestic minions. Even ones that went bankrupt themselves for the very same reasons. It was easier to deploy the Air Force and Navy around the world than a brand so strong it said, in the most elegant manner; 'You can leave'. Just get on one of our airplanes and you will most surely leave with an Intercontinental Hotel waiting for you anywhere we fly in the world. The idea of leaving did not sit well with the American psyche, or it's government. And leaving was so different than being deployed.

The solidarity and brotherly love of unions dissolved when an airline shutdown or merged with another one. Many airlines just stapled the smaller company to the bottom of their own seniority list, subjugating senior Captains at one airline to low seniority positions at another. Her husband ended up in the ACMI freight business. It stood for Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance. Charter airlines with names like Kalitta, Polar, Omni, Atlas, Southern Air, and World Airlines wet leased wide body freighters to other airlines. They provided ACMI at a fixed hourly rate and monthly guarantee. It was flying around the globe for up to thirty days straight, and it destroyed one's body, soul and life. It was long haul flying, and it was a killer. Her husband lasted ten years before it finished him off, and her own contracting business languished in the boom years of the 1990s. Her small contracting booth sat idle as lines stretched long around the Major Airline booths at job fairs. There was little interest in a pilot contract job when airlines were on a hiring binge.

The aftermath of 9/11 saw the same airlines that had picked apart Pan American's lucrative routes and businesses just ten years prior begging Congress to bail them out of bankruptcy. The CEO's now gathered together in front of Congress demanding bailouts and bankruptcy protection from their own labor groups. As she watched the CEO's lined up shoulder to shoulder, hand in hat after 9/11, with husband number one a box of ashes in her closet, delivered by the same Boeing 747 freighter he had once commanded, she felt a calm and peaceful understanding of all she had gone through. Airlines in the western world had cannibalized each other based on their own misguided ideals of solvency and profit. The end result was airlines with no class, no service, no flag, insolvent, and no airline hotel chain to end up in after a long haul flight. Only those airlines that protected their brand image and were pushed by the economic power of their governments became powerful and great. These were rapidly becoming Asian and Middle East Airlines, and they needed contract pilots.

Karen's contracting website filled up with applications of furloughed pilots following 9/11. She traveled around the world to any distressed airlines, filling her database with the most qualified, type rated pilots she could find. Traveling on half empty airplanes after 9/11 seemed a no brainer for anyone in the airline business, and only the occasional retired airline pilot and his wife were a bother to her. She only heard stories from older cabin crew of a similar opportunity during the 1973 oil embargo and recession that nearly bankrupted Pan American with its new 747 fleet. Post 9/11 had now become a business boom for contracting companies, and the financial crisis of 2008 only threw more gas on the fire.

Bankrupted airlines created a depository of instant, current and qualified crew for her contracting company, and going to airline shutdown parties was even more exciting than the mundane job fairs she attended with pilots dressed in the same suits, same haircuts, and the airline booths with lines of pilots hawking resumes and trying to get sixty seconds of face time with a potential employer. Airline shutdowns where chaotic, panic filled events that allowed her to jump the queue and get first hand selection of whatever was in the meat locker. She always started with a security ID badge that gave her access to company operations and the treasure trove of soon to be furloughed employees. A freight & packaging crew and hired muscle man would usually meet her in front of the offices, and she would start by putting them to work disassembling the company logo aircraft for shipping. Her airline display case now held models of aircraft from the great international legacy carriers of the world, including Swiss, Varig, TWA, Eastern, Sabena, Avianca, and many other obscure and now defunct airlines from around the globe. She even claimed a few that were in waiting, like a prized Cubana Yak-42 model signed by Fidel Castro. She parked it next to her Jamaican Airlines A-340 and her favorite hookah pipe. She even managed to have models sent to her by just arranging a freight company to go to a company's headquarters after they had announced bankruptcy, and ordering all the aircraft models shipped to her home in Seattle. It often worked in the confusion and chaos surrounding a company shutdown, and it seemed the company logo model aircraft that adorned the reception area was the last thing on people's minds.

She even attempted to remove company logo aircraft from certain legacy airlines that refused to go bankrupt, even though she knew, deep down in her heart, they really were bankrupt. Air France sent her a very nice letter that congratulated her on an attempt to ship six of their vintage models. They even sent a plastic version of their Concord with an upgrade voucher from Business to First Class. They had lots of class, and she liked the idea that at one point in time, the flight crews were presented with a cake upon arrival at the aircraft. It was in their contract and it seemed so civilized and human. She even visited the flight deck with her upgraded ticket and noticed the Captain enjoying his meal with a small harmless glass of French win. She always flew Air France when she could, as it reminded her of her old Pan American days.

Lufthansa was a polar opposite. They threatened to ban her from all service for life and even bring her up on charges for attempting to ship their model displays, some of which they had under lock and key in glass cabinets. They seemed freakish towards miniatures, and over controlling and harsh. They even built a miniature airport in Hamburg that was small, insanely detailed, and left her running out of the museum, her skin crawling. Their seriousness of small, finely detailed models was borderline psychotic. She always avoided Lufthansa, and could only hope for the day when they would go through a chaotic bankruptcy and shutdown. If that ever occurred, she would show up with the burliest looking freight dogs she could find along with a brick from the Berlin Wall. She would smash open their display case and take every one of their crane logo designed aircraft dating back to before World War II. She found them over controlling, freakishly detailed and cold hearted.

Employees filed into the conference room as the clock approached nine in the morning. Karen sat down next to Han Bin in the fifth row, and they waited for the company managers to enter and give their speech. He felt a sense of betrayal as the Assistant Chief Pilot not being informed on a very important company meeting and what was being called by the CEO a crisis. The CEO had delegated the meeting to his CFO who called in sick, and further delegated authority to a contract human resources individual to give the company update and outlook, as it was now being called. Han sat next to Karen and waited to hear an update on company operations, now being presented by an individual who did not even work for the company.

His phone over the past few months was a river of phone calls from the Company CEO on down, and as he waited, expecting a flurry of activity to light up his company phone, it seemed ever so silent. He was not even used to calling company operations or top level management, because as a Training Captain and now Assistant Chief Pilot, he was constantly being called and pressed with desperate questions about training, manuals, flights to new destinations, and every micro managing detail about operations. His job as Training Captain progressed very quickly to Assistant Chief Pilot duties when the assigned Chief Pilot stopped showing up for work. It felt like drinking water through a fire hose. Yet in nothing short of a month, the fire hose of calls and operational issues turned into a garden hose and from that a milk shake straw and now not even the dribble out of a leaky faucet. Something in this aggressive, can do airline had simply gone tits up. It had rolled over like a fat girl in the Dead Sea. It had gone South like a Minnesota snowbird after Thanksgiving. It was now as boiled over as a Chinese hotpot.

The company operations were on the third floor of a ten story building in Bukit Bintang in Kuala Lumpur. It took up half a floor and was leased out, as most things were from the start. There was no commitment to anything solid, and even the aircraft paint schemes were near identical to Air Asia with the exception of the tail design, which looked more like a speed tape job that could be quickly modified in no more than a few hours in a closed hanger. He never felt the least suspect as long as the river of calls flooded his phone with micromanaging details from the company President, CEO and a small party of mid-level managers. He was content in not asking the most blaring questions of all. Are we operational? Are we solvent? He could not see beyond his management blinders what to Karen was a classic airline startup failure and shutdown. The wall of mid-level managers now lined up in front of the conference room, waiting for the company representative to enter.

The company rep came out and took the podium in front of the employees of Cheetah Airlines. He gazed out over the crowd and pulled out a cloth towel and patted his forehead and upper lip. He exhaled through the microphone and held his hand to his chest.

"With such pain and great regret."

He stopped and looked down at the podium. Karen swore she had seen the man before, but could only place his face with a transvestite Filipino, playing top 40 1980's hits at a three star hotel lounge across the street. He broke down in a soft whimper that seemed seductive, arousing and disturbing all at once. It created a smoke screen that even left Karen's lower lip sagging in shock at the spiteful nature of upper management.

"Crocodile tears," Karen said to Han.

Malik Kiambang, Han's First Officer, looked over in panic as Karen put her arm behind the back wrest of Hans's foldable chair. She looked over at Malik, wondering if she could ever have her way with such a young man again, and not do that much emotional damage. If the right occasion ever presented itself, she told herself.

He hit the lecture, tears rolling down his eyes.

"I have to pass on this sad state of affairs brought to you by our esteemed management team, the Panther Group."

"The who group?" Someone in front of them asked.

"They're always a group when this goes down. It's harder to follow them back to their homes or sue them," Karen said.

"As of today we will cease operations."

A scream and cry could be heard from the back of the room, as a small group of nineteen and twenty year old cabin crew wailed out in pain and anguish as their mother ship went down. Karen looked back with a smile as the young girls in company sarongs, not so different than Singapore Airlines, huddled in a circle, wailing out tears of sorrow. They had been forced to pay a retainer fee from a cabin crew training academy, which was deducted out of their first year internship pay. None had received a paycheck yet, and they all owed money to separate head hunter agencies. Between their cries of sorrow and pain, they snacked on instant noodles, chicken satays, nasi goreng, and played with a treasure trove of cell phones that lit up the perfect circle they had made behind the chairs. Karen looked back, regretting that she hadn't cornered them all. It was where she began many years prior at Pan American, and she cursed that she could have easily written debt burdensome contracts on all of them. But even to her, that was a pure criminal scam, and beyond her morals.

"Due to the financial hardships of the global economy, and the dynamics of this competitive, fluid industry, we must adapt and come back stronger. We are here for you. Today, we will be here. For you. For our family. Cheetah Airlines."

The mid-level managers stood behind the Filipino, who was now choking back tears at the demise of Cheetah Airlines. His whimpering softened as the 19ers, as they called themselves, with pristine 01 seniority numbers, wailed out in their tight Malaysian Sarongs in the rear. They had brought their own bamboo mats to sit on and their feast and drinks adorned the area set aside for them. It seemed the most active and fun part of the room, as Han glanced back at a sea of opportunity that seemed to wash away before his eyes. The mid-level execs, now all fired men in suits, waited for the Filipino to end his emotional speech. Their faces looked as if on the final plunge of a great roller coaster ride. Karen's smile broke up along her right cheek. She could not hold back her wrinkles as this little airline was being swallowed up by a bigger airline that did not want to compete with their bankrupting ticket prices, and was now pulling the vinyl logo off the tails of the two leased out aircraft and putting them under their own airline certificate.

Karen nudged Han and pointed her finger at the New Straits Times with a small article of an agreement between Malaysian Airlines to buy a major interest in Air Asia stock.

"You think these sharks were going to give you a fighting chance once they got in bed together. At best you could have been Malaysian Airline's wiping boy. Now you can't even be Air Asia's door mat. That's the airlines for you. They want Cheetah Airlines gone. They don't want competition. This was a scripted event decided months ago."

Malaysian airlines buys large stake in Air Asia stock.

Han read the headline in the newspaper.

"No one told me this was going to go under. They have orders for over fifty Airbus aircraft," Han said.

"What kind of orders? Firm orders or options?" Karen put an order contract published by Aviation Week Magazine in front of Han, showing two firm orders with the option on another forty eight Airbus A319 Neo Aircraft.

"Orders and options are a world apart. Malaysian Airlines now owns a good stake in Air Asia. So they don't compete. Malaysian Airlines can be the sloppy shrinking national carrier that protects its most senior employees and feeds off of Air Asia stock and profits forever. It's a love story. And no need for a Cheetah Airlines."

Han's head began to spin as he leaned back in his foldable chair.

"And you think these mid-level managers want to piss off Malaysian Airlines and Air Asia? They want in. They want whatever those airline managers will offer, and they will show it by sticking it to every flight crew member they can shake a stick at. Look at them."

She pointed her finger up at the wall of mid-level executives. The Filipino had now exited, and no one had taken the podium to call the meeting adjourned. They seemed as rudderless as a row boat with one ore.

"I call it the windowpane look. The same term they used a long time ago for a type of LSD. When these guys pitch up at a company meeting and just don't know what they are doing. They have this look as if they cannot make eye contact, as if looking through thick windowpane glass. They cannot hold eye contact and they are scared of you, of what you think of them, of losing their jobs, of the future. You are looking at the future of this business. Windowpane bureaucrats!"

She handed Han her business card.

Premium Crew Leasing.

She winked at Han in a seductive and friendly way. He could tell she was attractive looking in her time. He just had to take off thirty years. She was probably fair game even a decade back, but time takes its toll on everyone. She seemed to take it in stride.

"Where are you staying?" She asked.

Han kept his eyes on the suites standing and now peeping to each other. They were now wavering like penguins in the wind.

"At the Prince Hotel."

"Me too," Karen said.

Somehow he did not feel it was a coincidence.

"At least you pulled a type rating out of these Bozo's. Did they write you a descent severance clause in your contract? At least a year I hope."

Han began to boil inside.

"I would have nailed them for a full two years. That way you could go take a break. Go surfing around the world for a couple of years, like an endless summer."

Malik looked over at Han with a look of fear and bewilderment. He was just twenty years old, and had no idea what was going on. Something about an airline shutting down. Did that mean they would not be flying to Ho Chi Min City on Tuesday? Han had showed him the ropes and taught him everything about Airbus, as they had spent six weeks going through everything there was to know about the aircraft in initial ground school. To Malik, Han was a sky god with all the answers. Karen reached behind Han's shoulders and touched Malik on the back of his neck with her long fingernails. He tensed up and she winked at him behind Han's back. In a soft low voice that seemed haunting as wishing to carve something into his soul she said, "It's OK, Malik. You'll learn the game."

Malik's eyes rolled toward Han's for answers. Han looked at the suits which now did not even look like penguins anymore. They resembled bowling pins ready to be knocked down. Then the bowling pins disappeared quicker than a straight down the aisle strike. The meeting was adjourned.

Malik's family came by and personally thanked Han for his hard work, and told him how much young Malik looked up to Han as his mentor and friend. As Malik left, tears streamed down his face. His mother held him up as his two brothers, younger sister and four other kids from extended family helped him out of the room. Karen made a firm date at the hotel breakfast buffet the next morning and said "eight o'clock," as if the round lucky number would stick better than anything she could throw onto a wall. If he did not show up, he could see her either calling his room, or showing up at his hotel room. It was OK. Breakfast buffet at 8 a.m. was worth the money. It was free.

He now sat in the fold out chairs by himself. The crying cabin crew must have scurried home, or caught rides with their Malaysian boyfriends. A janitor vacuumed the confetti off the floor. Oddly enough it seemed no different than the end of a reception or party. He now sat in his chair in an empty room looking at the podium. Everyone had somehow gotten on with their lives. He was adrift, bouncing on waves in the middle of a harsh ocean.

The reception woman came in and took Han's company ID badge and replaced it with a card that said Visitor. As she took his ID off and replaced it with the other, he did not move and kept staring at the empty podium. His company phone, saturated with messages before, now sat on the empty seat next to him, silent. Karen had not even asked for his number, as she seemed to know it would be shortly disconnected. The lady that had taken his ID badge returned once more with a look of embarrassment, and cleared her throat. She walked between the seats towards Han, who gave her no attention. She cleared her throat again, and then took the company phone off the empty chair and left the room.

Han felt his wallet, and figured another week at his hotel and it would get uncomfortable. They had kept him there through training and his transition to Assistant Chief Pilot position. His plans for his own place were now dashed, and like his cellular phone, his hotel would not be covered by company allowance. It was as if the entire operation was disintegrating into thin air. The reality of no severance, as Karen had driven in, pained him even more. The thought of surfing and girls on the beach dug in even deeper. Something he could only fantasize about now. Koreans just didn't seem so lucky in such things, pilots as well. She seemed to know the ropes and was not afraid to tell it how it was. She even took the company logo airplane. He wanted someone to talk to, but even his Korean compatriots had scattered in embarrassment. Most had bonded with each other in training. A total of six had come to the startup from different Korean National Airlines. As he was the Assistant Chief Pilot, he spent most of his time on the phone and working with young Malik and his eye opening adventure into aviation. Two Koreans managed to work the system and reverse their resignations, while the others were put into contracts for a Middle East Airline. Karen had written contracts for four of them and missed the two lucky ones that could go home with only temporary duty scars, and a memory never to leave their national carrier.

The vacuum cleaner moved around the empty chairs and the extension cord tangled its way through the room, cleaning up the mess of what turned out to be Han's first airline firing party. Karen seemed to have been to dozens. The janitor took out the waist baskets and wrapped up the vacuum cleaner cord. Not seeming to even notice that Han existed, he turned off the lights as he exited the conference room.

*****

Han arrived for the hotel breakfast buffet early and ordered coffee. He got some fruit and muesli with yogurt and waited for his new friend to come in. Four Korean businessmen sat in an open garden area on the other side of a plate glass window. They were in business suites and one had brought a plastic container of kimchi. They took it out of a plastic bag, and sat around savoring their home dish along with their breakfast. At 7:59 a.m. Karen made her way in and scoped out his table. She sat down seconds before the clock struck 8:00 a.m.

"Sorry about the harsh introduction yesterday. I've been to a few airline shutdowns and they seem to be almost routine when you get to my age."

"No apologies needed. It's not your fault," Han said.

"Sometimes I just forget how traumatic and gut wrenching they are for employees. But I'm not there to do the firing; I come in to do some hiring. That may be why they let me in. Sometimes they even throw my name into their little good luck and get lost speeches to put up a smoke screen as to why they screwed the pooch so bad to cause a shutdown or bankruptcy. And oh, we have Karen Sandusky here from Premium Crew Leasing, and she's now taking applications from everyone. Not true. I can at best hire a few people that meet a tight parameter of qualifications."

"Yes, I heard you filled in some of my countrymen."

"I put it on the table and they liked it. No lies here."

"And now you want me for the same."

Karen shook her head.

"Most of you Koreans fit the bill, as you've been with a wide body international mainline airline or have the pilot in command time at a low cost carrier. I can get pilots that have flown thousands of hours in the USA, but they just won't make it if I write a Middle East or East Asia contract. Many couldn't handle the culture shock. The rest just can't handle the flying environment outside of the protected USA. You know what I'm talking about. You've now worked both sides. I just can't figure out why you guys bolted from Korea, though. You've got foreign contract pilots coming in and you guys leaving. What for?"

Han tilted his head and thought about the question.

"Command upgrade. Money."

"You've lost your mind. That or someone just needs to knock some sense into you guys. You never leave a cozy job for a command slot. That is where ego and stupidity come together like the old coffins corner in aircraft performance. That is where you have truly thrown the baby out with the bathwater."

"Well I would say some of these guys are rebelling. They fly with some tough characters and they just get tired of the regimented cockpit regime. It's a steep cockpit gradient in Korea. A lot of the Captains are former military pilots. Some even talk of a flight as completing the mission. It's led to a few tragic air disasters."

Karen nodded her head knowing the history.

"But still, come on, you put up with that crap and you get on with your day and your life, just like everyone who goes into the office every day does. Why ruin your career up over some tough guy in the left seat?"

"Oh I never had an issue with them. I can work with a tough button down guy. I even liked flying with a lot of them. But these younger cadets who think they should jump right into a command position after a few years. These guys here, who may have ten or more years to go before they even see a command back home. Some just can't wait. A small percentage, but they just can't wait. My grand scheme was to move into something operational and go back to Korea with a strong management foundation."

Karen nodded again with a serious look.

"Well I don't interview, Han. I make offers. You should have gotten a severance package. You just punished yourself with these squirrels. I'm sure if you can handle some ex-military pilot from the Korean Air Force, you don't mind some tough talk here as well."

Han smiled. He looked over at the Koreans eating and talking. They seemed best of friends. Han was sure they were all married and their wives hung out together. They most likely went to the same college as well. Tight connections for life. Karen looked over at the Koreans, and then down at the food Han had gotten from the buffet but had not eaten much of.

"I forget that some of you Koreans don't really buy into the whole Western breakfast thing, especially the older folks. Korean breakfast is no different than lunch or dinner. Hold on."

She got up out of her chair and walked over to a waitress and began talking to her. She went out to the outdoor garden with the waitress in trail, and began talking to the Korean group, pointing to the plastic container of kimchi they had brought with them to the breakfast buffet. The elder of the group seemed upset, and reeled back in his chair as Karen pointed her finger in a sharp accusative manner. She pointed over to Han, and then back at the Malaysian waitress she had dragged over to the table with her. The elder in the group reluctantly pushed the container towards Karen, and waived his hand for her and the waitress to leave. Karen grabbed the container of kimchi and a pair of chopsticks off the table. She piled some onto a dish in the center of the table, and then sealed the kimchi container. She came back with the container of kimchi and set it down on the table. She opened it up and put a generous amount on a small plate for Han, and resealed the lid.

"I think he had his own cooler and refrigerator. I told them they shouldn't be bringing their own home cooked food to a buffet. It's how people get food poisoning, and I would contact the concierge and head chef if they weren't willing to share it. They caved in; not very good business men if you ask me," Karen said.

Han could tell she had been around. She seemed to use chopsticks better that anyone he had seen.

"How is it?"

Han shook his head from side to side.

"Excellent. I would say it's from the southern part of Korea, rich and fresh with seafood inside. This is homemade for sure, with mom's flavor."

"I spent some time in Saudi Arabia after my first husband passed away. Military contract job. Raytheon. Some F-teen fighter jock I met. They put us in a compound. I've seen more drinking and debauchery than any incarnation of hell in that holy land. Of course it seemed that hot outside anyway. A lot of Koreans came in for construction contracts back then. They made good money, but you know who really loaded the boat? A Korean who came in and made fresh kimchi locally. He even grew his own cabbage and rolled the product for all these Korean construction crews. He made a killing."

The Korean business man stood up and looked through the glass wall at Karen and Han. Han gave him a thumbs up, and he smiled and sat back down with his friends.

"My point isn't kimchi in Saudi Arabia. It's about thinking outside the box, Han. I can write you the same contract that I wrote these other Koreans. You're going to live in the Middle East and fly over ninety hours a month as a First Officer. I would say an upgrade in three to five years if things go well. But I have something better. Something outside the box. It will slot you into a chief pilot position too."

"What do you have, Karen?"

He liked her straight forward, no nonsense approach.

"It's a Boeing 727 job in Entebbe, Uganda. Freight, air ambulance and charter work supplying a Chinese run hospital chain. You will fly maybe fifty hours a month at most, and you'll get more money than you can imagine. It's more stable than anything I know in this business."

"Entebbe, Uganda!" Han said in disbelief.

Karen frowned, a little disappointed.

"Try it, you'll like it. You can live like a king down there. Do a three year contract and you can go back to Korea with just as much fire power on your resume, working for the Chinese to boot, and you will have an off shore bank account bigger than you would ever see working for these bozos."

She looked him straight in the eyes.

"Give me your business card."

Han handed it to her.

"I will e-mail you the details. It's an offer, not an interview. It's on the table. You want it and it is all yours."

She passed over a memory stick.

"I know you might have questions about training as a Captain on the Boeing 727. It's an old round dial beast of a machine. Don't worry. I have simulator slots starting next week and the guys you will be working with know me well. You won't have an issue getting through the training and checking. I want an answer as soon as you can give me one. They're screaming for the right people as we speak."

She said goodbye and left with a half a cup of black coffee still in her cup.

*****

Han opened up the file in the memory stick back at his hotel room. It had the entire instructor and examiner notes to every training module including the check ride for a Boeing 727 type rating. It even had all the oral questions that would be asked and the answers. All he had to do was memorize the scripted events for each day, say the answers to the questions and he would have a Boeing 727 type rating, and go to Africa to start his new job. He responded that afternoon, and Karen sent him airline tickets to Dallas Fort Worth, Texas for training.

# The Captain

Kampala, Uganda

April 5th

Captain Raymond R. Ryan sat in the Grand Imperial Hotel Kampala garden with his morning coffee. It was a rainy night, and with dark clouds over Lake Victoria, it would be raining on and off all day. Insulated and away from the city, it was quiet, peaceful and disconnected from the busy street life of Kampala. From his table, he looked downward into an open lawn that ended at a fence line bordering the Kampala streets one hundred meters away. It marked the border between his world and the other outside.

Two African Marabou Storks swooped down onto a tree along the fence line bordering the busy street. The Captain knew them both personally, and they came around the front of the hotel and perch themselves on a particular group of trees every morning. Prehistoric looking things, they must have weighed fifty pounds each. They stretched their wings eight feet across and held them out to let the breeze in and cool off in the morning swelter. The locals seemed to ignore such majestic creatures, right over their heads, as if they were nothing uncommon. Important business would keep him at the table this morning. He would have to visit them another day.

He didn't fly airplanes any more, but insisted on his title anyway. Even if he never spent any time in command of an aircraft at his present airline, he always put the title Captain on official paperwork. He figured he had earned the title, and in aviation circles he was simply known as The Captain. He had been at four different airlines in recent years. They would better be described as airplane flying companies, as the word airline infers something more established and legitimate. They were all what The Captain called Brand X, as all companies he oversaw the demise and shutdown of were subsequently labeled Brand X Airlines.

He leaned back in his chair, stretching his stiff muscular trunk and pulling his head back as far as possible, seeing how many vertebra he could crack as he arched backwards and looked up at a tree that splintered out like a diced garden vegetable with an outcropping of another tree shooting straight up through its center, the two seeming quite happy to share the same space. Euphoric, he thought, as the blood rushing to his head made him dizzy. He had grown used to extraordinary things he had no idea existed for the more than half a century of his life. Africa had taught him this. He had spent over a year in Central Africa, and still found himself occasionally caught off guard by its extraordinary beauty. He was waiting for Karen, and as he waited for his morning business date, he pondered the last years' accomplishments.

The Captain's first job, managing a De Havilland Dash-7 turboprop charter operation flying oil industry executives in and out of Nairobi, was a good introduction, but ended badly with a falling out with its owners. Lousy management and uncooperative owners were hard to get around, and that was as good an excuse as any for being canned from his last management position. His second adventure, a single aircraft IIyushin IL-76 operation, owned by an Indian entrepreneur hoping to start an African air cargo empire with cheap Russian aircraft and flight crews, sounded great at first, but crashed and burned in front of his very eyes. A shaky operation from the beginning, with Russian flight crew he had no way of communicating with, an aircraft that was complex, antiquated, and had a flight deck as big as his college dormitory at Rutgers; it crashed off the end of the runway on its second flight into Lagos, Nigeria.

Outboard engine thrust reverser failure, combined with anti-skid failure on right outboard bogie leading to tire blowout, brake failure, wheel fire and loss of directional control and aircraft overrun on rollout.

That is what the crew reported in the accident/air safety report, and what The Captain was required to disprove and cover up.

Pilot Error!

That was always The Captain's first testimony. Regardless of the situation, he could always prove pilot error. He knew that from his years flying the line. Maybe they shouldn't have taken the aircraft to begin with. The Russian Captain and crew signed the logbook off before the flight, certifying they had a safe aircraft. There was always pilot error involved, and The Captain knew it was an uphill battle to prove otherwise. Ruining the aircraft, he knew the operation was a one crash airline certificate. So he went to work doing what he had done so well before, shutting down the airline and firing everyone involved, including the incompetent flight crew that managed to survive, and even the Indian owner after pushing all liability and responsibility onto him and the crew. He debriefed the Russian flight crew in an abandoned cargo hanger hours after the aircraft accident. The flight crew sat on a soiled couch that looked as if it had been dowsed with motor oil and used more as a hammock for exhausted ground crew. The Indian entrepreneur, standing next to them in a business suit and designer eyewear, was still in a semi panicked state of shock. He was new to the business, and did not know of the brutalities and costs involved in the aviation business. It was a sad lesson, thought The Captain, and one he would serve up hot to him.

He leaned back in his hotel garden chair and relished the thought of that day, his last company shutdown. Could he have done anything better? He thought about those events as he waited for Karen.

He walked into the Lagos, Nigeria International Airport hangar that day with his thickest black belt and cell phone strapped to his side. Off in the distance through the open hanger doors sat an abandoned Boeing 727 on its tail with its nose pointed in the sky as if rotating for takeoff. Next to it, a Boeing 747-200 Freighter with collapsed landing gear that had been ripped to pieces after the South African flight crew were cleared to land on a runway under construction with equipment still on it. The Tower controller ran off and was never seen again.

The Captain's body guard, The Nigerian, accompanied him and was now a permanent part of any excursions outside the protection and safety of his five star hotels. The Captain adorned himself with his casino carpet red tie and US Navy tie clip, as this was official business. It was his job to give them The News, as he referred to it, and it felt as natural and procedural as a doctor giving a C section. Bloody and emotional, but quick and procedural. It was a special day for The Captain, and one he did not look forward to, but did not distress about either. The Russian IL-76 Captain sat half reclined and sunken into the broken couch still in his blue flight suit, his gut bulging out and a gash on his balding forehead with double chin and dark rings around his eyes. His flight suit had a combination of blood, oil, dirt, perspiration and food particles embedded in it. He must have grown up and lived a good portion of his life in the IL-76, thought The Captain. It's always a problem when these bastards survive. No one, especially The Captain, needed their pointless rhetoric after an aircraft accident and hull loss. It just muddled up the official report with meandering details and excuses. His Flight Engineer and First Officer sat on both sides of the Russian IL-76 Captain. While walking through the open hanger, The Captain spotted a fourth body in identical blue flight suit. He had found his way into a dark corner of the hanger, surrounded by discarded aircraft sheet metal, spilt hydraulic oil, and broken aerospace ground equipment caked in dust. He was the IL-76 loadmaster, and had passed out shortly after the accident from excessive alcohol intake. Since he was indisposed to attend the safety debrief, The Captain made a mental note that he would be given a written memoranda on his findings.

The Captain looked the Russian Captain in the eyes. The rings under the Russian Captain's eyes were as dark as eyeliner. He must have lost ten years of sleep in the past thirty years flying these filthy, smelly Russian Aircraft. That would take at least ten years off of his life. Drinking, smoking and a general crappy lifestyle would take another ten years off, and by the look on the Russian Captain's face, he didn't seem to really care. The Captain looked them over on the couch, breathing in through his nostrils. His nostrils flared up, and red veins grew more pronounced as did the red hair forest in each nostril. He smelled the aircraft on them. It had embedded itself in them. IL-76, the smell of sweat, metal, instruments, turbine oil, jet fuel, dirt, and a concoction of dozens of other types of filth and grime embedded into the airframe after years of transporting Russian cargo all over the world. They could bottle the smell and sell it at a Kiev or Chernobyl S&M whorehouse for transient crews, he thought.

IL-76, the scent of Russian Cargo aviation. A woman, uncapping the bottle and smelling the fragrance. Her eyes closing in satisfaction as she dreams of her long lost aviator. In a cloud above her, the head of the Russian Captain with a scarf blowing in the breeze. "IL-76", a woman's soft voice would say.

"Lose the tie, Subhadeep!" The Captain said.

"My tie?" The Indian Entrepreneur replied.

"Take it off or I'll rip it off for you."

Being in control was important, especially now.

"My God, man."

Subhadeep began pulling his silk tie off.

"And how about your friend? Him as well?" Subhadeep asked.

"No. Just you."

Subhadeep looked at the Nigerian.

"Dressed for the occasion?" Subhadeep asked with sarcasm.

The Captain didn't take his eyes off the Indian as he struggled to loosen his tie in the hot humid West African heat. The Nigerian smiled standing behind The Captain, his arms folded as he watched the Indian wrestle his tie off and stuff it into his pocket. The Nigerians muscles bulged through his tight Armani Suit. His bright red tie and pitch white loafers with gold tassels were special ordered by The Captain himself.

"That's how they dress down here. They grow into their suits. Just like their success. You want to take it up with him?" The Captain asked.

Subhadeep was momentarily shocked and paralyzed with fear.

"These men are hurt, and they have no security detail. Your crack security team ran off when they heard of the accident. These men need attention. They could be kidnapped or apprehended," Subhadeep said.

"A Russian freighter crew and one wrecked aircraft. They're not worth the security. And I thought you knew something about aviation," The Captain said.

He turned to the Russian crew and pointed his finger at the Russian IL-76 Captain. The Russian had a blank look on his face, still trying to decipher who this was in front of him. If Viktor Bout hadn't been such a loud mouth, he wouldn't be working for these kinds of morons.

Victor at least maintained his aircraft, spoke Russian and paid him on time. The good old days never last that long.

"You!" The Captain said to the Russian Captain.

"You're in deep Kimshit, Ivan."

"Kimshit?" Subhadeep asked.

"We have an injured man in front of us! In need of assistance! Have you lost your mind?"

The 'O' in lost was quite British and deep, and the 'I' in mind had a certain Indian twang that, for a moment, made the Captain wonder if Subhadeep had a point.

"They were caught up in thunderstorms and a power outage on approach into Lagos," Subhadeep said.

"He lost all the runway lights at fifty feet in heavy rain with a catastrophic engine failure! It is amazing they got it on the ground."

"Talk about the weather. That's why they have weather radar. To paint the weather, and stay out of it," The Captain said.

"The weather radar is always painting weather, even on a clear day with no weather," the Russian First Officer replied.   
"I think it's stuck in test mode," the Flight Engineer said.

The Captain eyed the First Officer. In a larger group of pilots he could send out his threats with just such a look. The Russian First Officer didn't flinch, and The Captain turned his attention back to the Russian Captain.

"You know what Kimshit is Ivan? Well it stinks, and you're in it up to your boots right now."

The Captain nodded his head as he looked down at the crew on the soiled couch. They began conversing in Russian. Monotone and concerned at the sanity of the over 200 pound red haired man in front of them.

"Deep Kimshit! All of you!" The Captain turned around and walked out.

"Deep Kimshit. You're all fired! Good day men."

No, he thought to himself, leaning back in the wicker chair and inhaling the clean oxygen from the beautiful garden. He had handled it in text book, Captain Raymond R. Ryan, fashion. They might not have liked those words, but in time they would understand them better. Firing an employee was returning a defective or used product to the recycle bin. It was natural and good for the environment. Good for any environment. They would all return to the soil, he believed. That was where, eventually, everything went, including himself.

The soil was many things to The Captain, but most of all, it was where all things began and where they would return to, including worthless corporate laborers. The Russians would return to their world of Ilyushins and Antonovs. Job security, even if it was under rated. And in the end, they probably came out no better than the rest of the heap, and maybe even better if they smoked and drank fast enough on their down time. And Subhadeep the Indian Aviation Entrepreneur? Back to his egg cart in Delhi. He couldn't have gotten a better aviation degree.

While in Lagos cleaning up the paperwork and general mess a full blown aircraft accident creates, he came across enough connections to start his own company, functioning as a liaison between foreign chartered aircraft and government authorities needing all the necessary documents and landing permits to fly in and out of Central and Sub Saharan Africa. Nigerians were great businessmen, and the Captain was quite enthusiastic to open accounts at every Nigerian bank he could find with the minimum balance. They were quite understanding of the accident, and he found them even more prudent than the FAA and NTSB in resolving the issue in a civilized and timely manner. Sure, you could say money was an issue, but where isn't it?

Compensation was the rule anywhere, and why shouldn't it be in an emerging market like Lagos, Nigeria. The friends poured into The Captain's Lagos Sheraton Hotel lounge bar. Opportunity knocks in the strangest places. He called his company CADOC, which cleverly stood for Central Africa Document Check. Some of it entailed bribes of one kind or another, and he got his first test run on an American DC-10 freighter crew jailed in Lagos for not paying landing fees, and a subsequent aircraft search turned up improper insurance. He gladly got them off the hook, pocketing a nice percentage of the payoff from the airline. Jailing the flight crew for their company's inability or unwillingness to pay landing fees was not advertised, but not unheard of in Africa, and when that happened, Captain Ryan would show up to comfort and reassure the incarcerated crew that all was being done to assure their release and safe passage. The Nigerian, his new personal assistant and bodyguard, could lay down the law and demand compensation. His voice was deep, rough and intimidating.

"One million dollars. You pay one million dollars."

Always a set figure, but always negotiable.

His creation looked great on his business card, but he knew of its limits. It was a good introduction and first impression, and he knew if he stayed in one place long enough something else would come up again, and sure enough it did. It was just a matter of having the funds to stay around long enough and in one place.

The Grand Imperial Hotel Kampala was his new home. He spent his mornings in the front garden, and as the day melted away, shifted to the outdoor bar in the evenings. A Filipino trio wailed out some old hits in the evening. He put in a request for Stand By your Man once, and they were happy to play it if they saw him in the audience. It got uncomfortable when things were slow, and it came on like a broken record when he entered the outdoor lounge. It's not that he really liked the song so much. He just liked the way they sung it to him.

How does a Filipino band end up down here? Your guess was as good as The Captain's. They were everywhere it seemed. Rock stars in every lounge he had been in, worldwide. Samsung exported phones all over the world. Toyota exported cars. The USA exported debt and weapons. The Philippines exported celebrities. From the Fire Empire during his Navy' days in the Philippines, to the Grand Imperial Hotel Kampala today, his affection for them ran deep, and the Filipino girls he took home, and the occasional Filipino boy that oddly woke him up the next morning for tea and biscuits, were always the kindest and most understanding.

From early morning to late afternoon, he advertised his name, and got to know anyone who could be of use to him. He was a patient man, and came across to those who did not know him as a country gentleman. Patiently waiting for further employment was all he could do, as he could not afford to return to his country unemployed and powerless. He pushed his new company, and posted his business cards everywhere except the local hairdresser and coffee shop. He found them to be too unprofessional. He was at another crossroads in his life, as we are all inevitably faced with from time to time. Tallying up his gains and losses, he was enjoying the morning before, once again, the outside world would come in and more chaos would surely enter his life.

He didn't realize it when he arrived a year back, but he had a knack for getting around Africa. His size, looks, and the depth and tone of his voice got him around the authorities with great ease. Adding a little charm and throwing around money added more locals in government to his friends list. He never attempted such things elsewhere, but in Africa there was the potential for good relationships, and with that the ease of getting around the near impossible red tape of doing anything.

His next operation concerned him, though. Mainly because even he could not make out who the owners were, what they were doing, and what his role would be. These were things he was used to being privy to in his former quasi-management roles, and these people were the most obscure he had run into. His initial salary proposal was a high ball figure, and they had gotten back to him without negotiation and nothing more than a simple over the phone acceptance of his offer. Yet lately, attempting to get a firmer handle on his new aircraft and operations, assert his authority over the operation, and showoff his can do, know how corporate personality, he met stiff resistance, finally being told over the phone he would be contacted only when his services were needed. CADOC, his front company in Nigeria, was paid as per his deal, and he sat in the courtyard with cash in his Zenith Bank account in Nigeria and permission to hire a qualified flight crew.

*****

It was rounding close to 9 a.m., and a few tables started to fill up in the outdoor garden. A group of local Ugandans came down early, probably from a wedding reception and late night party that kept him tossing and turning throughout the night. If it wasn't the partying, it was the thunder and rain. The feeling of a night of disrupted sleep gave him a dazed, euphoric feeling, as if he had arrived off a wide body, long haul flight and landed at a hotel with his body clock completely turned upside down. Those were days he did not wish to revisit, and he now enjoyed being in positions he liked to call 'the pointy end of the spear'. Leaving the flying end of the business and all that he had spent his life identifying with was a transformation similar to his last year in Africa. Just as he never felt he could leave the cockpit, he now felt he could never ever go back to it. He had inherited with that a callous view towards airline labor groups; a tribe of people he was once a part of and an ardent supporter of their rights.

At another table, three Chinese came in and sat down. A woman in her early thirties, a young assistant and a business man in his mid-forties with an attaché case.

'Business just couldn't wait until after breakfast,' The Captain thought.

The business man gave off a loud, intimidating and in charge appearance. When he spoke, his first sound or syllable was loud and piercing, and he didn't smile once. Not consistently loud, his voice pierced out in Chinese, catching The Captain's attention. This was no vacation, and the woman and man seemed to be cowing to the older man's whims. Not knowing someone's business, like this Chinese gentleman's, gave The Captain a jolt of paranoia and discomfort, as if they had deliberately interrupted and intruded into his peaceful garden haven.

With a kid like envy, The Captain lifted his chin up and looked over at the Chinese businessman. Whatever dealings they had, it was something he could not get in on. Another opportunity he was shut out of. The younger man was most certainly an assistant of some kind. The Captain had his share of brown nosing subordinates, but this Chinese man was brown nosing with a style all its own. It was graceful, polite, and as The Captain watched him, with a style that still seemed to surprisingly uphold the young man's integrity. He could put out a corporate video on proper brown nosing techniques just based on this young man's movements. There was a certain athletic quality to it, as he used his body with speed and precision to get the older man anything he needed.

'Motivated, that's what he is. They'll rule the world with that type of attitude,' The Captain thought.

Looking at the lady, well dressed, sharp and moderately attractive; The Captain made up his own story, even if it was hardly true. It got him aroused, as she seemed to have an aggressive nature about her. Feminine, but slightly masculine in a take charge kind of way. The two of them would make a real power couple, like Rupert Murdock and his ex-Hong Kong squeeze.

But it was the man in command that was The Captain's real hero at the table. Younger than him, he seemed to be the type willing to take chances, do his business and make his money at whatever cost. That's what The Captain thought, and what he wanted to believe. The Captain liked to observe such people to improve his own mark at success. He enjoyed this cheap form of entertainment unknowingly provided by others. With a touch of envy, The Captain looked up above into the clear morning air and overcast skies, floating in his own world for the moment. He felt like a smoke and pulled out a pack of Black Davidoff cigarettes. Four a day, that was his personal limit.

On the airline side, he was the Director of Operations, a position he was assigned by the board of directors during the final death throes of an airline. All the honest and competent employees had long since left or had been terminated from the company payroll. When he entered the office as a new company employee, assigned to management, he met the faces of those he would soon send on their way to the unemployment lines. In his view, they were the left over's that had little better to do than drone on in their current positions, waiting for the bitter end. Many were simply not employable at other companies. Broken machines, he liked to think of them as. There was a sense of gloom that filled the office as he dealt with people that had sometimes put in ten years or more at these companies. His job was to keep the hope alive and not disrupt line operations. He could tell the pilots had him pegged from the beginning, but he sat smug in his position, knowing there was little they could do without proof. They networked and gossiped more than the cabin crews, and information of his past performance at other companies quickly spread to the flight line. To his advantage, they almost needed to find the smoking gun in his hands, which was not possible. Rhetoric and delay tactics were tool he used against honest people. Then there were the lawyers, whom the board of directors were willing to spend seemingly unlimited funds on, and he could use generously to stall or delay any labor negotiations and honest talk.

These jobs lasted anywhere from one to two years, and if he kept all the employees completely in the dark to the very end, he would get the nod from the senior executives on the board and a lead in to another job after the public had forgotten about the last one. His severance was good for a year on top of that. The decision to go out of business, and when to do so, had already been made, and he knew he was simply the hatchet man brought in for the job. If it wasn't him, he knew it would be someone else. But nothing materialized after he put his last airline out of business and successfully pumped its labor groups into the unemployment lines. Oddly enough, he found himself unemployed with no job prospects, which led to his wayward journey abroad. In Africa he was a free man, with a clean sheet. A new company had picked him up with the legitimate idea of staying in business. To him, it was an exciting new beginning during interesting times. With nothing going right elsewhere in the world, he had found a comforting home, and the past, with the exception of nostalgia, meant little to him.

At the age of fifty six, his six foot four, over 200 pound frame pushed hard in all directions against the wicker chair. Sitting at a table far enough away to avoid any eves dropping, he looked over to the nearest object anyone could stand behind, an African palm that looked like a Japanese Sensu fan. Its palms spread out like the blades of a fan. How or why they decided to become what they were was perplexing as many other plants he saw in Africa. For a moment the mediocre horticulturalist in him surfaced with all its glory and ignorance.

The blades of the Sensu palm. Spreading outward, a metaphor of prosperity; his prosperity.

He glanced at his watch. It was 8:30 a.m. He felt for a moment like an old man waiting around for his wife to show up. Karen was always punctual, and always called in if there was any inconvenience. Competent to details, she set the standard high by example. The Captain was wearing a pair of polyester slacks, tight around his muscular ass and form fitting around the upper calves, giving a slight bulge in the crotch. Worn high, keeping any gut unnoticeable, he wore a thick black belt you could hang police equipment off of. He held off on his favorite blood red casino carpet tie with US Navy tie clip. Things were more casual today, and no need for the full package intimidation and disorientation look. He would keep that for future firings. He kept his shirt open, and just had his standard two gold rings, a Rutgers class ring and a thick gold band with diamond studs. They both pushed against his thick red freckled fingers, and probably could not be removed without cutting off the fingers. There was nothing tacky about his dress, depending on your style and taste, and he seemed to emit authority, confidence and intimidation all at once. He had the likings of a cross between a casino pit boss and a town sheriff. Waiting, he glanced down again at his oversized chronograph watch. Finishing off his cigarette and stepping on it under the table, he exhaled heavily and raised his eyebrows as if looking for a blind date.

On time, Karen made her way around the tables and into The Captain's view. A smile picked up over his face, somewhat genuine, somewhat inviting and friendly, but true to his character, seemingly talking down to his company. She smiled back and walked over as if it were a casual lunch date between two friends. Tall, slender, with big breasts; her body advertised a life of good looks she was fully aware of. Known among tight circles as Big Guns, it was a name earned out of more than just appearance. The Captain wondered if she knew others called her big guns behind her back. Probably not, he thought, and she wasn't the type to care if they did.

"Time goes by, Ray, and here we are again."

It sounded sincere, warm, low voice and slightly rough. It relaxed The Captain. Happy he had disposed of his cigarette and had gotten rid of the evidence, he could now start in with some small talk of his own, rather than kipping off on some smoker's diatribe. Four a day was four a day, nothing the punching bag wouldn't cure. She set her satchel down on an empty chair.

Black hair, short and appropriate for the occasion, she had little noticeable makeup and dark eyes, clean lines and fit for her age.

'Must still workout. More than likely yoga, aerobics,' The Captain thought.

He still liked them younger and more ignorant.

"Hello Karen. You're looking great as usual. I believe your first trip to Africa? I was going to give you a ring at your hotel, but thought it better to let you settle in on your own. I'm sure I don't have to give you tips on travel and lodging."

She dropped her glasses on the table, opened her note book and pulled a pen out placing it over the opened notebook.

"No, but thanks for the arrangements."

She leaned back in her chair and opened here hands with her palms facing up and smiled.

"So what's new? Don't hold back Ray, I'm not that type."

Ignoring her question and almost in a hurry to make a statement, The Captain continued.

"This hotel is nice, but it's in the heart of the city, and some folks don't care much for that. I think it's good for a long stay. Besides, you don't really want to run into me at the bar this evening do you?"

He laughed to himself.

She raised her eyebrows.

"No, my place has got class Ray, but a bit like ground hog day out there. I get lots of business cards from the locals, but damned if none of them have the slightest interest in me. How times change. They all want a job or connection instead. I just wish I could find a few qualified ones."

Karen put her reading glasses on and began scanning over the documents making sure everything was in order.

"So any trouble brewing, Ray? It's none of my business, but last I recall you shut down a Boeing 727 charter company out of Oklahoma City. That must have been easy with the FAA headquarters right there to lend you a helping hand. And now what? Why here?"

"Well let me ask you the same. Why here Karen? You're a long way from home to recruit and manage a handful of pilots."

"Well, nothing to complain about, but I can smell change in the air, and I don't think it's good," Karen said.

"You've met my husband Lonnie, ex Eastern Airlines. He's still handing out type ratings, but he's tired of it. He falls asleep in the simulator and gets his airplane systems mixed up. The students catch him teaching Boeing 767 systems and procedures on the Boeing 737. And he can hardly hear anymore. Two hearing aids and glasses so thick you could incinerate mice with them.

People just want their tickets punched, but some of the sharper kids really get pissed off when he isn't with it. I don't blame him, though. He's been doing it forever and the simulator times are usually at two in the morning when the airlines don't use them, and most of these new pilots just don't have any experience. So it becomes a choreographed event to get them checked out and on their way. He's just tired. We're getting a lot of unemployment money from different States to pay for type ratings, and even a few people from your old company. The military always has pilots with free government money too."

She tapped her pen on the paperwork and glanced at the Chinese, now quiet and enjoying their breakfast.

"But everything is just drying up or gone. Not enough qualified pilots, and too many contract companies chasing all the lucrative contracts. Some of the big contractors are cornering the pilot market and going in deep with Chinese Airlines. They are in and the small mom and pop contractors are out. I think it's a way to gut competition and corral pay and benefits. Like the Walmarts and Amazons in the retail business."

She smiled, shaking her head at the same time.  
"I suppose every career disaster needs proper corporate planning and the appropriate amount of time to mature and grow. Which brings me to this."

She slid one of two identical files across the table to The Captain.  
"I know you have lots of questions on our latest stock of goods. I want this to go smoothly for both of us, and I think I have a winning team for you, Ray."

He opened the file and plowed through the pages in silence, shaking his head now and then, seemingly entertained at times.

"OK, let's talk about this guy, first."

The Captain held up a folder with a photograph in the top right hand corner. A good looking man, The Captain couldn't make out a nationality by just the picture, but he looked Mexican, and maybe could pass off from somewhere else. His eyes were curved up on the sides and he almost looked Hawaiian or Polynesian. Thin, long sharp nose with a big smile like he just won a prize. He cleared his throat.

"Jaime Diaz, 9250 hours flight time.'

He lifted his eyebrows with approval.

"Beech 1900, Embraer 120, B-737, B-727 type ratings, 2800 hours Command time on the B-727. Alaska pilot flying freight, and then he migrates to a Michigan based B-727 operation hauling freight for the automotive business. I remember that one, and didn't have the pleasure of shutting them down. Believe the FAA did it all by themselves because of poor safety and shoddy maintenance."

Karen nodded in agreement, but ready for assault. Her thin muscular forearms seemed ready to push back.

"Well, I suppose that's about what we need," The Captain said.

He read on silently for a few more minutes, his lips gesturing as he read. Then he stopped and put the file down. He squinted, and put his large hand over his forehead as if to grip it like a basketball.

"So Karen, what is it I'm thinking right now?"

He pointed his index finger at Karen and tilted his head down toward the table waiting for an answer.

"Felony DUI and possession of a controlled substance?"

"Ahh, I knew you wouldn't let me down. DUI, Felony D..U..I.. A Double Deuce as well."

The Captain swung his head back and looked up at the foliage overhead.

"Where do you find these people, Karen? Where?"

Ten seconds went by in silence.

"OK, Ray, this is the deal with this one. I'm going to call him your hard ball driver."

She laughed at the name she assigned him.

"These four players are your playing cards. You need the right chemistry for what you're doing, as they will be living, flying, and spending all their time together. That's what I'm providing, the right chemistry for the job. What you're asking for makes my job difficult, and could even put my reputation on the line if something bad happened down here. I know all the statistics on accidents in Africa. It's ten times worse than anywhere else in the world. That's why aircraft insurance rates are so extreme and even have clauses and exemptions for such flying. I can't set up a booth at one of those aviation road shows and advertise this kind of flying, even in bad times. There are always too many pilots with commitments at home, and too many crybabies. That is unless you want me to bring you a few of them, but then they're all yours. They can be gossip machines, and you and your operation will be on every one of those Aviation web sites from Pprune.com to Airline Pilot Central.com, willflyforfood.com and the many other pilot networking sites. For my own benefit, these are side deals with no connections to the low pay scale, whining pilots crying "career, career, and career."

She cringed her face as she said this; her nose wrinkled up as if she were about to start squirting tears. Her ability to swing from professionalism to complete theatrics often astonished and shocked The Captain.

"The truth is, Ray, he made a dumb mistake after he lost his last job. Why should anyone care? If he did it on duty I would've round filled his application then and there. And besides, once those cops get a finger on you, all they have to do is see you out driving and they roll up behind you and light them up. I dated a cop once in Las Vegas. Biggest jerk I ever met. And those handcuffs aren't fun either."

She cupped one of her wrists in her hand with the other.

"He's gonna do jail time. I had a Puerto Rican runner down in Miami with the same problem a few years back. He's flying for a Mexican drug cartel today, happy as a pig in shit."

"Spicks!" The Captain said.

"We didn't do a national driver records check, so he got this warm fuzzy feeling that I didn't know anything about it. But you know I have friends in the FAA, and they send me the down and dirty on pilots like Jaime. Don't bring it up with him either, Ray, otherwise he might be more than you can handle. We need to play our little Kabuki show with this one, and make him feel special. You do that, and he'll do whatever you want him to do. When you book him a ticket home, you can dead end that ticket to somewhere north or here like Khartoum or Cairo, because I guarantee you he won't be connecting to John F. Kennedy or anywhere else in the USA, unless he wants to get arrested."

The Captain looked at Jaime Diaz's picture, nodding his head.

"And that's more money in your pocket. He's your winning ticket when you need to do something off the books."

She could drive home any point, and bring the conversation down to ground level in no time at all. Money. They were talking money.

"Touché, touché," The Captain said.

The Captain pulled the next profile out and began to read. Another few minutes lapsed. His face seemed to get a more serious look as he read the profile.

"Well, the pendulum swings in the other direction."

He looked at Karen, almost more concerned than the first pilot.

"Let's talk of about this rabbit in the hat, shall we? I know quality credentials when I see them, and this guy should be at a big boy airline, where he was most surely trying to get to. Not out here working a contract like this. What's the catch this time? Did he kill his simulator instructor? Maybe they found him on top of company headquarters with a high powered assault rifle. What's the story? I'm waiting Karen."

"This is the deal with him, Ray. I was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. But you know I don't like to pay to go anywhere. Hotels, airfares, if you've worked in this business you don't fly economy class and stay in three star hotels, and you don't pay for anything you don't have to. So an old friend of mine at United Airlines got me some free standby tickets, Business Class, and the passenger loads were almost empty. So I'm off in Malaysia. But I did my research and made my phone calls before I left. It turns out a small startup Airbus operator, flying A-319's was just about ready to take a nose dive only a few months after getting their first two airplanes operational. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? So day three of my trip, a Monday morning, I go on over to company operations to see all the gloomy, sad faces."

Karen took her two index fingers with polished nails and pulled the corners of her mouth down like a clown.

"Some extremely young and good looking Malaysian Cabin Crew were crying. I didn't know if it was for real or show. They should have seen my mother ship Pan American sink. That was carnage. I think more than a few people killed themselves over that one. There were a few pilots hanging around, very young with two and three bars on their shoulders. The company was calling them Cub Cadets. Isn't that funny? Cub Cadets. Is that what they called you, Ray, when you started flying?

"Touché, Touché," The Captain said.

"Well they were all too young and local for me to do much with, but I see this guy in civilian clothes sitting by himself. Korean gentleman, nicely dressed, lean and well built. Perfectly tailored suit, nothing cheap, and a really squared away look. So I'm thinking."

Karen pointed to her fore head and as if pointing to letters, in a whisper said.

"P-I-L-O-T. Well, he's your guy there. It turns out he quit a five year seniority position at Seoul Incheon Airways to work for this startup company as a Training Instructor, and was told he would be groomed for Chief Pilot or Director of Operations at some point in the future. And he sure was in the months he was there."

"Well, I sit down next to him, the consoling type I am, and strike up a conversation. It doesn't take me long to figure out, guess what Ray? Family troubles. Divorced, raked hard over the coals by the in-laws, Korean barbeque style. Take no prisoners. I even heard from one of his ex-colleagues he threw his ex-father-in-law down a flight of stairs"

They both chuckled.

"No job, wrong move at the wrong time, and no commitments at home. Perfect!"

Karen leaned back in her chair.

"I remember my first husband, and how bad he tortured himself after his job loss at Pan American. I still have his house in Seattle. Our daughter lives there now. He dropped dead still sitting on the toilet in his hotel in Jakarta, working for one of those ACMI air freight companies. Ultra-Long Haul flying, ULR. That's a killer. They found him still on the toilet past his checkout time. He was lost after Pan American died. United Airlines wouldn't take him as they picked and chose pilots according to the aircraft type they were on. All that union brotherly love doesn't amount to much when you have a company shutdown or a merger. The I in pilot, I say. Everything is I, I, I, me, me, me! No one wanted them. Heartless bastards!"

The Captain cleared his throat. She had a dark side from years in the business, more rough and embittered than some of his fired ex colleagues.

"So, we got to talking, and like you mentioned, Ray, really high grade qualifications and next generation Boeing and Airbus experience, all with a reputable airline. The best screening, the best standard operating procedures and training. But once you're out, you're out, and there is no going back. The way things are now, I doubt he will pick up anything any time soon, and I don't think things are good on the home front either. I detect a little face saving going on, and don't think he wants to go home with no job. Some of these well-groomed guys don't really know what kind of snake pit this industry can be. This one looks great on paper, but he doesn't have enough Command time in the Airbus A-319, and his B-737 time is over six months past as well as his last proficiency check. So there is no way he's just going to walk back into another good deal any time soon. Time in type and command time," Karen said.

The Captain tapped his finger on the picture of Han Bin, not wanting to agree with Karen, but understanding her point.

"He's going nowhere," Karen said.

'She was right,' thought The Captain.

Han wasn't going anywhere any time soon. Contract operators all wanted specific aircraft experience with a type rating as well as Pilot in Command time. Left seat, Captain flight time to go along with it. This was better known in the industry as time in type and it was the ultimate gotcha for a pilot looking for a new job. A pilot could have thousands and thousands of hours in an IL-76, like his former Russian friends, but without recent command time in a modern jet, they were going nowhere but back to their stinky smelly antiquated Russian jets. A B-727 type rating was almost as useless today. No one flew them anymore. Han had lots of First Officer, Second in Command time, but was too aggressive in his moves, and lacked either recent experience in the Boeing 737, or enough experience in the A319 to get picked up by another airline any time soon. He also wanted management experience, which The Captain would serve up piping hot to him, just like he did to Subhadeep, the Indian aviation entrepreneur. With his last job imploding, Han had unknowingly entered a side of the aviation business he never knew existed. Karen was the type who could figure this out in the first two minutes of a conversation. If she had found out otherwise, she wouldn't waste any time talking with him. She knew she could type rate him in the Boeing 727 for cheap and bend the hell out of the rules. Karen had a way of smelling out pilots and fitting them into the most suitable contract. If a company wanted the Hope Diamond; she would put it on the table like it was just another rock she found. If they needed something more toxic, like Jaime Diaz, she could find that too. There was no point in arguing further. Han was stuck, just like the Mexican flunky.

The Captain felt there were other reasons why Karen pulled Han's file, just as she knew people in the FAA, and was probably talking to people that ran this operation. But he felt it better to say less and not dig. He set the file down.

"O.K., next."

"Toby Iundu, a local pilot."

"Well, that must not have been difficult, Karen. Did you muster this one out of the hotel lobby across town?"

Karen, not seeming phased by the sarcasm, looked down at Toby's file.

"No, I found this one in Johannesburg, South Africa at a pilot job fair, although it was for a Middle Eastern Airline trawling for pilots down there."

She set her pen down and leaned back in her chair. Lifting an eyelid, she looked at The Captain more seriously.

"There's quite a lot of talent down in South Africa. It's amazing the things you can overlook in this business. The White South Africans had quite a flying program, and even modeled their program around British and European qualifications. They seem like a tight breed of pilots. Very motivated and highly qualified. One problem though. Just a slight one I noticed as I perused through the crowd making small talk. They are all trying to get out of South Africa. In fact, I would go a step further, and say they are all trying to get off the African Continent. I thought for a minute I might have a gold mine of opportunity for you, but it turned out to be a pretty dry field. But I got some names, numbers, E-mails, but nothing to send your way."

She pointed her finger on the picture of Toby Iundu, and pressed her nail on the face.

"But this guy just seemed out of place. Like he walked in the wrong fraternity house, and was just trying to make the best out of it. I kept my eye on him after I lost interest in all the white boys. I let him do his thing, talking to some of the recruiters."

She looked down at her nails as if to inspect a blemish, seeming to have no interest in the futility of her new candidate's inability to find employment.

"So, here we are, and it's the end of the show. People are packing up, and I'm out in the hotel lobby, not too happy with the whole thing. He must have checked out in the morning, as I saw him collecting his bags from the concierge and getting ready to go. He was outside waiting for a taxi, seemingly relieved, but maybe a bit intimidated by all the jobseekers and the sheer competition of the whole thing. Interviewing is a tough lonely business. So I go over and introduce myself. He's a big guy, and I'm looking at this little cigarette he's got between his huge fingers. Like Idi Amin's twin brother. A really nice guy, though. Family man with three young kids, lives on a five acre hobby farm not far from here. I almost wasn't going to pursue the whole thing, just on his genuine nice personality. But he seemed like he was in a bit of pickle, so we got to talking. He flew Russian MIG 21's for the Ugandan Air Force. He was even an instructor on them. I couldn't figure out how someone his size got into a jet fighter, but figured it would be a bit rude to ask, and just side track what was a pretty interesting story. I assumed he was not always that big, anyway. Did you know they made over 20,000 of those things? It was the highest production fighter aircraft ever built."

"Kind of like a flying version of their T-2 tank," The Captain chirped in.

"My goodness! Where are all the operators of those things hiding at? I never ran into one of those guys in my life."

The Captain shook his head.

"I don't know, maybe victims of their own success. Outside of flying a MIG-21, I don't know who wants them. So if they didn't kill themselves flying them, maybe they finished themselves off with Russian Vodka. Go around some old Russian military installations, or any country equipped with them, and you'll probably find a collection of them hanging around. There might even be a few in your hotel if any of these guys get cold feet and don't show up."

"So it turns out he crashed one of them. He was right here, taking off out of Entebbe, and pile drove one of them into Lake Victoria. He went through the whole thing, and to hear him tell it explains why his profile sits in front of you.

He had a new student in the front seat, young Ugandan, twenty two years old. He said he was sharp as a tack and did all his homework. They did all their preflight work in flight operations, and out they go to the flight line. Beautiful day, clear skies, breezy with just a touch of Jet exhaust drifting across the flight line. They walked across the ramp making small talk, and given this young student pilot did his homework, he said it almost felt like they were going on a low risk commercial flight, and not walking out to a Russian MIG-21. When the aircraft came into view, he said the reality of it sunk in as it always does. Just seeing it crouched on the ramp, he knew what he could be in for. He gave the student due warning, and told him this aircraft was one of the most difficult fighters to fly in any inventory, and jokingly told him it was even known as the flying coffin in the Indian Air Force. He emphasized it really didn't like to fly clean under 250 knots, and the quicker you got altitude and speed, the better you were in a MIG-21. Get it cleaned up on speed, get up to altitude, patrol around at .90 Mach, bingo fuel and go home fast. Telling this to his student as they were about to strap in seemed a bit too much, and he said he quickly realized he put too much crap into his head, and maybe got him a bit stirred up before his first flight. He joked around to put him at ease, and they both climbed in. A Russian Crew Chief helped them strap in, and talked the student pilot through everything in front of him, one by one. As the crew chief was going through everything in the cockpit, the student would jump in, eager to let him know all his own knowledge of the aircraft, as if being tested, when he really wasn't. The crew chief continued, and most importantly went through the basics of strapping in, canopy operation, emergency egress, and what to look for, inside and outside, through engine start and initial taxi out. Having made sure everything was in place, and there were no obstructions or distractions, he looked back at Instructor Toby Iundu in the back seat, and gave him a thumbs up, that everything was good up front, and climbed down. Have fun the crew chief said, see you in fifty minutes. Fuel critical is the word of the day here, and I guess once you got airborne you would do a few passes, a few maneuvers, and as they say, Bingo!! Head home fast. You're in a fuel emergency situation the minute you light that thing up.

They taxi out and Toby in the back seat goes through the checks quicker than the student is used to, because this is the real thing, in real time. He skips over or de-prioritizes a couple of things which throws off the new student a little more, and as they taxi down to the approach end of the runway the tower gives them clearance for takeoff with a Russian Antonov AN-12 on short final. So Toby the instructor gives a Roger, not realizing the student is behind the power curve and overwhelmed before they even get rolling down the runway. He tells him to line it up, and pour the coals to this thing, full afterburner. He finishes up the before takeoff checks and assures the student to just fly the airplane and focus on that only. Don't worry about checklists, radio work, navigation, just fly the airplane. Rotate at 164 knots, pitch to 10 degrees initially, hold it, and he will talk him through cleaning it up and being on profile."

"I know the feeling," The Captain said.

"I took a back seat, full burner ride in an F-4 Phantom once in my Navy training. Pitch to 60 degrees to 30 thousand feet, and 30 degrees all the way to forty thousand feet. No thank you, I said, give me a P-3 Orion. Need a place to set my coffee cup."  
"Maybe you just weren't good enough, cub cadet pilot."  
"Touché, Touché," The Captain said with his trademark looking down on the company smile.

"Remember what I said as they were walking out, about speed and altitude," Karen said.

"Well, Toby says they come screaming over the fence on the other side of the runway, busting through 250 knots and accelerating all the way to 300 as they get the gear and flaps up. And then poof! They get an engine compressor stall, followed by another one. He says it was so fast, by the time he glanced down at his gauges he was down 30 knots from where he should be, and then in a split second he was trading altitude for airspeed.

Toby yelled out 'I have control', and looking out the front wind screen he said he saw the horizon do this."

Karen took her hand flat like an airplane and moved it from horizontal to a vertical motion in about two seconds.

"He gave it full stick and rudder to keep it wings level, but it just rolled over like a capsized ship. Knowing what he knew about this airplane, he said he pulled the ejection handle between 45 to 60 degrees of bank angle, and caught two swings in his shoot before he hit the water in Lake Victoria. The Ugandan student in the front seat pulled his ejection handle a split second later and went head first into the lake, killing him instantly! So one moment you're shooting the breeze on the flight line, and then you're dead or floating around in the middle of Lake Victoria.

Well, it turns out this twenty two year old was related to some government officials and big brass in the Ugandan Air Force. The mission was to get him his wings, get a handful of sorties, preferably get him into a more 'user friendly' aircraft, and the glory boy is groomed for greatness. The picture on his office wall should have been him in front of his MIG 21, like your old pal George W. Bush in front of his old F-102 at the Texas Guard Flying Club. So I guess it wasn't in the cards for him to become a corpse at such a young age. But what I say is, welcome to the business. He played his cards, and there are always winners and losers, regardless of how good you are. There's something called luck of the draw, and another thing called fate, and this guy ran head first into the later in less than sixty seconds. But the hire ups didn't take it so matter of fact, and guess who got stuck on the hot seat? Yeah, big boy in the back seat! So they had an official investigation, and Toby was pretty much got exonerated, but not after a whole lot of emotion, finger pointing and second guessing on what could have been a better outcome for all. So knowing he wouldn't go much further, Toby skips out of the military after twelve and half years and lands a job at Ethiopian Airlines. He's there for five years, manages to upgrade to Captain on a Boeing 767, and then is told to leave. According to him it was because of political reasons."

The Captain rolled his eyes over.  
"Yeah, that's as good an answer as I could put on this fat bastard's resume too. Political reasons!"  
"Where's that Bloody Mary?" Karen asked with a chuckle.  
"You're not off the hook yet," The Captain said, pointing his red meaty finger at her.

"So there he is, practically bulging out of his shirt. He looked like his neck tie was attempting to strangle him as he sat waiting to get out of Johannesburg. I'm looking at this guy with beads of sweat running down the sides of his face as he's finishing up his story in a rather go lucky, easy going kind of way. I tell him if things don't happen with some of these other places soon, let me know, and we part ways. It didn't take long to get a reply, and I think he will be a good mediator between two strong personalities, or anything with the locals on the ground. He's your negotiator, and I think you may need one of them from time to time."

"The last guy is your aircraft technician and Flight Engineer, Adrian Davies. He's from England and worked out of Addis Ababa for Swiss Air contracting. Older, single, and I won't go much further into his personal life. He's now unemployed, and doesn't seem to want to go back to the rain and cold. I know even less about the maintenance end of things than the flying, but since you're going to use him on the Flight Engineers panel of the 727 and on the ground turning wrenches, my priority was to get someone who could get along with the rest, and wants to be down here. I could be wrong, but I got the feeling talking to him that he has a fetish for the 'local talent', if you know what I mean. Personal issues don't concern me unless it gets in the way of business, and as long as this guy isn't hanging around my daughter, I don't care. That's it."

She looked at her watch. It was exactly 9 a.m. The Captain waved over the waiter, standing dutifully at the other side of the garden.  
"Bloody Mary," The Captain said.

"Might as well bring a pitcher."

# Jaime's Place

Dallas Fort Worth, Texas USA  
April 15th

Jaime Diaz opened his eyes. The room was grey, with early morning light coming in between the living room curtains. He could feel the back of his head pressed against cheap nylon carpet and the thin foam padding over the cool cement slab beneath it. It felt different than the carpet in his house. He had installed high quality Berber Carpet, as he had spent his life in houses with cheap nylon carpet like this. His mind and senses came to in an instant. It seemed instinctively quick, as even from a deep sleep he could not focus for the first few seconds upon waking. There was a long thin silver object in front of him with a black circle in front of it. A voice in his head, feminine, gentle, but male, spoke softly.  My, that's a big one. It was a line from an old movie, and echoed through his head. He blinked his eyes to focus.

"Get up, you sick bastard. Get up or I'm gonna blow your brains out all over my living room floor. Then I'll bury you where my hound dog craps every morning."

He heard breathing; heavy, nervous, angry breathing.

"Get up! You sick Son of a Bitch!"

The silver object with the black circle began to register. It was a nickel plated large bore hand gun. As he blinked his eyes again the information poured into his alcohol soaked brain, and his observations became more detailed. That's a very large bore, six shooter, and fully loaded, as he saw the hollow point rounds in the four open cylinders staring down at him. It had a smooth wheel, not with the classic indentations between each chamber. He figured a ten inch barrel, or whatever the longest one sold on the market was. Looking over the top of the barrel were sights, and slightly down the side he could see the Hammer fully cocked. Two hands held the gun in front of him, pointed in the middle of his face. This wasn't a gun of fire power, or of ease in handling. It wasn't you're average double action, high capacity automatic. Something the police carried, like Glocks, Berettas or whatever else. This gun was a statement all of its own. As if it's only modern day function was waking up drunken, naked Mexicans off living room floors. It was a technology more for display, entertainment or intimidation. Regardless, is would blow most of his face off in he made the wrong move. Jaime spoke softly, in a tired voice, exhaling as he spoke.

"O.K. O.K. I'm leaving."

Taking his eyes, slowly but surely, off the gun barrel and looking down at his body, he could see he had no clothing on. Not even underpants. As if he had freed his body of some terrible restraint hours earlier. His naked body sat limp, as if it were not a part of his head. It was a bad start. Rotating his head around the room he caught sight of what looked like clothing and a pair of jeans hanging off a couch. As he moved his head back to the business end of the large bore wheel gun, his vision wobbled, as if jarring a fish bowl full of water. Without a thought, he began to pull his body up, and his legs slowly moved up to push himself back against the couch. His pants were behind him, and now he could see a front door. He was in someone's living room, although he had no idea who's. There were family pictures on a stand next to a big screen TV, a drab colorless oil painting of a forest, similar to artwork hanging in a cheap hotel lobby, and something common Jaime recognized in many such homes, not a single book in the room.

He was on his feet as if he were floating like an angel, and up on one leg, then the over, and he miraculously had his pants on. His wallet, to his amazement, had somehow stayed in his back pocket, and he could feel it on his ass without any underpants underneath. The man holding the gun said nothing as he continued pointing his two pound piece of metal at him.

Jaime glanced over one last time, as he maneuvered up and around the rod iron rail and towards the front door. He noticed a sense of fear in the man. As if Jaime had broken in and done something horrible. He wished he had not looked at him. As he moved towards the door, he wrote off anything else of his in the house. He didn't know what else he had left behind. Not sure where, or if he even had on his best pair of boots, his cell phone, or his keys the night before. He did not even know where his car was parked. He had a spare set of keys under the front left wheel well if it was out in front. Whatever was left in the room could just as well be tossed in the garbage. He turned the doorknob, and like a savior, the Texas dawn embraced him. He shut the door behind him with a slam, and walked out on to the front lawn.

He wasn't hung over. Not yet. He was still in a hazy period between still being drunk and arriving at well hung over. If he could have slept it off, it would have been at least four more hours until his body even thought of waking him. He stepped onto the lawn feeling the cool dew drops on each blade of grass tickle his toes. He cut across the driveway, tightening the large oval western belt buckle around his loose jeans. A Chevrolet Denali SUV was parked in front of the house. He felt a sharp pain in his rib cage. It was a combination of soreness and something more acute, like he had just taken a good punch.

'He must have kicked me full force in the ribs while I was out.'

He reached his left hand around to cradle his ribs, not knowing if any real damage was done. His brain did not even register the blow when it happened, but as he walked out onto the street, the sharp pain told him he had been kicked hard while passed out on the floor. As he approached the curb he noticed a familiar house across the street and realized he was moving in a 30 degree angle across the street in the wrong direction. There were cars parked on the other side along the curb, and rather than re-directing himself in the middle of the street, he crossed, made it to the sidewalk and turned directions towards his house a block down. It probably looked both suspicious and stupid at the same time.

At this point, he had no idea what had taken place the night before, and was glad he wasn't waking up in a police drunk tank or maybe something worse.

'Get home, draw the shades, lock the doors, take some medication; water, vitamins, anything that you won't throw up, and crash out.' He would pay the price, a lost day for his abusive, reckless adventure.

As he moved down the side walk, every step pounded up into his head. His vision bobbed up and down as he looked down at the sidewalk cement slabs, as if his cadence was jarring his head from behind. The neighborhood was dead. It must have been around 6 a.m. Trying to remember the night before, he could now only recall having a few beers in the guy's garage, which led to a house party and a cookout in the backyard and more drinking. Tequila. Mescal. A worm for dessert. After that it got hazy, and then nothing. If he committed some criminal act in the house they could still be stewing over calling the police. He could now recall the man's wife. Nice body, flirtatious, and maybe she had something to do with the whole thing going wrong. He was coming up on his house and saw his black Chevrolet Denali parked safely in the driveway. A sense of relief came over him, that he had not taken it out and done god knows what else.

'Same car as that guy. Hot looking wife and we drive the same car.'

He shook his head and felt his ribs again. They were sore, and he had an acute pain as if the guy might have kicked him with the toe of his shoe. But nothing seemed broken, just bruised.

He reached for the front door and it was locked. Going around the back, the sliding glass door was open, and he was back in his safe haven. A cat on a patio lawn chair invited itself in. It had adopted Jaime's home a year back, and his departure, and now kitty's uncertain future, began to pain him as much as his ribs. He locked the back sliding glass door and drew the shades in the front of the house. After medicating himself and drinking some water, he went into the master bedroom and lay down.

He woke at 10 a.m. It was already hot, and his back left the sheets slightly damp as he rolled over. He felt bad, but not sick. The pain reliever and water seemed to pad the fall. He reached over and grabbed a cigarette off the night stand and put the ashtray on his stomach. He inhaled, and as if it was a natural reaction, started coughing.

Looking up at the ceiling, he knew he had nothing left, and nothing much to lose. He made his way to the bathroom, took some more pain reliever, drank more water, and sat down on the toilet. A comfortable and contemplating position.

'How many humanitarian and great ideas originated on the toilet? Millions. How many were put to use? Maybe none.'

He dozed on and off for the next few hours, only getting up to drink more water and to relieve himself. By 3 p.m. hunger crept in. He perused through his head where to go, and settled on a Mexican restaurant not far away that he could order in from. It was the same place he got his second DUI arrest, and he had not been back since. He would wait till around 5 p.m. and then order more than he could ever eat. This was his last day in town, so why not treat himself. The phone rang a few times while he was sleeping and the intervals seemed consistent, about once an hour. He considered unplugging the line, but out of curiosity, he kept it connected. He checked his e-mails and printed his airline E-ticket info out, and put it in his REI backpack. He was traveling light with two bags, one carry on and his larger backpack stuffed full of the best clothing and gear he had. Everything else would be abandoned. The 2800 square foot house was packed with all the amenities. Furniture he had purchased in the last few years, a flat screen Samsung plasma TV on his living room wall, books everywhere that were too heavy to carry. Everything was upgraded. No expense was spared. He would take one book for the flight, and they were the one thing he regretted leaving behind. There were at least 200 throughout the house, and most were between fifty and ninety percent read. There were even a few he had finished, but most had a page bent in where he had stopped to start another one. He didn't read to make a point, and anything that lost his interest or he found too laborious he would toss out. Most were just waiting their turn to be picked up again.

There was no way to move anything, and given that almost everything was purchased on credit, with a stack of bills getting larger every day, including un-opened letters from attorneys, foreclosure notices, and around ten overdue credit cards, leaving it all behind was his only good option. He had court orders for his two arrests and a sea of other letters that he had not opened or even knew what they were.

He had grown used to scanning over mail and only looking at the ones that had red letters or were unique enough to warrant his attention. He developed a knack for spotting out the important ones by nothing more than flashing over them in a split second. These sat in a separate pile and were not opened either.

He put on a pair of boxers and moved out to the kitchen. Splitting the blinds open to look across the street, he could see the two Cody kids playing in front of his yard. They might have been waiting around to see if he was going to come out, but today wasn't a good day. They didn't know he was leaving, and were about the only real friends he had on the block.

'So it goes with good friends. Here one day and gone forever the next,' he thought.

The girl was seven, the boy five. He looked out cater-corner to the house where they lived. There was trash everywhere, and he counted three cars that were not the ladies, and all the blinds were drawn. It was a common scene since the split up, and the ex-wife did a great job turning the place into a methamphetamine house. A camcorder stood mounted on the left hand edge of his kitchen window, trained on the house and hooked up to an internet download to a private investigator. Stretching his hands around the kitchen sink, Jaime put his head down.

"Man it's hot. I'm always sweating in this god forsaken place."

More mail was piled up on the left side of the counter. He had cleaned most of the dishes and set everything on a rack to the right to dry and re-use. There were water spots on the plates and tile counters, and a few glasses for water or drinks.

'Hard water and sweat.'

'Texas!'

A wave of anxiety came over him as he stood over the sink. It couldn't have lasted more than a second, and shook down his spine making him shake and shiver for a second. If anyone saw it, they would think he was beginning to have a fit. In his own kitchen with the blinds drawn, it was O.K., and when he was through, he smiled and began to laugh. Not a normal laugh, but one born out of his odd situation. It was silent and shook deep into his chest and stomach. He could not stop the laughter and it became exhausting and hard to breath, but at the same time, felt good as if relieving himself of something. His head was still pointed down over the kitchen sink, and his arms straddled across the counter. His mouth opened as his eyes shut tight. He made some movements with his lips and spat in the sink.

"Change you can count on."

His eyes opened wide, glossy and red. He swung his head up towards the kitchen window.

"Change I can count on."

He spat again, his voice growing weaker. He cleared his throat and looked over at the pile of unopened mail.

"Change we can all count on," he said with a nod.

The phone rang again. This time it was about twenty five minutes off. He could almost suspect it was something different, just like the un-opened mail, but knew he could be completely wrong. It kept ringing, and a sense of curiosity came over him. He pushed his hands off the counter and walked over to the phone on the kitchen table. He could hear the delayed reaction of the phone in the living room. Moving his hand toward the phone he waited for it to stop. His hand was slightly shaking from the nights adventures. An empty stomach and ten Ibuprofen tablets didn't help either. After the twentieth ring, just as his legs had lifted him off the carpet nine hours ago, almost without thought, he lifted the phone and put it to his ear. He did not speak, as that would acknowledge his whereabouts. Lawyers, police, creditors, bearers of bad news were things he could do without until after his departure. He held the phone to his ear. He listened and breathed in through his nose. There was a muffled sound on the other side. Someone moving around with their phone.

"Jaime? You there?"

"Hey."

There was laughing on the other side.

"I tried your cell phone, but someone else answered it. I won't tell you what they said, but it wasn't very nice, Jaime. I thought you might be in trouble. You OK?"

It was the Cody kids' dad, Justin Cody.

"I'm O.K., just relaxing. No problems."

"How about you?"

"I'm O.K. It's all good," Justin said.

Jaime lifted the phone up and went back to the kitchen window. He split the blinds to look outside. The two kids were still playing in his front yard.

"I'm looking at Zoe and Elias right now. They're playing in front of my house. Looks like there doing O.K."

"You don't want to know what I'm going through with this," Justin said.

"Oh, I know. You don't have to tell me brother."

"I'm doing everything I can to get them out of there. She's got a restraining order on me, and I can't go within a quarter mile of the place. Her lawyers can drag me back in to court if I do."

"I think they've been inside since yesterday. It's the quietest house on the block. I don't know when they'll be out again. They sometimes stay in for two days straight, with all the shades drawn. And when they come out, they are like vampires, shielding their eyes from the light. Smoke their cigarettes and go back in. I saw the Grand Dragon, the chief meth head out with...."

Jaime hesitated, not knowing what to call his friend's ex-wife.

"Yeah I know."

"They all came out smoking in front of the house with that other side kick who works on the junk Chevy Camaro out in front. He was spot welding something underneath it a few days ago, and I saw Zoe playing around in the garage while he was working away, sparks flying everywhere. I guess every meth house needs a car on jacks in front of it."

"I got Zoe to talk to me the other day," Justin said.

Jaime lifted his head back ready for something he could do without.

"One of those perverts put a web cam in the bathroom. Sex junkies. They sit in that house amped up for days and then crash hard. Meth, Meth, Meth, Sex, Sex, Sex, Sleep, Sleep, Sleep."

Silence. Jaime said nothing. Crazy laughter on the other side that could turn into rage or despair in seconds. Jaime listened. He had spent a lot of time letting Justin vent. He knew what Justin was going through on the other side of the line. True pain. Worse than anything he felt in his ribs.

Jaime shook his head as if they were face to face and his serious expression would telepath over the phone.

"You have to let this one ride, Justin, even if it hurts Zoe and Elias. You go to jail like me and it's all over. She goes to rehab, and you do time in prison. Zoe and Elias go to foster homes and you never see them again"

Justin said nothing.

Jaime new well enough to stay on his side of the street. He kept the video trained on the house and also used a camera with a high power lens to snap license plates coming and going from the house. There were at least a dozen. Getting more involved could turn violent. He had been there before, but he knew Justin hadn't. Meth heads, even in there infinite peace and desire to be left alone and consume everything, including themselves, always fell victim to the outside.

Even with the shades drawn, and little sound coming out of the house, they were spotted quickly. The multiple cars parked out in front were the first sign. Then it was the overgrown lawn and slowly the garbage that began to pile up. To Jaime it was an interesting sociological experiment. He must have started a book on such a subject, somewhere lost in the stacks.

His drinking got the best of him on occasion, but to see this was a frightening step into the abyss. He never thought of himself as an alcoholic, as his drinking was sporadic and had long dry spells between events. His first arrest required a visit to AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, but he stopped attending after his first session, as all the people present were in fact alcoholics, and worse in his eyes, ones that had simply quite drinking. He was more of an attack drinker, anyway. That sounded better too. Attack drinker. Once in a while, when the moon was full and the stars aligned, he would attack alcohol, and attack and attack until defeat. Last night was such a night, and he would take it easy for a while.

"So you're leaving for good?"

"That's right, I've got a confirmed flight to JFK, and that's just the start of my journey."

"Are you sure you really need to do that? All the way to Africa for a job? It sounds like an adventure, but that's a hike for a job. And what happens if something goes wrong over there; you get hurt or thrown in jail?"

Jaime thought for a second.

"Well, I'm going to get thrown in jail soon enough, so I guess you could say I'm fleeing justice. Those police that arrested me last time tagged my car from before. They ran my plates and presto, the lights came on. I was even under the alcohol limit and they still cited me anyway."

"But."

"It wasn't mine. I never touched the stuff. It was an ounce of Marijuana stuffed down in the driver's seat. My Lawyer says it was probably left over from the cars prior owner, and had been in the car for years. I passed the test. I walked the line. They just threw the cuffs on me anyway. Busted for DUI and threw in possession of a controlled substance with a song."

"That's not how it works in life and in the courts," Justin said with a sigh.

"Dealer, user, seller, buyer and all those innocent people washed up in the drunk tank every morning. They have different rooms for each of them at the county jail. A lot of people feed their children and pay their mortgages off the things you've done."

Jaime put Justin's comments on convenient disregard, a special section in his mind for special friends like Justin.

"Justin. I'm vacating this place, and everything in it is going to be stolen or confiscated. More than likely it will be taken once the house gets foreclosed. You can take whatever you want. Even all the clothes I have. My wardrobe is top of the line. Sell them at the flea market."

"Yeah but if I'm seen in the neighborhood or my kids see me, I get nailed in court. And this whole nightmare might be over pretty soon."

"Well this may be our last talk, so don't let some repo man or foreclosure bank clean out the good stuff. It's a take-take society. Here's your freebee my friend. I'm out of here in the morning, and I'm not coming back. The back door will be open and my car will be at DFW airport with the keys inside."

"You don't really want to turn yourself into a wanted man, do you?"

"I have no good choices. I now know what I consist of. He flipped through more unopened mail on the kitchen table. I'm paperwork. That's all. I'm no misfit, nutcase or violent criminal. I'm a paper chase, and if I leave, the paper gets put in a file and that is that. If I stay it will chase me around until I die, because someone will get paid for it, just like you said. Desperate times call for desperate measures," Jaime said.

"It just seems odd how they called you out of the blue. That just doesn't happen."

"I had my pilot information on maybe a dozen different pilot recruiting data bases. All that personal information floating around out there, along with all those passwords and user IDs, written down somewhere, ready for someone to steal. I suppose if I hang around long enough I'll get another one from the Dallas Fort Worth Correctional Facility, and that will be the only one I ever need. Maybe they've already sent one in the mail."

"So you don't suspect anything? Just taking a job like that. Running?"

Jaime leaned his head back, looking defeated as his brown eyes engaged the empty white ceiling. He thought about Karen and Premium Crew Leasing. He never put his information on her contracting website. He never even questioned her on how she got his information. His second arrest would have made it to the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration. They would have his information on both arrests, and could even revoke his ATP, Airline Transport Pilot License. Maybe there was a letter on the kitchen counter, buried in the pile of unopened bills. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Africa was a continent almost as big as North and South America combined. He could get lost down there for a long time, and Karen might have known that more than anyone.

"Not a thing, nothing," Jaime said.

# Queen of the Fleet

Entebbe, Uganda

April 15th

The Captain weaved and bobbed in the boxing ring.

"Come on, Come on!" He mumbled through his mouth guard.

His sparring partner, smaller, younger with chiseled muscular frame, danced around The Captain in a playful manner. The only one taking this bout serious was The Captain. Captain Ryan's cheeks were rosy pink, with blood pumping through the tiny veins clustered around the nostrils of his nose and blotched on his cheeks. It was a sign of his age, his drinking, and years of one kind of abuse or another. Sweat dripped down over his bushy red eyelids. He had a look of concentration and seriousness as if he was in a battle for his life. The Captain let out a punch, his meaty white freckled arms reaching out and hitting its target. His sparring partner moved back as the glove hit his right shoulder. His sparring partner looked like an actor taking a body blow in a slow motion film. He let off some steam and an audible 'oomph!' as The Captains punch met its target.

The Captains movements were noticeably slower than the younger mans, but he still had some force behind his punch. In his younger years, leaner and faster with better reflexes, he was a formidable opponent in any amateur boxing event and did his share of damage against the novices entering the ring for the first time. Back then he was the White Irish Hope as his aviator buddy's called him, but could never get approval to put that on his Navy boxing shirt.

"Hey boss, your phone, your phone."

An older Ugandan man with chewed up cheeks and cauliflower ears got up flashing a cell phone at The Captain. The Captain paced over to the corner of the ring and put his arms out to have his gloves untied, like a real contender. The Ugandan man, a fixture in the run down boxing gym, gave him his phone and draped a towel around his neck as he stepped down. His tank top shirt was completely soaked. This was his daily workout routine.

"Raymond Ryan speaking".

"Mr. Ryan, or do you prefer Captain Ryan?"

"How about Raymond today, and who am I speaking to, Sir?"

"This is Eric Wong."

The name Wong came out low to high with more emphasis on the ending than the beginning.

"I am responsible for the initial dispatch of our aircraft and operation. I have a flight for Monday, and will need your crew in place."

The Captain laughed, letting it be heard over the phone.

"Whoa! Let's back up that cart, Mr. Wong. They don't arrive until Saturday, and one on Sunday. I need to at least check them out personally, and then they will need twenty four hours rest, and I don't even know what, where, or the condition of the aircraft they're flying."

He held off any impatient remarks as the testosterone and blood pumped hot in his muscles and face.

"So, you're saying we have a no go for Monday?"

He heard a groan over the phone and what sounded like papers shuffling.

"I thought you had your end taken care of. Isn't this what we pay you for, Mr. Ryan?"

"The aircraft!" The Captain said.

"Let's start there. I need to see it. I need the paperwork. I need the logbooks. Once we get that straightened out, you get your crew!"

The phone disconnected. The Captain looked at his phone and sat down on a bench and pressed the towel to his sweaty face. The facilities were sparse with no showers and just a hose on a tap outside for a quick wash up. Free bananas and mangos were also included at no additional charge, but you had to pick them from the back grove. He would clean up at the hotel and then be downstairs for a drink at the bar before dinner. The Filipino girls would be waiting, and after an awkward introduction of Stand by Your Man it would be a good evening. He learned that telling them not to play it any more, after requesting in once, just made them more theatrical in wailing it out when they saw him. This had been his schedule for more than three months, and he had grown used to it and did not like disruptions. His phone rang again. He looked at the number on his phone.

"Whoa, it's Eric Wong again".

"Captain Raymond R. Ryan speaking."

"Tomorrow morning at 7 a.m., we will have your assistant pick you up at the hotel, Mr. Ryan. He will take you to the aircraft. We will have all the documentation waiting for you."

The voice this time sounded strict, but more composed.

"Please call me if there is any problem. We will be expecting the crew available within twenty four hours of arrival. If not, please notify. We will be in touch. Good day."

The phone hung up again.

*****

Eight in the morning the next day, The Captain's Nigerian body guard drove through airport security and waited in his car, 100 meters away from the aircraft, as The Captain walked out onto the open freight ramp at Entebbe Airport. The queen of the fleet, a Boeing 727-200, sat on the edge of the Entebbe freight ramp with the morning sun just coming up and beaming off the T-tail. The closest aircraft was an IL-76 four engine Russian freighter, a beat up Russian transport aircraft with white and blue faded paint. It was a poor effort to turn a military transporter into something softer and commercialized. Off in the distance stood another shell of an IL-76, long since raped of parts and too much work to haul off to a scrap yard. It was a common sight in more compromised and budget restricted parts of the world to see airframes rotting away in the distance at airports. Other UN aircraft in white and black, including a collection of Antonov AN-12's and a more modern looking 737-300 littered the ramp, waiting for their next UN sponsored charter flight.

The B-727 was conspicuously off to the side, as if deliberately being kept out of sight. Its T tail hung over the edge of the tarmac with weeds below and a sharp drop off to a drainage ditch and a fence line ten meters beyond. It looked like a thorough bred crouched in the corner. Standing next to the IL-76 it was a show pony. A classic spiffed up 65 Mustang at a car show, thought The Captain. Antiquated for sure, but it still looked faster than anything around.

"Now there's a real airplane. Booyaa!!" The Captain said.

It was supposed to be a cool thing to say, but sounded a little perverted coming from him. The main landing gear was as close to the edge of the ramp as possible, and it looked like the aft air stairs would extend into the dirt and off the ramp. The main tires were firmly up against the rear chocks on a downward sloping ramp. He shook his head. If it rolled back off the chocks it could end up in the ditch and possibly ruined. He jotted down the discrepancy in his note pad for his report to Eric Wong in operations. As The Captain walked towards the tri-motor machine, he began what he had done hundreds of times before, and many to this model, an external preflight. He wasn't going anywhere, just doing his inspection of the goods. It was clean for a B-727. No oil streaks on the engine cowlings, and no turbine oil dripping down from the center number 2 engine, a common sight on a B-727. He remembered climbing down the aft air stairs and getting a drop or two of turbine oil off the number 2 engine, just in the right place, ruining his white pilot crew shirt. He found it quite amusing in later years to see someone important on a VIP B-727 at the base of the air stairs unknowingly do the same thing.

As The Captain went around the exterior, he looked at the landing gear, and once more found them to be clean, almost too clean.

'Only the Japanese Airlines kept their wheel wells this clean,' he thought.

The tail number was N693EA. A US registered tail number. This had no bearing on the owners or operators; it just referred to the nation of registration. It seemed like a clever way to disguise its function as something different than a Chinese run operation. Rare to a B-727 was a winglet conversion and two outboard MD-80 engines. This was a modification, and the biggest engines you could retrofit on a B-727. There were no company markings or logos. The color was light gray and rough to the touch, not smooth like a commercial jet paint finish. It had a similar texture and feel of a military transport plane. Similar to the drab grey paint he had become so familiar with at his old P-3 naval air station assignments. This airplane either had not flown much, or it had someone devoting a lot of tender love and care. It had a cargo door modification, cut into the forward left side of the fuselage. This was an expensive modification where freight companies cut a cargo door in the forward left fuselage, a job costing into the millions of dollars. Sadly enough, like many things in aviation, an expensive modification could simply become obsolete by the ability of the airframe. B-727's were gas guzzlers, had limited range and required an extra Flight Engineer in the cockpit. They had quickly been replaced by the next round of second hand passenger aircraft like the 767 and 777. As he walked around, he noticed two square access panels measuring roughly six inches each. Not thinking much of them, he had either forgotten about them since he had stopped flying or they were another modification. He walked out twenty feet in front of the nose to get a full frontal view. He figured they had picked up an old B-727 freighter from an air freight company and modified it to their own specifications, or it was possibly used military surplus equipment discharged back onto the civilian market. But B-727's were never really modified for military use. B-707's were. They became AWAX aircraft, and a smaller version became the backbone of the US Air Force Tanker fleet, the KC-135. Even his old P-3 Orion had a civilian version, the Lockheed L-188 Electra. But B-727's were an intermediate range civilian workhorse for years. If it were used in some military role, any modifications could have easily been taken off and plugged with sheet metal. Damage repair work to the airframe was easier to spot by how it blended back into the skin. It wasn't uncommon to find sheet metal work here and there where a catering truck popped a hole in the fuselage. The Captain could point these kinds of discrepancies out with his discerning eye, but this aircraft had none of that. Just some odd looking paneling, and two very noticeable ones around the lavatory servicing panel on the right forward area of the fuselage, not far from the First Officers window. Back around by the tail section, he opened a side panel, pulled out a hand crank and dropped the aft air stairs. Of all the commercial aircraft ever built, it happened to be the Boeing 727 Engineers who were smart enough to install aft air stairs. McDonald Douglas had done this to some of their DC-9 and MD-80 series aircraft, but not to all of them, and it tended to be more of an afterthought. All B-727's had aft air stairs, and since then, no civilian airline manufacturers had installed them. They simply made no economic sense for the strictly commercial carriers operating out of modern airports. The air stairs added a degree of versatility when operating out of areas with limited staff or equipment. No waiting around for someone to bring the cumbersome portable stairs and no need for a gate. He walked upstairs toward the very heavy aft air stair door. It was a pressure door and had a large lever handle to open it. It swung open quite easily, but had the same feel of opening up a safe vault. There was no power on the aircraft, and The Captain pulled out his magnesium flashlight as he walked into a dark cargo bay. He flashed his light to the front of the aircraft. It was a freighter with no seats, a dark empty cargo hull all the way to the front bulkhead and cockpit entrance door. On the floor were metal tie down points, and as he shined his light down, he noticed four sets of lines, two on the right and two on the left going all way to the front of the aircraft. He reached down on the floor and saw indentations every eight feet. Putting his fingers in one of the indentations, he pulled up on one of the tracks. Sure enough the track lifted up off the floor in eight foot segments, and underneath where rollers. They were for rolling freight up and down the cargo bay. When you were not using them, you simply flipped the tracks over and you had a smooth floor surface. Military cargo planes had them, but these were above and beyond anything he had seen on a civilian cargo aircraft. Part of a cargo reconfiguration for a passenger aircraft was strengthening the floor of the aircraft. He had seen the inside of a few B-727 freighters before, and had successfully shut down one B-727 cargo operation. But the interior in this one was different. Everything was more detailed, strengthened, and all the paneling fit perfectly. There was no creased or chewed up sheet metal on the side walls. Everything looked showroom ready. It looked expensive and solid. The Captain put the floor track back down.

"Somebody really pumped some cash into you, baby," he said as if it were an old friend.

Along the inside of the cargo bay was another modification, similar again to a military cargo plane. Foldable paratrooper seats, similar to the nylon racks for seating troops along the sides of a military transport aircraft. They were common to military transport aircraft, but these were a special installment. They were new, sturdy and fit perfectly into the sheet metal cargo hull. As he walked down the cargo bay he noticed more access panels, and one with a combination lock on it. This panel was up towards the front on the right hand side, and The Captain made a guess it had something to do with the panels on the outside.

'Maybe a modified medical oxygen system for air ambulance use.'

It was not just a freighter, but fully capable of medevac and civilian transport.

He opened the cockpit door and shined his light in. A bit disappointed at first, he saw the standard old fashioned round dial gauges. There were no modern EFIS upgraded avionics package, just the old steam driven six pack gauges up front. There were three GPS heads, one on each side for the pilots, and another one on the center console. There was also an INS head, Inertial Navigation System, and a moving map display on the center console in full view of the Flight Engineer if he swung his seat forward. Looking it over it seemed a smart, logical setup. The moving map and INS, although the pilots would have to look down and back to see it, was in view of the whole crew and would keep the Flight Engineer in the loop as far as navigation was concerned.

This setup brought to mind something he remembered when training a Mongolian military crew on a B-727 many years back. They kept a dedicated political officer on board, a combination of a Navigator, Flight Engineer and radio operator. They sat in the back and told the front end crew where to fly. They instructed which heading to take. They tuned navigation aids, and were in charge of where the aircraft was pointed. The front end crew strictly flew the aircraft. They were not so different than robots trained to do checklists and basic flying. There is a common three word term in the flying world: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate, always in that order and priority. With this crew, the two pilots only worried about the first one. The political officer did the other two. It created a three ringed circus when training them in a Western environment, but it was well known that they were a special case, and he successfully crammed them through the program and sent them back to their odd world of flying with political officers on the flight deck watching every move of the front end crew. There were no reading newspapers or complaining about the company on those flight decks. It was the most controlled and restrictive cockpit environment he had ever seen. This modification, with the moving map, would be ideal for such a crew.

The aircraft was a manually operated machine with minimum automation. The crew's main focus was flying the gauges, giving more emphasis on what is known as raw data flying, and only using the moving map and INS as a backup. On the back side of the center console, between the pilot seats, was a hand held mike for passenger announcements to the cabin. Another oddity was a phone next to it. It could have been used for communicating with the cabin, but as he looked it over, it had no push to talk switch. Putting the phone up to his ear, he reached over to the Flight Engineers panel and flipped on the battery switch. Low pressure lights on the hydraulic and fuel boost pumps lit up amber on the Flight Engineers station and he heard an audible click through the phone speaker.

"Hmm. Wired to the aircraft battery switch."

No way to dial out, and no noticeable use for communicating to the cabin. He blew into the phone to see if he could hear anything through the speakers in the cargo bay. Nothing. He picked up the conventional microphone, and tried the same, this time hearing himself over the cargo bay speakers. This was normal, but the phone just seemed odd. A cord, a phone, and hotwired to the battery switch. He looked over the communications panel to see if there was something he had missed, but it was very standard with nothing extra or related to the phone. Possibly another modification that had outlived its purpose.

Older aircraft that managed to live through generations of new technology had many things installed and later removed or placarded as inoperative. Old outdated boxes for long gone navigation systems like loran or omega were not uncommon in these now antique aircraft. One hangover from the old days were three lights, a white, amber, and blue light that lit up when going over a beacon while en route with no radar coverage. They were used for reporting positions over a point, and the en route controllers would take a little aircraft and place in on a board with the aircrafts tail number and last position and time. The three lights were still there, as if a statement to the era these planes were from. It seemed ancient technology, but it was a time he remembered as a young boy; just like party lines were common, and he remembered picking up the phone and listening to the neighbors gossiping next door.

The log book, insurance and paperwork were all there, and there was nothing that grabbed his attention. There were no major maintenance checks coming due, and for a moment The Captain seemed a bit bored and disappointed that he would have little input or anything to do with a perfectly maintained aircraft. One thing that caught his eye was the aircrafts empty weight. He had forgotten his share of things on the B-727 since his flying days, and was trying to remember what the empty weight was on a typical B-727. The empty weight was a standard weight of the aircraft with all its equipment on board minus baggage, passengers, cargo and usable fuel. He remembered it being a few tons lighter, which meant extra equipment hidden somewhere. All the other weights were modified upwards by about two to three tons and approved by Boeing, including takeoff and landing weights. By simply paying Boeing more money, it was amazing how much extra performance they could create out of thin air. More money equals higher takeoff weights. You just had to pay extra for the numbers. He figured much of the extra weight must have been in the cargo re-enforcements and the floor, but it still seemed excessively high. He turned the battery switch off and made his way back through the cargo bay and down the aft air stairs.

# Hard Landing

Entebbe, Uganda

April 17th

Jaime poked his head through the First Class curtain, chock-a-block, with all the shades drawn. Destinations with corruption and poverty often filled First and Business Class. They were hidden cash machines for the airlines. War zones could prove even more lucrative with a willing and motivated flight crew. You didn't make money flying half a trailer park in Oklahoma City to Las Vegas. You made money filling First Class out of corrupt countries destined for impoverished resource rich countries. His flight from Amsterdam to Entebbe was no different. He grabbed a duty free brochure off a magazine rack on the back wall. If the Bursar or Senior Flight Stewardess spotted him milling around in Business or First Class, it would be an instant U turn to his economy class seat.

"HSSSS"

It was coming from somewhere in the dark cabin.

He heard it again.

"HSSSS", coming from one of the First Class seats.

A man's call button lit up. His silver business suit, brand new, tailor made in Kowloon, reflected off his plump cheeks and forehead, giving his body a majestic sheen. A light pink silk shirt clashed violently with his red tie, pulled out wide around his neck. The six thousand foot cabin altitude expanded his body ever so slightly, creating an image in Jaime's head of a weather balloon. His seat was half reclined. A roll of bills two inches thick sat in the bottle holder of his First Class seat. Duty free bags, Jaime counted three, were stuffed full on the floor.  
"I need to ease myself!"

The man's hands pushed down toward his bowels, and his head tilted up towards the flight attendant, the whites of his eyes bright in the dim light.

"Take this tray away. Send me the mother of the chicken! Not this appetizer."

She gently took away his plate and explained there were no larger chicken entrees.

"Sista, I say I need to ease myself!"

Jaime turned around and opened the curtain. Economy Class paid the fuel and operating costs. The cargo bays were another hidden gem, and it didn't hurt to transit through countries with dictators calling themselves kings and princes. People were standing in the aisles and packed in the economy class galleys. Standing was the most relaxing position. The trafficked poor, the budget backpacker, and those that were just stuck because they wanted to travel cheap filled the rear of the aircraft. He went back and got into his stress position. He had one more hour to go.

Two large women sat next to him. Three oversized people, side by side in economy seats on an international flight. There was trash on their tray tables, on the floors, and it created an operation to get back into his seat. In his life time, everything around him had doubled.

'Mc Donald's meals, cars, people, the potency of drugs; at least a double,' he thought.

Everything except the size of an economy class airline seat and a man's balls. They either stayed the same or shrank.

He had logged many hours deadheading and jump seating, and did his best to keep to himself and avoid talking to others on such flights. The two women were traveling together, and his years flying next to people gave him the sense that during the last hour of the flight they were tired of his silence and self-indulgence. This was the most dangerous part of the flight, where conversations with strangers erupted all over the cabin, and were sometimes impossible to avoid. The ones that erupted on taxi in to the gate were what he liked to call 'courtesy conversations,' and were quite common and expected. But these women were not going to let him go with a taxi in courtesy conversation. He avoided eye contact and pushed himself closer to the window while reading his book, but sensed they were training their sites on him. Once the levy broke he would be forced to engage in conversation, and he felt the pressure rising further and further as these robust, healthy women forced open his private economy class wall. His concentration on the only book he brought was gone, and he had already folded over a corner of one of the pages where his concentration had gone out the window. Giving up, he put his book away and looked over and smiled at the two women sitting next to him. Sister smiled back and sister number two leaned over with her own curious smile.

The KLM 777 parked at one of two gates on Entebbe's International Terminal. A Yello cellular phone advertisement in yellow colors with a woman's bright and smiling face greeted him. Jaime made his way through Customs, baggage claim and onto the front side of the Entebbe Airport. Immigration waved the flight crew through, not even looking at their ID badges. A ninety day visa gave him fewer hassles than getting into bars in his early twenties. His jeans and boots looked good, and his thick black hair was starting to grow down onto his neck, which he pushed straight back. His wrap-around sunglasses, black belt and a scratchy gold horseshoe ring with diamond studs did not give him the appearance of someone in the business of flying airplanes. With his backpack and a smaller bag slung over his side, he began walking, not really knowing where to go or pick up a ride.

The reception outside was alive, and his mouth instantly watered for something cool and full of alcohol. Africans, Chinese, Indians, the occasional European standing behind a guard rail waited for passengers as he promenaded out onto the open overhang in front of the terminal. A whole lot of people just seemed to be spending the day out in front of the Entebbe Airport. Stands selling drinks and groups of men hanging out, like it was the place to be. Older ones waiting for someone, possibly him if he went up and introduced himself.

A man asked him for his pen, and Jaime gladly produced his one and only Mont Blanc. The man looked at the pen and smiled back at Jaime.

"Yes, this is a nice one."

He nodded to Jaime with his one good eye and gladly put the pen in a bag with the many other cheap hotel pens he collected for free at the Entebbe Airport. Jaime began to raise his hand, but soon caught sight of the flight and cabin crew leaving the terminal. The pen collector hobbled off on his good leg, and Jaime instinctively tagged along behind the crew.

He enjoyed traveling incognito. It was a feeling of freedom, but freedom without the privileges he was so used to when flying in and out of airports as a pilot. He remembered the days before 9/11, when security was easy, and he would show up at the terminal gate with his Company ID in casual business attire. The magic of being able to jump seat in an airline cockpit almost anywhere in the world for free, and the sense of trust built on camaraderie and country was a thing he enjoyed briefly as a young Regional Airline First Officer, and now long gone and washed away in the post 9/11 airline world. He even had a key that said Boeing on it that let him into every aircraft cockpit Boeing ever made. He regretted leaving the key on his car key chain at DFW Airport. Thinking about it, it seemed to pain him more than the Mont Blanc pen.

He followed the crew down an open covered walkway and noticed a security guard with his dog happily squatted down relieving itself. The security man smiled while his dog squeezed out light brown material onto the green open lawn. Jaime smiled and waved; the security man happily waving back.

'I hope the whole country is like this, I will never leave,' he thought.

He continued on and noticed the crew bus and an open parking lot. Nowhere else to go, he stopped and set his pack down. Reaching into a side pocket, he grabbed a cigarette and watched the crew board a mini bus and leave. It was nice to be out of his old situation.

Back towards the taxi queue a man sat up against his vintage 1980s Toyota Corolla with a sign that said JAIME on it.

"It's pronounced Jaime, Hi plus Me. If you remember that, you'll never forget it," Jaime said as he finished off his one liter bottle of Bell Beer and wiped off the remaining dripping down his neck onto his shirt.

"You gonna give me a ride in your ride brother?"

The man held out his hand and shook Jaime's.

"Welcome to Entebbe, Hi-Me."

*****

The lights of the car shined through the windows of the compound. Adrian picked up his glasses off the nightstand and looked at his wristwatch trying to see the dimly lit hands. 2:10 a.m. He could hear talking out in front, the kind that seemed to have a hint of drink behind it. The occasional voice a few decibels above the necessary level was all too obvious. The car door slammed shut and he could hear the motor start and the car speed off down the dirt road.

Footsteps walked up to the compound and stopped. Jaime walked around and tried a locked door, and then moved back towards the front of the building. Adrian walked towards the door in the darkness. He had been expecting the American since evening.

"Must be the new joiner," he said as he walked out and turned the light on.

"Hello, is that you James? Found your way here, have you?"

He heard a faint voice.

"The J is pronounced as an H. Hi plus Me. Just think of it that way and you'll never get it wrong," Jaime said from behind the closed door.

Adrian helped him into his room. White towels were neatly folded on his bed as if it were his first day in boot camp. Adrian stood in the bedroom doorway and Jaime sat down on his single mattress bed, his backpack placed next to him. The bright overhead light shined down like an interrogation lamp.

"It looks like an army barracks, or some kind of community poor house."

"It is," Adrian said.

Jaime nodded in agreement.

'Economy Class half way around the world, a half drunken tour in an early 1990's Honda Accord with a back seat as accommodating as a hammock, and now this. Not bad at all, and a lot better than a Texas prison.'

"It was quite nice all by my lonesome. But now I guess I have to share it with you guys.

There is a package for you on the dresser. It has a phone, some contract paperwork, cash advance, and a few other things. There is the community room and a common bathroom, but the good thing is you can have your own personal toilet, as there are eight of them."

"Eight toilets," Jaime said as he ran his hand along the grey block cinder walls, amazed more than anything at his level of disappointment at the company provided housing, as Karen called it in her contract package.

Adrian moved back out to the great room and sat down on a big cushioned recliner. It was centered in the middle of the room with a television in front and a side table for books, coffee, and ash trays. Jaime followed him out. He had a pipe on the coffee table and a book which put Jaime at ease. For some reason books, or collections of books had a soothing effect on him.

"I think it used to be some kind of military barracks," Adrian said. It's a compound and has been here for some while. This may have been some kind of officer's quarters. If you walk around outside you will get a better picture of what it was before. There were four buildings here originally. This is the smallest one. There used to be a fence and a guard post where you drove in. The foundation for the largest building is out back, but things grow so quick here its slowly reverting back to bush again. Some locals, I think the ramshackle houses behind here, are growing mango and banana trees, so you have to look down at the ground to tell what was there before. Parade grounds too, where they must have perfected their goose step for Idi Amin. All gone now. It's just vacant land and this building."  
"It seems rather large for a group of officers. You could put a whole platoon in here if you wanted. And eight toilets are surely enough for thirty to forty men," Jaime said

Adrian smiled.

"Yes, but now you have two all to yourself. Now that's choice. You can stink a different one up every morning. I'm keeping four for myself, and one just for jacking off and writing on the walls. So you and the other pilot can fight over the other four."

Jaime nodded his head again, politely agreeing.

"Don't be too shocked, this is Africa. You're actually doing quite well by all standards.

Unless you're talking about some of the villa's behind twelve foot walls, or the five star accommodations The Captain occupies, most people struggle with much less, and broken down facilities are quite common. We have our own maintenance man, who also doubles up as a gardener. He's lazy, and doesn't do much, but I figure who care's, someone should have a good deal. Do nothing and get paid for it. I bought some plants and fertilizer for him to start the garden and he takes his time playing around with it. Really slow as it goes here. There is no need to rush anything. T.I.A. This Is Africa."

"You've spent some time here?"

"Eight years in Addis Ababa and I holiday in Thailand."

It seemed to make the point he wanted nothing more to do with the mother land. It gave Jaime an uneasy feeling as if he may be looking at himself someday. Adrian blew his pipe smoke and a cup of hot tea, that seemed to come out of nowhere, sat on his armchair. Jaime could see an earring and tattoos on his chest through his night shirt. The room had metal pillars, orange paint, and concrete floors. An odd mixture that gave the interior an abstract appearance as if someone with no taste in home décor was hired to hide what the place originally was.

"This reminds me of an old folk's home, a convalescent home I stayed at in St. Louis."

"Yes, I check myself into one of those once in a while too, just to get the hang of it," Adrian said.

"I'm telling you the truth. It was like this, but a converted old convalescent home turned into a crash pad for commuting pilots. Anyone who has commuted out of there knows the place. It was kind of depressing, but cheap and convenient. This place is more open though, and high ceilings, like a barracks. Maybe they housed a government security force here. It's close to the airport for quick dispatch, and they could keep everyone under their watchful eye."

"Yes," Adrian replied, looking at Jaime over the top of his glasses.

"And now it's our turn. There is one more coming in. He arrives tomorrow afternoon, and I suspect by his profile he will not take detours."

Jaime nodded, but did not see the need to apologize for his late intrusion.

"After that we should be positioned to start. We do ninety days on and then thirty off. Since we are the only crew, we are joined at the hip. I have no idea what happens for the thirty days we are all off on leave. The most I can figure is the aircraft is down for maintenance, or they are planning on hiring more pilots. But I get the feeling talking to Captain Ryan that it's a rolling work in progress. He boasts a whole lot, but I can tell he doesn't know much more than I am telling you now."

Jaime opened up a package and withdrew a cell phone and charger. A welcome folder with a copy of the contract, a guide to Kampala and Entebbe and information on vaccinations and the many exotic diseases one could find themselves with in the region.

"The phone seems to have no limit on it, at least as far as calling out of the country. I have made a few to the UK and Thailand with no problems. The Captain tried to set his own rules when I inquired, but was simply making things up as he went along. I think he was surprised to find out we were issued personal phones, and immediately tried to implement his own cost saving micro management plan. I put him in his place without trying too hard to rock his boat. He's a wanker if you ask me, a kiss ass to say the least. If you need something, I would bother him any time of the day or night. Just don't expect much."

Adrian got up and collected his pipe and cup.

"It's passed my bed time."

"Good night Adrian," Jaime said.

*****

Adrian woke up late, half past ten the next morning, and Jaime was already gone. Jaime's door to his room was open and his bags exactly where he had left them. Adrian took a shower and began his morning routine taking a seat in the great room, the open air former barracks converted with a small kitchen and living room furniture. He boiled some water for tea and sat down in his big chair with his pipe and tobacco.

"Already gone," he said out loud.

Jaime could have done a U turn and left, but he would not have left his luggage. The shock of living in a compound with a middle aged English man might have scared off a few men. Adrian looked outside and did a circle around the compound. A bit disappointed at his new partner's sudden departure, he settled into his seat again and lit up his pipe. He looked through the window and was startled to see the head of his gardener peeking through. The gardener seemed to come out of nowhere. He looked at Adrian, and as usual, he was playing around with the gardening equipment, still not really making much headway. There was a storage room full of junk Adrian had asked him to clean out, and nothing had been done since. As he smoked his pipe in his shower shoes it began to annoy him, and he thought of getting up and barking out orders. It was more the idea that this man thought he was genuinely getting away with doing nothing and had him fooled. If he simply came in and told Adrian he was not going to do anything for him except emergency repairs, he might have been more at ease. Adrian cooled off and tapped the cinders out of his pipe. It was quite easy to get wound up over someone doing nothing for next to nothing. His months of idling around doing nothing himself seemed to have given him a rather regal feeling of pushing the hired help around, and without Jaime around this morning, he was not prepared to slip back into his old routine.

"Maybe I should get a cat for this place. Or better yet, how about a monkey? I'll call him Nuts. Nuts the monkey. Fitting for this whole situation. Nuts the monkey to keep me from driving myself or other people nuts. Well nuts the monkey, wherever you are, I think I need some guidance from Captain America."

He reached for his phone and punched in The Captain's number. The Captain had gotten used to his calls and long stopped using his name when answering the phone.

"Yeeesss?" answered The Captain.

"Top of the morning to you Captain Raymond R. Ryan. Another fine day."

"Morning started at 6 a.m. for me. I'm almost five hours into my day, and already got a workout in."

"Well, good to hear it. Just thought I would let you know your American compatriot arrived last night. He's out and about, but I think he took his phone along if you wish to fill him in on the details. Or lack of details, shall we say?"

"Touché, touché," The Captain said.

Adrian put his hand on his chest, as if being run through.

"You know Adrian, when I see your number come up, it brings back a not so distant memory. It's about a business man, around your age and build, I ran into in Kinshasa. One of your own countrymen, by the way."  
"Not so."  
"True story. He worked for a minerals company. He liked his women as black and shiny as the night sky, but only on the cleanest white sheets. Two of them, but they had to be on the cleanest white sheets together, and all tangled up. Maybe he was one of those artsy crapsy, avant-garde geniuses. You can draw the picture in your head. He would jerk himself off all over them. Just spray them with his load. That was the finished canvas. Maybe they all went out and had a nice cup of tea when he was done. When I see your number come up, I think of that guy. Like one of those Andy Warhol masterpieces."  
Adrian had grown used to The Captains incendiary, racist remarks. For a man of his position, his ability to insult and degrade was of Olympian caliber.

"So anything new to pass on today Captain, or are we still all happy sitting here at idle thrust."

"You let me know if the last piece of the puzzle shows up tomorrow. The fun starts after that."

"And where are we going to first Captain Ryan? A three day layover in the Seychelles I suspect. I can't wait. I'll tell the rest."

"You'll get a full Intel brief, so just relax and have a cold cup of tea, shower boy!"

Adrian hung the phone up without saying goodbye. He threw his phone on the coffee table next to his pipe and cup.

#

# Bugisu Roasting Company

Entebbe, Uganda

April 18th

Jaime looked up at the book case walls in the upstairs library of the Bugisu Coffee Roasting Company. Most of the books were old and outdated. Books he had never seen before. One section was labeled Modern Literature, and was only half a shelf of books with titles he had no interest in.

'Modern literature,' he said to himself, perusing through a section that included a stack of Harlequin Romance Novels. It seemed new books in print were just another category of books, and older ones, some whose material had long since become obsolete, were of equal importance and still worthy of being read. He understood the classics, and there was a section of them, but the ones here were truly classics, printed around the time they were written. He could tell they were more difficult to read than the reprinted ones he had picked up at modern book stores. He pulled out a book on modern ship navigation printed in 1961, and an autobiography of a woman in 1940s Kenya. They seemed well written, and he sat down to read them both. It was approaching 8:30 a.m., and he felt a little guilty leaving the barracks, as he now called it, without saying anything to Adrian. He woke up promptly at 6 a.m. and could not get back to sleep. His jet lag was an alarm clock, and once he had burned through three hours of sleep due to fatigue and Bell Beer; he went from dreaming to being fully awake in a matter of seconds. The taxi driver gave him a card to his sister's coffee shop, and he shot out the door after a quick shower and made his way down town. The crew house was a ten minute walk to the Entebbe Airport and a five minute walk to the shores of Lake Victoria. He made his way to the Entebbe Kampala Airport perimeter road near a row of white tarp makeshift storage facilities used by the United Nations. The Boeing 727 he would fly was parked on a red dirt ramp next to a collection of Russian Antonovs, Ilutians, C-130's, MD-80's, a B-737 and Russian Helicopters all mashed together at different angles, some no longer airworthy. They were parked not far from the departure end of a runway now abandoned and only used as a taxiway. He could see the old terminal as well, where Israeli commandos had rescued a hijacked aircraft and its passengers from the PLO in the 1970's.

By walking it took about fifty minutes on the Entebbe Kampala road to the coffee shop. He picked up a taxi after walking twenty minutes and made it to the coffee house in another ten. If the streets were safe in the early morning it would make a good walk. He was big enough, and did not seem to invite any trouble. For his own protection he carried a Bowie Knife with an eight inch blade strapped to his belt and the center of his back. He decided to carry it on any outdoor excursions by himself, and felt in could come in useful for intimidating any unwanted company, just like that red neck in Dallas with his big wheel gun and hot wife.

The Flame Trees of Thika

He paged through the book, finding it hard to concentrate, and alternated between chapters in the ship navigation book. He looked around the upstairs room. It was an old colonial building with high ceilings and wood floors. It was well organized, with book cases along the walls and a small step ladder to remove the top shelf books. Solid teak wood, and the backboards were inch thick plank boards. The windows were grimy, and some of the glass looked original with dirt stains burned into them, making it difficult to see the street life below. He could make out a busy street with a drainage ditch deep enough to break ones leg if you didn't see it in the dark. A light in the center of the room with a single bulb hung down. The lady below was roasting coffee. She had the back door open and was burning coffee beans in an open burner creating an excessive amount of smoke. The beans went straight from the roaster to the grinder and into his cup. His coffee had a heavy body, oily feel with no acidity. He asked her to make it strong, and for the first fifteen minutes he noticed the freshness run away, as all good coffee does. As he read more, his eyes became heavy, and the muffled sounds from downstairs created a soothing and calm environment. He lied his head down on the big wood table, just to relax for a moment and clear his thoughts. He interlaced his fingers together and set his forehead on top of them.

Jaime opened his eyes after what seemed like a short snooze. The top of his hands were now stuck to his cheek where they had been for over an hour. The clock on the wall read 10:00 a.m. As he lifted his head up, he noticed a man sitting directly across from him. The man's fingers were crossed, and he had no reading material or anything from downstairs. Just sitting patiently with his hands crossed, like a cat at a window seal on a rainy day. Jaime moved his head side to side, his neck now stiff from sleeping on his hands while sitting in a chair for over an hour. He had logged many hours sleeping at the university library in this exact position, and it most likely contributed to his collection of C's and the occasional D that littered his college transcripts. An awkward feeling came over him as he moved his hand over his cheek feeling where the skin had molded itself to the contours of the back of his hand. The man smiled, and Jaime looked at him, still groggy and not happy about uninvited company.

"The Flame Trees of Thika. Catching up on your African Literature?"

"So interesting it seemed to put me right to sleep."

"That's pretty good given the kind of coffee she brews down stairs. Bugisu Arabica, Uganda's strongest. A German man once told me if you have one double espresso and go straight to bed it can act like a sleeping pill. But you can't mess around, just down it and go right to bed. I've never tried it since I usually stick to tea. My Name is Lin He."

"And mine is Jaime Diaz."

Lin He nodded.

"Yes I know. You're a pilot with an operation I will be involved in. I tried to call you, and the woman down stairs answered your phone. I think you left it on the counter. She told me you were here, and I figured I would stop by and say hello. I am an assistant to a man named Eric Wong, and he is the one who deals with the contractors and any governing authorities. A man by the name of Raymond Ryan is your point man, but if you need anything, I don't want you to hesitate to call me. I am hoping you will be with us for a while, and want you to be comfortable in your new position. I realize it is a big change, and don't want to scare you off before we even get started."

"So I guess you have all my background information. Probably no need to tell you my life story then."

"No, not at all. I know enough, but not more than I need to. I know you are about as far away from where you're from, so I want to make sure you don't get upset and leave. That has happened before, unfortunately."

"Well, this is quite the introduction. I'm not used to the office coming to me, unless they want to bring me up on charges or fire me."

"An odd set of circumstances brought you here Mr. Diaz, as is the case of many such people that come here."

Jaime looked at his coffee cup. It had about a quarter cup left and was cold.

"If I'm here then you must wonder what went wrong back home. Am I right? You must be aware of that. Something did not go as planned, and here I am, asleep, drooling on this table in a coffee house at 10 a.m. in the morning. And as you can see Mr. Lin He, I really do not care either. I am not the conscientious type. I'm here to make cash and fly airplanes. I will engage it whatever extravaganza you wish, as long as no one gets hurt and I get paid on time."

Jaime's words were sincere, but loose due to his current state and the suddenness of waking and being thrust into a conversation. He felt like a little boy that woke up and went down stairs to find mom and dad throwing a big party with lots of strangers over.

"Of course, but who is so pure? I'm not one to tell half-truths, and I too just want to make money and move on to more self-fulfilling things. But we are pre-programmed as such, aren't we. We must make the best with what is presented to us, and work together for the best results.

I come here myself now and then. It is quiet and gives one time to focus or contemplate. The book you have there.  The Flame Trees of Thika. It's a story of a different Africa. You have to fall into the characters and the time they were in to really enjoy it. Many people today would probably not even pick such a book off the shelf. It would seem too distant and old. So you must have a good imagination, Jaime."

"Well, my imagination and reading tells me the past was not so glorious for the local folks. Lots of hardship and violence."

There was silence and Jaime looked at the book cover, wondering how far he would get through it before folding a page over and setting it down for something else.

"Everything is changing. More so I believe than the colonialists or their byproduct on the front page of that book. This requires our due diligence. Africa is where human history began, and I believe where many things will be resolved. Now it is a race for resources, as right or wrong as that is. And do you know who is in the lead Mr. Diaz?"

Jaime thought for a moment.

"No, I don't know. It's not me, and not the guy who drove me around in the taxi last night."

"It's the Chinese. They are the ones we do business for, and they are underwriting this operation. They are all about business and will change the face of this continent."

Jaime looked across at Lin He's dark eyes, high cheekbones and soft, smooth complexion.

He was far smaller, yet more refined than Jaime. He had elegance, even in his speech, and he seemed well read.

"My point is rather simple Mr. Diaz. We work for them now. Not by choice, but by fate. That in itself puts us in a different rule book. I am sure you are wondering my own nationality. I grew up in Manchuria Province in China. But I am of mixed descent from many places. Pleasing many masters often leads to half success, which could be constituted as a complete failure. Part of one, but also estranged from it at the same time. So down here I try to behave as a Chinese, but not always treated as one."

Jaime nodded, understanding his dilemma. He felt like changing the conversation. It was too soon to talk about his new company to someone in management he knew nothing of.

"They say for every hour time zone change it takes a day to adjust. Ten hours would take you ten days to fully adjust. I have tested that theory many times, and you know what I have found? It is very accurate," Jaime said.   
"I apologize if the living arrangements are not up to your expectations. I'm sure you were a little disappointed after such a long journey. They are a temporary arrangement. If you stay with us, you will receive your own villa in a year. I won't put that on paper, as contracts are full of holes and often broken by the very people who write them. You have my word, which you will learn is far more binding."

Lin He handed Jaime his card.

"Call me anytime, with any concerns. You will never find a better job flying airplanes. I can assure you of that."

Lin He nodded his head, almost a bow.

#

# Playboy

Entebbe, Uganda

April 20th

Eric Wong rested his meaty head against Lily Chan's hard chest. His round, soft body, built strictly for an indoor environment, lay naked with the exception of his open silk pajama robe.

"Oh, I don't think I can ever satisfy you, Lily. You are so demanding. Hong Kong girls always are."

"I'm not a Hong Kong girl! I lived in Hong Kong, that's a big difference. My family is from Hunan."

"You're so strong. I love a strong woman."

Lily ran her fingers through Eric's hair, and stared up at the ceiling.

"How can I satisfy you Lily? I sometimes think about that all day. I feel so guilty afterwards, and you don't seem to care. And now I am so satisfied, because of you, and I feel cheated, cheated by my inadequacy."

He sniffled like a spoiled girl, enjoying his feminine posturing. Lily picked up his large head trying to peer down at it while lying on her back. She pressed Eric's head firmly against her chest.

"Of course, you can't satisfy me. I have no expectations you ever will. You are a foot note Eric, the receiving end of gay sex. I do as I choose to please myself. Not through cheap physical sex from soft bisexual boys like you. And don't ever call me a Hong Kong girl again! You're a little tea cup puddle, a sweet thing I need to empty out and clean up."

Eric closed his eyes as if satisfied that she had taken over with her harsh words. He enjoyed her mainland accent, and her strong words had a medicating effect on him. He only wanted more.

"Eric, I want you to be firm and in charge tonight."

She put her hands on his cheeks. He nodded slightly and moved his eyes up and down, saying he understood. Her hands were cool and bony; strong and in control.

"I saw your friends at the hotel."

Eric's eyebrows moved up.

"The American? You talked to him?"

Her hands pushed Eric's cheeks, and his lips pressed together vertical. His words came out muffled as she held his cheeks together, now seeming to play with his insecurity and feminine posturing.

"I just saw them. I looked them over while my supervisor, Zhao Xiang, and I were discussing the business."

"And?"

Lily gave a bored frown.

"They stuck to the script, nothing alarming. Captain Ryan and Karen Sandusky talked their typical egotistical crap. They think they are big shots in charge. That's good, and I think they will do fine. They will be good vanguards of the operation. They want money and control over their little sphere of influence. That big red haired pig kept looking over at me. I could tell what he was thinking. He's got a perverted side to him. That may come in useful someday. He's a red devil, an American Irish red devil."

"You're so confident Lily. I...."

Eric started the sentence but decided not to say more. He closed his eyes on her chest.

"Are going to see Lin He tonight? If you do, you have to be in charge. Do not show weakness in front of him, as you do with me, Eric. If you do, he will see the cracks and move in. He is very street smart, but he has nothing to negotiate. This is our operation. I still have no idea how he weaseled his way in here. He isn't even Chinese. I don't even believe he is half Chinese."

She was worked up and now almost angry, her breath more noticeable to Eric as his head moved slowly up and down on her flat chest, his ear able to hear her heart and lungs.

"As you said, he is very street smart. That is how he worked his way in here, Lily, and that is how he has taken over control of a part of this operation. There is always one of his kind that shows up in such places, and they work overtime to get what they want, even if it requires scheming and lying. If he can come through on his promises to your supervisors, he may prove even more powerful. I sense he has a desire for more power. He is very crafty, like a fox."

Lily broke in.

"My boss reports to the Communist Central Committee. He holds a lot of trust in my judgment too. He knows I have a record of doing what is right for China, and what is right for the people of China. He is not going to take orders from a outsider like Lin He. I will make sure of that. Someday I will be in his position, and someday I will sit on the Central Committee in Beijing."

Eric said nothing, feeling Lily's assertive character coming to surface.  
"We do not need his help."

Lily insisted, her words deliberately slow and spaced, sounding as if correcting a grade school student. Eric rolled to the edge of the bed, knowing his role playing had ended. Lily was insisting on answers he could not give her. He dangled his feet off the edge of the king sized bed with one hand against the four post bed with canopy overhang. His plump belly stooped over his private parts popping through his split silk robe. His head sunk down in a look of defeat and despair.

"I am a fugitive, Lily. My friends at the Mahjong table are wanted as well for laundering North Korean counterfeit US One Hundred Dollar bills through a Macau bank. We are fugitive bankers. We are even being pursued by the USA and Interpol. They could storm this villa with US Marshals and extradite all of us to the USA. My only hope is to do as the Chinese say, so my name and identity can be cleansed. As with any financial instrument we will need liquidity. That is being provided and promised by Lin He."

"Let me figure that out Eric. I know the right people in Beijing. We are both Chinese! You need Chinese Communist Party members helping you. Not a half breed, partially crippled foreigner."

"He is guaranteeing a free flow of capital throughout our network. No bank can last long without liquidity. They will fail without liquidity. And then we will be uncovered."

"With counterfeit money?" Lily asked, as she lay on her back and punched a pillow with a thud.

"This is only a temporary backstop insurance policy. Only to be used if there is a systemic failure of one of our banking partners, until we build the proper capital."

"Through more money laundering? Through this criminal's network of drugs and contraband from North Korea? Isn't that how you got in trouble the first time?"

"The Koreans having their fingerprints on everything is a necessary component in our safety, Lily. Beijing needs to be able to wipe its hands clean. The Koreans, both North and South have always been a clean cloth for such things. We are here as an outflow valve for excess Chinese capital. To be used as an instrument for the purchase of hard assets in Africa. We need Lin He and his connections, if for nothing else, to wash our hands clean someday."

Lily let out a pout and squeal, her back hand snapping at the down filled pillow.

"You can go back to China any time you wish, Lily. I must wait until my name is cleared.

The only people that can do this are your colleagues in Beijing. And that is why I must give Lin He access to the fifth floor of our network."

"Noooo!" screamed Lily. She shook her body, dressed only in black silk panties and blouse, back and forth in a violent fashion, her arms punching the silk covers, mattress and pillows with force. Her head whipped side by side like a teenage girl having a tantrum. Her short straight hair whipped side to side over her face.

"You can't. You just can't!"

"It comes from your own bosses, Lily. I have little choice."

"So much for a legitimate partnership. How can they trust someone who would kill his own father and take over his business? I want to see the red notes!"

Eric sat on the edge of the bed, now feeling sick. Lily's demands and behavior were giving him an ulcer.

"I want to see them now! Now, Now, Now!"

She hit the pillow again and again until feathers plumed over the bed. She kept hitting the pillow sending feathers up higher in the air. She was a tough Mainland Chinese country girl with a tantrum problem.

"You must remember, you are an operative, Lily. That is why you were instructed to listen in on Raymond Ryan and Karen Sandusky. That is why you are given the responsibility of monitoring all conversations among employees. That is why, Lily, you are sleeping with me and allowing me to engage in my favorite sexual fandom."

Lily let out a pout and a snivel in defeat. A tear rolled down the side of her eye as she sucked in through her nose.

"The red notes are of the most private matter. They cannot be found or discovered by anyone, ever. It is dangerous to even mention such things, Lily."

#

# Commander's Call

Kampala, Uganda

May 25th

Captain Raymond R. Ryan brought in special seats for his meeting. They were high back leather seats, not so different from a naval aviator briefing room on an aircraft carrier. The meeting was held at the Grand Imperial Hotel Kampala. It was easier to lease a banquet room and special order re-fabricated First Class seats from a decommissioned Boeing 707, than make the drive into Entebbe and deal with the uncomfortable and depressing setting of the crew house, better known as The Barracks by its inhabitants. This was a motivation speech, just as much as an information session. He also needed his own environment for a quick exit, avoiding any ongoing question and answer session, or the odd ball employee that might even follow him out to his car in the parking lot. Han, Jaime, Adrian and Toby took their seats. There were eight seats in total, and The Captain had the bright idea that this would be an expanding operations briefing room in the future. The Captain entered the room and placed his clip board on the podium.  
"Men, I want to tell you a little story about myself. I'm not going to bore you with my more than thirty years in the airline business, or my years as a Naval Aviator. I want to talk more about my time in Africa, and my recent arrival in Uganda.

When I got off the airplane, now over a year ago, and realized just how lucky I was, I got down on my knees and kissed the ground."

Captain Raymond Ryan nodded his head up and down in an overbearing, intimidating way, as if to say, 'even if it stinks, you're going to eat every last piece I spoon out in front of your face.'

"I've lived through the aftermath of de-regulation, two Gulf Wars, 9/11 and a major airline shutdown. By all means I've enjoyed the good times too, although short and fleeting. But the changes happening today in this business are biblical in comparison. And it's not going to just go away. This is where the next gold mine is ladies and gentlemen, right here in the heart of Africa."

The Captain came around the podium to get closer to his crew and seemed to stoop his shoulder over in a fatherly gesture, as if he was the team high school football coach kneeling down to get eye contact with his players.

"If you feel like chasing some job up in the Middle East then you just go right ahead."

He was now looking at Han more directly and glanced over at Toby.

"But you will just get your ass worked off for less money, and you'll hate where you're at. Even with all their oil wealth, they are no better off than everyone else, and it's a perpetual powder keg in that region. They just have to much face to admit it. If you stay down here a while, it will grow on you. It's an open frontier, hidden beauty, and nobody is tossing chump change at you. Free housing, free utilities, and you can stuff your whole paycheck in an offshore account if you want. I don't care what you do with your personal lives, and what you do or where you go on your time off."

He gave Adrian a rather disgusted look. Adrian's V neck tank top shirt showed his gaudy tattoos, and he had both earrings in, most likely just for The Captain. He crossed one leg over the other and held his hand out as if holding an imaginary microphone at a press conference regarding Tony Blair's views on WMD in Iraq.

"Fly the mission, get the job done, be professional, and then you can have a cold one and talk about what a hard-nosed airline manager you think I am. It may seem disorganized, but I guarantee you this is one of the tightest operations I have come across. The people spare no expense when it comes to safety and security. They don't cut corners and they expect the same from you.

Simplicity and flexibility is the key. We will give you your down time after each flight, and schedule days off as appropriate. But we need you always available to fly."

Jaime nodded his head in enthusiastic agreement. There seemed to be a home for everyone in aviation, somewhere in the world, just waiting for them, including himself.   
"We will schedule flights as we can, but we also need you on hot reserve. That means we need you sober, ready to go with an overnight bag on short notice. How short? The compound is 10 minutes from Entebbe Airport. A van will be at the compound within sixty minutes after we dispatch a flight. We want you ready to go within 1 hour of a phone call. We are a privately operated freight operation providing on time logistical support for the Shenjin Hospital Network. Currently, there are six facilities that we support. There are located in Kampala, Juba, Bangui, Kinshasa, Luanda and Lusaka. Each facility has its own specialty, from cancer treatment, infectious disease, neurosurgery, and the many disciplines in the medical field. It's our job to support them all. That includes keeping the supply chain open, transporting patients in need of care throughout our network, and aiding in any unforeseen event, including conflict and natural disaster relief. Our network covers most of central Africa. This is just a beginning.

There are plans for more facilities and they will all be interconnected, providing this continent with the best medical facilities in the world. When we're done, the Shenjin Medical Corp. will make Kaiser Permanente look like a first aid station. We will have a vast network of specialized and interconnected medical facilities with the best equipment, personnel and support. When the Chinese go in big on something, they mean it. As this region lacks much in the way of infrastructure, we will be the logistics to keep these facilities staffed and supplied. My job is to keep the wheels well lubed and make sure time critical cargo goes to the hospitals without hindrance. CADOC, Central Africa Document Checks function is smooth through flow of time critical cargo to our medical facilities. We are an on demand, freight logistics operation, and I have been assured by each participating country that network cargo and pre-inspection of goods between facilities will be honored. This is a time critical multi facility hospital network, and it's going to grow fast in this part of the world. You're on the ground floor of an exciting opportunity. Stay with us and you will move up quick in this organization. Leave and well; I think I've expressed my opinion on that. Help each other out, and work the mission, like one big happy family. That's all I ask.

Thank you, men. I have a staff meeting to attend to and my driver has another pickup. I will be available anytime. Adrian can vouch for that."

# The Flight Line

Entebbe, Uganda

July 30th

Jaime sat on the couch in the barracks great room with clipboard and pen, taking down notes on the latest Africa TV drama. After a few months, he had comfortably slipped into a flying routine, and had all but forgotten about his past in the USA. To the best of his knowledge, it was a Nigerian soap opera, as one of the men talked of Lagos Women. Everything about it was low budget and poorly filmed. A car scene looked as if it was filmed with a hand held camcorder from the back seat. A fight scene, as poorly choreographed as Captain Kirk's battle with the great lizard man. It was African tribal TV drama, and his new girl watched them religiously. Jaime was just as mesmerized, but more so by their amazingly low quality, and the idea that millions were excited about them. How could something so low quality, so cheap, and so poorly performed be followed by millions? As Jaime watched the fight scene, his arms moved up and down mimicking the actions of the dueling couple as they fought it out on a back alley dirt road. They were fighting over a woman, a woman who needed more than one man to satisfy her needs. One of the men had grown suspicious of her whereabouts, followed her, and came to the conclusion she was cheating on him, which turned out in the end to be a big misunderstanding.

'So this is where all the B movies have gone to. They've all migrated to Africa.'

Being a C plus University of Arizona film school graduate, it was a profession that sparked his interest. The ones he watched as a kid must have been filmed in the early to mid-1970s, and they declined quite rapidly after that. With the advent of videos, and the eventual decline in small movie theatres, the low budget B movie seemed to disappear, and with that, any dreams that he could make an easy break into the film business. YouTube destroyed all his hopes. Everyone became a B movie actor, and the saddest thing was, no one ever admitted to it or seemed to have a script. Reality TV was even worse, and drove him deeper into despair.

There was no hope in the film business, and launching himself into a pilot career became a sensible solution.

Between his sleeping, round robin flights, his coffee shop visits and treks down the Entebbe Kampala Road, he tried to catch up on his favorite Africa dramas with his girl. Once enough money came down here, they would surely be washed away with big production power. The Nigerians called their low budget incarnation Naliwood, hijacking the same concept from the Indians and North Americans. It seemed every country with type A blood, lots of corruption and banks as common as convenience stores had a thriving film industry. To Jaime, it got him more depressed than his financial failures, which was now a house fully burned to the ground. He could see a gold mine staring him in the face if he had ten million in cash to go high budget.

Pilots seemed sacrificed so much trying to get into flying, only to spend the rest of their careers trying to figure how to spend as little time in the cockpit as possible. The Captain told him pilots were like pigeons, and you had to throw rocks at them to make them fly. But Jaime figured The Captain said a lot of things at the bar in the evenings he shouldn't say.

Africa soap operas sparked some hope for a future in film. Screen writing, directing and producing Africa TV drama, he figured. He just needed the backing and connections to launch into a second career, after he hung up his flying career for good.

He went through in his head the characters and what their motives were, and what would potentially play out the next day. He jotted characters down and sketched out his own screen play. Looking at it from a director's point of view, he came up with next day's events, which always turned out to be wrong.

"Well, well, well, look what we have here. Another productive afternoon I see Captain Diaz."

Adrian peered over Jaime's shoulder. Jaime glanced up, and then glued his eyes back to the television set. Adrian had a blue flight suit on and was cleaned up, fresh out of the shower with polished boots. He also mustered up his own name tag with company logo and wings.

'Psychotic,' Jaime thought.

"So what silly show are you watching today?"

"This is a new one. It just started."

"You don't say," Adrian said, going along with the game.

"This woman is really getting interrogated by her new mother in law to be. She wants her son to get her pregnant before they tie the knot. Can you believe that? And she has passively agreed to it, like it's no big deal. It's very arousing. She says none of the men in her family have a problem planting their seed, so she is fully confident they can get their business done in short order. But there is one problem. The son was laying in bed and all of the sudden a bolt of lightning shot through his head."

"A bolt of lightning you say?"

Jaime looked back at Adrian who had a look of mockery on his face.

"Yeah, a bolt of lightning. I think it's some kind of witchcraft curse. So now he doesn't want to be with this woman. He doesn't want to plant his seed. I wish I could impregnate her. She already said it's no problem. But the lightning bolt and the curse on him? Man, that's in need of a serious witch doctor."

Jaime shook his head.

"Well, we are off to the airport, and to be quite honest, Jaime, I am very happy that Han will be our Captain tonight."

"Tough luck, brother! I have a party to go to tonight. Eric Wong is throwing one at his villa bashes. He throws them every week. I'm bringing my woman with me too. So you have fun getting the life sucked out of you at 35000 feet."

"You and big mama are going to a party with the den of thieves."

Adrian pulled out a picture from his wallet and showed it to Jaime, slouched over on the couch.

"That's my girl. She lives in Addis Ababa. I don't know what the hell you're doing with that bulldozer you ran into on your flight over here."

"That's my other girl in Thailand."

He handed Jaime both pictures, and they were slightly stuck together.

"Nothing like those Ugandan refrigerators you're hanging out with."

Jaime looked them both over. They looked like teenagers. It gave him an uneasy feeling, as he always looked at his women as aged equipment that should grow rougher with time and have more and more problems, as he did. One's with kids and no man around made perfect sense, as they came with the full package of problems, a droopy yet meaty ass that could support his weight, and he found they really liked sex and made little qualms about it. He handed back the pictures, no more interested than his high school days.

"Yeah, but my woman really has an appetite. She needs to be satisfied. It's a real operation for me. It's like this big tribal woman that wants her son to impregnate her new daughter in law to be before the marriage, or these two men having a galactic battle in the streets of Lagos over their women's infidelity. It's stressful but quite arousing. I think that is a recurring theme in African Drama. I call it Erotic Stress."

Adrian picked up his flight case, which he had set down on the ground behind the couch.

"I can only take so much of you. We will be back on Tuesday. You do know what day it is don't you Jaime? That's in three days."

Adrian held out three fingers and walked out the front door.

Who would buy their own flight suit and wings for a no name African freight company? The Captain once complimented Adrian on his button down professional appearance in front of Jaime before a flight, telling Jaime he should lead by example. Adrian saluted The Captain in return, and Jaime almost thought the Captain was going to shed a tear at such a display of personal respect. Jaime dressed in his jeans, boots and cleanest shirt when flying. The Captain even promised to deliver similar uniforms to all crew, as he dotted on Adrian's uniform and Jaime's salty appearance.

"Why are you saluting The Captain in that flight suit? You don't even respect the man," Jaime asked Adrian once they were alone on the flight deck.

Adrian said nothing, working through his preflight.

"I once met a wanker that showed up to simulator training in full uniform. I guess he didn't get the memo that it's always casual business attire.

"Long hair, jeans, scruffy cowboy boots and a gold horseshoe ring in not casual business attire. Company policy is casual business attire, which this flight suit is," Adrian said.

Jaime took his jeans and shirt off and put on a matching pair of silk Pajamas and slippers he had been given as a gift from Eric Wong, after Jaime had complimented Eric's loungewear at one of his house parties.

"You see Adrian, now we both have uniforms on. Who is going to be more comfortable flying all day and night? You in your queer jumpsuit, or me in my Custom made pajamas from Eric Wong. If one of those flight suits shows up at the crew house with my name on it, it's all your fault, Adrian."

Adrian, with his jumpsuit and barely legal slum girls rubbed him the wrong way. His dislike of the finer points of African tribal trash drama was even more annoying.

The sliding door slammed shut and the driver walked around the back of the minivan to load the bags.   
"He's delusional, you know that, don't you?"

Han looked over at Adrian and smiled.   
"Who?"

"Jaime, I'm a bit worried about him."   
"Has he screwed something up in the cockpit?"

Adrian shook his head back and forth as if trying to choose between two flavors of his favorite ice cream.  
"Not really. He knows how to fly. But he just doesn't seem to care about anything. He's so nonchalant. And what's with this coffee shop I've never heard of? You know he's meets someone from this operation there quite frequently. A man named Lin He."

"Sounds Chinese. What is so odd about that for a Chinese operation?  
"It's just I've never heard of anyone in this operation named Lin He, and you would think he would come around the crew house and say hello to us. Jaime says he can contact him for anything he needs. Maybe it's a bunch of rubbish, like this coffee shop he talks about and his African TV drama.

Toby will be meeting us at the airport. He has his own parking space there. It must be nice being based in your home town. He should just stick this job out until the very end, instead of going for the glory of some big name airline, no pun intended Han."

"None taken," Han said.

They cleared airport security and were dropped off at the freight ramp and the usual cargo loader was loading wood crates and containers, along with a fueling truck and maintenance crew readying the aircraft.

"I want to show you a few things about this aircraft that you may find interesting Captain Han. It's highly monitored. That is why I didn't want to say any more in the van. Just like Jaime's elevator is not going all the way to the top floor, I may be a bit on the paranoid side myself. But you can give us both the benefit of the doubt."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Han asked.

"I think we're always being looked at or recorded, definitely in the aircraft, and maybe in the van and the compound. I wouldn't think into it too much. Some operations have a paranoid, micro managing culture about them, and I'm sure the Chinese are no different. The problems arise more when the operations become too big and impersonal. I'm not talking about your standard cockpit voice recorder. So anything I show you today, please don't speak up about it. Just watch."

Toby showed up late, and settled his big jovial frame in the right seat of the Boeing 727 cockpit.

"Pitot heat, window heat, when do we eat? That's all there is to it,"

Toby roared out a laugh.

"And Adrian, if you could get that coffee I ordered, and clean the bugs off this wind screen. Ha ha ha..."

"I'll get you your coffee. I'm no slacker you know."

"I know you're not, Adrian. That is my job."

Toby pointed his finger at Han sitting in his newly minted Captain's seat.

"You get all the responsibility, and you, Adrian, get all the work. I get all the food."

Toby let out another roaring laugh.

"I like this job. Easy money. Easy money my friends."  
They taxied out to the end of the runway and were ready for departure. Han looked back at Adrian sitting at the Flight Engineers station, and Adrian held his index finger in the air. He reached down to center consul to the transponder box. They had a preset code from the ATC clearance in the box for radar identification. He wrote the numbers down on a small note pad and then turned the digit knob and put four zeros in the four code box. This would prevent Air traffic from identifying their aircraft and call sign on radar. Adrian put his finger on his lip as if to say shh, and then pointed to the cockpit voice recorder microphone on the overhead panel. Han hesitated to take off with the wrong code, but decided Adrian knew more. And this was Africa, not London Heathrow or Seoul Incheon. They departed and Entebbe picked them up on radar. A positive ID, with no transponder code.

*****

The next evening, the three sat in one of the world's most expensive cities on the planet, Luanda, Angola. It was also one of the most impoverished, but for those just paying a visit, or riding on top a river of new found oil and mineral wealth, it was a paradise, and more expensive than Moscow. The sun was setting over the bay of Luanda as they drank Star beer and chatted up their new aviation adventure on the balcony of the Hotel Presidente. The aircraft would sit until mid-morning and then a long day with a final flight back to Entebbe and home before sunset. The approach over Lake Victoria would be on request, even if it cost more gas according to Toby, as he had to show them his farm.

"The transponder function is kind of interesting. It doesn't always work, and I've changed it in flight a few times only to get yelled at by Air traffic control. But we only have a spattering of radar contact down here. I discovered it when Jaime put the wrong transponder code in while receiving our ATC clearance. I swear I wrote the correct code down, and it was one digit off. I started playing around with it afterwards and discovered a couple of times it didn't matter what we had in the four digit box. We kept coming up as radar contact by ATC."

"What would be the purpose of such a function?"  
"It means it could be remotely tuned by someone else. But it would not really have much function, unless you had people on the ground pulling the strings. And we don't have those kinds of facilities," Adrian said.  
"You mean a bona fide dispatch and flight following center?" Han asked.   
"You might have toured your network command and control center at your last airline," Adrian said.

"Yes, of course the screens filled the walls with a full map of all our aircraft and their status. They had every aircraft and its exact location in real time. If there were any malfunctions in flight, it would come up on their screens, instantaneously. If Captain Ryan worked for a major network airline in the USA, he would have spent some time in one," Han said.

"What if Captain Ryan was building his own network control center down here, with a sealed cargo network and aircraft flying in from every corner of the world? The only difference being, he didn't really want the hassle of local authorities picking through his incoming and outgoing cargo," Adrian asked.

"I figure supplies coming in and hard assets being pumped out, if it is a Chinese operation. IV liters and bandages coming in and gold and diamonds going out," Toby said.

"The transponder is not the only gizmo on this fancy freighter. Everything is beefed up and spotless. I have seen old Boeing 727's, but this one is in impeccable condition. In the avionics compartment, there are extra fans for a stack of modified avionics equipment. There is one for Satellite Communications, but we have no way of using Sat Com in the cockpit, unless the phone with no function is a Sat phone. There is a box I took the serial number off of and traced it back to Boeing. It's a flight data recorder that records every parameter of flight and downloads it to operations. Everything, including any malfunctions no different than a modern Airbus or Boeing quick access recorder, QAR system. And the environmental system is a jungle. The cockpit Oxygen system is standard, and that is where it stops. There are four bottles for a modified system, each neatly colored, green, blue, red, and yellow. It's like someone from the hazardous materials department went nuts with a paint can. You can't get access to the inside panel either. I thought it might be some fancy scenting system for the lavatory, but it turns out that disgusting blue water in the toilet is the same as always. I was thinking we could break the control panel open and hook Toby up to it and see what happens. We can start with green. How does that one feel Toby? Oxygen? Then yellow. Raise your hand if you're getting that fresh lemon scent, Toby. And here comes blue. Don't pass out on us, we still have one color to go. I can have Han standby with the fire extinguisher for the last one," Adrian joked.

"No, we can leave that one for Captain Ryan," Toby laughed.

"I called him, and he said the avionics compartment was off limits. He gave me the riot act on not following my preflight procedures, which does not cover opening the avionics compartment.

It's the first time I have been told not to look for discrepancies on a preflight. The Captain just does whatever he is told from above," Adrian said.

"The transponder function could mimic another aircraft. By flying in trail of another aircraft or crossing flight paths and exchanging information. Such as an aircraft flying in from outside the network," Toby said.

"Yes, but you would need two matching serial number aircraft. And I just don't see why you would need that down here. You would have to be a large international long haul operation with a busy network. Swapping out network checked and cleared cargo with international flights coming in from another continent," Han said.

"If you had matching serial numbers and paint schemes it may just work. The Captain and CADOC would have a playground down here, swapping anything in and out of this network by exchanging aircraft flight plans and transponder codes," Adrian said.

"It's just not necessary. You can pretty much get away with such things without such a hassle. If you pay the right people in government off," Toby said.

"Then why?" Han asked.

"An exciting, forward looking future is my guess. This part of the world won't stay without radar coverage forever, and could even jump straight to satellite coverage. It is a sea of black, dark uncontrolled airspace down here. You can go off airway for a long time and not be seen by anyone. The only discrepancy might be your expected time of arrival. Most controllers down here immediately ask for aircraft registration and type when you check on. That is so they can bill the airline for airspace use. They really don't care much more than billing for airspace. And as far as frequencies, all you need are a few good ones in your head. Emergency 121.5, air to air in-flight broadcasting on 126.9 and HF 11300, which seems to be used everywhere in Africa," Adrian said.

"Your other best friend in Africa is TCAS, Traffic Collision Avoidance System, so you don't slam into any Russian traffic off airway and down low," Toby said.

"I think this is a test bed design, for a brighter, more controlled and monitored future. If this operation grew, really had legs and expanded, just like so many things in China these days, their biggest asset would be a tightly sealed network of unchecked cargo with a steady stream of aircraft coming and going from abroad with unfettered access as well. I keep telling myself not to dislike The Captain, that maybe through all his boasting there are a few half-truths. This may be one. A bright future for all of us," Adrian said.

"And the environmental unit?" Han asked.

"All I can think of is a built in system for administering patients with gas through the Passenger emergency O2 system for medevac flights. I checked the pressure on the bottles and they are empty and sealed. Dummy bottles for future use," Adrian said.

"Rendition. For hauling prisoners someday. Maybe for medevac, but also for carrying the unwanted. Future Chinese rendition is my guess," Toby said.

# Kiwi

Entebbe, Uganda

August 3rd

Jaime wasn't in when Han and Adrian got back from their three day trip, but Han saw him in the morning when he woke up. Han peered out the front of the crew house and could see his silhouette up the road under a tree. It looked as if he may have slept outside. Jaime smiled and waved at Han to come up, but it wasn't a smile of someone rested and relaxed. It was one of a stranger wanting to tell him something. He put on flip flops and walked up to the tree where an old guard post about the size of a telephone booth used to be.

The right side of Jaime's face was scraped up and his lip was cut. His shirt had a red dirt blend to it, as if he'd been rolling around on the ground. Jaime's hair was black and straight, but fell down the sides in a less than elegant manner with lots of spit ends, and his hands were rough and sun beat with cracks and lines around the nails. He was no wonder of fitness, and he was no city boy, but he stood over six foot two and did not look like he would move much after the first punch. His shirt was torn at the elbow and there was dirt and spots of blood on the cloth. Someone got hurt, and Han didn't think it was him.

"What happened to your face?"

"I fell down," he said smiling, as if he knew what Han was thinking.

"By any chance did you get beaten up on the way down?"

"There were four of them, so I guess I took some punishment."

"Anyone hurt?"

He shook his head and lit a cigarette as he lay back in the dirt. It was quiet and peaceful at this time of the morning. They both sat on the hill and said nothing for a while as the sun rose into another hot July morning.

"It happened before. May 5th, I remember the date because it was Cinco de Mayo."

"Mexican Independence Day," Han said.

"No, but I guess it was as good an excuse as my friend and I needed to get lit up at Kennedy Park in Tucson, Arizona. A fight broke out and drifted our way. Local gangbangers who aspire to prison and putting up drywall. One of them pulled out a stiletto and stuck my friend six times. He didn't even drop to the ground it happened so fast. I walked him out, and by the time we got him to an ambulance his boots were full of blood. His heart stopped a couple of times, but he lived. The doctor told him all the alcohol in his system might have kept his heart from pumping him dry and putting him in shock and permanent cardiac arrest before he could get to work. He showed me the wounds a couple of months later, little white scars where the four inch stiletto went in. I was at my girlfriend's house and a fight came my way last night. That's how trouble is sometimes. It just drifts into your life like a breeze. I did some damage, but I had to get out of there, so I ran when I could. Otherwise I would probably be dead or someone else would be."

Jaime pulled his bowie knife out and carved up the red dirt between his legs. It fit into Jaime's hand well, and his size and build made them a good match.

"I walked back here. It took me about two and half hours down the old Entebbe Road. Have you ever walked down the old Entebbe road?"

"No."

"You should. You can learn a lot walking that road. Walk it all the way to Kampala if you wish. You'll see things you never imagined. But don't drive it. You've got to walk it. I've been sitting out here the past two hours just thinking about a whole lot of things. But not that fight. I'm over that, and I don't have half a dozen stiletto pokes in me."

"What's on your mind?"

"Kiwi."

"Who?"

"The evening you left, I went to a party at Eric Wong's. He and his Hong Kong buddies sat around playing their game with the little white chips."

"Mahjong," Han said.

He sat at the table all night, the center of the party. He even asked about you, and when you were going to come by and join the party."

"I'm flattered."

"Don't be. Not with Eric and his company. I think it could prove dangerous. Someone else showed up, and I watched him after I lost interest in some imported Japanese eye candy. Entertainment girls for Eric's parties. He did some business from a back room. I would say distributing hospital pharmaceuticals to local dealers."

"Who?" Han asked.

"Kiwi," Jaime said.

Jaime's eyes were glossy and blood shot around the sides, but he looked like he was built to take such punishment. He spat on the ground.

"That surfer boy load master that meets us at the aircraft. The one who doesn't talk too much. The Kiwi."

Han thought for a moment.

"You mean, Seth Howard. Yes, I think he is from New Zealand. He seems like a nice guy, and he does look like he belongs out on the North Shore of Hawaii. Good looking too. No blond haired kids where I'm from."

The sun rose and a bead of sweat rolled down Jaime's cheek from his temple.

"There was something about him I didn't like the moment I met him. When two people meet, often something can go wrong in the first few minutes. Adrian and I just joke around, but with Kiwi it went wrong fast. Maybe with you and him it went fine, and so he became Seth Howard from New Zealand. But to me he's someone I call Kiwi, because I know his name is made up.

On a recent flight out of here, when we had everything secured and ready to close up for departure, he waited outside the flight deck door for us to get into our seats, strap in and start running checklists. He wanted command of the aircraft up until we were safely in our seats with our shoulder harnesses on. I even saw him help Adrian with his shoulder harness, and Adrian even thanked him as a real gentlemen. But I'm in command, you see. And I don't need him on the flight deck when everything is done, and I really don't care if someone has their shoulder harness on until we line up on the runway for takeoff. It was as if he was securing us down like his cargo in the back and making sure we had nothing to do with it. The next flight I sat outside the cockpit door and made sure he didn't come in. I made it clear that his job ended at the cargo door. I know he wanted us all in our seats with our harnesses on, so he could shut the cockpit door like a vault. I told him we have it from here, and basically booted him off the aircraft. I drew a line as to who was in control of the aircraft. He knew that, and I think it really pissed him off. As he turned around, this blond haired New Zealand surfer boy, I noticed something. It was on his elbow."

Jaime pointed to his elbow, with the shirt ripped and bloody, as if to just discover his wound.

"It looked like a spider's web, but one that had been erased. It was an old tattoo. A prison tattoo. I went to a library in Kampala and got hold of a computer. I paid the library 100 dollars to use it the whole day. I told them I had a lot of catching up on some personal contacts I had lost. I looked up Kiwi. I put in all the key words. It took me six hours to find him. I knew his name wasn't real, so I never searched it. I put in everything else I could think of, and over time he appeared in all that sea of information. The Denver Post eventually said, OK, we know Kiwi. Here he is, right here on our front page about eight years back. And there he was."

Jaime pulled his wallet out and laid on his back and shoulder as he reached in for a piece of paper. He looked tired and stressed as he picked into his wallet.

"Here he is."

Jaime handed Han the paper.

It was a black and white print out of the Denver Post's front page.

Biggest Ecstasy bust in the State of Colorado.

There was a picture of a woman with DEA on her vest walking out the front of a house holding an M-4 assault rifle by the strap. She was holding it as if it stank or was toxic. It was surly a confiscated weapon. Beside this picture was an inset with a picture of Kiwi and a different name.  Jerome Williams. New Zealand national arrested with over two million dollars street value Ecstasy in his house. They had been tipped off by a large internet order of empty capsules, and had been doing surveillance on the house for a couple months. Han sat there and read the article. Jaime smiled as if vindicated.

"Like I told you, he's a real punk. The DEA in the USA are not stupid. You order things over the internet like pharmaceuticals products or empty capsules by the thousands and someone finds out. We're the biggest consumer of illegal drugs in the world, and a lot of people make a career out of busting distributors."

Han put the paper down. Numbness filled his face. It was another world, and as he looked around, it sank in after a little more than three months in Uganda that he was in a world far gone from the old one. A place he should not have come to. He tried to play the devil's advocate.

"So he made a mistake and did some time for it, and is just moving on like you and me. Right?"

"No! He's Kiwi. Don't put a different coat of paint on him. He had a fully loaded M-4 with a thirty round clip in it ready to go. He had a Glock automatic and a 9mm H&K under his girlfriend's bed. They confiscated almost a thousand rounds of ammunition out of that house. He even got off easy. Only four years in a Federal Penitentiary because he made a plea bargain and placed most of the blame on his girlfriend. It was her house, and her name was on everything. And why is he here? To be a loadmaster? Do you want to be loadmaster in Africa after nearly offloading over two million dollars of ecstasy and doing hard time in a Supermax Prison in the USA? It says something. It says something about this place, this operation. And I think he knows I know about him. That's why I'm talking to you out here under this tree. I don't trust that compound anymore, or the cockpit of that aircraft. Even our unlimited phone service seems odd. Just call away any time of day. It's on then."

"Maybe I will just ease out of here as soon as I can. Another month and move on back to Asia. The job market is pretty good, and I have the right credentials."

Jaime smiled.

"Yeah, maybe you should. It's not my business, but how did you mess things up to the point of ending up down here to begin with?"

"My dream job collapsed before it even got going and I couldn't afford to be out of work for too long. A lady from a contract company happened to be in town when the whole thing imploded. She pointed at this for some pretty good reasons."   
"Karen Sandusky. She called me too. Call enough contract pilots in the USA and they will have a few choice words about her and her husband's company. It's funny how she gets hold of people like us. It's almost too coincidental. She could have called any loser she wanted to. Funny how she found me," Jaime said.

Han gazed down at the crew house. It was older, maybe late 1960s, and from a distance did look like an army barracks. Most building architecture in Central Africa seemed to fall into the Colonial period, the 1960s and 1970s, like its airports, or brand new construction from its recent economic boom. 'If walls could talk', he thought.

"The sealed containers. I want to get into them and see what's inside. We haul a lot of different cargo, bulky medical equipment, even patients. But there are also wood crates and sealed containers that are off loaded and on loaded between our aircraft and an IL-76 every 7th stop in our ring around the Congo flights. I'm curious what this Chinese medical network is really hauling in those sealed containers. They are usually marked as temperature sensitive pharmaceuticals. Talk to Adrian. He's been around, and I think he respects you more than me. He might have some ideas. I'm already marking the containers. I have been numbering them, just below the top cover to the right. Facing the front side of the container, run your right hand to the top forward edge of the container. You should feel a number scored into the plastic. I just want to know how many of these things stay in the network. If Captain Ryan and his clearing house, CADOC, is for real then all the containers should stay in the network and sooner or later, they will all be numbered," Jaime said.

*****

Han spent that afternoon in his makeshift crew house chief pilot's office. The phone was busy again, but not the frenzy of calls from the 'eyes wide open' amateurs at Cheetah Airlines. The calls were now more like a mile wide slow flowing river. The Captain, Karen, Eric and Lily called only when there was something of real importance, not when they just needed enlightenment, as was the case at Cheetah Airlines. They were older pro's that did not seem to panic about minor details.

Han called Captain Ryan about 'required stabilization criteria' for approach and landings in a B-727, trying to get a professionals answer on when the aircraft should be fully configured for landing and all checklists complete. The Captain's response was as straight forward and brutal as his boxing ring bouts, and Han felt he may have caught him at the end of his daily drinking cycle. The Filipino girls were wailing in the background over his phone.

"You just let the whole thing ride down to five hundred feet on the radar altimeter, young man. I don't care what drama goes on above 500 feet radar, as long as you got your pants zipped up, your coffee cup stowed and all checklists complete. Copy and paste the rest from the Boeing manuals!" Captain Ryan Hung up.

"So much for Standard Operating Procedures, SOP's."

Han's phone lit up. It was a call from Seoul, South Korea. His mother was the only person who had his phone number, but the numbers weren't the same.

"Sir, am I calling at an inappropriate time?"

"Jeong Junsuh?"

"Yes Sir, Captain."

"I told you to stop calling me Sir, Sergeant Jeong."

"Old habits die hard Sir, especially in this country. I always knew you were Captain material. It feels good calling you Captain. Captain Han, Sergeant Jeong Junsuh, reports as ordered!"

"How did you get my number?"

"From your mother, Sir. She told me of your misfortune in Malaysia and your recent adventure down to Central Africa. These days I'm doing my dirty work in the back streets of Seoul as the head reporter for the Seouler Daily Informer. It's an NCO, Non Commissioned Officer position in the civilian world, just as I heard you have put Captains bars on in the Civilian world."

Han had not heard from his old platoon Sergeant since he had left the military, but even after years being apart, he recognized his voice immediately.

"What makes you call now after all these years, Junsuh?"

"It's a long twisted story, Sir, but my boss, Moon Gunwoo, wanted me to reach out to anyone I was close to in our old platoon, and try to piece together a whole lot of loose ends on one of our biggest stories. You may be disappointed I called for that reason, Sir, but I always felt our bond in the military was stronger than any, and surely stronger than the years we have not spoken."

"Junsuh, if you're trying to pull one of your stunts on me again."

"No Sir, this is far more serious. It has to do with many things, including our old Army Platoon. If you have a few minutes, I want to tell you a story."

Han felt a little disappointed his old Sergeant was calling about a story he was working on for the Seouler Daily Informer, and even more disappointed he had not moved on to a bigger and better newspaper. Moon Gunwoo's paper covered mostly big media scandals in Digital Media City, DMC and Gangnam. He made his wealth off slumming for K-pop scandals, figured Han.

"Well, it's nice to hear they have been promoting you, Junsuh. I don't get those free copies of your paper these days. I had to cancel it when I left Seoul. What's the big story these days? You're not going to find any entertainment scandals talking to me."

"Nothing to do with that, Sir. You know our paper covers tabloid and media scandals, but it's also a smoke screen for reporting things the mainstream press fails to report, or just won't cover because they are too close to the major corporations and government.

It all started last summer. Not long before you left the country. A man came into our offices asking for me. He had a brother that disappeared in Osaka on a business trip. Our paper is a little odd, as we have a section in the back of missing persons. It is a revolving list of names that goes back decades and our CEO and newspaper owner, Moon Gunwoo, insists we keep the list, and post it on our weekend edition. He was involved in the democracy protests during the early 1980's after President Park Chung–Hee's assassination, and started the Seouler Newspaper from his dormitory room at Korea University. So he has a special place in his heart for the list, many that went missing during that time, and some believed abducted by the North Koreans.

Park Taeri, from our army platoon. I don't know if the name jogs your memory, but it sure did me, as I remember him from our last patrol on the DMZ. You and I both ended up in a military hearing and investigation from a border incursion during that very patrol on the DMZ.

His girlfriend had notified the police that he had not returned from his business trip to Osaka, but they didn't seem too interested in investigating, as there was no evidence of any foul play. I guess they get their share of domestic issues, including people that just up and leave their families and never return. They told her to report back if he didn't return in three months, but I guess she knew something went terribly wrong with him. Her brother asked for me, as I was in the Army with him. He said Park Taeri spoke highly of you and me, and we were the only people trustworthy in the Platoon. I felt honored to hear that, but could not offer anything more than to ask our CEO, Moon Gunwoo, to put his name and picture on or infamous weekend edition missing persons list.

"Sorry old friend. It seems like ages ago now. Once you're out, you're out. And once you turn your back on that border in the north, you move on. Too many Parks in Korea, along with the Kims," Han said.

"Well, sure enough, the police notified his brother and girlfriend that Park Taeri had cleared immigration and was back in the country. He told customs he was away visiting friends and had broken up with his girlfriend before he left, and needed some time away. He was gone a little over two months, so it did not raise any alarms with the Korean Government or Customs. But he never contacted his brother or girlfriend when he reentered Seoul, and that is when things got interesting. First his Passport was found on top of a trash can at Seoul Incheon Airport, probably dumped there as he left the terminal back for Seoul. His brother asked Immigration for information on his re-entry, but they began to get very defensive. The police even began watching his girlfriend and family, as if they were suspects of some kind. Someone reentered with Park Taeri's passport, but it was not him. Someone in Immigration got hoodwinked into letting someone through with Park's passport and the police and immigrations were backpedaling to cover the whole thing up. That's when a whole lot of odd things started happening in Seoul, not far from where I live and work. Up around Digital Media City, DMC, Sangam-Dong and the more poor side of town in Seodaemun where our paper is based and I live.

First a bloody murder of five Russians, six blocks from our offices in Seodaemun. It was at a private underground pool hall, and they were all bludgeoned to death with a metal rod. Some police people, friendly with our boss, said it was probably a solid titanium rod, most likely a pool cue the perpetrator turned on his victims when they least suspected it, during a nice friendly game of billiards. He took out four of them fairly fast and violently, and then killed the fifth one, a Russian Women and cashier lady sitting behind a glass booth. The force of the blows was so fast and with so much force per area, the forensic people were pulling bone chips and brain matter from the walls and ceiling. We never get such murder scenes in Seoul, if we get any at all. It just does not occur in our society. The Police and Intelligence services covered the whole thing up and it never made it to the public.

Then a pharmaceutical CEO's two Kids, thirteen and fourteen years old, were kidnapped. The younger girl was found in a subway station three days later, but the boy remained missing. We started investigating the stories. Murder and Kidnappings are very rare in Korea. We traced the kidnappings to a K-pop concert sponsored by Mirae Films in DMC. The CEO's two kids had won backstage passes to the event. Major Kang Minho, our former Company Commander, is now working as a mid-level manager for Mirae Films and was involved in managing the concert event. He left the military about a year after we both resigned. We also traced the raffle tickets down to an underground K-pop memorabilia shop near Gangnam subway station, operated by Ahn Sangho and Hwang Minchul, also from our old platoon. They all claimed to have no involvement in the abductions, but it truly stinks to high heaven.

But it goes further, Captain Han. The CEO started getting calls from the man who entered Seoul with Park Taeri's passport, demanding he invest money in a North Korean Pharmaceutical Company based in Hamheung, North Korea. This CEO began transferring large sums of money from his company to a bank account in Macao, to keep his boy alive. In turn, this North Korean Pharmaceutical Company began buying stock in his company, Dongjin pharmaceuticals, a two way venture.

We eventually found the boy and the whereabouts of the kidnapper. He was hiding out not far from our offices, over in Sangam-Dong at the World Cup Soccer Stadium. He was working there as a janitor and had the boy caged up in an abandoned locker room. He was not at the stadium when the police raided his hideout, and it is believed he fled the country.

The night the police raided his quarters, with the help of our paper and investigation, he came to my apartment. I came home about 10 p.m. that night, and he was waiting in my place. It was a pool cue, and I would have ended up just like those five Russians if I didn't see him coming at me out of the corner of my eye in the darkness. I fought him off, and even cut off the tip of his pinky finger with a switchblade knife I was carrying. I chased him out of my apartment and lost him a few blocks away on a crowded street. He had a noticeable limp as he ran. One leg slightly shorter than the other. We got foot prints from the Russian murder scene, and believe he had some kind of birth defect, possibly polio or cerebral palsy when he was a child. I followed some drops of blood on the sidewalk pavement through a crowded street. They led me into a convenience store, and the drops of blood stopped in front of a pile of opened bandages scattered on the ground. He has not been seen since.

I'm sure you remember Captain Kim Kitae. Korando, as you used to call him. Major Kang does a reality television show about the real-estate and construction company he works for now. It's a lot of fluff, and our boss, Moon Gunwoo says Kim Kitae is now working his way into politics. He believes many of his real-estate projects are treading water, and Kim Kitae needs to move into something else to boost his image and gain power. Using Major Kang and his entertainment company makes perfect sense. Moon owns a lot of property all over Seoul, including in Gang Nam and DMC, so I don't think he is stretching the truth.

The man who entered Seoul with Park's Passport and attacked me in my apartment that night. I've seen him before. I cannot be certain, but I can't get the image out of my head. It was that night on the DMZ when we had the border incursion. One of my eyes was blinded, and I was lying next to Park Taeri. Park was going to engage them all, but I told him not to. I remember seeing this man through a night scope on my K2 rifle. I could see two men setting up what looked like a Dragunov snipers rifle and a third man in the open with binoculars looking straight at us, as if not at all worried about being shot. The scope on the Dragunov Rifle looked exactly like the one on Park's rifle. I said it was a Dragunov, and even put that in my report of the border incident, but it was more than likely something of equal capacity to Park's, around the 50 caliber range, but of East Block origin. But the scopes were the same.

I didn't fully recall it at the time, but I remember he had a slight hobble in his walk as he assisted the two soldiers setting up the Dragunov rifle, or whatever beefed up Russian version they have out there these days. Maybe that is why he preferred to stand still in the open, just watching us through those binoculars. I am fairly certain it was the same man we pursued in Seoul for almost a year, and the same man who attacked me in my apartment that night before he disappeared for good. Our paper was able to get hold of the CEO and have him make discreet contacts through our papers personals section. He used an alias in our paper to contact the Pharmaceutical Companies CEO. He called himself Im Hwa. That was the alias he used while in Seoul. I think he was just there that night on the DMZ collecting intelligence on our unit, and just wanted to see Corporal Park out in the open with his very unique equipment. Odd they seemed to have identical scopes on the other side. Who would supply both sides of a conflict with the same weapons?

I think when he entered the country he came in contact with Kang Minho, Ahn Sangho and Hwang Minchul. I believe in some odd way he has an intelligence dossier on our old platoon, and a special interest in all of us. I doubt he has anything to do with Kim Kitae, but I also believe he may be waiting for a more opportune time to work his way into his life, such as after he enters politics. Moon thinks Kim Kitae's company is underwater through a whole lot of overpriced real-estate deals and pie in the sky ventures that are all going to go bankrupt during the next recession or financial crisis. On his show, he is now actively involved in a right wing party, and Moon believes he is trying to work his way into a politics as a way to cover up his companies business failings. Major Kang really pumps Korando up as a former Special Forces veteran gone high end entrepreneur. It's a whole lot of showboating, but you know there are a lot of people in this country that just eat that kind of stuff up. He is also dam good looking, and oddly enough, his wife is not, and now he has two spoiled kids going to every kind of private tutoring and prep schooling you could imagine, right in Gangnam, of course. So all the housewives love it just as much as the old men do in this country. It's Karma for a big media company in DMC.

Last piece of the Puzzle, before I let you go, Sir. A bank in Macau was caught up in a North Korean counterfeit money laundering scheme, not long after all this happened. One of its bankers fled Macau, and is wanted by Interpol for processing counterfeit US 100 dollar bills through its bank for the North Koreans. It is believed much of the money that came from Macau to Seoul to invest in this CEO's company, Dongjin Pharmaceuticals, was from this money laundering scheme deposited into this Macau bank.

Much of what happened was never reported is the mainstream media in Seoul. The Russian killings were called an industrial accident and the kidnappings never happened. Moon does not think this man is a North Korean agent sent down by his government. He believes he is too smart, and acts on his own, a free agent, sole operator, if you will. He thinks this man who entered Seoul is a harbinger of things to come, possibly a collapse of the North Korean regime and the rise of a new junta and oligarchy class in the north. He believes this man may very well be one of those who sees the end, and is trying to lay the ground work for his own future empire.

Not long after Park Taeri went missing, the NIS, our National Intelligence Service in Seoul reported an explosion at a train station along the North Korean and Manchurian border. It was said to be an accidental explosion of ordinance, but according to Moon, who is close friends with one of the top agents in the NIS, it was a bloody shootout from a sniper position overlooking the train station. About fifty to sixty North Korean soldiers were killed along with a high ranking North Korean Army General, believed to be on a business trip to China. NIS believes this General was in charge of a chemical weapons and Pharmaceutical Company in Hamheung, North Korea, and was most likely headed to Harbin, China to discuss business with another Pharmaceutical company, Shenjin Medical Corp., which his own family had close ties to. In other words, someone wanted this General dead, and wanted to take his place in North Korea. We are still working on the details, but we see a connection between Dongjin pharmaceutical company in Seoul, the North Koreans in Hamheung, and possibly dealings with Shenjin Medical Corp. in Harbin China. I wasn't going to bother you with this wild goose chase of a story Sir, until your mother brought up the name Shenjin Medical Corp. that you now work for."

Han began to think back to times gone by. His military career on the DMZ. Sniper Boy. It all came too, and Maybe Moon Gunwoo was needling his old Platoon Sergeant to call him, knowing it would stir up old ghosts.

"Park Taeri was one heck of a shot, wasn't he? You were expert, and so was I, but this guy went off the charts above marksman. Why would someone like that get booted out of our unit? Why would someone like that just up and vanish from a city like Osaka? And the rifle and scope he was using that night. I'm learning a lot everyday about guns, ammo and flying. I just want you to know there is a killer out there, and this guy is something I've never seen before. I think he knows a lot about you, me and Park, along with all those other not so nice folks from our old platoon, Sir."

"Thanks for the call old friend. You will never understand what a treat it is to hear from such a trusted old friend like you, Junsuh. You were always a little down and dirty, but you know that's what I always loved about you. I will keep a look out, and you keep safe."

"Well, as you can see, you have been promoted to full Captain, and I'm still an old Staff Sergeant, only now battling it out in some of Seoul's more seedy areas of town. I suppose everyone finds their place in society, and if you don't, you are surly put their and reminded to stay there forever and ever in this country. I am so happy for your success, Captain Han Bin, and happy as you're faithful former Sergeant to call you Captain. Sure Victory Big Brother!"

Han set his phone down and looked at it, as if he could be bugged. Jaime had suggested such things and now he wished he hadn't heard it. He sat down at his makeshift office among boxes of flight manuals provided by the Captain. He looked around his office in the barracks, but there was no place to implant a wire or bug, unless it was in the walls, he figured. In a twist of irony the Captain had assigned him Chief Pilot of this one aircraft operation, and with that he was to somehow create whatever SOP's necessary, and ones he knew Jaime would disregard anyway. He sat at his desk thinking of what Jaime had said on the hill above the barracks. He thought of how he sat elbowed in the dirt licking his wounds and hangover. It seemed a natural position for someone he figured was half full of delusions and the other side half filled up with problems.

Eight years ago, Kiwi entered a maximum Security prison in Denver Colorado. Eight years later a reporter from his old Army Platoon calls him up to remind him of someone he had long forgotten about eight years back.

'Sniper Boy', he thought.

As he stared at the stacks of manuals and cinder block walls, his thoughts drifted back to his military unit on the DMZ. Eight years gone by.

# Korando

South Korean DMZ

Eight years ago

On a spring afternoon eight years ago, Captain Kim Kitae 'Korando', First Lieutenant Han Bin and Staff Sergeant Jeong Junsuh walked out of an Army base gym, a stone's throw from the 38th parallel.

"Come on guys, I'll give you a ride back to the barracks," Korando said.

"Yes Sir," Lt. Han Bin said.

Junsuh followed behind. Captain Kim's Korando K9 4X4 Jeep was parked in front of the gym.

It was as overbuilt as he was with all the latest 4X4 modifications, big tires that stuck out of the wheel wells and jacked up high with headers that could light up half the DMZ. He spared no expense when it came to his vintage Korando K9 4X4 Jeep, and Han felt it was an appropriate nick name.

He was an Army Captain with eight years in service. He was built for the job and about the best soldier up on the DMZ. He never lost his military bearing and his record was spotless. If he wasn't the best, he sure made a point to look the best. He had just gotten engaged to a wealthy girl from a family run construction company in Seoul. He was a few weeks away from being discharged from the military, and with his new family connections, he would slide into an upper level management position in a large construction and real estate company. He seemed almost too sharp, too tactical.

Han climbed into the 4X4 Jeep and Junsuh parked himself in his regular position in the back seat between his two commanding officers. Han tossed Junsuh a laundry bag on his seat. Inside were Korando's civilian clothing tangled up with some of his girlfriend's finer garments. Junsuh reached in and picked out a pair of woman's panties, showing them to Han with a curious look. They were light blue with a see through pink heart on the front.

"They're so soft and delicate, as if my worked out forearms could tear them to pieces with excessive digital movement. Maybe that's their function. To be torn up, so more can be purchased at an exorbitant price by blinded lovers like Captain Kim Kitae."

"Put them back, Sgt. Jeong, they aren't yours," Han said as he looked around for Korando.

Korando had bumped into an Army Major in the parking lot and was having a quick chat. He was near celebrity status since his engagement and request for discharge.

Junsuh put the panties up to his face and inhaled deep. Han gave him a threatening look.

"Put them down, god damn it, he'll tear us both new assholes if he sees you doing that!"

Junsuh put the panties back in the laundry bag.

"Laundry detail together? You've got to be kidding me."

Junsuh reached in the bag and felt around.

"I bet there is a bra in here too. What do you think her cup size is? I'll bet you a case of beer she's a C cup."

"Damn you, Sgt. Jeong, I said leave his girl's lingerie alone!"

"Did you say something?" Korando asked, as he jumped into the driver's seat.

"Nothing Sir. I was just talking with Sgt. Jeong about tonight."

Han looked back at his best platoon NCO and right hand man in the field. Junsuh winked at Han from the back seat and pulled the pink heart panties out of his inside fatigue jacket, but out of view of Korando, buckling himself into the driver's seat.

Korando's new girl was a real relationship buster, ruining a harmonious relationship between professional combat infantry soldiers. It was an inevitable occurrence, figured Junsuh, and one he felt Han had not come to grips with yet.

They pulled out of the gym and drove through the Army Base. It was a spring afternoon, cool, but you could keep the windows down. It felt good after being in the sweaty gym with reconditioned air.

"All blowing in from the North today," Korando said.

"About the only fresh product they make up there," Han replied.

Korando pushed in a CD. Music drifted through the roll cage and out the back. It seemed to mix with the cool air, and Junsuh felt good sitting behind two of the best platoon and company officers he had come across in his eight years in service.

Korando hummed along to Capsule's Feeling Alright. It seemed to mix in well with the controlled, bottled chaos of their situations. Her voice was soft and relaxing, even though the background music sounded like sirens, rocket fire and machine guns. Korando sung along as they drove. Junsuh closed his eyes. It all mixed together as he nodded off for a micro dream. The blue panties with the pink heart flagged on the K9 4X4 Jeep's very long CB antennae. Waving back and forth against a now brighter, clearer evening sky. A surrender flag, as Capsules Feeling Alright played through the speakers.

"So what's on the agenda tonight?"

Korando broke the silence.

Junsuh opened his eyes and stood up in his back seat. A tear came out of the corner of his eye as the cool air from his side window met his face.

"The Executive Officer, XO, Major Kang Minho is off this weekend again. I'm the acting Company XO, and we are out on the DMZ until Tuesday" Han said.

"He must have a lot of confidence in you. You'll have Captain's bars on your shoulders before long. Then I want you in Special Forces. Just like me. Cleanse you from the inside out, full on little brother!"

Han gave Korando a confident nod of approval. Korando had a purity one could die for. They pulled into Han's dormitory.

"You're on your own tonight. Don't screw up your good deal," Han said with a smile to Korando.

Han and Junsuh grabbed their bags and nodded goodbye.

"Hey! Stay alert out there! Keep things tight little brother, and you keep him honest Sgt. Jeong," Korando said.

He held up his fist, and hit the horn as the over built 4X4 jeep crawled away. Han and Junsuh waved goodbye.

They both stood in the empty parking lot watching in envy as Captain Kim Kitae drove away with his career, money and future completely intact.

"He's a good guy and has a lot of class, regardless of the light blue pink heart panties that are now a permanent part of his laundry detail," Junsuh said.

Han slapped Junsuh in the back of the head and his fatigue cap popped off his head.

"Don't ever do that again, and give me those god damn panties, you pervert."

Junsuh picked his army cap up off the ground and looked cross out of the corner of his eye at his platoon Lieutenant. He unbuttoned his fatigue jacket and reached inside.

"What are you so upset about? He's going to be discharged in a matter of weeks and back on the civilian market. He's marrying a wealthy girl from Seoul. Are you worried you're going to have to hang out with me now, or maybe even worse, kiss Major Kang's ass for that second bar?"

"You better watch yourself, Sgt. Jeong. You're enlisted, and could get us both busted playing a stunt like that."

Junsuh said nothing, and slowly pulled a bra out of his fatigue jacket.

"C Cup, you owe me a case of beer."

Han grabbed the bra from Junsuh.

"Hey, that's my bra, not yours. It's an expensive one and should fit one of my girls."

"No more games, Sgt. Jeong. You understand things won't be the same around here with Korando on his way out. He was career military like the two of us, and a tight connection we both lost for good."

Han threw the bra on the ground in frustration.

"For Christ sake, we both went to the Army Military Academy and were supposed to be in for life, and then she showed up."

Han let out a long frustrated breath, shaking his head.

"Well I guess it's not her fault. People fall in love all the time. We'll just have to take losing Korando in stride, and press on. Full on, big brother," Han said in a weakened broken voice.

"Oh, of course it's her god damn fault. Someone has to take blame for this," Junsuh said as he picked the bra up and dusted it off, stuffing it back into his fatigue jacket. He pulled out a pack of smokes and lit a cigarette, handing one to Han. Han refused, but Junsuh insisted.

"I don't smoke, you know that."

"You don't smoke around Korando, you always smoke around me. I'm your platoon sergeant, don't play innocent with me."

Han grabbed the cigarette, and Junsuh lit him up.

"Don't worry lieutenant, I won't let you get busted for fraternization with enlisted personnel, and try not to think so hard about whose ass you have to kiss next. We've got four days up on the DMZ to think about our futures without Korando."

They both stood outside Han's place and enjoyed their smokes. They said nothing and felt closer with Korando now exiting the scene for good.

"You know I met her once."

"You met Korando's new girl?" Han asked.

"She was waiting for Korando with her mother at his place after Korando had spent a week up on the DMZ. I picked him up when he got in, and dragged his gear back to his place. He was tired and still had camouflage paint on his face. As we pulled up, his fiancé and mother-in-law stood waiting outside. It was an upsetting sight, and standing out in front could just as well have been a billboard that said Out of Business. I felt sorry for you as well, as I know his place was a reprieve from your stuffy and rather un-private quarters."

"It's where the evenings usually got primed on the weekends. The liqueur, beer and soju began to pour there, and it was often where things crashed in the early morning hours. But no more," Han said in resignation.

"As we pulled up, I took a good look at the non-standard issue multimillion dollar hardware.

His new fiancé is a little short, with short curly hair. She had an expensive conservative hairdo, just like her mothers, a short checkered dress, two inch high heels with a designer purse and a serious look on her face. She was attractive, but not what we are used to seeing him with. More the type he would push off on you."

"Thanks for the compliment, Sgt. Jeong, and you can forget about the beer, you already knew her cup size."

"His fiancé's mother is an exact copy of her daughter. Standing next to each other, someone introducing them could say: 'Here is your fiancé, and here is the next twenty five years of your life, Korando. If grandmother was there, you could even add in 'and here is the rest of your life!' I dropped his gear in the house. They seemed to think I was a personal driver, and paid little attention to me. She just seemed to lack the exoticness I attached to Korando, and almost always expected to see him with. You always seemed to get the other one that showed up with Korando's girlfriends, and of course I always had to find the whore's who I could pay to spend an evening with."

"You still do Sgt. Jeong. Korando's girls were always a wild card for me, but I never had to do the ground work. I just had to show up, as was my duty as a junior officer. Korando always arranged the rest. He's always been a bit of a hustler, and I suppose that's how he reeled in the expensive goods when the time was right."

"Well you're not going to get that service with me or Major Kang. You're either going to have to buy a whore like me, or be one for Major Kang. Either way, you're going to get fucked, Lieutenant."

Han ignored Junsuh's perverted rhetoric and thought to himself out loud.

"Something just doesn't feel right about Major Kang. He is off again down in Seoul for the weekend. This has been going on the past six months, and I'm now routinely doing his Executive Officer weekend office work. I meant to talk to Korando on the drive back from the gym, but you and your lingerie stunt threw me off."

"What you are doing for the Major is called brown nosing, Lieutenant, and I thought they gave you a course on that at the Army Academy."

"You know I don't brown nose, Sgt. Jeong, and this just feels different, more like I'm being conned by someone. It starts out as good will, and then the feeling of slowly being taken advantage of seeps in. It finally arrived after six months."

"Major Kang is an office boy. He loves the office and never has a smudge of dirt on his combat fatigues. If he did, I would not be surprised if he got it out of a spray paint can and put it there purposefully," Junsuh said.

"Korando always had more interface with him, but for some reason Major Kang tags me for all the extra duties."

"Of course. Korando wouldn't put up with the Major's politics, and the senior commanding officers have more respect for him. If you're going to stay in, Lieutenant, you better start playing the game like Korando. That or the Major is going to make you his admin clerk."

Junsuh put his hands on Hans's shoulders and began a shoulder massage. Han closed his eyes and rolled his head around his neck enjoying the simple pleasure.

"Its office politics, Lieutenant, and we're combat soldiers. So forget about it for the next few days. Once we get out in the bush it will all go away, like it never existed. We'll run our platoon up on the fence line, and if there are any issues with company operations let that paper pushing Major Kang deal with it when he gets back from Seoul."

"You don't understand, Sgt. Jeong. He has me working both ends, like a dog chasing his tail. Major Kang will eat and sleep well in Seoul, knowing he can blame anything on me come next week. That's how it goes in positions of authority. Discipline, critique, accountability, and in the end everyone has their own evaluation of you. If I don't have a good answer on anything he accuses me of, it makes me look stupid being the acting XO. It becomes more than just office politics. It's a game of chess, and now with Korando gone, I feel the Major has me in checkmate."

"Try and get some sleep. I'll see you in four hours, Sir."

*****

Han had been watching the clock off and on since 7 p.m. and got tired of lying horizontal. He took a shower and went through his equipment. He put a towel down on the ground and placed his K-2 on top of it. It's a beautiful rifle by Daewoo Corporation, bringing you CRT monitors, assault rifles and everything imaginable in between. He liked it more than the M-16/M-4 or the H&K91. The M-16/M-4 was wound too tight with high tolerances and temperamental. The H&K 91 was a trench warfare battle rifle, over engineered, overbuilt and it kicked like a mule. The K-2 was not too hot and not too cold. He pulled back the charging handle to make sure it was clear, and then proceeded to break it down and clean all the parts with weapons oil and a cloth. He pulled out three boxes of .556 mm green tip NATO rounds and dumped each carton into his Kevlar helmet. He proceeded to load them into two thirty round clips. His K-2 used the same cartridge and same clip as the M-16/M-4. He checked his flashlight and made sure he had a good backup torch and extra batteries. Everything else was pre-prepared, including a pack with everything needed for almost a week. Korando taught him that when he was training Han as a platoon lieutenant.

"Even if you never use it, the one time you have an essential item, and someone needs it, you're going to score points. So don't go up on the DMZ half-cocked. Don't go up there looking like a supply wagon either," Korando would say.

Junsuh put his gear down next to Lieutenant Han on the parade grounds where they would assemble as a platoon before heading out. He stood with his hands behind his back in parade rest position, shoulder to shoulder with the same pose, posture and facial expression as Han's. Han looked over at his chest and something was slightly protruding outward.

"Sgt. Jeong, if you're really wearing that thing, I'm going to kill you."

"Just until we get up to our post. There is a granite marker the North Koreans are known to cross the border and touch as a sign of courage and commitment. We are going to set up a mannequin pinup girl next to it. It should scare them off like a scarecrow. It keeps my nipples warm too, but don't worry, it's not strapped on."

"Why are you always pressing your luck, Sgt. Jeong? You're going to get kicked out on a bad conduct discharge."

"They can't do that, I'm too good in the field and you know it."

Han knew he was correct. He was good in the field, and he knew that Han was fully aware of this. Junsuh was that one guy that knew he knew more. He didn't have rank, and he didn't have charisma or good looks, but he was as dialed in and as switched on as Korando.

"You're lucky I need you tonight, Sgt. Jeong, or I would rip that bra out of your jacket."

"They smelled like detergent."

"What did?"

"The panties. I just thought you wanted to know."

"Shut up, Sgt. Jeong! I don't fish around in other's laundry looking for panties to smell."

"It's better when they're dirty."

Lt. Han Bin let out a gasp.

*****

Everyone from the platoon filtered in over the next thirty minutes, and then as a group they inventoried all their equipment. When the full platoon assembled, Lt. Han started on the basics, from terrain they would be covering, communications, protocol if communications were lost, rules of engagement, weapons, weapons safety, chain of command, injuries, duties and responsibilities, and lastly, repercussions if any protocol is broken and not followed to the letter. He followed this rather threatening part of the briefing with an order to communicate anything anyone was unsure of to the next in command, Staff Sgt. Jeong Junsuh. By saying 'next in command' it gave the sensation that this was the real deal with possible casualties. Get them in the mood. That also put much the persecution on Han if anything went terribly wrong. That's why the folks with more brains were not here. Like Korando and Major Kang. By being absent, there was no critique. Major Kang would show up on an opportune occasion and make a real show of it, especially when some higher ranking brass got out from behind their desks and did a field trip to the DMZ/JSA. But now, with marginal spring weather and a general lack of interest from anyone in command, Major Kang was happy to push all responsibilities onto him.

Military hierarchy was filled with many twists and turns, and this was just as true in the South Korean military. Everyone was subservient to someone, and every group had their own advantages.  Two to three year enlistees were the lowest common denominator, but the back bone of the force. It was a rite of passage. They were doing their commitment, and would head back to college, and then off to rule the world. Career NCOs, Non Commissioned Officers, were tougher and ran most day to day operations, as they did in most militaries. Career officers from the military academies, like Han and Korando, felt they were the greatest, as they were all headed for the top of the military food chain. When Han thought of that, it made more sense why Korando was finally getting out and why Major Kang would play his politics and hang on for dear life. Even in their absence their tactical posturing seemed to crawl up his skin beneath his fatigues.

Eighty kilometers East of Panmunjom. A Chinook chopper ride and an hour of humping gear to get to their checkpoint. It was a place where the fence line ended and sticks with worn off paint marked the DMZ boundary. The terrain was steep low mountains with forest and thick underbrush. Three nights and four days. Life spun right by when you did enough of these. Han could not count or remember how many he had done. They relieved a platoon that was out for five days straight. The dirt was grinding into everything they had on. Odd thing is they didn't seem to be aware of this. Han's platoon had all showered and shaved hours ago, and probably smelled like fresh cut flowers. The platoon they were relieving smelled like dirt, sweat and camouflage paint.

They went through everything necessary to secure the perimeter and set up communications up and down their section of the border. Han talked to Junsuh about the environment, and he agreed with a few minor critiques that all was well.

"I want twelve up and walking parallels between our checkpoints, and no one sleeping or shirking their duties. Otherwise I will kick them hard in the balls when I find them in their deepest sleep."

"You got it boss," Junsuh said.

"And start calling me Sir up here. Enough of your slang, Sgt. Jeong."

"Yes Sir boss," Junsuh said.

They were patrolling a section of the border that was less than desired. It was a ten kilometer section that ran crooked over a hill and down a ravine ending with at checkpoint on a ridge overlooking an open valley and the DMZ. Two 'hard point' cement bunkers at each end and nothing much in between as far as Han was concerned. To the North Korean side were darkness, and few trees beyond the three kilometer DMZ. They had cut almost all the trees down on their side. One reason was for clear lines of fire and to discourage anyone from running over open ground into the DMZ. The alternate reason was firewood. How this could have continued to this day and age was beyond his recognition. Most ignored it, and went about their lives, but up here, he stared right into the craziness of it all. Turn your back and it was out of sight and out of mind, and Major Kang knew it.

They walked quietly and communicated through hand signals. In the bush, a conversation between two people could travel over a hill. Imagine eves dropping on two people talking to each other across a busy city intersection. It was that peaceful and quiet. The occasional land mine would go off in the distance and most likely set off by some unlucky wildlife or a North Korean who stumbled upon it. It crackled through the quiet lonely hills as if calling out to someone. The only outdoor North Korean radio station 'Radio One' wasn't playing music tonight. Just silence.

If the DMZ ever opened up, which had become a de facto nature preserve and game park; it would be stripped clean in a year, like a roasted chicken. There would be homeless North Koreans camped out all through it, and with that would come fires, trash, feces, crime, murders, drugs, squatters, contraband and over time, no wildlife. Shooting people that wandered into this untouched zone prevented such impurity. There was going to be a war down in the DMZ someday, although maybe not the type everyone was rehearsing and drilling for. There would be the prime real estate wars, an Eco park wildlife preservation war, and business park wars as corporations fought for precious land outside of Seoul up to the DMZ. There were many battles that would be fought sooner or later. A war that battle hardened soldiers on both sides would lose. They would simply have the wrong weapons for such a conflict. They were just overseeing this unspoiled territory, like game park wardens, for the last time.

To the south was bush, overgrowth, and hilly terrain, but more lights going further south, depending on your location. It glowed bright going south toward Seoul and other small towns pulled back from the DMZ. It gave the feeling of vertigo at night. As if to one side you would fall off a cliff into the abyss, and the other you would be lost in a black jungle, with only the likes of an occasional light off in the distance to guide you out. In the morning it wasn't so bad, but nightfall was completely different. Most of the DMZ was heavily built up with roads and fencing and search lights that would make any maximum security prison warden proud. The section they were in was slightly more compromised, and marked with wood border markers rather than fence and razor wire. They set up makeshift outposts two kilometers apart. They were spaced between two permanent posts ten kilometers in distance overlooking the DMZ. Han positioned himself in the center and would make a twenty kilometer walk first to one side then to the other and then back to the center. It was work, sweat and fatigue. If you had to fight, you would we worn out before it even began.

Lt. Han Bin and Sgt. Jeong Junsuh were taking a two hour controlled rest between 2 and 4 a.m. on their second night. Junsuh was sleeping in every imaginable position, including standing up. Fatigue became the softest pillow. It was 3 a.m. when the radio chatter started. Junsuh's right eye peeled itself open out of a light sleep. A generator powering up a search lamp about 200 meters away entertained his ear and lit up a corner of his tired eye.

"Who's talking on an open mike?" Lieutenant Han asked.

Junsuh grabbed his gear and hustled over to the radio man.

"Incompetent, two year, enlistee city kids! Wait till I get his balls in my baseball grip," Junsuh said.

Communications was critical up on the border, even interpersonal talk, and anything said, unless over secured communication lines had to be coded or kept to very basic hand signals. The air was cool, but not cold like they were used to for almost half the year. It was a clear night for early April, but dark with no moonlight. Lt. Han followed Junsuh towards the light and where the radio transmissions were coming from. He was getting more pumped up as he woke up from his stupor, and was good and ready to discipline someone for non-standard radio transmissions. The night and the distant searchlight beaming down range along the wire was disorientating as they walked towards the radio post. The chatter became more and more audible as Lt. Han and Sgt. Jeong Junsuh approached.

Junsuh pushed his pack and K2 into the makeshift radio shack and looked into the eyes of his radio operator. He grabbed the radio from him. The radioman knew what was coming if he had screwed up. Han and Junsuh didn't bring punishment back to the barracks, or to Major Kang. They dished it out in the field, where it stayed. Junsuh keyed the mike and let it go as Lt. Han stood over the two of them in the cramped hooch. Junsuh didn't want to say anything stupid over a hot mike on the border, he just wanted to let anyone listening know he was there. They waited, and he wondered what the proper percentage of verbal and physical punishment was justified for unauthorized radio transmissions. But then the radio came alive with a voice and message that he had never encountered.

"Get help, we got someone inside the wire! We got live ones inside the wire!"

Lt Han pushed Junsuh and the radioman out of the way, the radio man tumbling to the ground as he grabbed the radio.

"This is Lt. Han, count your men, I say, count your men."

"All accounted for Sir, the voice came back."

"I said I want a count! Who's screwing off out of their position? If I catch one of you little red riding hoods lost in the woods you're gonna wish you never met me!"

There was silence. He sat waiting, assured someone had wondered off in the dark and caused confusion, and now a potential incident. Maybe it was a new recruit taking a piss, and lost his bearings in the dark.

"No, No" came over the radio.

"All accounted for. It's post 3."

"What is going on?" Han asked the radioman sitting next to him.

"I did a full count, Sir," the radioman said.

"Everyone is on station, Sir."

"What's all the chatter? Is someone jacking off in the dark?"

"Someone is approaching post 3. That is what they transmitted, and now we cannot reach them."

"Who?"

"Post 3 is not talking. They put in a distress call that boots were coming up on their position. Now it's gone dead. Post 2 is requesting permission to take appropriate measures, Sir," the radioman said.

He said Sir, bowed his head and used both hands gesturing to the mike in front of Han's face. He did it with a sense of protocol that said, it's your responsibility now, Sir. Tell them to fire on a target in the dark, and if it's friendly fire, if you kill one of your own men, you go to jail Lieutenant.

Han looked over at Junsuh.

"Who's on post 3?"

"It's Privates Ahn Sangho and Hwang Minchul."

"Those punks. I should have kept those two within arm's reach."

Han grabbed the mike, composed himself and tried to talk like a school teacher.

"3 kilo come in, 3 kilo come in."

There was broken static over the mike as if someone was keying up and trying to transmit something. A stuck mike.

"You tell them to stand down. If those two bolted from their post in the dark I don't want anyone shooting. You hear me? No one shoots, unless they have a positive North Korean ID."

He grabbed the mike again.

"We have a com failure with 3 kilo, stand down."

"2 kilo, are you up?" Lt. Han said.

"We're here," came back almost immediately.

"What is the problem?"

"We got unidentified personnel in the wire Sir...requesting permission to engage."

2 kilo was two kilometers from the hard point where the two soldiers not talking were.

"3 kilo, come in."

Nothing!

It was pitch dark with the exception of the search lamp shooting down range. 3 kilo was the last post, the furthest out. After that was darkness. Darkness for two more clicks to the next post and Tango Company.

"What's going on with Tango Company?" Han asked.

"They say it's all quiet, Sir," the radioman said.

"It's just 3 kilo, they said they got people in the wire, and now they aren't talking. They reported footsteps coming up to their bunker and that was the last transmission. What do you want to do, Sir?"

Han keyed the mike.

"3 kilo, come in!"

Nothing. The radioman and everyone stuck to protocol and textbook border procedures for a communications breakdown and a possible border incursion.

Junsuh grabbed his K-2 and gear.

"Someone has to get up there and see what happened to them. You tell everyone up the line I'm making a sprint for 3 kilo."

"That's five clicks," Han said.

"You got a got a better idea, Lieutenant?"

"If I get a friendly fire incident tonight."

Han shook his head in a threatening gesture at Junsuh.

"Those two kids get jumped by real North Koreans and we will have more to worry about than that, Lieutenant."

"Go!" Lt. Han said.

Junsuh took off running.

There were incidences along the DMZ from time to time, even shootings and deaths. Many reported, some not. It was like dirty laundry stretched out over a calendar clothes line. The most spectacular one was back in the 1970s when two American Army Officers got hacked up by North Koreans in the DMZ. Worse had happened since, but that one proved the most dramatic, and provided the most propaganda ammo. There were tunnels discovered, shootings of North Koreans who entered the DMZ, and if you looked at the list of incidences over the years, you would wonder if someone on the other side had it all planned out with times and dates. The late 60's were the worst, when Junsuh's father did his time. He went to Vietnam well prepped, and they really cleaned things up there. A different time, long gone, he thought.

"Never trust them," his dad would say over and over growing up. "Never trust them."

Those words came back and rang in his ears as he ran up the trail his platoon was strung out on.

The two soldiers, Private Ahn and Hwang positioned at post 3 were not his favorites. They were weak and didn't seem to really care. One of them carried his K-2 like a wet log when he got a little too tired from hiking. Junsuh pulled him out of line a few times and threatened to kick him a brand new asshole next to the one his mother gave him. Maybe on the bottom, underneath the one he has, where a really pussy like him needed one. They were always together like a couple of seven year old school kids. It upset him as they behaved more like they were on a field trip than doing infantry duty. But how many times can you make them 'bomb Wonsan', a painful stress position where one is positioned on three points, head and both legs in an inverted V, preferably in the mud or snow. Junsuh used this for motivation but often gave up on these two due to their lack of any strength to hold such a stress position, hands behind back, head pushed into the dirt and legs fully extended holding the torso up. As he ran, he kept thinking. It could be someone inside the DMZ. If it was it would be a firefight. If they sat up there and second guessed something out in the darkness it could be deadly. They could get picked off, and him too as he ran up to find their corpses sitting in the hard point cement bunker. He pictured it in his head as he ran up the trail, tree branches hitting his body and face, now numb with adrenaline. He could see both of them facing each other as he broke into their bunker, like two people playing cards, only with holes in their heads and blood pouring down onto their fatigues. A couple Special Forces North Korean soldiers out playing target practice on a pre-planned, pre-scheduled DMZ border incursion mission. He knew they were not good. North Korean Special Forces could walk up to them, kill them face to face, have a smoke and a laugh and leave, he thought. It was a controlled risk having them on the border, and Han felt they would be best off in a hard bunker close to another company, rather than patrolling on foot in the bush.

Offence was always a better tactic. Surprise was always ten times as likely to incur initial damage. It was a perfect night for it, and he and Lt. Han were the unlucky soldiers that just happened to be there. Junsuh was fast, even with all his gear on. Fastest in his platoon and this was the end of his eighth year. He ran past Post 2 like a relay runner and kept going. He saw their painted faces and they just as well could have slapped his hand and rooted him on. Two more kilometers. Keep running.

He could see the guard shack coming into view. As he got within twenty five meters, he slowed down and heard the chatter of a radio. That was not good. If they had broken their radio, the crisis would be over. He came up to the back entrance of the post in the dark. He tossed his pack to the side of the checkpoint bunker behind a cluster of sand bags and climbed the stairs. It had a low ceiling and he had to hunch over as he walked in. A slot about two feet high and ten feet long provided a view of the DMZ. He could see a silhouette through the door window of someone looking out over the DMZ.

"This is Sergeant Jeong, open up. Private Ahn, Private Hwang, open up. This is Sergeant Jeong."

He opened the door and walk in. One was against the wall and the other crouched forward with his head looking out the plate glass window. It was almost pitch dark. He approached the one in front of him. Han reached his hand out towards the shoulder of the silhouette looking out over the pitch black DMZ.  
"Private Ahn? Private Hwang?"

Hwang swung around fast and there was a loud pop and a flash no different than a camera.

Junsuh's feet buckled and he was now sitting on his back legs with his knees in front of him and his feet tucked up underneath, as if sitting down at a low table waiting for lunch. Glass particles sprayed his face. His right eye was blinded and it felt like someone had tossed sand in it. He could see rings of blue colors in the darkness and hear the tremors in his ear, telling him he had an eye injury. It was a debilitating injury. It rendered you next to useless. His right ear rang like a bell. He tried to open his eye, but it stung too much, and he felt something on the cheekbone about a centimeter below his burning eye socket. It felt as if someone had pocked a metal pin right into the bone, and it was still lodged in his upper cheek bone, below his injured eye. There was no intense pain, as there doesn't seem to be too many nerves on the bone right below the eye socket. It just felt like someone popped a metal pin into it.

'So this is what it feels like to be shot in the face,' he thought.

He could feel fluid running down his cheek. A tear drop. He wiped some off in the darkness and put his fingers on his lips. Blood. He sat for a moment and collected his thoughts. Dust, glass particles and the smell of cordite sucked into his nose and lungs. Someone came in behind moments later. How long? Time was moving at its own pace. Fast and slow. He put his hand on Junsuh's shoulder.

"Don't Move. No one move!" he said in a calm and collected voice.

He went around and grabbed something and left. There was complete silence and just the still dark air and the haze of fiber glass particles floating about. He would have to report this. Major Kang would go nuts and everything would roll down the hill, with him and Lt. Han on top of it. He pulled his magnesium light out of his vest.

'The best leadership is the kind you maintain when you ruin your life, completely boil your career, but know you must carry on,' he thought.

He composed himself. If he had been shot in the face he would be finished. It would have taken a good part of his face off and blown an even larger hole out the back side of his head. He wouldn't be sitting on his feet with a dribble of blood on his cheek. He flashed the light around the bunker. Private Hwang was hunched up in the corner. He looked terrified. Junsuh flashed around, and he had no weapon on him. He swung his light around to the other side and Private Ahn was sitting with his K-2 between his legs with his back up against the corners of the wall.

"Don't move," feeling rather stupid to repeat whoever it was that had come in behind him.

"It's me, Sergeant Jeong. Don't do a thing."

Junsuh pushed himself up against the wall. He grabbed his K-2 and pulled it next to him. If he started throwing orders around it may just aggravate the situation further. If there was activity outside, he wouldn't hear it over any yelling. It would just draw attention to them and then they could all be dead. He put together the pieces as he pressed his back up against the wall. When he entered the bunker he must have startled Private Hwang. Something happened and they both locked up in terror, only to be spooked like cats. Private Hwang swung around, and being the incompetent idiot Junsuh knew him to be, he discharged his K-2. The weapon was so close to Junsuh's head when it went off, the casing that ejected out hit him below his right eye. He must have also gotten a spray from the powder coming out of the cartridge, and of course, his ear was ringing like a bell. The rifle bolt and ejector must have been centimeters away from Junsuh's head when Hwang squeezed the trigger. Blown out glass from the bunker window had sent fiberglass particles all over the guard shack. Someone obviously came in behind a minute later and took Private Hwang's weapon away from him and left.

Junsuh made his way out of the bunker. He could see someone to his right as he exited. He was up high on a rock and had two K-2's next to him on a black towel, as if on display. He was lying down flat and parked behind a very long snipers rifle. It seemed obscenely large and out of proportion. Not like the stout compact K-2s sitting next to him. They looked like toy rifles compared to what he was sitting behind. The scope was long, and had an adaptation on the front for night vision. It measured almost two feet in length, and he could hear a motor adjusting the lens like a telescopic camera. He made his way up to his position and lay down on his back.

"Two of them are less than 500 hundred meters out. Two more, with a spotter and a Dragunov sniper rifle at 1500 meters. There are also an additional six off their posts in the DMZ, and three new guys manning them. Fourteen in total and eleven are looking for action. I've got them in range. I'm gonna kill the Dragunov crew right now. He nodded to his K-2 set up with a night scope. You can spot me on that without even thinking straight."

It sounded simple and condescending.

"Don't! Please... Wait! They will drag them back to their posts, and say we killed them on their side," Junsuh said.

"OK, then I'm gonna kill them all right now. That's fourteen. Dead men don't talk. I can do that, right now too. They set up the Dragunov, and they'll start shooting anyone coming up the trail."

"Just wait, please," Junsuh said.

"Forget it! You're in no position to give orders."

"Where's the Dragunov at?" Junsuh asked.

It was a stall tactic. Once he fired his first round Junsuh was just along for the ride. All he could do then is join in on the party with his K-2 and his one good eye. But then it would be all over the news. Yonhap, CNN, BBC, everyone, everywhere. It would get political and ugly.

Dead North Koreans, border incident, conferences on both sides.

'Hmm... Come to think of it, maybe it's about time,' Junsuh thought.

"They are looking for high ground," the soldier said.

"OK, if they make it to the ridge. That's about 1.5 clicks, right?"

Junsuh couldn't tell who it was in his platoon. His dark eyes glanced over at Junsuh. His voice was smooth and low key, and the whites of his eyes were pronounced through his black face paint.

"OK," he said, as if approving Junsuh's knowledge of the terrain.

"If he sets up there, he's all yours. You can go for them all, all fourteen. Kill them all."

"Please, just wait."

His eye was killing him. His ear was ringing like a telephone. The man behind the sniper's rifle glanced over. For a moment he seemed to have a brief sense of sympathy for Junsuh's situation. They waited. Junsuh peered out of the night scope mounted on his K2 rifle at the Dragunov sniper team. There was silence except the occasional sound of the motorized scope adjusting in and out on Park Taeri's rifle. The minutes crawled by like hours.

*****

Han and Junsuh both stood outside Korando's place. Looking out at nothing, Korando placed his hands on his hips. A small white bandage was under Junsuh's right eye. 'The mark of an idiot', he thought. Anyone could see it and say, 'hey, there's that guy that had the incident up on the border.' The three of them stood and said nothing for a long time.

"I went up on your post last night. I took a look around and compared things with some of the surveillance photos from the last two months. Just to see who the friendly faces were. They took all the old people off their posts. All new faces on the other side now. Probably took them all out and shot them. Maybe those screw-ups in your platoon killed a bunch of North Koreans after all. It's just like a poker game isn't it? They fold their deck and deal a new hand. Nothing's said. Everyone's quiet. When are you going in to talk to the board?" Korando asked.

"Tomorrow," Han said.

"Any suggestions, Sir?" Junsuh asked.

"Yes, get yourself some real comfortable knee pads, because you'll both spend more time on your knees being screamed and slapped around than in the sitting or standing position. They're not going to let you out of there without drawing some blood."

They stood and said nothing for a while longer. It felt good to say nothing.

"Listen, this didn't happen," Korando broke the silence again.

"That's going to be the official line. It was a misfire, and nothing else developed. They have to replace a plate glass window in a guard shack. That's all. That's damned lucky. But nothing else happened. So they'll deny everything. They'll tell you the same, and make it quite clear what's going to happen to you if you say anything different. That doesn't mean they won't tuck something nasty away in some secret file on you, or put some vague demerit on your record.

When your annual performance report comes up, they'll probably even say you lack leadership potential or team skills."

Korando let out an impatient huff.

"You know the kind of bureaucratic nonsense I'm talking about. But that's all. Nothing anyone with substance is going to care about. It's too bad, because it could have happened to anyone, and you didn't do a thing wrong. You even gave a shoot to kill order, Junsuh. The hard core old timers will appreciate that. Your sharpshooter buddy already contested to that. So you'll be OK."

He was right on. If anyone knew how the system worked and could give it to you straight, it was Korando. With eight years in, including four in special operations, he was about as perfect as they came.

"There is one thing I can't get off my mind. The only one in control was this soldier with a sniper rifle. He was about to start shooting everyone on the other side, and he wasn't bluffing. He was calm, collected, and if the shooting started, he would have been the one who cleaned everything up. He was calm, focused, and I've never seen a rifle like the one he had," Junsuh said.

"No one clued me in on it either. I was even the acting Executive Officer and no one told me anything," Han said.

"I know him," Korando said.

"Corporal Park Taeri. He's been in for seven years know. He came in when I was in Special Operations. He's a marksman, a real crack shot. Almost in an odd way, though. He won a number of shooting competitions his first year. It created a bit of a buzz and got him a few accolades. But he's quiet, and has no real buddies or connections to anyone. Major Kang doesn't like him. He says he's not a team player, and creates disharmony among the unit. You know how damming a statement like that can be from a commanding officer. I think he's also a bit jealous of him. He did eighteen months in Iraq, peace keeping security duty up in the Kurdistan region at Camp Zaytun. He went for the money, I guess. They offered them so much that eventually they got enough volunteers. He was one of the first to volunteer and was assigned perimeter security and training. I guess you get plenty of practice doing that right here. We started hearing stories about him when his unit got back. The word is some Americans came by the compound asking about him. He said they were tall, athletic built, mid to late thirties with manicured beards. Not like these US Army bureaucrats managing gang banger enlistees here. The leader, and representative of the firearms company, SSA Corporation, wore a Stetson Cowboy Hat, and learned enough Korean to speak in simple slow methodical sentences to Corporal Park. Cowboy, as Corporal Park called him, became his friend in Iraq, and taught him everything about this new weapon and its scope.

They were always equipped with a portable card table and foldable chairs for their laptop computers, and a side stand for their M-4 carbines. They even had their own unmarked Hughes 500 helicopter to move around in."

"Special Forces people?" Han asked.

"Maybe just men with special interests. They picked Corporal Park up a number of times and took him out to test fire this prototype weapon. Some live fire practice up along the Syrian border, where the insurgents came through. These guys didn't go into a hot zone like some action hero's either. They went in with plenty of equipment, intelligence and fire support. As if they were technicians entering an open pit mine, or walking up to an active volcano to take readings. No gun slinging macho stuff.

They had two spotters with high powered scopes scanning everything 360 degrees. There was another soldier with access to a predator drone and F-16 air support via Satcom phone and a laptop. Four of them and Park Taeri. Five M-4's with night scopes and M-79 grenade launchers. Grab one off the stand and go to work. Enough NATO rounds for a six hour close in fire fight. That's overkill. A box of rocket propelled grenades with a sticker on the side that said Think Safety First. A medical triage kit as good as any portable emergency ward. Well equipped, and if you saw them set up, you would be best to leave fast. He said it was very clean and controlled. Shooting was a point and click operation, hitting trucks two kilometers away doing 150 km per hour down a dirt road. If it wasn't for the spool of the turbine on the helicopter and a tap on his shoulder, he told me he could have stayed there all day knocking trucks off this road. He got approval to carry it, just as someone got paid off and pulled some strings to pick him up and drop him off in Iraq.

Cowboy, as Park calls him, works for the company trying to field this knew rifle and scope. It's big money for a contracting company. I heard it's gotten rave reviews in Afghanistan. It outpaces the M-107 Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle in every parameter, and it's lighter, more versatile and can be used as an assault rifle if necessary. The one he's carrying is one of two prototypes. It will reach all the way to the North Korean border posts with accuracy, and with that guy behind it, all the better. I'm sure they would have loved it if he really started shooting. Its instant publicity and advertising. We'll take 500 of those please. Who do we sign the check out to?"

"How did they know about this guy?" Han asked.

"They go through their Pentagon files and find people like Park Taeri. They run personality profiles before they even shake hands with them. When they are in the neighborhood and they need something, they pay then a visit. It's all about money and advertising," Korando said.

Han folded his arms and rested his chin in the center of his chest.

"Major Kang didn't tell me a thing. And he's already writing reports exonerating himself from everything."

"The rifle," Korando said, more interested in operations than the Major's politics.

"Corporal Park and I set it up and he explained to me everything he knew about it. Since I was in Special Forces, the higher ups were needling me to check this guy out and get keyed in on his new equipment. It has a free floating scope. It floats on a series of electric actuators. It's quite ahead of the game. You aim at something down range. Let's say a guard shack two kilometers away. You put the cross hairs on your target. The telescopic scope allows you to increase the power, pan in and pan out depending on the distance, like a high powered camera lens. A drop down menu appears inside the scope and gives you a few options to choose from. The first option is assault rifle mode, and the scope is fixed, with no movement, and standard cross hairs appear in the scope, like any run of the mill rifle scope. No distractions, just point and shoot liked you're in a fire fight. The other menu options allow you to choose the cartridge you have in the chamber. There are a few different options. I remember four. Standard tungsten, super vel ceramic, standard ceramic and steel core magnum load. You move a cursor next to the trigger and clicked on the type of cartridge you have in the chamber. Super vel ceramic are the most powerful. If you choose a standard round, and the round is out of range, can't reach the target you are pointing at, the scope crosshairs flash in red, and if you click on that round the scope defaults to standard fixed assault rifle mode, and targets for one kilometer downrange. A standard cross hair scope appears with vertical and horizontal markings allowing you to adjust your shot manually. The scope has a built in GPS, so it knows exactly where it is. It also has an added feature, a built in terrain moving map. The same technology they put into aircraft enhanced ground proximity warning systems, and enhanced terrain radar. The scope has a built in map of the terrain within a five mile diameter. So if you point the scope at your target the logic knows your exact location and all the terrain within your range. If you're aiming across a shallow ravine to a guard shack, like we were, the scope reads out the exact distance down to the meter from your position. It knows you're firing a super vel ceramic round, and that you're exactly 300 meters above sea level and you're target is 288.5 meters above sea level. It down loads the surface winds from the nearest weather station and then the motors adjust the sites. A small 'green light go' comes up in the corner where the menu bar was and you put the cross hairs on the target and squeeze. No crude adjusting like in the old days. The scope does all the calculations. If you're target is on the crosshairs it's a 100% kill."

"But that's not all," Korando continued.

"The scope is a camera, a high pixel digital camera. A comparator makes split second digital pixel interrogation. If something changes in the picture, even if a small bird fly's into the scope view, the comparator alerts the crosshairs. The crosshairs are not fixed, unless there is excess movement or a default to assault rifle mode. The crosshairs float in the scope according to pixel discrepancies. So let's say you are scanning out over a valley, looking for targets. Someone moves their arm behind a bush. So slight, the human eye does not pick it up. The pixel comparator alerts the cross hairs. The cross hairs move similar to the crosshairs of a flight director on a modern aircraft instrument display. They move like a localizer and glide slope needle, guiding the shooter to the moved pixels. When the crosshairs center, they turn from amber to green light go. That is how he could hit trucks doing 150 km/hr at two kilometers away. It's a scope company, not a rifle company. An intelligence gathering company and I think they are hungry for contracts."

*****

Korando left a month later with a spotless record. Han's last memory of him was seeing him talking to Major Kang and another senior officer on his last day. They were congratulating him and groveling over his choice of women. When they needed to brown nose, the Major and his buddies were professionals. Even to their subordinates if necessary. A career essential, he thought. You didn't get to see a commanding officer brown nosing subordinates too often, but then again, they knew Korando would be worth more than their entire careers in a matter of months.

The two screw ups, Privates Ahn and Hwang got off easy with everything excused. The Major made sure of that. Han cornered them in the barracks, with Junsuh at his side. Just to give them a piece of his mind. Private Ahn, the one who locked up sitting in the corner and couldn't move, saluted them.

"Sure victory," he said.

Private Hwang, the one who discharged his weapon, followed with a weak salute. Han went up to Ahn and grabbed his tit and twisted it 180. Ahn clenched his face. Han clamped on to his nipple and held on tight.

"You idiots could have gotten a bunch of people killed out there, including me. You know that, right?"

Ahn nodded his head in pain.

Han held tight until his thumb numbed up from squeezing so hard. He let go and pushed Ahn against the wall lockers. He walked over to Hwang who misfired his rifle. He had a slight smirk on his face. Han reached down into his pants and grabbed hold of his balls. He even got a piece of his penis. He squeezed as tight as he could. Hwang screamed and Han grabbed his neck and smashed his head up against the lockers. He squeezed hard, his balls in one hand and his neck in the other. It felt like any more pressure and one of his nuts would pop out of the sack. He held on tight until it looked like Hwang was about to pass out. Han let go and Hwang slumped to the ground with a groan.

"Fucker!" Han screamed.

It echoed through the hollow metal barracks walls.

It wasn't just those two that was bothering him up either. Sniper boy, as Junsuh liked to call him, Park Taeri was gone. It was more politics, and as Korando said, the Major had one in for him. His wall locker was searched a week after the incident, and shortly after that, all his belongings were removed. He was out of the platoon, out of the barracks. Word had it, something illegal was found in his locker and he was processed out of the military on a bad conduct discharge. Everything was sealed in his file, and any discussion of him was considered off limits. He was the scapegoat.

With Korando gone, Han's only good option was a transfer to another unit or get out. He chose the latter. Junsuh followed a month later. Resignations became contagious. On his last day, Junsuh helped Han clean out his own office and footlocker. Korando left his 4X4 Jeep to Han and they packed up his belongings for his trip to Ulsan. At the bottom of his foot locker he picked up a small note, a going away present from Ahn and Hwang. Han read it and handed to Junsuh.

'We will get you someday, we won't forget, Lt. Han. Sure Victory, asshole!'

It was just another reminder of how lousy he was at back door deals.

"I'm not going to let those punks get away with this," Junsuh said.

"Try anything and you will end up just like Park Taeri. I can do the operational work, but the politics will kill me over time"

"Well Sir, maybe I can't play that game in the military with an NCO rank, but I sure can play their games down in Seoul."

Han nodded his head.

"You can stop calling me Sir or Lieutenant now, Junsuh, the name is Han Bin."

# Nurse Xiumei

Entebbe, Uganda

August 10th

Jaime's latest selection off the bookcase walls, The Quiet American, drifted him off somewhere after page fifty. As his eyes grew heavy, he pushed a corner over and lay his head down on the open teak wood table of the Bugisu Coffee Roasting Company.

Falling into the nightmare seemed as easy and nonchalant as walking into a beautiful park. Was that the essence of a nightmare? Just being able to stroll on in, no different than walking into one's own murder scene, but one you could conveniently wake up from? This one came out of left field, and could not have lasted more than a few seconds.

His head lay down on the coffee table with eyes wide open but paralyzed and unable to move. The coffee woman from downstairs came into the room and walked towards him. He struggled in panic to pull himself up off the table but couldn't. She came closer, but he was helpless and could only watch her approach. She held her arm out towards his head. He tried to scream, fearing she would do something terrible. He could feel his motor skills through the dream struggling to come alive.

Jaime jolted himself out of the nightmare, his hands instinctively slapping down on the table as if to catch himself from falling. The image of the Bugisu coffee lady innocently placing his lost cell phone down on the table next to his head faded away as his head and sore neck pitched up off the table in a spastic jerk.

"Déjà vu," Lin He said.   
Jaime looked around the coffee shop, happy he had landed on his feet in complete safety. Lin He was in the same place as last time.

"If you tell me I lost my phone again, I may be concerned with you."  
"No, I just happened to stop by. I'm on my way to Kinshasa on business. I won't be in touch for a while. I see you are putting your mark on these book cases."

Lin He flipped through the book Jaime had started and failed to finish. He looked up at the book case walls.

"Do you know how many books on those shelves have pages folded over?"

Jaime said nothing.

"Thirty two. I can count your visits by the number of books with pages folded over. We need to talk about this."

He held the book up with a raised eyebrow.

"Reading?" Jaime asked.

Lin He shook his head.

"Then becoming a real criminal, like the Kiwi?"

"I don't hire criminals. I don't like them, either. I do like broken things, though. Broken things that can be fixed and often made stronger when repaired. They're a real bargain in this world. We need to talk about fixing broken things. Making them stronger than before."

Lin He tapped his metal pinky finger against the bone china coffee cup. The prosthetic on the end of his pinky had thin black leather straps that laced around his finger and ran up to his wrist tied together in a bracelet of multicolored leather. It looked stylish and beautiful. Jaime felt pinned down, no different than having a gun to his head in the Dallas, Fort Worth house. Lin He had a book to his head instead. Somehow it felt just as dangerous. They looked at each other for a while and said nothing.

"Eric Wong. He's a real playboy, and he can really throw a party."

"Bank fraud and money laundering," Lin He said.

"Adrian Davies."

"Former High School Physics Teacher from Sheffield, England. He is an airline, aviation enthusiast with an Aircraft Engineer's license. He is also an expert remote control aircraft craftsmen, and ran his own workshop and club at his former High School."

"You didn't answer my question. Why is he here?"

"Got caught doing the naughty with one of his sophomore students in his workshop. Statutory rape and being sued by his in-laws."

"Captain Ryan."

"Tax evasion and getting in deeper every day."

"Han Bin."

"Bring him to one Eric's parties if you can, but don't mention my name."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you asked, and you'll figure it out anyway, just like you found out about our Kiwi friend, Jerome Williams."

"And the hospitals?"

"Maybe it's time for a checkup. That scrape on your face does not look so good."

Lin He looked at the side of Jaime's face and held out his hand across the table under Jaime's chin inspecting his wounds. The scab on his face was partially gone and the pink skin had developed a slight rash.  
"You know, we have about the best medical coverage you can get anywhere, and it's all free. Not just the best in Africa, but anywhere in the world. It's not in your pilot contract, but it's there, and you would be foolish not to use it. I'm talking about full medical exams, blood work, X rays, cat scans if you wish, preventative care of every type, including traditional or oriental medicine and prescriptions for any ailments. All free, and we don't expect you to visit because you're sick. Then it's often too late. You should go in and make sure that scratch doesn't get infected. This is Africa after all. They will even shoot you up with all the vaccinations and antibiotics you may need."   
Lin He reached into his side pocket and pulled out a thin wallet.

"This is the card to our head nurse, Nurse Xiumei. No appointments needed. You don't have to tell her anything except your name. She will take care of the rest. She's a big girl from Xinjiang Province in Northern China."   
Jaime's mind, still rattled from his dream, but feeling better knowing he was now in honest company, fixated on the idea of free prescription medication. He began rifling through his head what type, dosage and servicing he may need after any future hangovers at Eric Wong's Villa.

"Xinjiang?"

"Yes. Nurse Xiumei is a Northern Chinese lady from the small city of Hami, not far from the Mongolian border, but she has the sweetest heart. Go see her. Sometimes she has the whole day and nothing to do. If you're going to stay with us, you need to get to know our medical staff."

Jaime nodded and turned his neck sideways trying to loosen the stiffness from sleeping on the table with his head cocked to one side. He could blame the coffee or the over thirty half read books on the shelves, but it would be just another excuse, like his own criminal record.

"I can trust your silence?" asked Lin He, looking him in the eyes.

"You wouldn't be here if you couldn't."

Lin He smiled with proud confidence in Jaime's answer.  
"You will be eligible for leave soon. I am sure you can't wait for that. You probably can't wait to get back to Texas and visit family."

Lin He said Texas as if trying to swallow a raw oyster for the first time. It just didn't sound right.  
"We will arrange your tickets far in advance, so don't worry. Its business class the whole way home."   
"I figured based on how they brought me here I would be stuck in the back again."   
"No, that unfortunately was set up by Karen and her contracting company, Premium Crew Leasing. They only dealt with initial recruitment and transportation, and I am sure they do things on the cheap. We apologize for that."   
"Well, I guess you know what's waiting for me back in Texas, so I may have to get back to you on that."   
"No worries. Wherever you wish to go, we will make arrangements. You can even stay here, and we can give you the guest quarters at Eric Wong's Villa. You won't be intruding. I've already cleared it with him and he says he will give you the keys himself. He's throwing another one of his get-togethers the day after tomorrow. Stop by and talk to him if you wish.

It's on Friday. You can even bring a friend along."

Jaime gave an uncomfortable smile, knowing how his last romance ended.   
"Eric always has lots of company. Don't be a stranger. I must be off. Cheers."

*****

On Saturday morning, Jaime woke up naked on Eric Wong's bathroom floor. He looked around the master bathroom, the size of a descent sized bedroom. There were towels on the floor and one draped over his waist. The shower door, with granite seats inside for steaming, was wide open and still dripping wet, as if they had ended the party there. He checked over his body and private parts, but felt nothing had been used or violated. He got up and walked out to the master bedroom. Eric and a young Chinese man lay naked and fast asleep on their bed. He found his clothing and made his way out of the villa. His memory was near black from the night before. He figured he had slept about four hours by how much alcohol was still raging through his head. He remembered Lin's suggestion to go get a checkup. Now was as good a time as ever. His hangover would arrive in full force in a couple of hours. He got a taxi and took out Nurse Xiumei's card with hospital address in Kampala. Lin He had told him it was just an innocent house warming party thrown by Eric and a few of his queer friends. The memories would arrive soon enough out of the blackness. As the car drove down the Entebbe Road he pulled the keys to Eric's guest villa out of his pocket.

*****

Six hours later, Jaime rolled his IV liter stand across the second story floor of Shenjin Hospital. His hangover was spectacular and painful as always, but nurse Xiumei's remedy cleaned him up and put him in a deep sleep for over four hours. She wasn't around when he woke in her Aviation and Oriental Medicine Clinic, but he felt rejuvenated enough to take a walk and look for her. They seemed to have the same build, big and rough, and he felt aroused and wanted a second look at her. She gave him a concoction of IV drips, herbal teas and a subscription of chewable squares that came in a small candy box. They blackened his teeth and had a bitter taste. He chewed on two of them as he strolled around the second floor, looking for the door leading downstairs where he had met her after being directed by the front desk to a side door along the hospital's west wall.

Lin He was correct. They provided unlimited medical care without so much as asking a question. Xiumei drew blood and urine samples and said nothing to him, knowing his diagnosis before he even opened his mouth. His candy box of blackened candies reminded him of lollypops handed to him by his pediatric doctor when he was just a child, but these treats took the edge off of everything.

The second floor was high technology with polished floors, soft overhead lights and private hospital rooms equipped with the most luxurious and modern equipment. It was dead quiet with only a few rooms filled with resting patients on their posturepedic mechanical beds. He made his way down a corridor to a stair case. He closed the door behind him and heard an electric click. A keypad and card swipe was installed on the wall next to the door inside the staircase. He tried opening the door he just went through and the handle wouldn't move. He was locked out of the second floor.

He made his way down the steps holding his IV liter stand in one hand. As he approached the bottom floor he could hear noise on the other side of the door. He opened the door to a large open floor with rows of beds. He pulled his IV liter stand through the door and it shut behind him with the same security feature. The smell of the first floor struck him right away. It smelled of dying. The hall was filled with steel bed frames with no bedding.

'Bring your own mattress and sheets when you check in. Welcome to Economy Class,' he thought.

He moved halfway across the open floor before he became uncomfortable and stopped to pull the IV needle out of his arm. It wasn't just the smell that was overtaking his senses. The patients lying in open cots were wasting away with no medical personnel around.

'Waiting to die,' he thought.

It was a completely different hospital one floor down. They stared up at him as he walked by with empty eyes and skeleton like figures. TB, malaria, AIDS, hepatitis. A Ugandan lady sitting next to a patient looked him over as he walked by. A Ugandan nurse at the front of the open room sat behind a table with mask on. He walked by her and towards the front of the hospital. He could see people waiting in lines to meet medical staffs that were either not there or few and far between. He moved down an open hall away from the crowd to another stairway door. The door opened and he was in another staircase going lower. He made his way to a basement that opened to the hospital morgue. A glass security door stopped him from proceeding any further, but he could see the stainless steel pullout drawers for holding corpses from behind the glass. There was an elevator across the room and empty stainless steel tables. It looked sterile and quiet, like the second floor, and the glass partitions presented the morgue as if it were on display, yet not in use. He went back up to the first floor and walked past the lines of waiting patients and out the front entrance. He would try to make his way back to the west wall where he could ring Nurse Xiumei and be escorted to her second floor clinic.

As he walked around the north side of the building he became trapped halfway. The ground below the cement five foot wide walkway dropped away below him, leading to a dead end outcropping of the building and no further access around to the west wall. There were no doors on this side of the building. It seemed designed to stop anyone from going further than halfway along the north face of the building. Over the walkway ledge and down ten feet he could see a tall fence running along the building. He put his hand on the wall in front of his dead end path with fence and razor wire connecting to the perimeter fence around the hospital. Even if he jumped the ledge onto the ground ten feet below, he would be met with a fifteen foot fence and razor wire. It gave him a sick feeling, just like the first floor, and thoughts of spending his life in a Texas prison brought chills down his spine. He then remembered approaching the west wall from the loading docks on the south wall; opposite side. He turned around and looked down the walkway. Its purpose could only be for security patrolling this section of the building. He could see Nurse Xiumei standing with her nurse mask at the corner of the building. She didn't look happy, and did not seem to have much trouble locating him. She waited for him to walk back, as there was no other place to go. She stood with hands on hips and her thin dark eyes seemed to pierce into him.

"I was just looking for a place to have a smoke. I must have gotten lost," Jaime said.

She said nothing and grabbed his hand, walking him back to a side door not far from the front entrance. She swiped her card and walked him into an elevator. From his location, he figured it must have been the same elevator he had seen in the morgue. She swiped her card again in the elevator and pushed the second floor button.

"Never leave the Second floor! You always meet me at the same door outside when you come in from the loading docks. When you are here, you never leave the Second floor!"

She slapped the heel of her pitch white one inch pumps onto the floor, the sound cracking off the walls of the steel elevator.

# C1 and C2

Entebbe, Uganda

September 5st

"Destruction, Destruction."

"Oh, yeah! Say it again baby...I love it!"

Adrian kneeled down and tilted his camera on its side getting close ups of C1 and C2.

"Beautiful. What a couple of dolls!"

They both giggled at Adrian's playful nature. He was teaching them the Queens English.

"One more time ladies, say it again, this time for the family photo album."

"Destruction, Destruction," they both said with smiles, showing their not so straight Japanese teeth. Their heads tilted at perfect angles towards each other, both holding up trade mark Richard M. Nixon, V for victory signs.

They were dressed in matching Alice in Wonderland outfits, their thin legs bent and contorted in platforms, bow legged, but in a slightly sexy way. High skirts with black and white striped stockings and matching blouses with oversized bow ribbons holding up their hair. Their soft spoken English had a seductive, feminine Japanese accent.

"Destruction, Destruction."

Adrian's camera flashed one last time and the girls got up off their couch. The crowd around them began to disperse. Adrian seemed to know what the crowed wanted and played up the girl's beauty in a dramatic fashion. Adrian knew everyone at Eric's party wanted an excuse to grovel and stare at their stunning looks without being accused of such. They just needed a reason, and his camera was the perfect excuse. Adrian was at that age where he just didn't seem to care of such things. Jaime watched the girls and Adrian from the upstairs balcony overlooking the center ballroom. He had seen the two girls at Eric's parties before. They always showed up as an item, no different than a pair of stockings. One time in Wall Street power suits, another as high school girls in matching uniforms. Last time, at Eric's house warming fag bash, as JAL Cabin Crew. Today was Alice in Wonderland night.

Jaime understood delicate refined beauty, but was not particularly attracted to it. It was too perfect, and his over six foot tall frame could not maneuver around such soft creatures. He preferred the attractive, yet slightly rougher models, with more luggage in the trunk, even some of the local Ugandan night fighters hooking in front of Eric's villa entrance gate, but they were surely a dangerous gamble. Eric Wong came out of his upstairs master bedroom to continue his game of Mahjong. Han was at the table filling in for him. Eric wore his standard party uniform, a fine silk robe that danced around his soft belly, with baggy matching pink silk pajama bottoms and slippers.

"Who are they?" Jaime asked, peering down at C1 and C2.  
"They are nothing for you."   
"You can try, but I'm just telling you now, they aren't for you. Too soft and sweet for you flyboy."

"I like my candy tough and dry. Something I can chew on for a while. Like Red Man Tobacco," Jaime said.  
Eric's right hand curled and fell softly onto his chest as he looked down at the crowd below.

"Yes, they are like very expensive pieces of candy, aren't they?"

"The Candy Girls, C1 and C2, that's what I call them. They are a perfect match, never apart," Jaime said.

"Call them what you wish. But they play in their own sand box, and they don't invite to many of us commoners to join them."

Eric walked down the open staircase and back to his table, which was always the center of his parties, and where he would play until the wee hours of the morning with his discreet Chinese banker friends.

"Commoners," Jaime said out loud, as he watched the two Japanese girls help Eric with a drink and shoulder rub. It was so nice to be a part of Eric Wong's crowd, even if it was the furthest thing from the truth. Jaime peered over the balcony with wrap around staircases on both sides overlooking the party and Mahjong table. Behind was a glass window looking out over a garden and the guest house. Han came upstairs and bumped Jaime's shoulder.   
"You looked like you were winning," Jaime said.   
"I won some low hands, so they were happy to get rid of me. They go for high hands and put down real money. Mahjong can be a simple amateur's game, but the pros always play for high hands. They really get upset when you win low hands. I was just giving Eric a break. We miss you over at the crew house since you moved out. The Captain tells us we all get separate quarters after our first year. Nothing like Eric's place here, but at least a step up from The Barracks."

"A friend in the company offered the guesthouse to me, so I couldn't say no. The only issue is Eric and his nonstop house parties," Jaime said.

"I keep hearing the name of a friend you have been running into at a coffee shop."

"Lin He," Jaime said, gazing at C1 and C2 as they moved around the Mahjong table, distracting the players with their sensual thin fingers and long nails. He could see Eric's friends losing the game as C1 and C2 danced their long nails around their shoulders and necks. Jaime kept his eyes on them as they made their way through the crowd and onto an open courtyard in front of the villa guest house. They stood shoulder to shoulder looking up at Han and Jaime.

Jaime waved through the glass wall, but they ignored him, looking at Han. They entered the front door of the guest house. A light came on inside. They curtains came back and they both looked up at Jaime and Han.

"Every seventh stop you will see the Russian IL-76. We only service six destinations, but if you counted seven stops in our circle around the Congo, you will see a Russian IL-76 parked next to our aircraft. I think they leave a few hours after we depart. I've gone over to the IL-76 a few times, but the Russian flight crew are never at the aircraft."   
"Where is it going?" Han asked.   
"To get a fresh load of outside cargo. Unmarked containers always show up on the seventh stop in our round robin run, brought in on the Russian IL-76. I've marked enough containers now, and what I know for sure is when the IL-76 arrives and we off load our cargo, new containers with no markings are loaded on our aircraft. All this gets camouflaged with the other cargo we carry, from sick passengers to hospital beds to X-ray and ECG machines. It is a legitimate operation for sure. I would say ninety percent legitimate."   
"And the other ten percent? How would we find that?"

"These are the most sealed and certified containers I have ever seen. The plastic covers even have a special locking tool. On top of that, much of the freight is required to be kept air tight and at a certain temperature, as it is marked as vaccinations and drugs. It is certified inside the hospital network by each countries customs. As long as it's servicing the network, and each country has access to the full medical facilities, it never gets searched and no seal on any container is broken until it is delivered into the hospitals.

I have hauled a few diplomats to the hospitals. No dying villagers with nothing in their pockets. They offer network service to people in the right places. It's all free for any diplomat that agrees to this arrangement. That means duty free freight in a sealed network, and CADOC is how they move cargo between countries without it being inspected my each countries Customs. But somehow they are pumping fresh containers in on the IL-76. I asked the tower controllers and they said the IL-76 is always flight planned to Entebbe, but it never shows up here. Did you see one on your last trip?"  
"In Lusaka."

Jaime shook his head in agreement.

"And I saw one in Luanda."  
"It rotates around our network like the hands on a clock. We service six destinations and hospitals in our network; Entebbe, Lusaka, Luanda, Kinshasa, Bangui and Juba. But every seventh stop it appears, taking on or dropping off containers and wood crates full of some kind of cargo. It will next appear in Kinshasa and then Bangui, like the hands on a clock as we circle the network. We do one full circle in the network every time it moves to its new destination."

"There are only a few ways you can guess what is inside these super sealed containers. Weight is one, and how they load the freight. Heavy ones are going to throw out the CG, so they have to be balanced with similar freight or loaded as close as possible to zero point on the aircraft CG, center of gravity. You may notice a heavy container by how much it compresses the nose strut when the fork lift drops it on the aircraft cargo floor. Some of the ones leaving the network are heavy. CADOC writes the load sheets too. They certify the sealed cargo and they also conveniently do the flight planning."

The curtains opened in the guest house and C1 gazed up at Jaime and Han.

"Are they friends of yours?"

Jaime nodded his head.

"No, but they've asked about you more than a few times. They are regulars at Eric's parties."

Jaime looked out over the courtyard into the guest house that had become his new residence. He turned around and scanned over the party behind him. Nurse Xiumei stood down below not far away from the busy Mahjong table and surrounded by people, but isolated and alone, as if those around her magnified her loneliness. Jaime gave her a moment to talk to some of Eric's Chinese friends, thinking she might make some friends, but it didn't seem to be working out from what he could see from upstairs.

She did her best to put on something nice, but Jaime still liked her nurse outfit with hat and face mask. He liked her rough complexion dressed in her pitch white nurse uniform, backed up against the west wall of the hospital just as the red African sun set against it. Tonight, she decided to dress as a flower. She had a dress with a large decorative flower arrangement on it, and one on her skirt and in her hair. The blue and purple blush on her tough high cheeks summed up the entire program. She was an exotic flower that had never gone out in her entire adult life.

"I showed Kiwi the news clip I found on him. He said so what, now we've both busted parole. I asked if he was dealing and he said only company pharmaceuticals, which are knock off generics repackaged in big name company brands. Who he sells them to, through Eric Wong, is company business, unless I wanted to help him out and take a cut. I'm Ok with him now, and he doesn't even mind if I call him Kiwi, either. He did the crime and he did the time, like you said."

"You're letting all this go! You're the one who started this investigation!" Han protested.  
"Like I said, I think we are ninety percent legitimate. That's a lot better than any grade I ever got in High School or College, and far better than most operations in this part of the world. I can keep snooping around, but what will become of it?"

"We can expose them and report it to the press."

"I can't say much more about the other ten percent. Boxes come in on the IL-76 every seventh stop of our freight run. Maybe Eric Wong and Captain Ryan can fill you in on the rest. Maybe it's better to just ask them straight to their faces, like I did with Kiwi."

Han looked around the party. It was getting crowded and he wanted to leave. He wasn't the socialite, and preferred a quiet evening at the crew house. Jaime and Adrian insisted he come along, and now the high end party crowd was starting to heat him up inside, but in the wrong kind of way. He was getting vertigo talking to Jaime, and felt if he didn't get some fresh air he was going to explode.  
"Lin He. You didn't answer my question."

"He's just there when I wake up. When I wake up after some of the best, strongest coffee I have ever had in my life. If you wish, why don't you stop in and meet him yourself, or go down there and ask his friends in the guest house. Eric says they both know a Lin He, and maybe even work for him. They've had their eyes on you all night, Han. Why don't you go say hello?"

"But it's your place now," Han said.

"The master bedroom and bathroom are mine, but since I moved in, I've discovered the rest of the guest house is kind of community property. They respect my privacy, but the kitchen and living room with bar are open territory, especially when Eric's house parties get rolling. They don't want anything to do with me. I have to take Xiumei home too. So the guesthouse is all yours tonight if you wish. At least the front end. Go say hello. Nothing wrong with a little friendly company at one of Eric's parties."

C1 and C2 now had dead straight eye contact with Han. Nurse Xiumei needed company. She stood alone without a drink in her hand. Her flower arrangement was beginning to gain attention from Eric Wong's superficial Beijing and Hong Kong crowd. Her large frame seemed to be getting pushed further into a corner by the front door. Jaime was worried she would bolt for the door in frustration. He walked down the stairs. Han watched him engage his girl and wrap his long arm around her waist. She truly was a flower, as at that very moment he could see her bloom with colors.   
"Who is Lin He?" asked Han in his best Japanese. The Candy Girls, as Jaime labeled them, C1 and C2, both looked at each other, not seeming sure how to answer. C2 whispered into C1's ear.

"Hayashi Kazu," C2 said, as if pouting over a bad lover or boss.

"No Hayashi Kazu tonight, just Han san," C1 said with a giggle.

"Han san, kawaii!" said C2.

They both giggled more. C2 sat on a thick shag rug with legs tucked underneath. C1 poured Han a glass of wine and pulled him over to the shag rug with her long finger nails.

# The Airstrip

Democratic Republic of the Congo

September 7th

Lin He wiped his forehead with a checkered towel. They were sixty miles inside the Democratic Republic of Congo from Lake Albert and the Ugandan Border. There was only one small dirt road in or out of the airstrip amongst a sea of jungle. He draped the towel around his neck in the squalid jungle heat. He sat face to face with General Nakunda, leader of the Saviors Resistance Army, now in control of the airstrip he had just landed next to. It was blocked off with heavy equipment brought in to build the runway. Coming to near completion, it was a 3000 meter strip of compacted dirt and gravel that could handle most large transport category aircraft. His King Air 350 turboprop was forced to land on an auxiliary strip, not much different than a crooked trail next to the large compact gravel strip, now blocked with graders, bulldozers and trucks. It proved a dangerous, almost reckless maneuver; landing and on a piece of dirt only 500 meters long with obstacles on both ends.  
"We will provide you and your men full access to our network. We cannot negotiate what has not come to fruition, General. We cannot discuss the potential of a newly constructed runway that is of no use."

Lin He waived his hand towards the heavy equipment.

"I cannot enrich a man of your potential and wisdom without your own help. These are all promises assured to you."

With the runway operational, General Nakunda found his old agreements in need of modification. How quick he forgot their first meeting and dealings.

General Nakunda smiled and leaned back in his chair with a small delicate gold and ivory cane lying across his lap. His dark sunglasses, tall athletic figure and pressed suite were not the appearance of a military general. They were more that of a businessman who knew he could become a general.

"And who may I say this promise is from?" Nakunda asked.

His eyebrow turned up and he smiled as if he had asked a cunning question to a beautiful woman.

"The Chinese are financing these projects. As they will the hospital we have promised you."

"And you are their emissary? All the way up here in North Eastern Congo."

Nakunda's eyebrows grew sharp, and his voice tightened up. He pointed his cane at Lin He. The Generals amnesia was a tactic of terror he used well. Lin He knew not to behave impatient. It could cost him his life.

"The Chinese are all business. You cannot tell me they are here for good will. And who is going to pay? Who? And with what? Our diamonds? Our Land?"

"You must think, General, beyond such things. You must think of true wealth, which is always access. And that is what we hope to exchange for use of this runway, and later, full control of the hospital."

The General grabbed his cane in his hand and pushed it out at Lin He.

"Do you think I am some old man? Do I look like a sick old man? I am a General! You're tricking me. I can see through you. You are fucking the African! You are trying to fuck me! I can see through you, right through you!"

His lieutenants agreed and seemed to understand the powerful tribal chieftain role as much as the general. How much was a show of strength for his troops would soon become apparent. His piercing eyes met Lin He's.

"And I will kill you! I will kill you dead if you lie to me. Your hospital."

Nakunda spat on the dirt next to him.

"I need weapons! I need supplies and cash. Medical supplies for field corpsmen, not an old man's checkup."

One wrong move and it could get physical. If it came to that, Lin He could kill him and attempt to negotiate with the next in line, but that would push the odds heavily against him. More than likely it would end violently for all. If he acted fast enough and in a violent enough fashion, it could leave a window of time for negotiating with one of Nakunda's Lieutenants. He eyed the men sitting behind Nakunda for next in line. None had anything that resembled military rankings that he could quickly determine their significance.

"With this runway operational, we will provide all of that and more. You, your men and their families will be given the utmost privileges. The runway is yours to use at your will. We can negotiate an aircraft on standby to take you wherever you wish to go. That is what any General needs. This is a guarantee from our offices in Kampala. We are here offering good will. The runway and future hospital is all we ask."

"You will control nothing here! Nothing. I will control your hospital. I will control this airstrip. No Deal! You lie to me!"

Nakunda pushed back in his chair. His Lieutenants cheered him on, looking ready to pounce on Lin He if given the order.

"Very well then. We will return with a better proposal. An Ilyushin IL-76 will arrive in one week with a cargo load of supplies including US dollar cash for you and your men as requested. Please make the runway accessible for its landing. I will be in touch as well with a new proposal, and one we hope, General Nakunda, will suite you and your men's needs. We apologize for the impracticality of our offer. I am just the messenger. I will forward your response."

Lin He bowed his head to the General.

*****

Kiwi stood in front of the King Air 350. The makeshift airstrip was packed dirt, and situated on an upslope with tall jungle on the incline side. It was a difficult approach, requiring a descent into jungle and a landing on an up sloped crooked dirt trail. The main airstrip, blocked with heavy equipment, lay in a shallow valley below him. He knew if he screwed anything up on landing, they would become an instant African crash statistic. That is if they ever found the wreckage. With the main runway shut down for negotiations, there was nothing much more to say about a do it yourself approach and landing in the dirt.

His M-4 was placed on top of the wing, just in front of the flaps next to the passenger entry door of the turboprop. He had earphones in and an MP3 player. His straight blond hair hung down lazily over his forehead and eyes. It was cut straight in the back at shoulder length. He wore a pair of combat boots and tan shorts that came down to his knees with baggy side pockets weighted down with two thirty round clips. He wore an orange T-shirt with an Empire Hang Ten logo on the front. His wrap-around sunglasses gave him a fashionable look that the Congo grunts with their AK-47's's could only envy. If it was not for his combat boots he would be a perfect surfer boy advertisement. But on the Gold Coast or North Shore of Hawaii, money was elusive. He was an emissary to a lifestyle gone terribly wrong. He was surfing the jungles with some very mean people.

The Congo soldiers seemed to prefer friendship by the way they looked him over.

'Friends are fun, everyone wants some,' Kiwi thought.

But now was not the time for a play date with the Congo killers and their AK's. If it got bad he would put the M-4 to work. He would cut down the two child soldiers standing in front of him first, as they were harder to hit and easy to underestimate in a fire fight. Then he would work over whoever was left if he was still standing and could change out clips. He would ruin a few peoples day before they could finish him off, and that was about his best scenario. He knew he would never get the aircraft lit up and off the ground if it came to that. Their AK's would cut through the Beechcraft turboprop and its delicate Pratt and Whitney PT-6 engines like someone pissing through tracing paper. He would be dead, his aircraft a ruined heap, and hopefully, every round in his M-4 gone towards his envious friends.

Nakunda's lieutenants had looks of confusion and frustration on their faces. His head man, a thick meaty faced character in combat fatigues and an Adidas shirt, waited for the order to tackle them both. It would be a prize to kill them both and seize a shiny turboprop for the General. They all waited for his orders. But an IL-76 with a full load of cargo and cash was a far better prize. Lin He walked out to the aircraft and gently removed the checkered cloth from his neck. He wiped his high cut black shoes, making sure no dirt would get on the stairs or inside the aircraft. He did not have to say anything to Kiwi, who circled the aircraft, and pulled out the wheel chalks and engine intake covers. As Lin moved his way up into the right seat of the aircraft, Kiwi pulled his M-4 off the wing and walked up the steps. He pulled the door shut and shortly appeared in the left cockpit seat of the King Air. The low drone of the batteries powering up the starter motor to turn the Pratt and Whitney engines, and then the click of the igniters and the spooling up of the turbine engines cut through the still, hot jungle floor. With both engines started, the multi-million dollar turboprop taxied up the rough potholed strip towards the departure end of the runway. They would be taking off downhill, with trees and jungle waiting for them a little more than a thousand meters down the hill. The engines went to full power, with the nose crouching down and the T-tail pushing up like a mosquito about to attack its victim. It lurched forward and began its takeoff roll. As it rotated into the climb it started an immediate bank away from the jungle into a clearing to its left where the blocked airstrip lay. It disappeared over the Congo jungle, as if the jungle had missed its chance to swallow up this unnatural beast. It would try again, but this time they had gotten away.

Nakunda's lieutenants watched as it climbed out of site with a look of boredom and defeat. They would have been just as well satisfied with killing this so called messenger. A multimillion dollar King Air 350 would have been a fine prize and celebration that night. They sat in the dirt feeling as if they had relinquished power. They felt despair. As they had made no deal, their escape was the true victory. Now Nakunda would have to answer to this. It was his decision, whether good or bad. Lin's word of the IL-76 sprung his escape, and he hoped a trap for General Nakunda.

# The Fifth Floor

Kampala, Uganda

September 10th

It was turning into another all night job on the fifth floor hospital vault at 3 a.m. The money counting machine shuffled through a stack of US One Hundred Dollar bills.

'It sounded similar to cards being shuffled on a blackjack table,' Lily thought.

The specialized money counter had USB ports and a line hooked directly to a LAN wireless router. The numbers 100 and 10,000 USD came up in red on the counter. Red was positive in the Chinese mind. Being in the black was criminal. The printer began printing a special seal with denomination, serial numbers and Chinese writing designating the money to specific Red Notes. Lily peeled off the sticky tape and neatly wrapped the ten thousand dollar stack of one hundred US Dollar bills. She placed the bills in a pile on a work bench next to her desk and entered any discrepancies into her lap top computer. The serial numbers came up on her spreadsheet, downloaded from the money counter.

"I keep coming up short," Lily said.

"Count again," Eric Wong said, not seeming too concerned.

Their adjoining desks were in an open area in front of an elevator with a bullet proof glass enclosure and security door. It was another security measure anyone entering the fifth floor from the elevator had to pass through. Next to the elevator was another security room with a wall of monitors recording the many security cameras throughout the hospital. Lily's and Eric's desks were the only open area on the fifth floor, and the rest of the floor was triple stacked crates and containers that went wall to wall with six foot aisles just wide enough for an electric fork lift to navigate through. The open area around their desks was littered with empty boxes, paper invoices and boxing material. Light from the overhead lamps beamed down on the desks and open work area with just shadows snaking to the back of the warehouse. The open area around their desks created a glow of light on the floor that conjured up images in Lily's head of a campfire in a dark forest, or an interrogation scene from a crime movie. There were no windows as well, and no outside sunlight on the fifth floor. All the light, even if you turned it up as bright as possible, still had a dim, depressing, unnatural element to it. Lilly and Eric had long decided darkness, with the exception of their work space was a more natural setting. The large desks and adjoining work tables had bundles of bills, boxes and an assortment of packing material, handle dispensers for tape, and box cutters scattered at will. The formal office with glass doors contained a control station for allowing the elevator to enter. Inside the office, a wall of CRT screens streamed live camera footage of the ground floor freight ramp, the elevator entrance, the interior of the elevator and security gate where freight trucks could enter the loading docks. The hospital had dozens of other cameras on different floors as well as on the building rooftop that could be viewed from the fifth floor office control station. The cameras on the wall monitors were default settings, and motion sensors would send a message to the control room with screens flashing on and off bright if any intruder came into view.

Lily's assistant, Zhang Xilai, bundled the bills into stacks of one hundred thousand dollar bricks which he wrapped in special moisture absorbing paper. He placed ten of the bricks into thick plastic bags with a self-sealing strip on top. Not much different than duty free liquor bags, but these were tougher and designed for tightly packing exactly one million dollars, about the size of an average cinder block. He stacked the blocks into an open container. The containers held one hundred blocks. One side of the container hinged down to the ground and the top hinged over the back to load the blocks. The containers had an electronic locking device on its base, only accessible to those with a fifth floor security clearance. Plastic rails fit around the base with a special locking tool to cover the electronic locks. The containers were then shrunk wrapped with heavy plastic, which created a triple sealed and locked device for long term storage. Eric Wong prepared a stack of one hundred red notes that would be inserted into special compartments on the inside of the containers.

"Just make it a round container. Fix the numbers," Eric said.

"Then I come up short over here."

Lily pointed her finger to another crate of uncounted bills with a bill of lading in Chinese.

"I'm 1.2 million short. I'm just pulling extra cash off of one stack to make a ten thousand bundle. We have three crates to inventory and seal into containers. We are almost done with the second. A little over a half a million per crate is missing, I figure."

A bundle of one hundred dollar notes was open with a US Treasury paper seal broken and the bills resting on top. If the counter read less than ten thousand she would load extra bills in to make up the difference. The notes were crisp and the paper had the exact feel of US currency. The look was perfect and the bills were not as much as a blemish off design. They were exact copies. 'Original fakes,' as Lily liked to call them.

Much of the money she had come across in Africa had gone through money changer's hands. She found this to be a problem in places like Nigeria, where street money changers were common. Their dirty hands and constant handling of bills soiled them to the point the paper had become a dirty fine cloth. Many bills would not even be exchangeable if taken to a currency exchange center. They were original and not counterfeit, yet they were just too worn out from the money changers hands. She always checked her bills when receiving cash anywhere in Africa. Not for fakes, but for worn out bills.

In China, it was smart to check for fake money. A common trick was for a vender receiving a one hundred Yuan note to quickly hand back a counterfeit one hundred Yuen note, telling the individual it was a counterfeit while taking the real one. The confused customer, having thought they had handed over a counterfeit note, would scramble into his/her wallet to get another one out. Her first trip to Beijing was such an experience, and the taxi driver even gave her back a handful of fake notes as change. Counterfeiting in China was best used on the unsuspecting public or foreigner. In Africa there did not seem to be much counterfeiting. There were plenty of used bills though, and she always handed back soiled money for cleaner bills. She wanted clean, real money. The bills she counted today were clean, authentic looking, backed by two countries promises, and also completely counterfeit.

"It's OK. It's less than one percent per sealed container. Put it in an expense column. Debit it as storage fees," Eric said.

"Debit to whom? The Chinese Government? Do we even know who the customer is?"

Lily broke a ten thousand seal off a stack of 100's from the crate and loaded them into the counter. She pushed the count button and they shuffled through the machine. An error code came up in green on the counter as four one hundred dollars bills were missing.

"You see, now I have to pull more out of this open pack. And on we go until the last container is sealed and we will be maybe 1.5 or 1.6 million total short. It's annoying and time consuming. Who is cherry picking bills out of these crates coming in from China, before we put them into sealed containers?"

"It's still within acceptable limits. And if you space the difference out over time, no one will care. Just debit it out as an expense and seal them as a round container."

She looked over at Eric, annoyed at his indifference to such a large sum of missing money.

"So is this the kind of banking that got you into so much trouble in Macau?"

Eric reached over the table and grabbed a ten thousand dollar bundle. He tossed it toward Lily.

"Expense that too. Go buy some nice clothing. Treat yourself."

She tossed it back and it landed next to his laptop.

"You go buy some clothing, pretty boy."

She smiled at Eric and he smiled, still looking at his screen and filling in data on his computer.

"You're quite the banker, Eric Wong. Over a million in missing funds and you don't even show a breath of concern."

Lily's assistant Xilai sat down in a chair, tired from over six hours of loading crates, moving boxes, stuffing cash into bags and stacking pallets, crates and containers.

"We still have the RMB notes to go. That's a six by six foot stack on a full wood pallet. Count and restack into sealed containers," Xilai said.

"All we are doing is putting the blame on ourselves. Why don't we just keep this stuff sealed and stored as is? We can shrink wrap these crates as they arrive here from China, with the original bill of lading we get from North Korea," Lily said.

"You always count your chips. Every chance you get. We need to break down anything that comes in and recount, stack and reseal to our own standards. It is also critical to assign each red note to specific US dollar serial numbers, which is what we are doing. Some of this cash could have gone missing from the shipper. Maybe we should dispute the bill of lading, but our job is fully accountable sealed containers with designated red notes, not sloppy corruption and someone skimming these wood crates for cash somewhere else" Eric said.

"Once I sign for it, it's saying we got it all. There is no dispute. I have to sign for it or it will sit on the loading docks outside. That little half breed, Lin He, is in here when we are gone. When the cats away the mice will play," Lily said.

"Then stack quicker and get this money sealed into containers. Then no more will go missing."

"I have to report this. It's missing cash. And we are not even talking about accounts receivable for pharmaceutical drugs. I would say we have a serious hole in the boat in that department as well. We should have two hundred thousand dollars just this month from pharmacy sales. I'm getting low numbers as to what drugs are on the shelves and in the coolers, and at least a ten percent discrepancy in cash. I would say about ten to twenty grand a month is missing in pharmaceutical sales. Do you want me to go to the pharmacy department myself and ask what is going on?" Lily asked.

Eric shook his head.

"Don't stir the pot, Lily. Just count what you have and report the numbers. Make it look professional and put any shortfall in the expense column. Call it handling costs."

Her assistant, Xilai got up and hobbled over to a pallet of RMB notes and pulled a brick of notes off the top. He opened his box cutters and dumped the notes on top of a sealed container.

"This fine young man is a graduate of The University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. He has a Master's Degree in accounting and he is running a forklift and loading crates. This is half-ass."

Lily got up to stretch her legs. She walked by her young assistant Xilai and kicked the empty box he had just dumped the stacks of red RMB notes on top of the sealed container.

"Let's just count this and get it sealed. You are correct Lily. We could just as well weight each pallet and wood crate and come up with as good a number if it wasn't for the serial numbers. It's the serial numbers and assigning them to red notes that is making this time consuming. The missing funds are not the issue. It's getting serial numbers assigned to Red notes," Eric said.

"Now that is accounting, Macau style. You should have become a casino boss and not a banker, Eric."

"Much higher standards being a casino boss than a banker in Macau, love," Eric said.

Lily choked on her own laugh. Eric did that to her now and them.

"All of this should have been inventoried and signed for in Pyongyang or Harbin, where it comes from. But it's a new operation. Growing pains baby, growing pains," Eric said.

"Then go up there and straighten them out, Eric."

"Not on your life, party girl."

"Well the party will get a report on these missing funds. I have no choice. It's for our own protection."

She strolled over to Eric and peered over his shoulder. He huddled his computer closer, but she pushed his computer back and put a hand on his soft shoulder.

"Don't try to hide things from me lover boy, she whispered in his ear as she gazed at the numbers on his computer screen."

The red notes were set aside and each in separate plastic covers. A pack of one hundred red notes would be matched to a container of crisp one hundred dollar bills and put in a special compartment on the inside top cover of each container for long term storage. A total of one hundred million dollars fit perfectly in each container. The only danger was corrosion and mold. The Engineers had designed the Fifth floor to maintain a specific dry temperature of 85 degrees. It required a constant supply of bottled water, and she drank two liters during a shift. She would still wake in the afternoon, after an all-night shift, thirsty and in need of a pee, which always came out dark yellow. Dry and hot. She gazed over at the Red Notes next to Eric as he entered data in Chinese from each note.

"Stamped by the treasury secretary's seal and the head of China's Central Bank. Now that is undisputable. That is original and worth money."

Eric seemed a little annoyed at her intrusion.

"The cash you are stacking is real too."

"No it's not, and you know it Eric. Counterfeit."

"It will become real. Just give it time, like a fine South African barrel aged Pinotage. Everything needs time to mature."

"It's not even Three Star Great Wall Wine. You can't make good wine from lousy grapes. You know they make French wine fakes in China too. They rebottle the high class stuff. Take those high end bottles back to China and refill them with Great Wall Four Star Wine. Fake, Fake, Fake. Fake shoes, fake purses, even fake milk and eggs."

Eric picked up a ten thousand bundle and put it over his shoulder.

"Seriously baby. Go treat yourself. Live a little Lily. You're just too tough on yourself. It's going to age you. You deserve a bonus. Put it in the debit column."

She took the ten thousand bundles and threw it back in the stack where it belonged next to her laptop.

"You play with money like you play Mahjong. It's just a game to you, isn't it?"

"I play to win Lily. I never lose at Mahjong. I know money girl. It's the one thing I do know. So take a stack or two and put it in the debit column."

She left Eric to himself and shuffled over to a wall filled with safety deposit boxes. She kicked another empty box on the floor.

"Maybe you're right Eric. Maybe everything needs time to age. Maybe we need some South African red wine up here too. While be count Green Backs, RMB and Red Notes. I think we need a wine cellar of the best South African wines money can buy. We can expense that too."

"It's too hot up here for a wine cellar. And you don't want to drink wine with no humidity. It's a recipe for an instant headache."

"Well I won't take that cash. I want to nail that crook, Lin He, who I know is stealing from us."

"You like the Korean pilot, Han Bin, don't you? You want him."

Eric wanted to change the subject. She turned to him and looked him straight in the eyes. Eric could talk straight love to Lily and make it hurt. He was bisexual and could turn the tables and attack her emotional side.

"I know you like hard bodies. You just play with me," he said with a lover's pout.

Lily's assistant Xilai had taken the forklift back and was loading the final crate that would take until 5:30 a.m. to count and stack into a container, then the RMB pallet would take another two hours and an hour to clean up. They would all be home and asleep by 9:30 a.m. in the morning if traffic wasn't backed up.

"I think he likes the soft stuff, just Korean and Japanese girls. He acts tough, but Koreans are soft inside. They like the cute girls with all the trimmings. K-pop, J-pop, soft smooth skin, silky hair and fine lines. Not the tough Communist Mainland types."

"Oh, give it a break, Eric!"

She looked back at the wall of safety deposit boxes. They looked like a giant oriental medicine cabinet. She could detect a street smart sense of scandal in Eric. He knew how to push her emotional buttons and seemed to be able to read her mind.

'Guys like Eric can do that,' she thought, looking at the boxes.

"I bet he's my lover boy before yours. Let's place a bet Lily. How about ten thousand dollars?"

"We're missing a million and a half, Eric! And what are all these safety deposit boxes doing in here?"

She drop kicked the empty box toward Eric, who continued working on his computer as if he had said nothing special.

"And why are we counting these North Korean counterfeit US dollars to back red notes backed by our own government and purchased US Treasuries? A fake is a fake! Who knows that better than us? Have we all forgotten we are Chinese?"

She pointed her finger at Eric and the stack of Red Notes.

"Those are already backed by the full faith and Power of the Chinese Government. We are selling real securities to purchase real assets. That is the basis of our enterprise. This was not earned on some cheap trick. Why are we backing legitimate securities with counterfeits?"

Eric slid back in his chair. He went for his cigarettes and lit a smoke. He looked up at the ceiling and blew smoke. He knew Lily could steam hot and knew it was better to say nothing for a while. He wasn't the type to argue.

"If these Green Backs are counterfeits, Lily, then every currency in the world will be exposed for what it is. Paper backed by nothing. Everything on paper is counterfeit or backed by empty promises in the end. The power of this money is that someday they will be backed by real debt. This is not a credit column on your accounting balance sheet, it is all debit. Debt is a weapon, and that is what we deal with here today. That is what a banker does. He deals in debts. If this currency, when your government opens the floodgates and pours them into the system, is accused of being counterfeit, it will collapse the US dollar worldwide. No one will trust US paper. And if there is real US Treasury debt backing every US Dollar serial number in these containers, then there is no way the US government will be able to dispute their legitimacy, whether they like it or not. If anyone has these serial numbers of counterfeit North Korean US one hundred dollar bills, China will back them with real US Treasury debt it purchased. The United States will soon try to go to a pure cashless society, making it near impossible for China to offload its US Treasuries. We are making it impossible for them to renege on their own obligations. We are turning debt and counterfeiting on its head. We are making history Lily."

"So you are making original fakes. Congratulations! China cannot make a decent stereo or a refrigerator. But look! With the help of the North Koreans, we can make a one hundred dollar bill better than anyone in the world. Who are we becoming? And don't say you aren't Chinese Eric. Don't start your Macau playboy games with me."

Eric thought of the most elegant way to get through to Lily. He wasn't the kind to shoot her down. He knew her boss and what kind of a man he was. Her assistant Xilai took a cigarette off the desk and stood back in the shadows. He had heard all their petty arguments and they had long given up on trying to talk around him. He was low key, cool, and seemed resigned to a lost cause in life. His back bent and shoulders arched in. Lily had coached him on how to look more like an intellect and less like a peasant. She was from peasant country and seemed more aware of such things. He had a sarcastic silent rebel in him that Lily felt her supervisor Zhao Xiang might catch wind of. She didn't like how quickly he had resigned himself to loading boxes, stuffing cash into bags with a master's degree, no money, no girlfriend, and now it seemed, no future. Lily felt she could bring him into the party and mentor him for success. She would give him everything he deserved someday.

"First and foremost, we are protecting a bank run, a future African bank run. We need, maybe, ten billion system-wide to stop a bank run. So I figure ten billion worth of US one hundred dollar bills to back the red notes. That is about two percent of this overall operation."

"Half a trillion," assistant Xilai said, leaning against the forklift.

Lily could just see the red amber off his cigarette in the dark. She let out a gasp at the size of money they were talking about.

"That is my guess. Half a trillion in US Treasuries will be dumped on the African market in a few years. And China will buy everything they can now with the leverage. The key is not to collapse the dollar in the process."

"So why they are sending us boxes of RMB? They are bulky and still only worth a fraction of the dollar."

"Someday a red one hundred RMB note will be worth a one hundred dollar green back. China will print RMB and swap them for North Korean 100 dollar bills with our serial numbers and no other dollars in the system, even soiled legitimate ones. If there is a dollar currency crisis from over printing and debt default, China will only convert counterfeit US one hundred dollar bills backed by red notes for stacks of RMB we are importing," Eric said.

"That will be the day," Lily said with a laugh.

Eric understood that it would someday come true. The red notes and the red one hundred RMBs would be the high chips at the world Mahjong table. China would own every business, mine, oil field and corporation they could get hold of. He just had to run numbers until her supervisor, Zhao Xiang, cleared his name and he could return to Macau.

"The west is playing dirty, and now Beijing is playing its own game. There is a war of currencies between nations underneath all the open politics. Printing debt is a weapon. Financial instruments are weapons, not assets, Lily."

"There are containers on this floor stacked with gold bullion, Eric. That is not debt. That is real. Why do we have counterfeit trash stacked next to gold bullion?"

"Counterfeit gold," Xilai said, leaning against his forklift in the dark, only the glow of his cigarette in the distance.

"You're telling me this gold is fake as well? Gold plated tungsten?"

Lily let out a laugh of disbelief.

"It's real gold Lily, but Xilai is correct too. Much of the world's gold is stored in London and New York. It is being used as a weapon. It is being leased out by the central banks at multiples of what is kept in their vaults. It is a paper counterfeit market, and any sovereign nation holding gold in New York or London knows they will have to settle for counterfeit printed fiat. It is a game of musical chairs with one seat and many sovereign nations dancing around it with golden paper claim tickets. All paper that is not backed by something is counterfeit, including modern day crypto currencies. Blockchain technology is just a tool for accelerating quicker into a cashless society. These one hundred dollar bills are backed by red notes, so they are far from counterfeit. Swapping red notes for gold bullion just makes sense. We ship dollars in and gold bullion out. China buys every gold mine, business, road, and warehouse, everything, with red note leverage for the time being."

Lily snapped her head in frustration and her short cropped hair wiped from side to side.

"Whatever happened to the good old days? My parents were students of the Cultural Revolution. They understand right and wrong and learned such things in a brutal fashion. Today they both dress the same, and I cut my hair as they have cut it since grade school in respect. Whatever happened to the joy people felt receiving a party award. The Fastest Runner! The Smartest Pupil! The most loyal Communist!!"

She whipped her short cropped, Cultural Revolution hairstyle from side to side in a violent motion. Eric watched in awe, not knowing if he should be aroused or taken back in terror. If he were ever to be executed in China for the crimes he was committing on the fifth floor, he hoped it would be Lily pulling the trigger. As she let out her tantrum burst, he felt it could almost be an erotic experience, as with her harsh words after their play sex sessions, as Eric called them.

Lily calmed down as Eric drew his attention back to his laptop, punching in numbers and ignoring her for the moment. She drifted over to the wall of safety deposit boxes and gazed up at them. They were almost beautiful with Chinese characters adorning their faces, no different than a Chinese oriental medicine cabinet.

"The safety deposit boxes are the names of wealthy Chinese. Many are party members just like you, Lily. They represent an army of combined wealth. In those boxes are true accounting principles, because if anything comes up missing, the weight of all that power will come down on someone. Steal from them and you are finished. They talk to each other, and no one in their right mind will come in here and mess with so many connected Chinese. Not even the Americans. Those boxes contain many things, gold, platinum, diamonds, rare metals, promises and secrets. Take from them and you will feel the wrath of accounting."

"Too many people are coming and going. Someone will become suspect. Someone will figure out this is more than a hospital, and then we could all be finished."

"We have a private post office and package handling center for shipment to China. It is a Chinese hospital. We have a vibrant legitimate business on the four floors below us. It is only understandable for people to come and go. If not, that could bring suspecting eyes."

"We are becoming sloppy in our principles, our accounting and our security. They execute people in China for this amount of funds missing. Don't put your Macau gambling mentality on this operation. We are not casino players," Lily said.

Eric looked back at a wall of CRT screens through the office glass.

"No one can enter without going through a security gate. The elevator will not open without our approval. No one can enter this facility without someone inside looking at them. And there are only four people with the ability to access the elevator from outside. The elevator opens to a security room. You could not break into this floor if you were the army. It would take hours if anyone tried, and we could shred everything if needed. We are inside one of the most secured safes in the world."

Lily sat back down in her seat and pulled out four one hundred dollar notes off the broken pile. She stacked them on top of the others and ran them through the counter. The numbers came up on hers and Eric's laptop computers and the printer began to print the serial numbers to seal the ten thousand bundle.

"Enough talk. Count this paper and go to sleep," she said.

Eric nodded his head, his eyes bloodshot from the sealed dry heat.

*****

Monday morning, Lily attached the complete accounting report and the 1.56 million of missing US dollar notes from three sealed containers. The wood crates of counterfeit cash from North Korea were now resealed in containers with locking devices that required codes identifying who opened them. They were triple sealed for long term storage with designated red notes. She also attached invoices from pharmaceutical sales and her shortfall in receipts. It was running close to one million in total. She attached the files, and before sending to her supervisor Zhao Xiang, she moved the cursor arrow over to the ALL prompt on Microsoft Outlook. She needed to send the files to her immediate supervisor, but felt it should go to his bosses in Beijing as well. She also felt the need to protect herself and her assistant, Xilai. She clicked on the ALL button and the files were sent to her boss and four of his supervisors and colleagues in Beijing.

Zhao Xiang read the email off his cell phone as he drove his Range Rover Sport from Hillside Golf Resort to the Chinese consulate only blocks away in Kampala. He tossed the phone into the center tray and swerved his brand new rig, nearly putting it into a ditch.

"Bitch!" he said out loud.

He thought about calling in Lily, but had to think this one through. He underestimated her hard headed approach and tough character. She was also too honest. Not someone he could easily bribe. He would send individual mails to each boss explaining the missing funds as a math error from an over exuberant subordinate. He would also explain that she deviated from protocol in notifying them first and not him by phone, and calling him in to investigate personally. He would be on the phone most of the afternoon backpedaling and covering up an honest and accurate account of funds. He stepped out of his car and walked into the Chinese consulate.

"You've got a lot of calls from Beijing. The list is on your desk," his secretary said.

"Call Lily's assistant Xilai. I have a job for him tomorrow. I want him to meet me at the hospital, 9 a.m."

He walked into his office and slammed the door.

*****

Tuesday morning, a new crate had arrived and was being off loaded through the elevator safe room on the fifth floor. Lily's assistant Xilai backed the wood crate off the elevator and drove through the safe room into the open warehouse.

"Set it down here," Zhao Xiang said, pointing next to the two desks and work table.

His right hand man and one of Eric's Mahjong players accompanied him. He tossed a crowbar on top of the wood crate and told assistant Xilai to pull the top off.

"I think Lily is supposed to be here for such things," Xilai said.

"Aunt Lily can't come today. I think she's feeling a little under the weather. And don't tell me my job young man. She's your supervisor, and I'm hers."

Xilai pried open the crate top up on all sides as the two men watched.

"One point five million missing?" Zhao Xiang asked.

"One point five six," Xilai said.

"Are you sure you didn't just take it with you the other night? Maybe we should search your place."

"Three of us were there. Three sets of eyes. You can check the cameras," Xilai said.

"Is that so? You've got a great mind for math. I guess no one with your education is going to get those numbers wrong."

Zhao stuffed an invoice under the pallet the crate rested on as Xilai worked the top off the wood crate. He set the heavy top off to the side next to the forklift.

"Can you reach down and pull that invoice off the bottom? It fell underneath and my back isn't cooperating today."

Xilai looked down and saw nothing.

"It's underneath. You have to reach under the pallet where the forklift goes in. Right down there."

Zhao pointed to the pallet opening where the forklift blades went in.

"Put your hand in there and you'll feel it."

Xilai, wearing overalls and glasses gave a resigned grin. He got down on his knees and felt under the pallet.

"I don't feel anything," he said.

Zhao put his 9 mm pistol to the back of Xilai's head and pulled the trigger. Xilai snapped to the floor and blood shot out of his head into a pool next to the pallet.

"I bet you felt that, you ungrateful punk."

Zhao glanced over at his friend leaning against the forklift.

"We're not going to cherry pick through these crates anymore."

He pulled a bundle of one million dollars off the top of the crate and set it on the work table next to him. He pointed his gun barrel down at the young dead assistant, Xilai, lying in a pool of blood at the base of the opened wood crate.

"He goes into his own special container too."

The CRT monitors in the office began flashing bright as someone was approaching the elevator.

"It's Lin He. We can keep him out. Override the vault door," his friend said.

"No. Let him in. We need to talk about a few things as well," Zhao said.

Lin He unlocked the vault door from the elevator room and walked in. His boots clicked on the cement floor, and he could see the dead assistant on the floor and cash on the table. He stopped and his head moved ever so slightly scanning the room. He looked at the crow bar on the opened crate and didn't think he could outpace the gun in Zhao's shoulder holster. He could make a run for the darkness and the rows of crates and containers in the back, and then he calculated a fifty-fifty chance he could kill them both in the dark shadows.

"It seems we had an accident. Someone got killed not sticking to protocol," Zhao said.

"If this is a Chinese matter then I should go," Lin He said.

"No, by all means you should stay. So you too understand our new protocol."

"Spending that money is dangerous," Lin He said.

"Not spending it someday will prove disastrous for China."

"None of my business."

"But Hamheung Pharmaceuticals is. I hear the product you are delivering is just like these bills, indistinguishable from the real product."

"It is the real product," Lin He said.

"Of course, and with names like Pfizer and Merck on the label it must make them even more sought after. Lily is sending incriminating mails to Beijing on missing money. She isn't following protocol either. Your name is coming up a lot. She calls you a half breed thief and accuses you of taking a hefty cut."

Lin He stood quiet and listened.

"My Beijing supervisors back me well. Just as all the men on that wall full of safety deposit boxes will back me. This is a Chinese enterprise. If you rent space, you will need to pay the landlord, Mr. Lin. You will do just fine, as long as you know who is in charge and who calls the shots. Otherwise it will be me and the men on that wall you will be running from."

Zhao pointed to the wall of safety deposit boxes.

Lin He looked over at the wall of men in boxes. Stepping over his boundaries could prove deadly. He was being reminded he wasn't a full Chinese.

"We will start with a five percent cut for myself. Lily will keep doing the accounting. She's a good soldier and seems good at incriminating herself. And she is so honest to boot. But she will need some coaxing from us. If not, we have an issue with protocol. Do you agree Mr. Lin?"

Lin nodded his head very slightly, still scanning the room for a quick move. He could slowly walk closer to them, but was sure Zhao Xiang would draw his gun within ten feet of him approaching. The other wasn't carrying a gun, so he would have to get within at least five feet of the crow bar and Zhao to have a likely outcome.

"Let's talk it over a nice cup of coffee. Shall we?"

"Good Mr. Lin. You're a civilized man. A time and place of your own choosing."

He turned around and walked back towards the elevator.

"Mr. Lin. Are you forgetting something?"

He looked back at the two men and the dead assistant Xilai on the ground.

"Could you help us dispose of this?"

Zhao pointed down at the dead assistant as if showing off his prized kill. He was violent but an amateur, thought Lin He. The elevator opened and Lin entered and turned around facing them. He said nothing. The doors closed.

# The Helmet Police

Entebbe, Uganda

September 11th

The Texan's wife spread her legs on the bathroom countertop. Jaime's hands gripped her naked hips as she pushed against his mid-section groaning for more. He was too far gone, but still managed to satisfy her. He fell back against the bathroom door and stumbled into the living room. He could hear the low base thud of music vibrating through the house from the backyard party as his final high crashed and burned in the Fort Worth, Texas house. The image came back in a dream, trapped somewhere deep in his memory until now.

Jaime woke from the dream. He was lying naked again, but this time on the cool quiet tile floor of Eric Wong's guest house. He felt relieved he wasn't waking up in a stranger's house with a gun to his head, again. He rolled over onto his knees and elbows and curled his hands into his face. He let out an exhausted gasp, as his memory had finally jogged itself clean of the Fort Worth neighborhood house party before his departure.

His memory of the past nights events were hazy. He could only recall the beginning of the evening, a masquerade party held by Eric Wong. He stayed curled in a ball on the floor as he tried to remember the night's events, his head throbbing in pain.

He brought Nurse Xiumei, but as the party got more crowded and the night drew on, it got hazier, flooding into blackness, just like that night in Fort Worth. He shivered on the ground in fear, as his first few moments from such a spell brought out what he was capable of doing in his intoxicated state. He was alive again, which was a good beginning, but the hell of living through the memories had just begun.

When he woke in the Fort Worth County Jail drunk tank after his first DUI arrest, he was not even sure where he was for the first half hour. It was not until the Warden unlocked the padded door, and a Texas Sheriff came in and introduced himself. He knelt down on the floor where Jaime was recovering and handed him a large mug of black coffee, his Texas Sheriff's star staring back at Jaime.

"Son, it seems you had one hell of a night."

They were the sheriff's first and only words.

Jaime lifted himself off the ground and stumbled into his kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and saw his medication, an empty cardboard box for small black cubes, similar in size and looks to a See's Candy box. They looked no different than fudge squares with red Chinese characters written on the clear cellophane wrapping. The cellophane wrappings littered the floor around the refrigerator. He had binged, just like his drinking, and dosed himself on his entire subscription. Nurse Xiumei subscribed no more than a two weeks supply.

He dropped to his knees, too tired and in too much pain to stand up straight. More memories of the night slowly poured into his head. It was a masquerade party, and Xiumei showed up as a ripe orange and got peeled and eaten by Eric's flamboyant entourage. She wore a bright orange dress with matching blouse and orange hair ribbons. They called her the Sunkist Orange Girl. The Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macau woman swarmed around her at Eric's encouragement, and tore her to pieces, laughing at her outfit, calling it the best masquerade at the party. She didn't speak much English and her far borderland Chinese accent was not even close in dialect to converse with the Mandarin and Cantonese speaking Chinese at Eric's party. Her teeth were crooked and brown from chewing beetle nut. She was wholesome and genuine, but that didn't count at Eric's parties. Display and Vogue were what counted. Jaime got taken away by Eric's entourage and she left in frustration after being starred at, pointed at, and even having women pick at her clothing. She tried to retrieve Jaime, stomping her shoe to the ground with a slap, but he was too far gone and taken away by Eric's friends.

'They were professional manipulators,' Jaime thought, as he sat slumped in front of his refrigerator with Chinese medicine candy wrappers all over the floor. He felt terrible about Xiumei. He could have seen it coming but failed to protect her, as he had weeks prior when she dressed as a purple flower. They also knew she was his girlfriend and maybe felt jealous. She stomped the heel of her shoe down hard on the floor when she got upset. It aroused Jaime, especially when she was in her pitch white nurse outfit. He should have told her to show up in her nurse uniform, with her mask to go with it. No one could have touched her then. Instead she dressed up, not as a flower but as an orange, and got peeled by Eric's sophisticated friends.

Since his move to the guest house, Eric seemed to take a special interest in Jaime. Eric showed up on the back veranda overlooking the guesthouse quite often. From the front double doors of the guest house and small courtyard where Jaime sat down and relaxed in the evenings, he could talk to Eric perched on the top balcony without even having to raise his voice.

"Anything you need dear," Eric would say.

Jaime could hear Eric milling around on the upstairs balcony. He got up off the floor next to the refrigerator and walked outside, taking his seat on the small coffee table just under Eric's upstairs balcony. For someone as powerful as Eric, he seemed scared to be away from his entourage for any period of time. If he was lonely he would loiter onto the balcony looking for Jaime to talk with. He had his standard silk robe on with nothing underneath. He fanned himself in a feminine fashion. He spoke as if nothing more than a bad storm had rolled through last night, and was just talking about the yard debris that had gotten tossed up.

"Hey, Latin lover. Nice getup last night. Poncho Villa?"

"Emiliano Zapata," Jaime said.

"Mariachi Latin lover to me. Nice getup, though. The boys loved it."

Eric kept fanning himself and gazing out over the horizon.

"You really put on a party, Eric, I have to hand you that."

"Africa heat. Got to love it, though. I'm shattered. We stayed up till the sun came up for sure. Just happy to see this one set today," Eric said.

Since moving into the guest house, Eric's parties took on a new dimension. Jaime couldn't leave them or get away from them. They were also held more than the standard once a week get together as advertised. Every other day was more like it. Only on the weekends were the public and employees of the company invited. Compared to what went on during the week, the weekend parties were a formal event. He could only assume after a month in the guest house that it was all planned. Eric knew about Jaime's drinking and womanizing. Eric only offered him the keys, as if he special ordered Jaime for the guest house.

"You must feel terrible. I've got just the cure. Come up and soak in the steam room. Let the heat and steam cleanse your body. Take out all the toxins in your blood. We Chinese know how to clean blood. We have all kinds of potions and remedies. I'm going to run the bath right now. Fruits and vegetables on the veranda when were done. Come on up when you're ready dear. Don't be shy. Especially after last night," Eric said.

Eric fanned himself and turned and went back inside, his silk rob bouncing around his soft feminine frame. Jaime went back into the guest house and soaked in his own shower instead. He would go see Xiumei and try to patch things up.

More memories of the evening began to pour into his head as he soaked his painful hangover in the guesthouse shower. Eric's den. Eric's play room. Down stairs. After the masquerade bash ended, Eric kept his select friends around for his own fun. It was pick your flavor or mix them all together in one sauce. Mostly his gay friends and a handful of very, very understanding Chinese girls attended. By the time after hours came to, Jaime was just a standing zombie. His frame kept him upright, but he was a building ready to come crashing down. When he soaked his system with alcohol it came in high quantity and short bursts. By afterhours, his system had pretty much shut down. His amazing frame and tolerance kept him standing, just like it kept him going in the Fort Worth house party. But none of this stopped Eric and his party pals, some still in costume, from playing their games. Jaime sat down in the shower and let the hot water pour over his face as Eric's afterhours shenanigans came back to memory.

"Dicks &Wieners. I show you mine and you show me yours."

It was Eric's last ditch effort to tell Jaime that he gave up looking for gay sex. He just wanted to play a game now, and it was called Dicks &Wieners. Jaime told him to get lost and shoved him off, calling him queer. Eric pouted in his standard feminine theatrical fashion. He had a jealous streak that became turbocharged with drugs, alcohol, theatrics and his personal Macau and Hong Kong friends. Jaime couldn't make out Eric's costume, but it did conjure up images of young Austrian boys from the Sound of Music.

"Fine, then let's play a game you're used to, Cops and Robbers."

A siren went off and a red patrol car beacon flashed bright in the dark down stares play room. An Indian man blew his whistle.

"Freeze! Assume the position!"

Jaime put his hands in the air as if he were part of a Texas State Trooper arrest. He went along for the entertainment.

"Oh no. Oh my. Not the Helmet Police! Who's getting their helmet checked this evening?" cried Eric in a panicked state."

He began to cry in fear, his whimpering cries getting more flamboyant as the afterhours events got started.

"You!" the Indian man said, pointing his finger at Jaime.

One of Eric's friends stood on a small stool behind Jaime and placed his arms under Jaime's armpits to support him.

"Don't worry, I've got you, lover boy," he said.

The Indian wore a beret with a grouping of feathers that cropped forward in a semicircular, pattern. His pressed pants were tucked into his spit polished combat boots with khaki uniform shirt and epilates. His white leather belt had a shoulder strap and a small automatic pistol, a Walter P-38 by its size and looks, strapped to his side. Helmet Police was inscribed on a silver badge below his United Kingdom passport hooked to his epilates in full view, pronouncing his strong English roots. It was a delicate leather ensemble, thought Jaime through his drunken haze. Not tough and practical like the Texas State Troopers that hauled him in.

Parade grounds ready.

The Indian opened a small lacquered box and began assembling a small, very fine bamboo stick two feet in length. He screwed it together in three pieces. Just like the box, it was intricate and detailed with a fine velvet cloth handle, bone inlay and a silver covered tip with a small ring. The Indian hooked a wire to the end of the ring, and opened another small compartment in his box that contained a row of shiny metal hooks. They were similar to fishing hooks, but more compact, thicker and had a counterweight on the back side of the hook. He attached the hook to the end of the wire.

In a mere split second, Jaime looked down in horror at the sight below him. His knees became weak and he felt as if he were about to pass out. The man behind Jaime, as if knowing the routine, braced his arms under Jaime's armpits to ensure he did not crumple to the ground. Jaime could feel his heart pounding in his chest as the blood pumped through his jugular veins, as if trying to asphyxiate him.

His pants were down to his knees and the small hook, with a snap of the delicate bamboo pole, had caught the very tip of his penis and was now firmly tensioned on the wire, no different than a fish on a hook. Eric knelt down next to Jaime's captured unit, and pulled out what looked like a flat, double sided spoon. He gently lifted Jaime's scrotum up with the paddle like spoon. Jaime let out a scream and his eyes opened wide looking down at the precision instrument that had hooked his criminal member. He could feel the hook pulling tightly on the inside of his penis towards the Indian Police Officer. Eric's partner, holding Jaime upright from behind, flashed a blue fluorescent light on the specimen. Eric used the paddle to get a full look at Jaime's prized unit. He let out a whimper as he used the double spooned tool to hold Jaime's balls as the Indian, with pinpoint precision, angled his penis at will with the small rod and tensioned line. Jaime attempted to break free but he was caught in a paralyzing situation he could not escape from. The tensioned line had put him into a state of shock that made his lower body limp and his head full of blood, asphyxiating him to the point of passing out. The tensioned line could also do more damage if he struggled against the Indian Policeman. The man holding him up from behind kept the weight off his feet while standing on a stool, and made Jaime's legs dance around like wet noodles. All he could do is scream and quiver as they had their way with him.

As quick as the hook had found its target, the Indian whipped the small delicate rod, and gave out a quick piercing "Cha!" as the hook and wire came off, his penis falling gently onto the double ended spoon in Eric's hand. His queer friends all applauded and cheered.

"Good Show, Good Show," they said.

The blood released itself from Jaime's head and flowed like a river from his head through his abdomen and into his legs. He passed out for good. His last memory, the red beacon flashing in his face and the sound of a police siren blaring out its distress call.

Jaime dressed and made his way through the villa. He could hear the shower running upstairs in Eric's master bedroom. He got into his Toyota Forerunner and headed for the hospital. He always met Xiumei at a private outpatient door on the west wall of the hospital, not far from the loading docks. As he drove down the two lane road he could feel his penis, still sore where the small sharp hook had landed. He cringed at his own sick memories, even though it all seemed something he had little control over. Why did Eric find it more exiting gaming heterosexual men? He could just as easily buy a full time genuine villa house boy. Latino, Filipino, Hong Kong Chinese, or any other flavor he chose, even a local boy. Eric was a flamboyant playboy, but he could also get jealous and possessive in a hurry. It could get dangerous at his afterhours parties, when the real action began. Jaime wouldn't go both ways, even in his most compromised state. He liked a good solid woman like Xiumei. She was a tough country girl. There was something about her too exotic for him to resist. No one dresses like a flower and an orange at one of Eric's parties. He felt it stirring his insides just thinking about her. No other women had done that to him in years.

The front of the hospital was surrounded with real patients seeking treatment. They were the image of the hospital, and assisted by local Ugandan nurses. Nurse Xiumei stood on a small cement ledge with a trash can for cigarette butts. The sun pounded her side of the building, and there was only one metal door on its face. It seemed her private door, and she always met Jaime there when he sought out her expert medical advice and care. She even retained her hospital mask, which Jaime found arousing, as it brought out intensity to her slanted deep dark eyes. She had her nurse's hat with white stockings and white hospital one inch heel loafers. They looked at each other in the bright, red, late afternoon sun. Jaime reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of crinkled Chinese medicine wrappers. They dropped to the ground and scattered and danced in the breeze, like little lovers, and then drifted off the cement walkway. She nodded in an understanding, yet disappointed look, expecting he would binge on her subscription and be back for more after such a night of debauchery. He pushed his black hair back and pulled his belt tighter. He was thin now, and lost ten kilograms since arriving. He looked cut and fit.   
"I won't do it again, if you can forgive me."

His look melted her. She was not used to such seduction, and Jaime could tell she was boiling up inside. She must not have been with many men, and not his type for sure. Her mask seemed to hide her emotions, but Jaime could see the gloss building up in her dark eyes.

*****

The Ugandan farmer and his wife opened the gate with a warm smile and welcoming gesture to Cowboy. He tipped his hat to them as he drove his 4x4 between the banana and mango groves on the five acre hobby farm overlooking the hospital from a bluff. They must have felt it was better to let Cowboy go about his business. It may have been his Stetson hat, or the 9 mm H&K MP5 on the passenger's seat, but more than likely it was his polite and quiet East Texas charm and the brand new crisp and clean one hundred dollar bill he handed them, which to his chagrin, kept turning up all over Kampala.

Cowboy put his Chevrolet Tahoe in drive and crawled along the white picket fence hobby farm perimeter. He looked over a drainage gully and more fence line with electric wires that surrounded the hospital on all sides. It was jungle with debris followed by fence and concrete building. He watched Jaime and Nurse Xiumei from a distance, looking down through the barbed wire onto the west wall of the hospital where the evening sun shined down and exposed the red dirt, weeds, dumpsters and mayhem that seemed to bring itself about a Kampala building. He watched them meet at the side entrance. He watched how Jaime moved his longs arms down around her hips and back, and he could tell from a distance its effect on her. They were an item and maybe more now.

"Luvee Dove," he said, as he watched the couple through the windshield of his 4X4.

He played some Patsy Cline, The Last Tennessee Waltz. Patsy introduced herself and the band members, and her deep strong voice came through the speakers and into Cowboy's heart. He put his index finger and thumb on the edge of his Stetson, and bowed into a statuesque pose as the song bled out through the truck speakers. Nurse Xiumei was a murderer. She had gassed at least a dozen political prisoners, or whatever you wanted to call, on the Russian IL-76 by Cowboy's estimates. Even if she didn't know what she was doing, that's how most killing began. He had taught more than a few people how to kill without thinking too much about it. Park Taeri on the Syrian border learned how to kill and keep killing in no more effort than the click of a mouse. He just needed the right setting, which Cowboy gladly provided to him.

Jaime was a psychopath by definition, but not violent. Cowboy knew the difference. The man he was looking for was all those things and much more, and he may even have one of his best trained killers, Park Taeri, working for him, along with a few of his company property rifle scopes. That is what really bothered him.

Nurse Xiumei and Jaime were an item, lost someplace or maybe looking to get further lost in due time. They were inert specimens in his book, and no different than a couple of Texas lemons he needed to squeeze into lemonade.

They disappeared around the corner of the building. Cowboy closed his eyes for a while and then opened them as Patsy Cline finished her song. He scanned his eyes up the west wall and there were no windows on the top floor. His eyes fixed on the top of the wall and he stood perfectly still, as he could for hours if he wished. He could call in air strikes, but knew it was too great a risk, just like in Khartoum and the baby milk factory, years ago. A hospital would be worse, and he knew those sons of bitches even took in real patients. He pulled the Tahoe out of Park and drove it around toward the owner's front gate. He would meet Captain Jaime Diaz and Nurse Xiumei in due time, preferably in different rooms and in different countries with no due process in locking folks up and torturing them for no good reason.

"Luvee Dove," Cowboy said, as he drove off the hobby farm.

"Luvee Dove."

*****

Nurse Xiumei led Jaime to a loading dock and an access elevator. She pushed a large red button three inches in diameter and looked up at a video camera for identification. She held Jaime's arm and walked him into and the elevator and then walked out facing him. The doors closed. Somehow he trusted her. She was waiting for him, and seemed to know when he would run out of subscription medication. The brown chewable squares where light, and put him on a mellow cloud. He floated on it for hours and it seemed as harmless as a low fever. But he wanted more. Adrian looked at his brown teeth on the flight deck and said the word 'Khat,' and nothing else. Inside the elevator there was no buttons for different floors, ten feet across in all directions. No Emergency call or telephone. He looked around and even the ceiling had metal paneling and no way to reach up or climb out if needed. The elevator began to move. It opened into a small room. A safe door unlocked and he walked into the Fifth floor of the hospital. Wood crates and containers filled the top floor with a wall of safety deposit boxes. The crates and containers were the familiar ones he had been shipping around Central Africa.

Two crates were open as if on display. One rested on a wood pallet and its contents in full view. Jaime ran his hand down the side of stacked bills. Mostly one hundred dollar notes, a thin section of five hundred Euro notes, and a pile of South African Rand notes on the bottom. The crate came up to his chest and was six feet wide on both sides. Next to it was a smaller container with electronic locks on the bottom and a plastic cover placed on the side with locking tool. It contained one kilo gold bars stamped with four nines. Jaime reached down and slid one of the bars off the corner. He had never felt something so smooth and dense. There were Chinese characters on the gold bars. They must have been specially minted for the Chinese market. He slid the gold bar back in its corner slot. He looked out over the Fifth floor, with an open working area and tables in front of the elevator and wall to wall crates and containers going back into the darkness.

He heard high heeled steps echo around the cement storage floor. They came closer and he closed his eyes for a moment, knowing this could be worse than anything Eric's perverted mind could conjure up in the wee hours of the morning. The steps became louder, and out of the darkness stood Lin He.

"Welcome to the fifth floor, Mr. Diaz. This is your final initiation."

"What is this place?"

"We are a hospital, Mr. Diaz. But we are also exclusive bankers for Chinese transactions throughout Central Africa."

Lin He's voice seemed to lose its soft touch as in the coffee shop. He now spoke louder and more firm, as if addressing a group of soldiers.

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because there is no way the Chinese would allow either of us to live if they thought we would not commit ourselves to this operation. You would die or at best go home to prison. You have been looking for the other ten percent. To be more accurate, I would say ninety percent, but it's all revenue."

"You ship bulk in, hard cash, and you ship bullion out."

"Ninety percent of what we do is as we advertise. This floor is the other ten percent, but it represents most of our cash flow. That is how we can afford to run a hospital, a losing proposition. We are also an outflow valve for the mountains of debt your country issues, that will never be repaid. The American Dollar will someday collapse under unsustainable obligations, and our clients want their hard work to move into real assets and businesses. So we are a vault for Chinese reserves in Africa. We are a liquidity engine for any bank failures, and we sell US treasuries, but we bundle them into Chinese long term obligations we call Red Notes, which we have our own expiration date on for exercising such securities. Chinese are given lines of credit in dollars and local currencies to purchase enterprises. They are buying businesses, hard assets with US treasuries, without dumping them on the market and possibly collapsing the dollar or the value of the underlying US Treasuries. As bankers, which we are, you are welcome to a handsome dividend. Join me, give me your full trust, and you will never worry about all this paper stacked on pallets again."  
"Why me? Why not one of your own?"

"I have explained to you my own dilemma, being trapped between two worlds. Trying to be both but never accepted by either. I need men I can trust. You are a select group of people I have been searching for, for many years. You understand debt. You understand money, and you understand a write-off. You understand the futility in fighting a system which will enslave and incarcerate you. You need to be among people that think in similar terms to reach your true potential. All the men chosen are a special team. Some need re-education. Some need time to unwind their restless lives, to calm one's soul and accept the future. Han Bin will need time in the system and our own approach. The others, Adrian and Toby are already well on board. We build each individuals position based on who they are, and we do not manipulate or threaten them as a standard western corporation may behave. More aircraft are on the way, Boeing 767 freighters. You will be duel qualified in both. We need a hard ball driver, Mr. Diaz. We need a pilot that thinks outside of every regulation. We have Russians, and we operate these crews with the same respect. But we need something else. A skill set that goes back to your own country, which you may find in the bush of Alaska, or today, the jungles of the Congo. You have such traits."

Lin He took the gold bar that Jaime picked up off the stack. He placed it in Jaime's hand.

"I believe this one is yours. Recognized and redeemable anywhere in the world."

Jaime cupped the bar in his hands.   
"May I ask one favor of you in return, Mr. Diaz? A stage prop I would like to use for a Chinese colleague of ours, Lily Chan."

Jaime withdrew the bowie knife from the middle of his back.   
"We will be meeting her at our regular coffee shop tomorrow. Eric Wong has made such arrangements, if you could kindly wait downstairs, to prevent anyone from coming or going."

It had been close to two weeks since Jaime had flown the network. During one of his visits to his favorite coffee shop his phone was stolen. Lin He made sure he was given a new phone and number. He was also told he would soon be flying a new aircraft and sent manuals for a B-767 from Karen Sandusky. He was removed from roster on the B-727.

"And what will you be discussing that demands such a stage prop, Mr. Lin?"  
He patted Jaime on the shoulder in a brotherly fashion.

"How to play a game of billiards, how we will go about such a game. We will set down some new playing rules."

# Temper Tantrum

Entebbe, Uganda

September 11th

LOVEEXPRESS

Want to know what's inside? Click here. Instant membership and free. No applications. Just click right here and come on in.

Han deleted the instant message a number of times, reported it as spam and cleaned his computer hard drive of viruses and cookies. But it came back again. He wasn't a porn surfer and never picked up adult website cookies on his hard drive. He clicked on the screen hoping to delete it from the system that way. A message popped up.

Han Bin you are now a member of LOVEEXPRESS.  You have been e-mailed your user ID and password.

Sure enough an e-mail popped into his inbox, from admin@loveexpress.com.

How did they get my e-mail too? He wrote his user name, toyboy, and password, handog, down and clicked back on the site. A white page with a small box in the center appeared. There was no title. Just a white screen with a box in the center. He punched toyboy into the box and another screen with two hound dogs doing it doggy style, the male on top drooling on the head of female, and a message saying This is your key image, and another box. He punched in handog, now amused and annoyed at the same time. It was a Japanese pornographic site. That was no surprise by the title. They seemed to love the term Express, and used it in so many things. The surprise was the first frame, which happened to be him and the Candy Girls C1 and C2. The clarity was good. It was not amateur. The lighting was even better, and he thought back to this engagement at Eric's villa guest house.

He shut the door to his office in the barracks and ran the video on his computer. He was so focused on the Japanese girls during his engagement that it seemed to have blanked out all his surroundings. As if he were a pig at the trough, eating away with nothing else in mind, compromised vision and only aware of what he could smell and see two feet in front of him.

'A pig, a hound dog. A Handog toy-boy,' he thought.  
As he watched the video he felt his old friend, uncontrollable violent anger, pushing up hard to the surface, as if a lake turning upside down in spring time. It was something that changed everything calm and calculated about him into a raging machine of pain, retribution and discipline. He could feel it pumping into his forearms, and flushing his face.

'Someone is going to get hurt for doing this, and it won't be me,' Han thought.

The cameras, at least five from the different angles, were at the most opportune positions. Where the cameras couldn't go, he noticed the Candy Girls made sure they positioned themselves and him accordingly. They were pro's and moved their bodies like magic to get the full camera effect. They even looked right into them, maybe knowing he would be watching later on.

'Hey there big guy, how does it look?' Hey Handog, toyboy, like what you see?' C1 and C2 seemed to be saying as their bodies filled his computer monitor.

His movements were not so graceful, and at one point it looked like he was punch drunk from the whole thing, as the girls pushed and pulled his arms, legs, back and chest at will. They were strong, much stronger than him.

'Women usually are,' he thought.

He could see the muscles in his ass, his back, legs and forearms tense up as he grabbed hold of their 110 pound frames.

They were no different than elastic that pulled itself back to its original position, impossible to damage. They wore him down as his muscles pumped themselves full of testosterone and acid, draining his head of blood and turning him into a big stupid meat puppet with a hard-on he could not even shoot into a ten gallon bucket with both hands around it.

It seemed these girls could turn any descent looking, well mannered, Men's Health subscribing gentlemen into a primitive dull minded moron. They giggled and talked in Japanese and seemed to work as a team taking turns, even competing with each other in front of the cameras. It was just good sport for them, and they seemed not so different than a professional beach volleyball duo, high fiving each other after a slam dunk. One sets up, and the other makes the shot. Turn it around and it's the other girls shot at glory. His eyes were glossy, his lips and mouth wet, as if slobbering all over his dog plate. He couldn't get enough it seemed, and the high definition video ended after sixty eight minutes, as he finally slumped over like a worn out mule. Two shots and going for his third. Finished. There was no other words to describe what the ending looked like. One of the Japanese girls, sitting on her ass, shook her hand back and forth, rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out, a quick glance at her friend. Sixty Eight minutes to knock this one off for good. She could not have said it better and more subtle, without saying a word.

Han closed his eyes and tried not to let the water boil. He could take the whole place apart if he didn't find a way to keep the water from boiling up. Broken arms, smashed faces and the living quarters on fire. Memories of his father-in-law Minister at the bottom of a staircase in his half drunken rage.   
Everyone found their home, their place in society. From the Honors Student to the High School flunky, to those that even landed themselves behind bars. There was a line waiting for everyone, somewhere, sometime in the future, with someone glad to see you ended up in their line. The Candy Girls had found their niche early in life. Sexual Technicians. They had found their line at a very, very young age. Jaime, Adrian, Toby, Karen, The Captain, and now he were all here for a reason, not so different than the Candy Girls. Everyone found their home and eventually their line, even the homeless did, accepted in some sick way, and no different from all in society, that always end up in one line or the other, until it's all over.

He was now a porn star who may even be conspiring with North Koreans. His face pumped full of blood, pounding into his head as he clicked off the video. It brought him back to the original site. There were about thirty different downloads. He looked at the videos. The candy girls were in at least a dozen of them. The other women were just as perfect, almost flawless. He saw a familiar face. He was laboring harder than even him on the Candy Girls. A man in his mid-50's with a contorted look on his face and beads of sweat coming down his balding forehead. Han recognized him as an Ex CFO from a Japanese Automotive Company. Another younger man, a popular morning talk show host in Japan.

Han turned the computer off. The water had come down to simmer and drained his energy, just like the candy girls. Eric knew both girls, and they had free rein to do as they pleased at his party's, even access to the guest quarters to lure in their prey.

He grabbed the keys off his desk and walked out to his car. He would save his questions for Eric, and beat them out of him if necessary.

*****

Two night fighters walked parallels in front of the rod iron gates to Eric Wong's villa. Their long black legs, resting on four inch pumps, reflected off the hot African afternoon sun. One made eye contact with Han as he approached the villa.

'Not on your life,' he thought.

Eric's Mahjong party started around seven and lasted until the sun came up the next day. They were waiting for the gates to open in hopes of prying their way in. Hooking in front of the rod iron gates was a likely second option.

"Where is he?"

A Ugandan house maid stood fixed and confused between the oversized double doors leading into the grand entrance to Eric Wong's fortress villa. She wore a uniform bib with company logo and name tag.

'Put them in a uniform, organize them and take even more money from them,' Han thought.

He walked past her and into a grand ballroom, the center of Eric's parties. If no one was home, he would rifle through every drawer in the house and find out who they were. He would gather anything and everything he could find and send it to Moon Gunwoo and head reporter, Jeong Junsuh, at the Seouler Daily Informer.

His video with C1 and C2 was a professional job. The cameras and lighting were strategically positioned, and the video shots were spliced into high quality action scenes. It wasn't amateur in film quality, lighting or the casting. Eric Wong was behind it, figured Han. It was his villa and he knew both girls. Hans's anger began to pump and burn deep inside. If Eric was going to ruin his life and reputation, he would return the favor with a memento to remember for the rest of his life.  
Han paced into a kitchen big enough to feed an army platoon. He made his way up the wrap around staircase and through a long corridor leading to a master bedroom. The curtains were drawn with shafts of light and mist pouring out of the master bathroom. He could hear soft muffled sounds coming from the shower. If it was the girls, he wasn't sure if he would take his rage out with more sex and spanking, or maybe just a good old fashioned beating. His anger felt like it could be flipped over into sex play faster than a meat patty in a frying pan. If it was Eric, he would give him just enough rope to hang himself. He could feel his anger building up as if it were waiting for a reason to jump out. He just needed someone or something to stoke the fires.

At that moment, Eric Wong came out of the steam and mist, wearing a pink silk robe with slippers to match. His face was flush pink with lotion on his hands and face and a towel neatly wrapped around his hair.   
'Faggot!' Han thought.

Eric smiled, hiding his surprise.

"We need to talk about a few things, Eric."

"Oh, so surprised."

Eric smiled and it lit up his already flush pink face. The steam kept pouring out of the shower room full hot behind him. Eric tilted his head sideways and used the towel to mat his wet hair. He tilted his head to the other side and patted his ear to keep water out. It looked like he rehearsed this move as one of his pickup tricks. Han stood back not knowing how to react. A few words and he moved right in, seeing a break, a weakness in Han. He was more powerful than Han in a soft sick way, just like C1 and C2.

"Would you like to see me on the veranda in few minutes? I can have the house lady bring us some drinks."

He tilted his head the other way and his smile shifted with his head, as if tilting a glass of water one way and then the other. He must have rehearsed this in front of the mirror too.   
'Playboy faggot.'

Han's blood kept getting hotter.  Anger management, he heard his mother's voice say. It had been a long time since that old feeling boiled up, like a class reunion with all the familiar characters in his head. He knew how quick it could turn violent. Just like it did with his ex-father-in –law, and what his mother warned him of before he left. They seemed to know him better than himself.

"The two Japanese girls from Osaka, the ones at the party."

Eric's mouth turned into a perfect O, but he had a sarcastic smile behind it. He knew how to turn the sex charm on.

"Who?"

"I want their names, and where they live. Don't play stupid, you know them."

Eric looked up at Han with the same seductive eyes his ex-wife used when she knew he wanted some. Dreamy eyes with the pupils at the top of her eye sockets, so close to him, and looking up in a subservient manner.

"I know them. Sure. Now we both do. How were they? Not my type, but I heard they're the best."

Eric shrugged his shoulders.

"Sometimes you just don't know until it's all over. If you're hot for them, I'm sure we can work something out."

Han looked straight into his eyes. Eric never seemed to blink. Maybe he missed his blinks between his own, like some stupid slow mule. Whatever world Eric lived in, Han was just one of his tricks.   
'Two faced toy boy.'

The boiling in his head was a low rumble, just before he blew his top.

'Almost done,' he thought.

Anger management. He kept hearing the echoes from mother, but it was fading fast.

"Ohh... don't be angry. You're the angry type I can tell. Look at your arms."  
Eric reached out and softly touched Han's biceps. Then he pressed his hand to Han's pectoral.

A low whistle off the top of the tea pot, a last warning to back off. It's time for some pain infliction.

"It's alright, I know how you feel. You need to relax. I can make you do that."  
He grinned and pouted at Han. His head tilted oh so slight. Puppy love.  
"Look at you. Soldier boy. Flyboy. Your arms are pumping. Pumping and pumping with anger."

He kept his steady seductive gaze pinned on Han. His glossy black eyes rounded up at him with a mischievous smile.

"I saw the video. The girls showed it to me. So naughty of them! I was a little envious. But not at you."

Han grabbed his fore arm. His grip sank in to soft skin and little muscle.

'Macau, banker, fag boy!'

It pounded through his head. Steam was coming out of the boiling pot. This was about the same rage level that sent his ex-father-in-law went down the stair case. He gripped Eric's arm tighter.

"Oh, you're hurting me. Stop. Stop hurting me."

Eric spoke softly and quiet. He squirmed as if he liked it. His shoulder swung over and his back flung against Han's chest, as if giving into his overpowering lover.   
"Don't be such a brute."

Han squeezed tighter.   
"Stop! Brute. Stop hurting."

Eric's head and lips were now buried into Han's pectoral nipple.

'I'm gonna break his arm off,' Han thought.

He would twist it around and rip it from the socket.

"Stop! That's enough!" Lily yelled.

"Eric, stop this now!"  
Han turned his head and saw Lily. Her words were spoken like a school master scolding a boy constantly in trouble. She was dressed in black slacks with a plain silk blouse. Her hair, straight cut like school girls from the 1970s. A standard uniform for her.

'Mao's student soldier,' Han thought.

"You can talk to me. That is enough!"   
Han released his grip. The anger drained out of his head like water through a sieve. Eric's body was a tar baby he would just get further and further stuck in. There was little muscle to him and his shapeless soft body pushed off of Han with no damage done. He even seemed to have enjoyed it. Eric slithered back into the shower mist with the occasional whimper and pout.

Lily pointed her finger at Han.

"Leave him alone. You talk to me instead."

She marched out, not wanting to be a part of such a scene. Han followed her out of the master bedroom. She did not look behind as they walked down a hallway with a view out over the front entrance and gates. They walked through an open meeting room and through another master bedroom. He could detect confidence and intelligence. She opened two French doors and a balcony, thirty meters from end to end. She stood next to the open doors with her arm fully extended, guiding Han onto the secluded veranda. Han walked out. She slammed the doors behind him. Han detected a sense of anger and frustration that had not dissipated since the shower scene. He put his arms on the granite rail overlooking an open garden and twenty foot walls overgrown with bush below him.

"Never walk in here uninvited. You broke into this home. You could have been apprehended or injured. You could have been killed!"

The last words were forceful and she kept a pause between each word.  
"Do you speak Chinese?"

"Korean, English," Han said.  
"Then we will make due in English," she said in perfect, slow clear American accented English.

The adrenaline rush was now turning into a numbing sedative. His temper was a disease. It had landed him here. Everyone was here for a reason. He had discovered his reason, an unmanageable temper. Even in his calmest and most rational moments, his extreme temper was working its business, doing the groundwork for the next explosive moment. It was underground during his years at Seoul Incheon Airways, prodding him to do something different. Taking the Kuala Lumpur job and then ending up here was a form of underground rage. Not different from his rage in the military, his ex-wife's father, and now Eric Wong. All had built up steam for an injustice served upon him by society. A breach in morals that could not be overlooked without inflicting pain and punishment first, and then followed up by a general statement on life, morals, discipline and justice. He closed his eyes and ran through a different raging storm. His ex-father-in-law was a minister in a church that he could not buy into. A man that never accepted him, and was a pro at swindling. Spreading the word of God had made him millions, and pushing Han to go to his church was the last straw.

"To hell with you and your whole congregation!" he told him, before sending him head first down an oak staircase after a family dinner. Han walked to bottom of the stair case. He kicked his father-in-law in the ass and gave him his own heart rending sermon on truth and justice.

His rage was a passion. His speeches to his destroyed victims only showed he cared.   
He was not able to give such a one way speech to Eric Wong. If Lily had not stepped in, Eric may have ended up through a second story plate glass window, head first into one of the villa garden planters, concussion, mangled arm and internal injuries. Eric would have then received a calm, collected speech from Han.

"I was not responsible for bringing you in here. We could have handled things ourselves."   
"Just like The Captain. You're not in control of anything," Han said with a shot of sarcasm.   
"Who do I work for? Who do you work for?"  
"I work for the Shenjin Medical Corporation. We provide supplies for our medical chain.

We subcontract flights to other airlines and freight operators, but our core business is medical supplies between our facilities. We even have our aircraft fully configured for medivac services. Which I'm sure you are familiar with. We can carry a full medical team and up to fifty patients on foldable litters. In war, natural disaster, disease outbreak; if anything of this nature occurred, we could go into action and transport patients throughout our network. It is a humanitarian operation."  
She ended on a cheerful tone, as if giving a memorized presentation to a Mainland Chinese Cable News Network.

"You're not convincing me. Your little operation had grown legs of its own, and crawled away from you."

"As I said, bringing you here was not my choice. My choice would have been pilots from China. This is a mess I had no doings with. One-I-will-rectify!"

"Your country cannot even find Chinese pilots to fly in China. They don't want your Chinese brothers in the cockpit. They want mercenaries! And let me tell you what a mercenary is. It's something home grown. You don't make them. You culture something that already is. I want to know what we are hauling in those super sealed containers."  
"I told you. It is network supplies for our hospital chain. It could be anything from pharmaceuticals to hypodermic needles to.. to.."  
"Stop talking to one of your party comrades. Start talking to a former Seoul Incheon Airways pilot, and now one of your mercenary pilots!"

Lily stood in silence and collected her thoughts.  
"Alright, mercenary pilot, what do you want to know? No more propaganda or lies. Tell me what is truly bothering you, and don't say it's sealed containers, because that is none of your business."

"Who is Lin He?"

Lily's face went pale and expressionless. As if a page had been turned and her own anger zeroed out.

She walked up next to Han shoulder to shoulder and gazed out over the garden. She put her elbows on the granite ledge, and they both stood and gazed out over Eric's gated villa for a while.

"Good question. I am quite surprised."

She shook her head in agreement and smiled.

"Lin He is an old story, a rather complicated one that goes back to his father, the founder of Shenjin Medical Corp. Have you met Lin He?"

"No, he doesn't seem to show his face too much, does he?"

"His father was a North Korean of Chinese birth named Lin Guoqiang. Lin He's family has a history in Harbin, China as chemical research scientists. His grandfather was quite proactive in developing amphetamines and distributing them to Chinese combat troops along the Manchurian border during the Korean War. Both his grandparents were workers in General Ichii's labs, doing biological experiments in Harbin for the Japanese in World War II. Lin Guoqiang grew up in the shadows of General Ichii's experiments, and Harbin's dark beginnings in the pharmaceutical industry. In the 1960's, Lin He's father moved to Hamheung, North Korea and established a North Korean version of Shenjin Medical Corp. Of course, amphetamines were his choice drug, but he also was a master counterfeiter of patented drugs, and conducted his own radical research on mind altering drugs. A deal was done between Lin Guoqiang and the Shenjin Medical Corp. The Hamheung lab was to work as a satellite research and production facility, and they would share their vast database of Lin Guoqiang's drug research. Lin Guoqiang was traveling to Harbin with samples of some of his most promising research results and documents. The Chinese government considers much of his findings to be its own property. He was born and raised in Harbin, even though he is of Korean and Japanese parents. His research and education is a direct result of the People's Republic of China. He was protected and promoted through the North Korean system with the blessings of our government. He may have never gotten as far as he did in Hamheung, North Korea without the help of China. He was killed on a train up on the Manchurian border. Today it is Lin He, his son that runs things. Lin He has not proven to be as accommodating as his father, and his dealings in the drug industry are proving to be that of pure opportunity. He has hijacked a program that is Chinese driven and backed with decades of research and work. He is also betraying his father's wish to repatriate the intellectual property of Hamheung to Shenjin Medical Corp. He is also demanding market share and access that is not desirable to Shenjin, and he has yet to prove there is any degree of integrity behind his motivations, or that he has any allegiance to the master company, Shenjin Medical Corp, based in Harbin, China. So does that answer your question? Did you think it was such simple question to answer? Are you satisfied, Han Bin the mercenary pilot?"

Han wanted to believe her every word, but felt she was just icing over the surface. He could push her more, even let the water start to boil out over the balcony, but he heard his mother's voice again, now pleading with him to stop. He tried to think of something to neutralize the situation. He needed more time to think things over.

"Maybe things above my pay grade. Things I have no business getting involved in. Your business and China's."

"Yes it is I'm afraid. And things you should not be bothered by. Don't get lost down here, as many do. Do your job, Han, and go home when the time is right. That is what we all wish to do in the end. To go home."

*****

Han drove back to the crew house. He stared at the cinderblock walls in his makeshift chief pilot's office. He couldn't bring himself to tell Lily about Eric's two friends C1 and C2. He didn't know if the website was a form of bribery, or just something they now had on him, just in case he started talking to anyone, or decided to leave and resume a normal life elsewhere. He also didn't know if Lily's story was any more trustable than a North Korean's. He felt deep down it was dangerous to believe either. She was a button down, Chinese Communist Party member.

He breathed out, and heard a tired lament from somewhere deep inside him. He had heard it before, somewhere else, and felt it had finally arrived, just as his log book had finally reached the 5000 hour mark. It brought his thoughts back to another time, and a person he never felt he could be like. His first job after receiving his Commercial Pilots Certificate paid negative 15,000 dollars a year with no benefits. He paid cash out of his pocket to fly as a co-pilot and build his hours up to 1500, the required flight hours to get his Airline Transport Pilots License. He spent over one thousand hours in the cockpit of a Fairchild Metroliner turboprop with a man he called Leather Gloves.

Staring at the cinderblock walls in his small Chief Pilot's office, isolated and now trapped, he thought back to his last few days flying in the USA with Leather Gloves, almost seven years ago. He felt his own career descending into darkness, one where men like Leather Gloves roamed, and a place he felt he would never go. With his new job, and action scenes with C1 and C2, his tired exhale seemed to say he had finally arrived at such a place. He closed his eyes and whispered his name, a name he had long since forgotten.

"Leather Gloves. Leather Gloves."

# Leather Gloves

Albuquerque, New Mexico USA

Seven years ago

"I just want to cuddle. I met someone. I just want to cuddle tonight."

She came to bed with tight black spandex workout shorts. You couldn't take them off. She just wanted to cuddle.

"Loretta, please!"

"No! I just want to cuddle." Her words were firm.

Leather Gloves rolled onto his side and she pushed her backside to him, her head resting on his bicep. It aroused him, but the spandex would never cooperate.

They had commonalities. They went to the same gun range together, voted for the same right wing political party, had the same taxpaying philosophy and neither of them really cared much about the environment, unless they were consuming it, Sara Palin style, from the heart. They were one. Leather Gloves had decided this for both of them.

"Is something wrong?"

She said nothing, and the silence made his question that much more idiotic and weak. It was their sixth and final date. Leather gloves had already purchased a Tiffany's diamond ring and traded in her used Honda Civic for a new Chevrolet Z-71 4X4. He insisted, for her safety.

They had met online. Their face to face booklets intensified an already complete commonality and ideology. Albuquerque was a weekly run in his Metroliner turboprop. It was enough to keep the fire burning between them. He would leave in the morning for Oklahoma City with a load of auto parts brought in from Juarez, Mexico.

'Keep the fire burning,' he thought.

His eyes squinted tight in the darkness. As tight as his face could take it, his eye sockets feeling the constriction from his facial muscles. He kept the fire burning for sure, and it had just burned the whole house down. Again!

She drifted off to sleep. His arm began to numb up from the weight of her head on his bicep.

He tried to move, but it was awkward given his close proximity. He gazed down at the spandex panties. Arousing, but completely irremovable. His mind now ran adrift, as his member grew large and ominous over the spandex tights. He thought about the words he could have used to confront her, but they would be better left for a manifesto against all women at a later date. She could cut him off quick, and if he came back with his own rebuttal, she would probably cut him off even harder. She could argue, and would ask him, to his face, if that is what he wanted. He wouldn't dare. She would tear his heart to pieces, confetti all over the cheap nylon carpet. His face began to contort in the darkness, and his twisted emotions seemed to lisp from his mouth. Not even a whisper, he tried to say he loved her again and again, tears rolling down his cheeks. He knew it was over. It always ended with a major cock block.

It felt good to release himself, but it wasn't supposed to happen like this. It drained out of his face, and the numbness fixated his eyes on the black spandex shorts, now covered in white extract. The numbness slowly turned to shock, and as shock set in, the panic boiled up inside him. She was a Federal Agent! She could call her friends. Maybe even the one she had recently met. Leather Gloves wiped as much as he could off the tight black spandex shorts, but it quickly got into her hair and onto her pillow and dark brown silk comforter, which created an extreme clash he hadn't seen since accidentally entering a techno club in his wranglers and satin Stetson hat. He moved his free arm above him, and removed as much of the evidence as he could, wiping it on the bed post, the wall, lamp stand, and a number of small stuffed animals. There was still too much left. He noticed a dollop had made its way onto her eyelash, and a trace somehow had ventured its way just under her left nostril. His heart pounded like a drum. If she woke, things would quickly turn into a fight. She could go to blows quick, and off duty Federal Agents would be on the scene in a heartbeat. Ones which he didn't know would come to her rescue, and Leather Gloves and his intern First Officer, Han Bin, would be in handcuffs on the living room floor, charged with assault and battery. It was a given that there was something, somewhere in the judicial system about spraying ones load on a sleeping ex-girlfriend. It would also set a poor career example, as he was the Captain, mentor and Pilot in Command of the Metroliner freighter.

He removed himself from his trapped position. He lay on the carpet next to the bed and cleaned the rest of his body fluid onto the carpet. She was still on the bed in a deep sleep. He collected his clothing, which he had neatly folded and organized in military fashion next to the night stand. It was as organized as their relationship was supposed to be. Not how it had turned out.

Han lay on a couch in the living room. He couldn't sleep and waited for the sounds of love making from the other room to begin and end. As they never came, he rolled his head off the couch and peered at a windbreaker jacket and shoulder holster with a 9MM automatic. A Glock by its boxy plastic look. A good woman's gun, he thought. It was drooped over a kitchen chair with her blue windbreaker.  ATF. It was on big white letters on the back of the blue windbreaker, but the size of the jacket seemed at least two sizes bigger than the woman's. Maybe it was another tradition or formality, he thought. Or just a fashion statement like the rappers with their pants hanging down around their asses. He said the words out loud, but quiet enough not to disturb Leather Gloves and his fiancé, as he called her now.

"ATF," he said in his not so good accented English. His radio work in the Metroliner was very good, and he could read back an Air Traffic Control clearance in verbatim. If he got confused, he simply said "Roger" and then read back in verbatim the exact words of the Air Traffic Controller, just like a parrot. If the Air Traffic Controller got angrier, he would add Roger, and bleat out the exact words verbatim again from the controller. If it got problematic, Leather Gloves would break in and solve the crisis. He hated these interferences in an odd way, as he was very proud of his English speaking skills, but knew he also relied on the Leather Gloves to come in and rectify any situation.

"A T F," Han said again, as he gazed at the blue windbreaker with the white letters.

"ATF," he said, now faster with more confidence, as if he were a Federal Agent at an arrest scene.

He looked up in the dim light to see Leather Gloves peering over him. His eyes were glossy and rolled around the room in a panicked fashion. Han could see the fear on his face through the dark living room. Only a fraction of light came through the open front window. Just moonlight.

"Let's go. Now! Get up," Leather Gloves said in a whisper.

Han's heart began to pound.

"Did you kill her?"

"No! I loved her."

"I know you loved her, but did you kill her?"

"For Christ's sake, I loved her! Let's go. Now!"

*****

Leather Gloves ran with a long stride. Taller, for every fifth stride it took Han six. His heavy duty steel toed boots smashed into the highway black tar, reflecting a yellow green glow from the sulfur street lamp lights above. His Carhartt working man's jacket swung high as did his matching Carhartt overall pants. Was he dressed like that all night? A pack swung off his right shoulder as they ran down a lighted open suburban street that rutted itself onto an over pass and a vast open highway. Han could hear the eighteen wheeler semi's rolling down the highway. There was no place to run but onto the shoulder of the overpass to get to what looked like a truck stop with eighteen wheelers lined up like tinker toys on the other side of the highway. The overpass was wider than any walkway, but still seemed brutally dangerous. Leather Gloves seemed dressed for the occasion. His boots took well to the asphalt as he sprinted over the overpass to the other side of the highway.

They were open pray. First the gangbangers cruising in the barrio neighborhoods they had fled, and now the semi's and the Highway Patrol, who only had to see them running to justify chasing them down. It seemed like only a fraction of time, but they had been running for twenty minutes. A light in the distance bobbed over Leather Gloves shoulder. It was a familiar sign. Han kept his stride as there was no slowing down. The light became bigger and then it appeared, as if a savior out of the night.

Denny's

Open 24 hours

For a moment Hans's heart jumped with excitement. They could be saved, and free from certain disaster. Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he didn't kill her. But why was he running away? As the sign became clearer Hans's heart became weaker and his pace slowed, letting Leather Gloves move further away.

"Not again," he said.

"Not this morning. Not Denny's. Not again...."

He wasn't ready for more. It hadn't even been twelve hours.

The front of the restaurant was the same. The buildings were always the same, and Han learned how they designed each one, all over the continental USA. From the the shrubs and manicured lawns, and the same white cement walkways leading to the entrance and check in counters, coffee station, tables and booths with the same layouts and menus. He knew every part of the front side of a Denny's, Coco's, and Ihop. He even knew the back side and how employees came and went. They were machines he had long since figured out, and he knew he could manage two at once if given the chance. He had even learned the subtle differences from state to state. Unfortunately with Leather Gloves, he was only a victim of the retail front end. But everyone was a victim of some kind or another in these kinds of places, he figured.

He let Leather Gloves enter first. When they came close enough to a Denny's it was as if gravity sucked them in, and their pace no longer mattered. Han knew where Leather Gloves would sit, and he even knew where the bathrooms were before he entered. They were safe for now, until the sun came up in three hours.

*****

The altimeter needle tilted fifty feet both sides of the zero indication at twelve o'clock. The desert floor cooked the air and sent them skyward, tossing the Metroliner turboprop around like a toy airplane. It was nonstop, but Leather Gloves could still keep the needle upright plus or minus fifty feet. Even in strong downdrafts he held it steady, only making the feeling in Han's stomach worse. It would have felt better to ride things up and down a couple hundred feet with the updrafts and downdrafts, but Leather Gloves never let the needle go further than fifty feet either way. Han would let it go further, even in smooth air. If it got more than 200 hundred feet off their assigned altitude, the Leather Gloves would magically appear under the yoke and assist the aircraft back to the zero position on the altimeter. The Leather Gloves often appeared with no verbal words attached. They adjusted the power, turned the aircraft if necessary, configured with gear and flaps, keyed the mike for missed radio calls, and everything else Han missed in his flying internship. Three hundred feet off their assigned altitude would send an alert to the air traffic controllers. A five hundred feet deviation would send a message to the TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control) supervisor's desk, and a phone number would be given to call at their convenience. Leather Gloves got a phone number from them once, after Han busted his altitude in a thunderstorm, but he was as smooth as the fine leather in his palms, and the TRACON supervisor let them off with a verbal warning.

Han was getting better as his flight experience grew, but the Leather Gloves were always there to intervene if necessary. No words or critique were ever attached. They rarely spoke anyway, which suited them both fine. Days could go by with nothing said. It was comfortable for both of them. It was a quiet and platonic relationship. Leather Gloves called him many things, usually starting with the letter H. It was more like a calling, but it worked for both of them. Han only knew him as Leather Gloves, and that he was a pervert, potentially homicidal, and from a place called Butte, Montana.

His posh leather racing gloves with the cut off finger tips and Velcro strap on top were now curled up under the aircraft yoke. His Serengeti wrap around racing sunglasses stared at the instrument panel. His body contorted into a perfect C, with his arms drooping under the yoke, only the occasional movement of his right hand to adjust the throttles. He had formed himself to the aircraft and was now an integral part of everything it did. Han was just along for the ride, and an occasional nuisance who got in the way of perfect harmony between single pilot and aircraft. The Metroliner air freight company that Leather Gloves worked for had made a deal with a flight school to allow new pilots like Han to sit in the right seat and log second in command time for a hefty price. It wasn't a requirement, as the Metroliner was certified as a single pilot aircraft.

Leather Gloves had over 8000 hours. Almost all of it flying single pilot freight in Metroliner turboprops. It was an obscene amount of flight hours that would alarm any airline when his application rolled across their desks. He could pass a simulator evaluation with flying colors, but the human resources people would turn over their side of his application and mark a small box that said clinically insane, as he finished answering one of their tell me about your life questions. He had flown into darkness over three thousand hours ago, and Han didn't know if he would ever return.

Han was assigned cadet intern First Officer duties, logging second in command time to build his 1500 hours to get his Airline Transport Pilots License, ATP. He was less than 100 hours away from breaking 1500 hours, and he would leave this job that paid nothing, broke from draining all his military savings to get his ATP along with a B-737 type rating. The whole thing took two years, and the forced fed Denny's Grand Slammer meals were his only free meals. He was used to them now after over a year. Leather Gloves never requested the bill until all his plates were clean. He even ordered extra toast to wipe the extra grease off, and insisted Han eat everything. The amount of food could feed an average sized Korean family for two days, but Han would be forced to finish what he started. Sometimes half the restaurant staff would be waiting around his table at the end of their shift for Han to finish, and Leather Gloves would finally give the nod to collect the bill. It had a masochistic appeal, but Han simply wrote it off to culture, and didn't want to offend them.

Han attacked his Denny's Grand Slammer that morning with a certain frustration and vengeance. He could be involved in a murder. He could be the accused. Leather Gloves might have set the whole thing up. He cut into the three egg omelet, hash browns, bacon, steak, toast, orange juice, coke, coffee, muffins, Danish and a tower of pancakes with butter and syrup as if he was at war with them, moving between each serving as if he had lost focus, only able to grab what was in front of him, regardless of its place in the eating order. It was a violent chaotic process, and Leather Gloves seemed in control and completely at ease as he finished his meal and waited patiently for Han to clean everything from his plates. The waitress came by and placed a can of Miracle Whip whipping cream next to Han to top things off. It must have been a cultural thing to finish every last thing on every plate, thought Han. He didn't want to offend through his own ignorance, even if men like Leather Gloves, sitting across from him, could not culturally or physically distinguish between an East Asian and a South East Asian.

Nothing was said, just as nothing needed to be said at the table or in the cockpit. But it somehow all poured out in the silence. His sex trips to Southeast Asia, his sudden excitement, such as with his girls, only to crash into silence as his bipolar personality gladly relaxed back into the Metroliner.

Han almost got up enough nerve to kill him once, as even Leather Gloves had no idea of Han's own battle to control a demon of rage and retribution that was always boiling under the surface. The idea of killing Leather Gloves was never far from his mind, and could float into any situation, as if it would be ok, as long as everyone went along with it. There was the time in Kentucky, when he felt it almost could have happened. They were parked on an isolated freight ramp at 2 a.m. with driving rain coming down in buckets. Han stood over Leather Gloves, peering out of the cargo door with a pallet jack in his hand. A heavy wood handle and an eight pound piece of metal with two small metal wheels for getting under a pallet and putting rollers underneath it. If it came down on Leather Gloves head it would split it open like a ripe watermelon. The blood would wash away in the driving rain. He could have even removed the tail jack on the Metroliner, a bar that prevented the tail from hitting the ground when the freight was moved aft and out the cargo door, and make it look like a real accident. He could wait a few hours before he called the authorities from a telephone booth located next to the closed FBO, Fixed Base Operator.

He dreamt of that day, as he opened the small access window of the Metroliner and tossed his Denny's Grand Slam breakfast down the side of the cargo aircraft. He let out a scream as the vomit hit the 200 knot air and slid down the aircraft fuselage in a milky white fluid. He cried out in pain as the white fluid washed over the side wind screen, and then pulled his head back inside the cockpit and stooped over the controls in defeat. Leather Gloves would be a piece of washed away ground meat, he thought. It never happened. Today he was useless. Leather Gloves would do everything, all the way to Oklahoma City. They would say nothing. He closed his eyes in his intern First Officer, Copilot's seat and thought about the Kentucky rain. He thought about jail, and thought about the food in jail. Leather Gloves was wrapped around the controls like a boa constrictor. He let out a long deep exhale that Han had heard a hundred times through the Davis Clark headsets. It sounded tired and had a dull, low pitched, haunting cry to it. It was common, and must have come along 3000 hours ago, when his flying entered something it shouldn't have.

J&B Sales, Oklahoma City

Leather Gloves insisted they take the drive. Just like Denny's, he insisted on a trip to the local weapons whole sale outlet. A free airport car for purchasing extra jet fuel and landing fees was always a treat from the FBO, Fixed Base Operator. The Dodge Charger was a beast that seemed to float on a wake of asphalt, tossing out Iranian and Peruvian oil with wanton abandon, as Han slumped in decay, once again in the right seat and just along for the ride.

They had AK's, AR-15's, Sig Saur's, Israeli Galil's and everything else under the umbrella of USA civilian and military arms. If they didn't, you could surely order whatever you wanted. USA licensed foreign made fire arms of every type, flavor and variety, including assault rifles, automatics, shotguns and surplus military equipment going all the way back to Enfield's still in the box from WW I.   
Leather Gloves placed a USA Gold Eagle coin on the counter top and looked back at the gun rack for new stock.

"Ya ain't payin with that," a barrel-chested, bearded man with a leather working bib said.

Leather Gloves kept his gaze on the gun racks.

"Put it in that cash box, Bud. Take it out in a year and it'll be worth twice the fiat."

"And if it's not?" said Bud, the barrel-chested arms merchant.

Leather Gloves smacked his hand down on the coin, putting it back in his coat pocket.

"Then the banks are lying to ya! Guns, God and Gold. Got to have them these days. I'm looking for a target pistol, Bud. Ammo isn't getting any cheaper. Nine, ten mil, even if you do yer own reloads. No point punching holes in paper with that kind of ammo."

Han pointed to an old British FN FAL. It was the only time he thought of Park Taeri since leaving the military. Bud cleared the weapon and handed it to him. Working bib on, but he wasn't cooking any pies in the back.

"7.62 by 51 NATO," he said.

Han nodded and looked through the sights at a fluorescent light as far back as the warehouse went. Heavy battle rifle, and there wasn't even anything in the clip. The sights bobbed around, and he had trouble getting a good fix. His forearms began to shake as he could feel the burn in his muscles. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his cheek. He still felt weak from his flight in the Metroliner and vomiting everything out of his stomach. He was happy Leather Gloves decided to come here and not to another Denny's. It had been a while since he had handled a rifle and he wasn't working out much. Even a couple years made a difference. Bud gladly took the rifle back.

"Buy it!" Leather Gloves said.   
"Just buy it."

"What for? I can't do anything with it," Han said.

"Just put it in your closet. Some complete stranger walks into your place unannounced and you've got a green light to dump a clip into them. This is America, learn the rules!"

"What?" Han replied in confusion.

Leather Gloves eyes were getting that crazy look in them again. He was going from insular to hyper polar excited again after completely blanking out his last romance. The look had made Han wonder what evil he was really capable of.

"Then get a shotgun if you can't make up your mind! You can't go wrong with a Winchester pump. Do it, just do it!"

Han's eyes grew glossy from the overdose of weapons, flying, projectile vomiting at 9000 feet, and now a blood sugar level approaching a potential pass out. His only fear was a half crazed drive through Oklahoma City with a trunk full of weapons and ammo driven by a pervert psychopath, and then a meal he would once again be forced to eat. Pilots had a considerably shorter life span than the average human. High altitude radiation, Jet lag, ozone, stress, lifestyle; choose your poison. He was finding out one such reason why. Bud put a Browning 12 gauge over and under double barrel shotgun on the counter.

"I like this one." He ran his thick fingers down the gun stock and gazed up at Han with a seductive look.

"She's a real sweetheart. And light as a feather, just like you need."

Leather Gloves moved on to his purchase, a .22 Luger target pistol. Han looked at the back wall. Bud ran Han's credit card for the over and under 12 gauge Browning shotgun. It would sit in his room and he would have to somehow sell it in a few months, along with two other weapons he had bought with his Michigan driver's license on such excursions with Leather Gloves. Money he couldn't afford to spend. A weapon, as beautiful as it was, that had no use to him. He would try to take it back to Korea, but knew with their gun laws it would be an uphill battle and too costly.

"Have you heard of an M-207?" Han asked Bud.

Han was breathing easier, but the sweat was still coming down his cheeks. Maybe he was getting a fever. Bud backed up a step and looked at Han.

"I saw one in my unit in Korea."

"US Army?"

"No, R.O.K, Korean Army," Han said.

The man nodded.

"Let me get you some help, son."

He left Han at the counter and went to the back. Han gazed down under the glass counter at a wide array of handguns. An original 7 mm luger in mint condition sat next to a single action made in Belgium Browning 9 mm high power. He looked back up at the rifle racks behind the counter. The old weapons, a few M-1 Garands and Springfield's, looked like museum pieces next to the military assault rifles standing next to them. Their finely polished wood stocks didn't seem capable of being used in combat. They seemed too refined and beautiful works of craftsmanship. Bud came back to the front and opened a small door to let Han behind the counter. He walked him to the back of the warehouse.

There was an M-107 Barrett .50 caliber with a Hensoldt scope on a tripod and a crate on the ground.

"This is what you want," a muscular man in a brown tank top, jeans and green jungle combat boots said.

"Billy James."

He shook Han's hand.

"We have extra barrels, different scopes, even night vision scopes. We can tailor it to fit your needs. Everything from Barrels, recoil action, optics, stocks forward and aft, or any type of rails you want. But only standard .50 rounds with this one, no HEI or API rounds."

Han looked over the Barrett resting on its tripod on an open work table. He didn't know whether to be more shocked at being able to purchase a .50 caliber sniper rifle on the civilian market, or the inconvenience of not being able to fire Armored Piercing / High Explosive Incendiary rounds, HEI/API through it.

"Where do I get those?"

"Not here. Just the weapon and standard lead or tungsten full metal jacket rounds. It's all legal."

"This isn't it? This isn't the weapon I saw."

"It's the same thing."

"I know what a Barrett is, and it wasn't a Barrett."

"It's the same thing. I can a assure you of that."

"This used different rounds. 10 mm rounds, not the .50 caliber."

Billy James leaned his hand against the Barrett receiver.

"Maybe a modification, but I can assure you it's no different. Like I said, we can modify this weapon, tailor made for any specs you give us. We can chamber any round you ask for, even 10mm, but that costs a lot more money. This is what you need. It'll do anything you want. You need to get into anti-aircraft artillery, 20 mm rounds, or even air support if you want more punch. I've got a guy in Russia that may be able to help you with that, but you'll need a truck to tow it back to your house. And it won't fit in your living room."

"No," Han said.

"Then let's take a step down boy, and let me introduce you to the M-110."

Billy James pulled a .308 M-110 sniper's rifle off a wall rack and put it on the table next to the Barrett.

"Once again, tailor made for what you want and where you're going to use it. We can build it to your specs. Just tell us what you want. It's based on the AR15 design, and we can even provide the same weapon based on the H&K 416 system."

"If he can afford it, or knows what he's even talking about," Bud said with a laugh.

Billy James looked over at Bud. Han figured both had been around weapons most of their lives, and Billy James was US Army and most likely still in the active reserves doing his share of deployments. He talked about weapons as if he were selling a truck he had rebuilt piece by piece from the ground up.

"SSA Corporation. An M-207, 10 mm rounds," Han said in his best English.

"It's a scope company, not a rifle manufacturer. You can't get those, and if you could, you wouldn't want one. It's a surveillance company, Signature Surveillance Alliance. A CIA backed Beltway Company out of Virginia. Do you want a rifle or do you want a scope?" Billy James asked Han.

"Maybe he doesn't know what he wants," Bud said.

"You saw one of those scopes?"

"Someone in my unit had one. He used it in Iraq on real targets. He was equipped with one on the DMZ."

Billy James looked straight into Han's eyes. He wasn't selling a weapon anymore.

"Someone is always looking through the scopes."

"You have seen them too?" Han asked.

"No, but I've heard enough stories in the field. They issued some to an elite Iraqi guards unit. The most trusted we could train. The scopes see and hear. But they are self-contained units, and if you tamper with them they will break. They're rugged, but self-sealed, and only the factory can rebuild them. Even if you could find one, you shouldn't. If you do, throw it away, smash it, and get away from it. Maybe your friend didn't get that intelligence brief. If you have a lot of money you can buy one. No borders. No Ideology. The only catch is they watch everything. Everything you do, all the time. And you will never know who they are or when they are coming."

Bud put a tarp over the Barrett.

"Guess we ain't selling a Barrett today."

They both walked Han to the front of the store.

"My friend was in Iraq making two kilometer kill shots on moving targets. That is unheard of in this business," Han said.

"That's a trademark feature, but it's not their purpose. It's a selling point to distribute, but doesn't represent their true lethality."

"But it changes everything. Mil Dot formula shooting is as gone as the slide rule with this technology," Han said.

"That's correct. The scopes don't even require a laser range finder to zero in on a target. It's done through the scopes moving map feature. They even know the rifles angle to the terrain through a ring laser gyro inside the scope. Even if they lose GPS tracking, they can still pinpoint their position off of local navigation aids. They can crosscheck the shooters position off of a local TACAN station in necessary and even grab position information from cell phones."

"No different than a self-contained Inertial Navigation System," Han said.

"It's a game changer for sniper schools, just like automation in cockpits has changed flying for you guys. The word I'm getting is newer prototypes are capable of coordination with UAV's, for more accurate kills from above, without giving away the sniper teams position."

"Scopes talking to UAV's?"

"I think UAV's will become integrated into these units no different than a spotter is today. You guys used to have Flight Engineers and Navigators on the flight deck, right? We still use spotters in the field. Same, same, but different," Billy James said with a sarcastic smile.

"The scopes also recognize any enemy target and put it into a data base. It has software for voice recognition, retina scans, and even can identify you by how you walk or run. It's easier to knock on someone's door at two in the morning then go for a John Wayne kill shot in the field."

"Can you tell me the name of the unit that has these scopes?"

"They're all dead. You would not want one, regardless of which side you're on. About six months after they received them they were all dead. I think someone didn't like what they saw or heard through the scopes. Like I told you, shooting is not their true lethality."

Han walked through the half door dividing the front counter from the back of the warehouse. Leather Gloves was finishing up purchasing his Luger 22 target pistol. Billy James nodded and winked at Han, and returned to the back of the warehouse.

# The Contender

Kampala, Uganda

September 12th

8 a.m.

Han walked into the Kampala amateur boxing club where Captain Raymond R. Ryan started his day and workout routine. It was a small cinderblock warehouse with a high corrugated metal roof, cement floors and a center boxing ring. The Captain was in the corner of the building, throwing punches at his trainer's large sparing mittens. He slapped one and then the other, practicing his right and left hook. He ignored Han as if he were not even there. It had been a day since his encounter with Eric Wong, and he now wanted answers from the American. If he could not get assurances on the operations legitimacy, he felt he would leave soon after without notice and regardless of the consequences.

"I'm not going to call you up like Adrian does."

The Captain kept punching, sweat shooting off his body. He gave out a grunt with every punch to the mittens.

"This is my workout. You want to talk shop, you picked the wrong place. Send me a memo. We got freight going out tonight. Get ready for a call flyboy," The Captain said, as his boxing gloves slapped into the sparing mittens.

"I want some answers. Like whom do I work for, and what are we flying?"

"Unless you want to put those gloves on, I suggest you go home and get some down time. You'll more than likely be up all night."

Han took some gloves off the back wall. He stretched out and took his shoes and shirt off.

"Sure, I can spar. How about the ring?"

The Captain hit both sparing mittens on the tops with his gloves and stood back.

"This isn't Taekwondo, pretty boy. You want to play lumber jack you better know how to handle your end of the log."

"Just get in the ring. I can handle my end of the log just fine," Han said.

The Captain sat down on a bench and took his sparing gloves off. He toweled himself off and his trainer came by and put a water spout into his mouth. He drank some, spat it out, and opened wide for another blast. He held his arms out as his trainer laced up his ring gloves. Han got into the ring and sat down on a small corner stool. He looked as shoddy as the gym with his nylon hiking pants, boxing gloves and bare feet. The ring floor was a little flimsy and sagged in one corner. The ropes were two inch thick hemp rope and rough to the touch. They would burn his skin if tossed up against them. The posts were metal with couch foam wrapped with silver duct tape. An open doorway with a cut off half door and dirt scorched windows were the only light coming into the building. Passerby's, kids, women with babies on their backs and grown men peeked in as they walked by the open half door.

The Captain danced in the ring. His two hundred and ten pound, six foot three meat locker frame adorned with freckles and a forest of red hair and sweat pushed and cracked the uneven floor boards of the boxing ring. It was a foregone conclusion that there would be no sparing and just punches thrown. Han's one hundred and sixty five pound muscle frame darted around The Captain as if they were both doing a comedy boxing skit. The Captain threw a punch to Han's left shoulder. It was a hydraulic jack that came with a steam load out of his lungs and didn't give way as it landed. Another steam powered jack hammer to his shoulder that took Han by surprise. He didn't go for the head. Han came in close with a right hook to the rib cage. The Captain was meat and potatoes. Old muscle, but a lot of it, and covered in a thick layer of drinking, heavy food and hard living. Han hit fast and hard six times to the ribs and then a quick one to the jaw that landed on The Captain's left cheekbone. The Captain pushed back with his left glove as if tossing a twelve year old girl around. He was slow, but his arms were hydraulic jacks with lots of force. A freight train could kill you at twenty knots. If you walked in front of it, it didn't give way. He felt The Captain's punches were such. The Captain jack hammered three more straight line punches to his left shoulder. They came out like a pile driver, first building up pressure and then slamming in without giving way. Han reeled back and then went in hard with round house punches to the face. They slapped hard, but The Captain pushed back and kept jack hammering his left shoulder. Han went in again and left his head unprotected, thinking The Captain was just buying body blows. The Captain pushed him off with his left glove again and then a line drive to Hans face. Han went straight to the floor and saw stars. The Captain backed off as Han looked up at the corrugated tin roof. There were holes and light coming in through the roof. He got up dazed and shook it off. He seemed drawn in and duped by the shoulder punches.

"Maybe you should stick to Taekwondo. That's for pretty boys like you. You're just going to get hurt in here."

"Mind your own, Captain."

Han went in hard and fast again. More face blows.

'Hang on to his belt. Don't let the jackhammer build up steam', he thought.

He went around his back side and hooked him six times to the lower back. The meat seemed softer there and The Captain pushed out steam as if Han had hit a tender outflow valve. Han backed off and the jackhammer came in hard to his left shoulder again, six punches for every fifteen Han threw.

The Captain's body was becoming a shag rug dowsed in water, throwing out beads of sweat in every direction. Han went in for more rib punches and worked over his left face some more. He was doing damage to The Captain, a split lip and bloody nose and his left eye getting puffy. More jack hammers to the left shoulder. Han could feel it getting numb and something deep down in the shoulder socket coming loose.

After ten minutes in the ring The Captain's body was becoming a giant red harry gingerbread man in Han's head. Still dazed from the knock to the floor, he couldn't tell who was doing more damage. The red harry gingerbread man seemed to grow ten feet tall as he hit the meat and ribs more and more. Meat and potatoes now seemed more like hitting soft ginger bread. He was slugging something that just pounded redder and rose like doe in a pan. The jack hammer kept slamming into his left shoulder and now he couldn't lift his left arm above his shoulder. It was dead meat, but he didn't even have a left hook. Han went in hard for the lower back and came up in a rage to the face again. The ginger bread man just kept expanding in his head and kept hammer jacking his left shoulder. Dazed after a fifteen minute fight, he did not even see the two men that entered the ring and split up the fight. The Captain walked back to his corner and let out a go lucky laugh as if they were just having fun and it got a little out of hand. His right face was mauled with punches and blood soaked his mouth. Han couldn't see much damage on himself, but the punch to the face and knock down felt like it was swelling his brain. His left shoulder and arm were completely useless. The Captain stepped out of the ring and limped off with his damaged lower back and chewed up left face. He removed his gloves and walked out the back door to a water hose. Han got out of the ring and two men helped him with his gloves.

"You're fast. Welter weight," the man removing Han's gloves said.

A young muscle cut Ugandan with taped hands threw punches in the air, imitating Han's throws in the gym.

"Fast as lightening. But you shouldn't fight heavyweights," he said.

"You should come by and train," the older man said, taking Han's gloves off.

"We can teach you some techniques. You left your left side wide open."

"Another time," Han said.

'Getting punched out in the ring was actually quite exhilarating,' he thought.

Han collected his clothes and followed The Captain out the back door. The Captain sat down on a slab of cement and dowsed his face with water from the garden hose. Blood poured out onto the cement and into the dirt. He grabbed a mango from a wood pale and peeled the ripe fruit open with his hands. Mango juice, blood, spit and water ran down his chin and neck. He took the skin off the mango and slapped it to the left side of his face. He closed his eyes as the hose ran water between his legs. He offered Han the water hose. Han shook his head, but he insisted.

"Take it. Cool off tough guy."

He put the mango bucket between them.

"You shouldn't mess around with things you got no business in. Rule number one. You got no business in that ring."

"You don't look so good. I would say a lot worse than me."

The Captain pointed to his face.

"This will go away in few weeks. You came in hard on my lower back and maybe below the belt a few times. But my back is gone from sitting in those lousy Boeing seats too many years. Not from the ring. Your shoulder is going to hurt a lot longer. It may even remind you of this fight when you get older. When it's cold, it'll bite. Someone does that to you in the ring you got to protect yourself. Don't let an old boxer pound that cartilage into sushi. You'll feel this fight a lot longer than I do. Stay out of things you know nothing about. That's a tough lesson to learn."

"Like this operation?" Han asked.

"Like things in this operation. Rule number two, we both got no business digging into those sealed containers. It's a good way to end up dead. Things neither of us need to know about. Karen works the inside more than I do. She pulled your numbers before I even got here. I wouldn't have hired any of you if it was my choice. I can find plenty of folks to come in here for mercenary pay. I've got territory from Kandahar to Cape Town to scout out. I would just as well have fired you all day one and found my own pilots. Karen cherry picked you all. I think she even underwrote something on me. We go back a long way, and her husband is an old Eastern Airlines pilot. No pension, ruined marriages, piss poor financial planning, two hearing aids and a pace maker to go with it."

"What do you know about the freight and hospitals?"

The Captain pulled the mango peel off his face and split open another one. Mango, water, and blood ran into the muddy red dirt off the back cement slab.

"I know the hospitals are Chinese and the freight is sealed. And that is all I need to know. I'm the big white American face on this operation. When something happens I show up with my good Irish looks and deep voice and sooth the crowd. These people pay me to be the Western face. They know I can spin a crash into a non-event or cover up any scandal out on the line."

"Jaime has a friend from the company. A man he calls Lin He. Do you know him?"

"That Mexican flunky is about as spun down the drain as I've ever come across in this business."

"Where is he at?"

"Removed from roster. He checked into the hospital network. And once you check in you don't check out. I think he has passport issues."

The Captain chuckled.

"Like I said, I would just as well have fired you all day one, but someone in this operation had a special interest in all of you. Maybe someone else too, by some of the small talk I over hear at the hotel bar in the evenings. Feds from the USA."

"FAA?"

"I would say it goes higher than that. Do you think all this non radar environment isn't combed over by someone, somewhere else?"

"I never gave it much thought. We are on HF radio and air to air in-flight broadcasting over most of our routes. It's almost all non-radar. It's talking through a tin can. They want registration numbers for over flight and landing fees. That is about all the service you get out here. I don't think half these countries could care less if you crashed into each other, as long as they didn't get blamed and they got over flight and landing fees."

"Here's a personal story that may help. Remember. I play dumb for my own good. That's how I've survived in this business so long," The Captain said.

"A DC-10 crew took a trip to a prison in Lagos. The operation, based out of Miami, Florida, brought a second crew in to get the aircraft out. They didn't care about the jailed crew; they just wanted their DC-10 back. Three new crewmembers showed up with a suitcase full of cash. They paid off airport security, purchased fuel for double the going rate, and flew this jet out without a flight plan. A straight shot to Miami. They went berserk in Washington as soon as they saw this DC-10 headed off the West African Coast. It set off all kinds of alarm bells, as it could have been headed for a skyscraper on the East Coast, or an American Embassy somewhere. So the correct answer is yes, someone, somewhere else is always watching you. You could run the entire air traffic control system on this continent from Toronto or Oklahoma City if you wished. NORAD in Colorado could use satellite communications and GPS tracking and you would have the best and safest aircraft separation in the world. Throw in RNP, Required Navigation Performance, approaches and your crash rate would go to nothing. These countries down here are just too stubborn and greedy to outsource Air Traffic Control."

"So the transponders have a function to stop such things? Maybe to stop someone from looking or becoming suspect?"

The Captain shook his head.

"I figure they're messing with the TCAS, Traffic Collision Avoidance System, and maybe a few other tricks to swap out two targets in the air. There's two Boeing 767s sitting in a hanger in Sharjah, UAE right now. They are identical, mirror image aircraft with the same tail numbers. They can fly ultra-long haul. They will always be flying around as a team, swapping out ultra-long haul codes for closed network flights like you're doing now. So nothing will ever seem to arrive or leave our hospital network system and my clever invention CADOC. One aircraft takes off from a remote strip with a full load of cargo and swaps numbers with a dummy freighter on an international flight plan taking off from somewhere else in the network. If you are coming in or going out with an empty load or junk cargo, no one will pay much attention. If you can disguise what you bring into this network and what you take out, it's golden. I suppose these B-767s will be headed up to your neck of the woods, somewhere in East Asia. Karen wants more cash out of these folks too. I told her she's playing with fire, but everyone seems to think I'm stupid, including that little English tart in your crew house. Her husband is buying block time in a B-767 simulator in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. If you think you're too clever, just like in that boxing ring, and start writing your own ticket with these people, you won't last long. Play dumb and don't mess with things you have no business in.

Don't think it's so easy to just up and leave and hope it was all just a misunderstanding. That you will be forgiven by your country if these people are ever discovered. You were in deep the moment you agreed to Karen's contract. They can say anything about you they want and make it stick. You can be implicated in their most dirty dealings if they so choose."

The Captain turned the hose off. He was beaten up and soaked in water, but it looked natural on him.

"Try a mango boy, and don't take that rotator cuff damage so hard. It'll go away some day. Maybe the day you drop dead."

He chuckled and coughed.

"I feel like a few sundowners with the ladies, but I guess I got an airplane to launch this evening, with you strapped in it."

It was still early morning and The Captain's thirst for alcohol had already arrived.

"Where is Karen?"

Han got on his feet and brushed himself off.

"The Imperial Beach Resort Hotel out on Lake Victoria. She should be around today. Why don't you drive out and pay the little lady a visit? You can tell her every last thing I just told you."

8:30 a.m.

Lily parked her Toyota Corolla up an ally thirty paces off the main street of the Bugisu Coffee Roasting Company. She backed it in tight so it wouldn't block any vehicles or bikes attempting the narrow ally way. Her car was filled with boxes, tape, invoices, bills of lading, box cutters and an assortment of cargo and warehouse filth that had migrated to her soiled used car. She put the Toyota in park and the loose gear box rolled the car back before she jerked up on the emergency brake, bouncing the front end up and down on the broken shock absorbers. She took her laptop and dossier of invoices to begin what would be a day of hashing out numbers and coming to terms with things that did not add up. She would demand Lin He give up his fifth floor security clearance as a first measure. The Chinese consulate or embassy was her first choice of locations, but her boss insisted on the coffee shop as a more acceptable setting for what would take at least five hours of going over numbers. Her boss's Range Rover was double parked in front of the coffee shop at a 45 degree angle. A Chinese man in black gloss business suit and tie stood in front of the hood watching over the brand new ride. She glanced at him as she walked up the ally, and figured him useless and worthless at the same time. She had seen too many of his type in China, and wouldn't pay him ten Yuan to clean her bicycle in Beijing.

Smoke poured out the windows and open side door of the coffee roasting house. As she got closer it became apparent the open air burner was on, and the smell of roasted beans filled her lungs. She felt she could smoke a caffeine rush. She looked back at her low end ride in the side ally and over to her supervisor's wheels out in front. At least his car told her she had the correct address. The Ugandan heat already drew sweat down the center of her back and her silk blouse stuck to the nodes of her thin spin. She felt the weight of this meeting on her chest, as she had gotten no response from her report. She followed up at the consulate, and the secretary gave her the down and dirty on what had transpired in the office. Her assistant Xilai had not called her or returned her text messages to meet her for the meeting. With confidence, she felt all would be resolved and vindicated today. The young twenty five year old assistant may be hobbling around in his nonchalant fashion upstairs, serving coffee which he should not be doing any more than driving a forklift. A slight breeze blew through the ally way. She felt dreamy from her all-nighters with Eric on the fifth floor.

She set her case on top of the downstairs coffee bar. A lady in the back shoveled roasted beans into a burlap sack. She thought of calling Eric for advice or maybe Han, but she didn't know Han well enough and was not sure if Eric was behind the meeting. One could be involved and the other should not get involved. She felt it could be a trap, and her instincts told her to leave and find a more public area. She needed to at least let someone know where she was. The consulate secretary was not reliable. She would just turn anything into scandal and gossip. She could also be silenced with a simple verbal order from anyone above her. Eric and her assistant Xilai were not picking up their phones. She texted Han.

Meeting with my supervisor Zhao Xiang and Lin He at the Bugisu Coffee Roasting Company. Call you when I get done. Lily Chan.

Lily walked upstairs. She entered an open room with large hardwood table and wall to wall bookcases with dirt stained windows far older than herself. Zhao Xiang stood at the end of the hard wood table with hands settled on top. He was wearing one of his many extra-large silk golf shirts that hung down over his belly and black slacks. Lin He sat to the side of the table with his left shoulder facing her. He rolled a pool cue from side to side on the table. The checkered rough pattern on the solid titanium pool cue made a soft grinding sound against the hard wood table, and the metal thimble on his pinky finger clinked on the titanium rod. She walked in directly behind Lin He, as if to dominate him. She glanced down at the back of his head as he softly rolled his pool cue on the table.

"Where is Xilai? He hasn't picked up his phone. Your secretary called him into the fifth floor to meet with you."

Zhao Xiang shrugged his shoulder.

"You don't trust me?"

"Give me a reason to," Lily said.

She stood directly behind Lin He to exclude him from conversation.

"It's you or this half breed stealing funds."

"Tough words, Lily. Strong words to use on your supervisor. Not good for promotions either."

One of Eric's Mahjong pals stood in the corner not far from the door. Now she knew it was a trap. Somehow, she had simply entered, as so many do a trap and had committed herself to an unknown fate in a matter of seconds. The voice telling to leave, downstairs, was now gone like the breeze in the ally.

"I just wanted to talk about bookkeeping, and about setting up some new accounting principles. To my standards and this mans, Lin He, who you have been so rude not to introduce yourself too. You were on the fifth floor with a counterfeiting Macau banker and your crony assistant. A country girl with no connections, a Shanghai kid and a corrupt Macau Banker. How does that look, Lily?"

"Where is this going? I'll report this."

"To who, Lily? I think you have done enough reporting to supervisors who think very little of you."

"Let's just take this up at the consulate."

She turned and went for the stairs.

"Not so quick. Let's talk some more," Lin He stepped in.

She looked down the staircase. She could see a tall silhouette. He had a Bowie knife in his hand that shined against the wall. The knife shadow and its hooked top swung against the stair case walls.

"Well, here we are," Lily said.

She resigned herself to her trap and tilted her head back to look at Lin He. His hand stopped rolling the pool cue.

"You see, Lily, we need to come to terms with our unique situations. Mine is one of prosperity, yours one of survival now. Sometimes we must come down to the ground and back to whom we are and where we are from. Mr. Lin He understands where he stands in this hierarchy. I have given him orders on how to deal with such conflicts as this. I just hope this is not a lost cause."

"What do you want?"

"I want your full cooperation in every aspect of your life. Or I will send you packing to a place not of your liking, such as a Chinese prison in Hohhot. Hohhot, now that's a country girl's town. That is where they put a round in the chamber and put it at the base of your skull where the spine meets the brain. "

"You don't know of such things. You're a spoiled city bureaucrat from Beijing," Lily said.

"I suppose my side of the family has just given such orders to peasants like yours," Zhao Xiang replied.

"Your assistant, Xilai, is dead, Ms. Lily. He was shot on the fifth floor by Mr. Zhao," Lin He said.

"Cook your own books, Lin," yelled Lily.

Lin He got up and grabbed his pool cue.

"Now, now. Let's all stay calm. I told Mr. Lin He to only do one of your legs today Lily, but that is at his discretion. I said you should think about things on your back for a while. Shatter the bones from hip to foot if you wish. You hurt me Lily. That kind of pain can only be taken out on you. No apology will due. I didn't want it to be this way, but you never talked it through with me. You seem in love with yourself and your downtrodden, stubborn country roots. The books are in your name. Inventoried and signed by you. You're the one who lost the money. You will take the blame. But today you must think only of living another day."

"Find another scapegoat Zhao Xiang. They will figure you out soon enough."

Lin He spun his pool cue around. His hands and fingers moved with precision, turning the metal rod faster and faster. It cut through the air like a wipe, so fast it seemed no different than a prop on an airplane. It spun within inches of Lily's head. She looked at Lin He as the titanium rod blew her hair and cut so close it caught the cloth of her blouse.

"So what are you waiting for?"

She spat in his face. It ran down Lin He's eye onto his cheek. His titanium pool cue swung faster and faster. He leaned his head back and looked Lily in the eyes.

"Why don't you get it over with? Do as you're told. Take orders, lie, and steal for your Chinese master, little boy!"

She peered down at him; her teeth in his face, and their eyes within inches. She showed no fear and stood three inches taller than Lin He. The spit dripped down Lin He's cheek onto the ground. He wound the solid titanium pool cue tight and swung with full force.

11:00 a.m.

Karen gazed over at the Nigerian who stood over a table digging into a sports bag, naked. His ass was shining through the dim light fighting its way through the thick curtains. His long pipe hung down. Still partially erect, it bent over mid-section and leaned to one side with the head thirty degrees inverted, as if an aircraft in a banking nose dive. Even the tip looked like the nose of an airliner, and as Karen gazed at it, she thought of the old black nose cone paint scheme on a Delta Airlines jet, or maybe something else. A lead pipe, but not just some ordinary lead pipe you might find on the ground in a pile of rubbish. More like something you would pull out of a rock wall in an old English castle.

"Hot Pipe," Karen said.

The Nigerian fanned in down.

"Yes, yes, hot pipe."

His front gold tooth reflected a beam of light coming through a split in the curtains.

"You like that, don't you?"

"Oh yeah, it was great," she said with a now bored sigh.

"But that's about all I can handle today. Most guys I've been with think they're well hung. You know, big ego, big mouth, big wrist watch, but not so much down stairs."

"Pilots?" asked the Nigerian.

She lay on her tummy on the bed in her panties and bra, gazing at his lead pipe.

"I guess I should have told them all not to measure it from their assholes, which a lot of them were anyway."

The Nigerian reached into the bag.

"I have another surprise, my fine lady. Close your eyes. Close your eyes and make a wish."

Karen stood up on the bed and closed her eyes. It could have just as well been thirty five years ago on a Pan American layover. So young and not knowing what was to become seemed half the adventure. She took herself back to a time and place she felt would never end, when youth and inexperience met a world of Titans. A friendly Captain, a fifth of the best whisky, and a hotel with the best views of Diamond Head.

"I do love surprises," she said.

The Nigerian reached into the sports bag. The bluing on the silencer matched his lead pipe in the dim light.

11:30 a.m.

Lin He crossed the Imperial Beach Resort Hotel lobby with key card in hand. He moved towards a pillar and glanced out onto a veranda and open deck with Victoria Lake shining in the distance. The Stetson hat sat at a table nursing a drink. He walked to the elevator and slid the key card into the slot for the executive suite floor Karen was in.

Cowboy waited at his table for Karen. He wanted profiles on everyone and their pilot certificate information. It was database file sharing and would come at a steep price. Karen would share her complete data base on CADOC and Shenjin Medical Corp. recruits for a fixed sum of two hundred thousand dollars. She would throw in a package from Premium Crew Leasing describing the transaction as recruiting resources.

Cowboy looked at his watch, calculating his environment in numbers, not minutes. No one flying the Boeing 727 registered in his system. He could suspend certificates and pull passports if he had good numbers. From the crew house, he had photos of Adrian in a bathrobe and Han Bin barbecuing outside. Captain Ryan ran a Central African customs clearing house he called CADOC. The B-727 was a USA registered aircraft, but used as a private charter aircraft. There was no official airline certificate to shut down or investigate. The Russians were dropping into a remote airfield in the Congo jungle. So what, he thought. The Russians did this kind of flying all over Africa and the Middle East. He tipped his cowboy hat up and sipped his sun tea. Twenty minutes late and it felt like a stiff date. If she didn't give him the information he requested, he would rendition her to Bahrain. Things would get straightened out in short order, and she would be back working for him with emotional scars she would remember for the rest of her life. His friends in the CIA, FBI, FAA, IRS and DHS would then harass her for the rest of her life, just to keep her thinking about running contracts with people she didn't know in places she shouldn't be. Cowboy took another pull off his sun tea. It was already getting warm in the heat and second rate with no ice. No one liked ice in their glass overseas, and even drank water lukewarm. It always pissed him off when he couldn't get a civilized East Texan Sun Tea.

He just had a hunch about the B-727. Not enough to get the ball rolling with the jackals. They would come in and clean up anyone involved after he connected all the dots. If Karen got cold feet he would head to the airport and fly back to Bahrain. Come back next week and work the system some more. He set money down and walked back through the hotel lobby. He didn't wait long for company.

Cowboy made his way out to his Tahoe SUV in the parking lot. Karen's car was still there, and the concierge made it clear she was still in her room. He thought about calling to have her removed, but wanted her out of the resort on her own, and least on the old Entebbe road where he could stuff her into a van without questions. Let it go until next week, he told himself. She had no reason to suspect anything. He could even jack his price up and come clean on who he was. She was a true blue taxpaying book holder, and he was every US government agency combined and just there to help and protect one of his fellow citizens.

The Captain was always equipped with the Nigerian and kept ignorant, Cowboy figured. He was a professional blow hard alcoholic, and could just as well die being water boarded, not knowing or saying anything of value and complaining about his aviation career to the bitter end. He was ex US Navy too, and Cowboy was quite sure the Commanding Officers at Fifth Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain didn't want him on the base. Karen was the key, and he just needed information from her, one way or the other. But now she was with the Nigerian, so maybe she felt she needed protection too. He stewed over his options, and they were not so good going into next week. He hoped to wring the rag dry this weekend and send in the jackals to grind down everyone, starting with the crew house and Eric's villa. He put his Ray Bans on and pushed his Stetson down around his sweaty sideburns.

'Why don't these savages drink Lipton Sun Tea like every other civilized East Texan did,' he thought.

He got in his Chevy Tahoe and started the motor. He looked across the road at a blond haired kid on a red 1976 Yamaha RD 400 scooter. This one looked retro new and not a blemish on it. He had a slight smile, and his feet rested on the pegs in the sweltering sun. Wrap around Revo sunglasses, baggy shorts with black low cut combat boots. A No Fear T-shirt and small North Face backpack with just enough shade over a palm to be tolerable. Cowboy sat in the car and let the air conditioning blast.

'What to do. What to do,' he thought.

Go to Bahrain and come back Monday or mid-week. Write reports and send out alarms to Quantico. This could prove more than just a hunch. He put on his favorite Ricky Skaggs album, turned up the speakers and drove off the resort, heading for the Entebbe Airport.

12:00 p.m.

Karen's phone was dead. So were Jaime's and Lily's. Han called Adrian and he answered right away as he drove from Kampala to Karen's place on Lake Victoria.

"We have a flight tonight. Not confirmed but their loading containers. Five out of here and we start a three day ring around the Congo."

"I know. I'm heading out to Karen's place, The Imperial Beach Resort Hotel on Lake Victoria."

"Cunt," Adrian said.

"Be easy on her. Have you heard from Jaime?"

"I bet he did a runner back to the States. Americans get homesick fast."

"He isn't answering his phone."

"Like I said, he's a runner. No more flying and no more phone service."

"The Captain says he checked into the hospital network and has been removed from roster."

"The Captain says a lot of things, Han. You choose what you believe at your own risk."

"Do you remember the coffee shop he talked about?"

"The Bugisu Roasting Company."

"Lily had a meeting there with her boss, where Jaime's friend Lin He hangs out. Can you go there and find out if she was there?"

Adrian seemed annoyed and not willing.

"We have a long night ahead. Once they pull the trigger on this we have to scramble to the airport. We'll be up all night and a hotel in Luanda waiting for us."

"I know, but I need to know if she is alright. I'm going to her place if she doesn't call me back."

"I'll go take a look. The gardener can give me a lift," Adrian said in resignation.

12:00 p.m.

Cowboy moved his Chevy Tahoe down Salama Road towards the Entebbe-Kampala Road. Most information he had was just a hunch, he figured. He needed to squeeze blood out of some ripe tomatoes. He would call in a special Gulfstream G-4 to follow the B-727 around the network. The Mexican pilot had disappeared into the hospital with the help of his Chinese nurse squeeze, and he wanted him in custody. Cowboy's brother in law ran a for profit prison in Brownsville Texas, and he could hog tie and special deliver Jaime there after he ground up Karen in a rendition prison with some sick minded Iraqi and Bahraini military interrogators. All in due time, he thought. If the operation was legitimate he would use the information for something else. If nothing could be proven, he could at least send Jaime home lassoed, hogtied and shackled for his brothers prison. Something was making him nervous as he grinded down the road. Maybe it was the surfer boy on the RD400, or the idea that he was keeping all his cards too close to his chest. He was going off a lot of loose leads, and his theories were only in his head and not on a data base. He would start in Bahrain sending out reports and theories. He hit the gas pedal, only to brake again as a Lori in front stopped, and the long snake of stop and go traffic slowed his rig down. He was growing frustrated and impatient. A group of soldiers were standing on the side of the road. He noticed them spaced out is groups of two or three every mile or so, as if they had been tossed out the back of a paddy wagon and left there until pickup time in the evening. Uganda's police force carried surplus Kalashnikovs, which didn't sit well with Cowboy either. He always felt a substandard assault rifle like the AK-47 should be issued with a thick rubber band around the gun stock. It would make it easier to strap a free pack of Marlboros and Wriggles Spearmint chewing gum to them, and they would be that much easier to hand out to all the kids during wartime.

Cowboy looked down the road and a river of people and life that never seemed to end. Wood bed frames on the side of the road along with couches for sale, lying on the open ground with nothing to protect them from the elements. A man finishing up a wood coffin through an open door. Goats on ropes with a milking cow. A three year old girl with no top on and her mom slapping her six year old brother hard. Houses that ran into shacks and shacks that ran into gated estates. Drainage ditches you could break a leg falling into. Cell phone billboards with big momma in a hair job you could never pay for somewhere else. Coke and Guinness on billboards like they were both just soft drinks. Dope growing behind banana trees. It never stopped. The heat, the trees, the red dirt and just too much action on the sidelines.

12:20 p.m.

Cowboy hit the gas and tried to pass. Motor bikes shooting by fast. He heard a slap on his driver's side door panel, metal to metal. Surfer boy on his RD400 gunned the throttle and gray smoke shot out the two stroke engine straight pipes. An Asian man on the back seat turned around as the RD400 sped away split lane. Lin He reached back and stuck his middle finger up at Cowboy through his windshield. Cowboy's jaw dropped open. He had seen the man on the back seat through one of his scopes. His long curly hair was the same, and his cheeks and smile were hard to forget. The imagery that came over his computer from a train shootout played back in his head as the RD400 cut in front of another car. The man wore a yellow jersey then, and the scope was registered to Park Taeri. He appeared before as well, during a border incident along the Korean DMZ. But the clearest view that came to mind was footage that came through of Park Taeri killing over fifty North Koreans at a train station not far from the Manchurian border. It was two months after he was reported missing by his girlfriend and put on a missing persons list by the South Korean Government. The man on the back of the scooter was the only one standing after Park Taeri killed almost everyone at a train wreck and shootout. Lin He emerged from the rear caboose of the train after personally killing a VIP traveler in the back, believed to be his own father. He waved his hand up at the shooter, Park Taeri, with the same smile, as Cowboy watched the scope footage from his office in Quantico, Virginia. Cowboy slammed the brakes on as hard as he could. He went for the door handle but his seat belt was still buckled. "Son of a Bitch!"

12:22 p.m.

Han saw black smoke come up on the road ahead. He punched his Nissan Patrol, but traffic jammed up quick. He drove on in the backed up traffic and could see flames in the distance and an SUV upside down in a ditch. Two cars and a motor bike turned around and headed in the other direction. Then the RD 400, full on, clocking 120 km/hr., passed less than two meters from Han's driver's side door. As he got closer to the burning SUV, Ugandan Military soldiers blocked off the road, forcing him to turn around. He could see the burning wreckage and a white Stetson cowboy hat in the center of the road in perfect condition upside down, as if someone had set it there deliberately amongst the debris. A person's lifeless hand hung through the passenger's side of the SUV windshield. Han scanned the vehicle and there was no one else inside. He turned his car around and could feel the heat of the flames. As he turned around he immediately became trapped in a line of cars turning around and heading in the opposite direction. The image of Kiwi with his blond hair leaning forward on his bike now became clear. An Asian man on the back seat, curly shoulder length hair with thongs, black pants and wraparound sunglasses holding on to Kiwi's waist, his legs up high on the rear foot pegs. They were both smiling as if on a joy ride, and almost seemed like friends out having fun on their new scooter. Han slammed his left hand onto the steering wheel in frustration. A shock of pain bolted through his left shoulder and he let out a cry. His cell phone lit up and vibrated with a text from crew control. The flight was on, and he was to report in an hour.

1:00 p.m.

A sign on the door of the Bugisu Coffee Roasting Company read Closed. Adrian tried the door and it opened. He walked in and shut the door. It was dead quiet. It had a smell that was homely and peaceful. He looked around the bar area and coffee dispensers behind the counter. It was cozy, yet big and solid at the same time. The pungent smell of roasted beans filled his lungs, and the roaster behind the open counter with old wood floors and high white plaster colonial walls made the smell that much sweeter and pungent. Jaime had talked of the place, and Adrian blew off the idea of a coffee shop so good. Now it filled his mind with ideas of lost experiences. His eyes grew wide at such a haven from the outside. It was a grandiose and undiscovered coffee haven. He shouted out, but no one answered. He looked around, and then put his hands on the bar next to some wood stools. It was 19th century Colonial architecture with white stucco walls. Windows were smoke and dirt filled. If he owned the place, he was not sure if he would clean or replace them either. One window pain was new and had been replaced sometime in the last twenty years or so, he figured. Smoked but not sandblasted with time. He pushed off the counter and walked over to the staircase. It was dim, and through his spectacles and old eyes, he could not make out details on the ground. He walked up the wood steps. Half way up he felt something smooth and slick under his shoe. It felt like oil and stuck to his shoe as he made his way up the stairs. As he got to the top of the staircase he heard a mop pushing water into a pail. A woman with mop in hand looked over at him.

"We're closed. Please go away," she said in a broken voice.

His eyes adjusted to the dim light in the room. Heavy teak wood book cases went up wall to wall on three sides, and a massive table in the center of the room. The top of the table was five inch thick hardwood. Books on the ground and scattered about. There were dark brown splatters all over the walls and floor. He could feel more greasy film sticking to his shoes.

"Please. Go away. We are closed today."

He could see dark splatters that went up to the ceiling. He stepped back and slipped on the greasy floor. His feet came out from under him as if on an icy lake. In a swept up pile next to him he could see what looked like bone chips and brain matter. He tried to get onto his feet, slipping on the greasy coagulated blood. He put his hand down to right himself and felt brain matter ooze between his fingers. He pushed back towards the book case and got to his feet. He made for the stairs and three steps down lost his footing again and slid on his ass down the staircase. He was bruised but not broken. He walked out the front door and vomited in a drainage ditch. In the daylight he could see the red blood on his pants, shirt and down his back side and hands. His driver looked at him and pushed his eyes over at Lily's small Toyota Corolla parked in the ally. Lily's bloodied cloths were piled up in the back seat. Smudges on the door handle.

"Let's go," Adrian said.

"Where to boss?" asked his driver.

"The crew house. The barracks. I've got a flight tonight. Bloody hell!"

He took his shirt off and wiped his hands. He got in the back seat and dialed Han's number.

Han was now stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. Fire engines and an ambulance came by but it was slow to the scene on the two lane Salama Road.

"What do you got?"

Adrian looked at his hands and bloodied shirt.

"I'm going to grab your things. I'll meet you at the airport. We have a confirmed departure time. We're already behind schedule. Just go to the airport. I'll bring your bags and documents."

"What about the coffee..?"

"Just meet me at the airplane. We'll talk about it later."

#

# Rendition

Bangui, Central African Republic

September 14th

With only small dim track lights on the ceiling, visibility was no more than twenty feet in the aircraft cargo bay. There were no windows, just metal paneling along the sides of the Russian IL-76. Lined up along the sides of the cargo bay, men sat shoulder to shoulder paratrooper style, their feet shackled to the floor and their hands chained and connected to their feet. On the cargo floor, more were shackled together in three rows from the bulkhead to the rear of the aircraft. From the front, the lines drifted off into the darkness and only the dots of the track lights on the ceiling could be seen to the rear of the aircraft. At the front of the aircraft were two guards, one sleeping, and the other squinting at a magazine in the dim light. They were inside a portable cage the size of a compact car. The cage, heavily re-enforced and tied to the cargo floor, had a bench seat and a door with an inside lock. The men's twelve gauge pump shot guns were placed in an enclosed rack, one on each side of them, with no way to be reached from the outside. At the rear of the aircraft sat the same contraption. Almost comical in appearance, they looked similar to a cut off half frame of a 1930s Ford coupe that had been stripped of its wheels. Its function was simple, to protect the guards and give them a break during the long flight. If anything happened they could use their weapons through the cage. If the cages were breached they would be killed, and then it would be up to the flight crew to do something. The flight crew had a number of options, including depressurizing the cargo bay to incapacitate the prisoners.

The only other option was Nurse Xiumei. She could administer an oxygen mask and gang load a red switch to her patient, administering a lethal dose of strychnine gas that would put any patient to sleep forever. But it was an individual function she had only performed at the behest of her hospitals head doctor. She sat in her front jump seat against the cockpit bulkhead, petrified that if things went wrong it would just be her and 200 angry prisoners. If they managed to break loose from their shackles, she would be raped, strangled, mutilated and then torn into pieces in short notice. In that sense, the fear would easily allow her to administer the mask and red switch, even to herself. Her white face mask was stretched against her mouth and her eyes fixed on the waking passengers. Next to her, strapped down and shackled in an upright position in a four point harness was her assigned patient, General Nakunda. His lieutenants and crew had been put under through a combination of high cabin altitude and a blue switch on the medevac O2 system, which streamed the cargo bay with nitrous oxide gas. The security detail, now in their cages, had gone through the cabin with portable O2 bottles and shackled the men with rods hooked into the tie down locks on the cargo floors. The operation took close to an hour, and the portable collapsible cages were erected. Their disorientation and confusion of becoming prisoners began to lament from somewhere deep inside them as they awoke from their disorientating sleep.

Nakunda's eyes were wide open, and he seemed to understand that he had been duped. His men's rifles were now stacked in racks against the cargo bay walls and his own side arm removed. The soldier's boots were piled up next to their rifles, held down by a cargo net. Nakunda's thin white Ivory and gold cane lay in his lap, as if it were some kind of a joke to his terrible situation. He tried to move his arm, but the high strength tinsel chain only allowed a centimeter of movement. His highly armed entourage was due in Entebbe for final negotiations on payments for the airstrip and hospital. The proposal would make him one of North Eastern Congo's wealthiest and most powerful men. He could see a path to Kinshasa and the ruler of Africa's largest, resource rich, yet most impoverished and war torn country. He would rule the heart of Africa, and Lin He had road mapped it out in such simple terms. It was just a matter of taking the first step. With precaution, he took his best trained and most loyal men. They gladly boarded the IL-76, after being given a container with one hundred million dollars in freshly printed one hundred dollar bills. Nakunda's greed flowered and bloomed when he saw so much money. They were aboard the aircraft and headed to Entebbe to negotiate their futures that afternoon.

The engines wound down, and the cabin noise dissipated. The level of noise in the cargo bay, created by air rushing around the fuselage, became more apparent as the aircraft slowed down and the noise dissipated. The two guards in the rear lowered their voices to adjust to the decreasing sound. As the airplane descended the sound of rushing air came back again as the Russian cargo jet increased speed in its descent. The men on the floor and side seats sat with their heads down. Some moved around noticeably agitated, and the guards scanned over them looking for the ones that might become a problem. As the aircraft descended lower, a sound from someone could be heard in the middle of the cabin. A long moan followed by mumbling. As if to be contagious, it spread throughout the cabin, and there was more movement, and the low dull muddle of people's voices. As the aircraft descended there was more and more talking. The guard in the front cage grabbed his black jack and pounded it against the cage.

"Hey, hey, quiet, quiet there."

In the back, as if being instructed on cue from the front, there was more banging from the rear cage. The sound of the hydraulic jacks spinning and moving the flaps only added to the commotion. An audible thud and the sound of air rushing around the landing gear temporarily quieted the talking, and then it seemed to resume louder. With no visual cues, there was no way of telling where in the descent they were. Counting the minutes from engine spool down at top of descent it was a long uneasy twenty minutes.

The aircraft made a firm landing with the main landing gear bogies slamming onto the pavement. A constant smashing on the cages and cries and yelling bounced off the metal hull inside the aircraft as if it were on fire and no one could get out. As if to stun its prey in some cruel fashion, bright lights came on in the overhead cargo bay. In an instant the stark difference in darkness and light became apparent, and the details of each passenger's face came alive as they struggled to orientate themselves after hours of darkness and incapacitation. The taxi to the parking stand took five minutes, and as the aircraft took a final turn, the weight of their bodies shifted to one side of the cargo bay and then forward as the brakes screeched and the aircraft stopped. The engines continued to run for another minute. The overhead lights flickered momentarily as electrical power was switched to the auxiliary power unit, and the engines spooled down. The aircraft was quiet and all that could be heard was the humming of the auxiliary power unit, APU. Within minutes the cargo ramp came down. The rear guards in the cage continued to look forward, now seemingly nervous and focused forward.

For the first time in hours, fresh air rushed into the cabin, dissipating some of the smell that was building up fast with only the APU running the air conditioning packs. From the rear, heavy steps could be heard coming up the cargo ramp. An African soldier with epilates stepped aboard. He looked down and stomped his boots, as if to clean them on a welcome mat, and gazed forward at the shackled men with a smile. He had thick glasses, a good sized belly, early 50's, and as he took his cap off, a hairline that started around the middle of his scalp.

"Welcome to Bangui, Central African Republic, your last and final stop."

He clapped his hands and walked forward up to the men in the cage. As if to ignore them, he scanned through his tinted thick plastic frames with bifocals. There was now total silence as he moved in front of the rear cage to get a full look of everything in the cargo bay. As he walked forward to the first group of men on the ground, he came to a man curled up on the floor with head buried between his legs and one foot slightly out of line. He tapped his leg lightly with his boot, the man jolting in fear.

"So I guess we will start from the back."

He then spoke louder this time so more could hear.

"Only one exit here men, so we all go out the back."

It almost sounded calming to those on board, and there was slight movement throughout the cargo bay. He waved his hand and a soldier behind him signaled more to come up the cargo ramp. Outside heavily armed soldiers line up on both sides of the cargo ramp creating a wall of men on both sides with a small trail in the center leading to an open circle surrounded by more soldiers. The only way out for the passengers was through this gauntlet of men into an open circle of more heavily armed soldiers.  
As the men were unshackled, the sound of boots on concrete could be heard outside. It was loud and in unison. The men were moved out onto the cargo ramp in groups of ten, where they were met by the gauntlet of soldiers lined up on both sides. They stomped their boots and slapped the butts of their assault rifles with their hands. As Nakunda's bare foot men moved through the gauntlet they were butted with rifles, making them move faster and faster until they were running through the gauntlet into the open circle of soldiers waiting at the end. The gauntlet ended fifty meters from the aircraft with a ring of soldiers and open space. As the men were pushed through the gauntlet into the ring, the soldiers began to move around Nakunda's men, circling them and pushing them tighter into the circle. They began to pile on top of each other in panic as more moved off the IL-76 through the gauntlet of soldiers ending in the tight ring. As more of Nakunda's men entered the circle, the soldiers began to smash into them with the butts of their rifles. The panicked men began to push hire up onto what was now a pile of men. As the last man entered the circle, the pile of men was ten feet high and fifteen feet in diameter. The soldiers' boots continued to pound the cement and their rifle butts smashed into the pile of men. The circling and pounding continued until the pile sat lifeless and blood oozed out in a ring around them. Most suffocated, the rest bludgeoned with rifle butts. Those that lay down first did so not realizing they would be crushed and suffocated. As the pile grew it was pure survival to get as high up the mound of men to avoid the rifle butts. But as the blood poured out, the men fell down from the pile to be met with rifle butts. Their heads split, blood poured out around the periphery.

The army officer ordered them to halt. The boots stopped. He waved his hand in the air and the soldiers made a final attack, this time climbing up on the pile to finish off any last survivors. The sound was wood hitting bone and flesh. It was quieter, as the pounding boots and muffled screams had stopped. When they were done they left the pile of men and the ring of blood oozing out from the bottom of the pile of dead men. They lined up and marched off to trucks waiting for them.

Two soldiers dragged General Nakunda off the IL-76. Lin He had his face towards the pile of bloody soldiers. Nakunda stood behind him with men on both sides. Lin He spoke with his back to Nakunda.

"You can join your men on the pile or you will go back and do everything we tell you to do. These are our final negotiations. You will do perimeter and cargo security for our new hospital and airport, Mr. Nakunda. You will protect this operation with the utmost diligence and secrecy."

Nakunda dropped to his knees. He put his hands in the air pleading for his life.

"Let me live. Please, let me live. I will do anything for you."

The chunky Central African Republic Officer waited twenty feet behind, hoping to finish of a warlord who had killed many men and women in his own village near the Northern Congo border. He waited to personally take General Nakunda apart. He would let him crawl up his pile of bloodied men and take his time killing him. Lin He whipped his titanium pool cue through the air. He spun it around like a martial arts expert practicing his moves and exercising his body, a combination of Tai Chi and Kung Fu. He turned around and placed the pool cue on General Nakunda's shoulder. Nakunda's hands were cupped together, and his head bowed down, not wishing to look Lin He in the eyes.

"Please, I will do anything."  
"That is yet to be seen."

Lin He glanced at the Central African Republic Officer and pulled his pool cue back to his shoulder. He walked off towards hangers and the nose of a King Air 350 peeking through split hanger doors of Bangui's remote military ramp.

# Red Notes

Lagos, Nigeria

September 15th

The Nigerian Bank Executive leaned back in his chair with one arm stretched forward taping his pen on his desk. A gold name plate, Joshua Babas, Senior Vice President Apex National Bank, stood on the edge of his African Blackwood desk in front of Eric Wong. It struck Eric as odd, as in Macau he did everything to hide his name, even doing his best to keep his identity off company documents.

"One million dollars but it's negotiable," the Nigerian body guard said, exposing his gold canine tooth.

"We will pay you a ten percent premium for holding these securities, and it is backed by the full faith of the Chinese Government," Eric Wong said.

"Ten percent?"

The Nigerian Bank Executive's eyebrow rose as he looked at Eric Wong, ignoring the Nigerian body guard.

The Nigerian sat upright in his seat and seemed at ease being marginalized in meetings. His best English phrase was One Million Dollars, and he had already said it once.

"That is correct. You hold the securities with guaranteed interest from the US Treasury Department, backed by the People's Republic of China. These are Chinese purchased US Treasuries. What you have in front of you, Mr. Babas, is a Red Note issued by the Chinese Government. They are the acting trustee, holding US Treasuries, with exact serial numbers. The Red Notes have the full backing of the Chinese Government and the United States Treasury. The Red notes and their corresponding Treasury Serial numbers are to be held until the date of maturity designated on each red note. You are eligible to use them at their full face value plus interest at the red note dates of maturity. And all you have to do is purchase them now for ninety percent of their current face value."

Eric pulled out a cloth towel and patted his forehead and upper lip.

"So you are putting your own maturity date on the sale of a US Treasury?"

"Well, these may seem like sophisticated financial instruments, but they are quite straight forward. It is actually a Chinese security, underwritten with US Treasury Debt."   
The Nigerian Bank Executive looked over the red note on his desk. The notes were written in Chinese and English, a one million dollar red note with designated US Treasury serial numbers.

"We are selling four year expirations, as well as five, and even ten year expirations. The further out you go, the more discounted principle you pay."

"And the more worthless the money will be when they can be dumped back into the bond market, principle and interest included. And what if there is a bank run, Mr. Wong? What if I have thousands of depositors showing up at my bank on Monday morning demanding their money? Yet all I have is pile of red notes I can do nothing with for four, five, or even ten years?"

"Then we will provide hard currency. Our network will back any potential bank run."

"With what?"

"First with your own currency, and then with American Dollars. Chinese RMB as a final backstop. We only ask that in every bank deposit you add a small clause that states payment is redeemable in US dollars at beginning deposit exchange rates if domestic currency is not on hand. You enter a clause with all depositors that they may have to settle for US dollars at initial deposit exchange rates if local currency is not on hand."

"Initial deposit rate? You want me to lock depositors into dollars the moment they put cash in our banks."

"Yes. Exchange rate cash settlement based on time of deposit. All based on the banks discretion. So all depositors are either given their local currency or US Dollars if they wish to close their accounts. It is at the discretion of the bank as to which currency they cash settle any account."

"So this is an insurance policy for my bank. I may settle in the most worthless currency, all written into the fine print of any bank application, which we all know, most clients never read. I may cash settle an account in dollars or local currency, depending on the day."

Joshua Babas shook his head. He had worked too many Nigerian scams to remember, including one of Nigeria's most notorious cold call phone centers, that successfully destroyed many unsuspecting, yield hungry, peoples wealth from around the world, as well as a Nigerian Oil field investment scam that destroyed the finances of a famous German Grand Slam Tennis Star from the 1980's.

"And the ten percent?"

Eric held his hands in the air and tilted his head as if to say, 'let's get this party started'.

"We will guarantee capital. Enough to secure any liquidity squeeze."

The Nigerian bodyguard smiled and pointed to the one million dollar Red Note Certificate on the banker's desk.

"One Million Dollars. But it is always negotiable."

Joshua Babas smiled at him, and they both began to talk in their local tongue.

Eric wanted to look at his watch, but felt it impolite. He had two other banks to visit that afternoon. If he failed to see them it meant another night at the Sheraton Lagos. It was a crowded hotel, and there always seemed to be someone loitering in the hallways by his room. It was hot and sticky and he seemed to rub elbows everywhere he went. He missed his villa and wanted to go back to Uganda. He missed Macau even more, but needed to offload an obscene amount of red notes to secure his freedom from prosecution. His financial fraud could have led to imprisonment on China's Mainland, and even a bullet to the back of his head. The red notes were fraud on a scale that made his North Korean counterfeit 100 US Dollar bill laundering in Macau look like swapping fake baseball cards at a school yard. It was his price for freedom. He needed to sell half a trillion worth of red notes.

Africa was resource rich and bigger than China or the USA. But none of the currencies were stable. They were a coup or revolt away from becoming worthless, and dollars were still king. So he would spend the next few years making sure he drowned the African banking system in them. Eric figured the Chinese government could also default on the red notes if African bankers didn't play by their rules. The real securities were still held in China, and possession, in any asset class, was always ninety nine percent of true ownership. He also knew a Nigerian bank run could get ugly and violent. Anyone with power and a substantial sum of money would show up at the banks with armed men. There would be no cuing for cash deposits. The well connected would have the bank manager's address and where his loved ones lived. Eric glanced down at the name plate on the edge of Joshua Babas's desk.

"So let's say I take your red notes into my vaults, and my bank cuts you a line of credit for ninety percent of the principal. You decide to purchase a local business and are issued cash by my bank up to the discounted principal of these red notes, from real deposits placed here by hard working people. Maybe I will even issue the ten percent premium to myself and purchase a second house in the Ivory Coast or Cape Town. But then I have a credit squeeze. Let's say a depositor takes a large sum out of his accounts which I cannot cover. There is not enough hard cash in the vaults and not enough coming in from business and personal loans from your Chinese clients. I have nothing but a vault full of red notes and my own cut is already spent. Your emergency cash must flow in at certain interest rate. Credit card rates?"

Eric looked embarrassed.

"Well that is negotiable if you are willing to purchase even more red notes. Let's say...on the margin?"

"A margin account to purchase debt? US treasury debt, packaged by the Chinese Government, not to be sold until a given date, leveraged with cash I do not have?"

"Yes," Eric said with a smile.

"It is exciting and will make you a very wealthy man."

"So you are selling US Debt to be used as leverage to purchase hard assets, but you are time restricting their sale onto the open financial market. And you are saying I may use these red notes on my books as leverage to buy more red notes? But I will need a special loan, which you will provide in US cash."

"Yes. You catch on quite fast Mr. Babas. I can see the banker in you," Eric said with a nervous smile.

"But this chews up a good portion of the ten percent you are offering. Am I correct?"

"All, but two percent."

"Two percent? Now we are down to two percent."

"We are paying you two percent to take a loan from us Mr. Babas. It is a negative interest rate. That is much better than banks in America or Europe, which get loans from the US Treasury or European Central Bank at near zero percent."

"I understand, but this would constitute a serious lack in confidence in the currency backing this debt."

"Your deposit clause will all but assure every depositor is in US dollars from day one. You can leverage this new debt against your own business loans, which will be from my Chinese clients. By accepting these red notes we will provide new business clients from China. You can take the two percent and loan money in dollars at four or five percent. The more loans will require your own government to print more money to exchange for our inflows of dollars. The potential is far more reaching than two percent or ten percent. We will loan you money at a negative rate or sell you dollars at ten percent discount plus interest. We only ask that we are the underwriters of these assets, as well as investors in your bank."

Eric figured more investments would put more pressure on money printing by the African Governments. Money printing would have to find its way back into the banks. This fresh money would go out as swaps for more red notes to purchase more businesses. In the end, he would swap red notes for local cash and then run it back through the hospital system for African hard asset purchases by the wall of safety deposit boxes representing oligarch Chinese businessmen. They would place their orders through the hospital and red notes would go out to various banks as collateral. The African banks would use all their on hand and incoming cash to pay for red notes. He would in turn pump 100 dollar bills, back through the overleveraged African Zombie banks, as they purchased more red notes on margin at a negative two percent interest rate. The hospitals would act as money laundering machines, pumping out just enough cash for bank shortfalls, while sucking up local currencies for hard asset purchases. The magic was to create demand for local money while only using counterfeit US 100 dollar bills as an emergency backstop. The banks would seem to have unlimited amounts of cash in their vaults in need of exchange for local currencies and hard assets. He knew from his own experience the lure of easy free money, and understood once he got them hooked, they would over leverage themselves through pure greed.

When the scheme came to a crescendo, he figured there would be a system flooded with US dollars in the form of 100 dollar North Korean counterfeit bills and red notes ready to expire. Hard assets would be in the hands of large Chinese business owners, with RMB notes and local African currencies swarming around the hospital network. Everyone would get paid off; it would just not be in the currency or asset class of their choosing.

"You need just enough for bank withdrawals. And we will ensure any short comings through our own financial network. Cash will be delivered within 24 hours of any shortfall. We will crush any bank run with a flood of cash, including US dollars."

"And if we go bust from bad investments. If I take your reds notes and give you all the banks cash flow and deposits and we run just on the minimum to cover withdrawals. If I purchase more red notes on the margin to invest for my own adventures and they all go bad. Then what?"

Eric presented the Nigerian Bank Executive with a paper contract.

"As collateral we are also asking for bank shares. Of course this is based on the market value of your bank. And as a company employee, Mr. Babas, you will be employed and protected by us, the Chinese, your future employer."

"You wish to buy this bank as well?"

"If you betray us, or act irresponsible in your business adventures, Mr. Babas, and I am talking about the Chinese Government, you will become our employee. As our employee we will seek damages through repossession of your personal assets. Screw us and we will come after you, anywhere in the world. Work with us and you will be more protected than any secret service could ever provide you. That is what a banker or your status truly needs. Protection, Mr. Babas."

"One Million Dollars," the Nigerian muscle man said with a big smile and his shiny gold canine. The Nigerian banker smiled back in agreement. Eric too, smiled with joy.

'It worked!' he thought.

# The Trap

Bangui, Central African Republic

September 15th

Han slid the heavy cockpit window back on its rails, and put his arm on the metal ledge, taking in the hot humid air at Bangui International Airport, Central African Republic. His B-727 was parked on a remote freight ramp away from the small passenger terminal. A taxiway led further into military hangers, and as he looked out his cockpit window, it occurred to him that whatever happened on this remote, isolated ramp could very well stay there forever.

The day's flight had begun in Luanda, Angola after a twenty four hour layover, and would continue on to Juba, South Sudan and end back in Entebbe, Uganda that evening. His day stretched flight time and duty limits to the maximum, but somehow, through The Captain's flight planning, it was always legal to start, legal to finish as they would say in the aviation business. There seemed little authority in the system to regulate any duty or flight time violations. It was just a matter of The Captain changing flight and duty times as needed, and Han, as the Chief Pilot, rubber stamping any violations. Han was almost certain The Captain now had a stamped signature of his, and was plastering his name over every document he could incriminate him with, including CADOC freight manifests.

Their route seldom changed, as they were servicing the same six hospitals. He felt the challenge of his job once again deteriorating into a make the donuts flying routine, from Entebbe to Lusaka, Luanda, Kinshasa, Bangui and Juba. Layovers were Lusaka, Luanda and Kinshasa. Bangui and Juba were not options, as The Captain seemed to have little control or ability to bribe and cajole the rough edges along the Northern Congo border. Jaime had been put on sick leave two weeks prior, not long after Han had seen him at Eric's villa party and had his encounter with C1 and C2. He stopped answering his calls as well.   
Flying over Africa was not so different than flying over an open ocean. At night it was hours in darkness with no lights in sight below. It was the Dark Continent, and reminded Han of his patrols on the DMZ; dark, remote and isolated. Their network route took them over a sea of forest and rivers that stretched out as far as one could see looking out their cockpit windows. The Congo River basin was the world's heart, pumping oxygen and life into this world. It was also a dying heart, shrinking, cooking and drying up.

From above, a town or city was easy to spot from the metal corrugated roofs that sprinkled reflections high into the sky over Africa, like tiny SOS signals from the ground. Descending lower into the African sprawl, the red dirt roads would splinter out in every direction, and just as the jungle above went on as far as one could see, the dirt roads and shanty houses filled ones periphery as one descended to earth. Every city had its own terrain and character, but it was always the sprinkling light of metal shanty roofs from high above only to be swallowed up by a swamp of red dirt roads, sprawl, smoke fires, and straight out in front with almost no time to take it all in, a strip of pavement to come crashing towards at one hundred and fifty miles per hour.  
As they loaded the aircraft, Han noticed a ring of stained cement not far off from his cockpit window view. It was a fifteen foot diameter stain on the cement, with brown, black and yellow colors running away from a near perfect circle. It reminded him of a drawing of the sun with its tentacles of nuclear explosions going outward.

He was still cooking underneath from his sex video. He was running out of options on who to trust, his past connections now cut off. To call someone seemed desperate. His former platoon Sergeant talked about a man who terrorized a Pharmaceutical Company CEO and his family in Seoul for almost a year, Im Hwa, but Han found nothing in the mainstream media. Han never mentioned Lin He to his friend, as he had never seen him face to face. As he sat in his cockpit seat, waiting for the last cargo to be loaded, he felt isolated and a desire to talk with someone who could understand his predicament.

'Maybe Park Taeri,' he thought.

Just as Jaime had predicted, the IL-76 sat parked not far off from the B-727. It had shown up in Kinshasa a week before, and like the hands on a clock, was now in Bangui and the crew conveniently off at a hotel. Jaime said it always left after they departed, and was always flight planned to Entebbe. A Land Rover Jeep in military colors was parked near a small shack, and a Central African Republic Army Officer sat inside in full view of both aircraft. His thick framed glasses and balding forehead with small patches of black hair were noticeable from the cockpit. He stepped out of the jeep and leaned against the hood. Another soldier gave him a cigarette and lit it for him. Toby, sitting in the right seat, seemed slightly agitated, and Han could see his knee bobbing nervously as he eyed the Army Officer. The Officer's uniform was tight around his bulging belly, thick calves and ass muscles. He seemed well fed and proud of his intimidating appearance. It was working well on Toby.  
"Are they friends of yours?" Han asked pointing to the soldiers.

Toby said nothing and began checking over a flight plan and sea of weather forecasts and Notice to Airmen information relating to their next sector.

Adrian stepped into the cockpit and sat down at his Flight Engineers station. He grabbed the aircraft log book and began filling in fuel numbers and signing the aircraft off for flight release.  
"Well we're almost ready to go. Fueled up, and we should be loaded and ready to go in twenty minutes, exterior preflight complete, everything looks ready to go," Adrian said with confidence.  
"I think we may be delayed," Han said.

Toby looked at his watch nervously.

"Oh I think we'll be on time."  
"No we won't," Han said.  
"Tell them we are technical. Make up what you wish, but tell them we have a broken aircraft."

"And what should I tell them the technical is?" Adrian asked, noticeably annoyed.  
"How about a hydraulic leak. Even The Captain couldn't find a legitimate reason to takeoff with a hydraulic leak. The IL-76 is going to Entebbe. We are going to Juba. It's almost the same direction. I'm just curious about their routing. So we sit here technical until the Russian crew show up, and instead of us departing first, we let them," Han said.  
"What about our flight plan? It will be expired," Toby said.   
"Then we re-file or leave without one. I don't think the IL-76 goes to Entebbe. It lands somewhere else."

Adrian tossed the log book up on the center console between Han and Toby.

"Write whatever fiction story you want, Captain. You want to stay in this dump all night, that's your choice."   
"I can run that Flight Engineers panel without you. You're just here for the regulations and the ride," Han said to Adrian.

Adrian swiveled his seat backwards away from Han and parked his feet on the jump seat.

*****

They waited three hours before the Russian crew showed up in a minivan. The Russian Captain stepped out and looked over at the B-727 with interest and annoyance. He shook his head with a smile and climbed up the built in stairs of the IL-76. Han watched them for the next thirty minutes ready their aircraft. The loadmaster raised the aft cargo ramp and a Crew Chief hooked up to the nose wheel intercom jack for engine start. He looked over at the B-727 and then squatted down and lit a smoke as he waited for the cockpit crew to run their before engine start checklist. Han saw the first engine light off. As the IL-76 started engines, he asked Toby to get their clearance.   
"Cancelled," Toby said.   
"Then re-file."   
"They said to do it with company operations."

Han watched the Crew Chief role his cord up and walk towards the side stairs on the Il-76. He tossed the wheel chokes through the small entrance hatch and closed the door.  
"Tell tower we'll pick up our ATC clearance once airborne. Tell them we want a takeoff clearance behind the IL-76," Han said.

Han listened to Toby battle for an ATC clearance on tower frequency. The sound from the tower controller was similar to many frequencies in Africa and had an echo as if talking through tin cans and wires.

The IL-76 began to taxi out. Han called for the before start checklist. They started all three engines and taxied out behind the IL-76.   
"Operata, Operata 321, Bangui Tower. Say registration, tail number, souls on board and fuel endurance. You must re-file your flight plan. You have permission to start engines only."  
Han followed the Il-76 off the freight ramp.

"Just tell tower we will wait at the holding point. Tell them we are fully ready."  
"I repeat, I repeat. Operata 321, you have clearance to start engines only," Bangui Tower said.

The tin can sounding tower radio let out a squeal and then music followed and a woman talking in the background. The controller may have had family visiting the control tower. Han keyed the radio mike.

"Bangui tower, Operator 321 requesting take off clearance, east bound departure to Kinshasa fir boundary, waypoint Abavo, we will coordinate route clearance with Kinshasa once airborne. Requesting VFR departure eastbound to Kinshasa FIR boundary. Company has re-filed, we will pick clearance up once airborne with Kinshasa."  
"Operata 321, you have permission to start engines only. I say again, you must return to stand."

Han broke in on the radio again, the water starting to boil.

"Bangui Tower, Operator 321 requesting VFR clearance to your airspace limit to the east, Fir boundary position Abavo. We will continue with Kinshasa for further routing!"

"Negative, negative. Operata 321 you are in violation of Central Africa Republic Civil Air Regulations."

The Russian crew broke in requesting takeoff clearance.

"Break, break. You have permission to start engines only. I repeat, I repeat."

Han broke in again, impatient with the tower controller.

"Bangui tower operator 321 ready to copy ATC clearance to your fir boundary limit, position Abavo. VFR departure if able!"

"Break, break. IIyushin 749 you are cleared for takeoff, maintain runway heading, climb to flight level 270, report passing flight level 100. Break, break. I say again, Operata 321 you have permission to start engines only. Please contact your company for route clearance."  
Han reached down and turned the radio off.  
"That is enough of that for today. We will depart in the blind."   
"You will get us all violated," Adrian said.   
"I'm the Chief pilot, as well as the Captain of this aircraft. I think you can put the full blame on me."

Adrian slumped back in his Flight Engineers seat hoping Toby would join in with his disapproval. The IL-76 took off and banked east bound. Han hacked his clock and gave them three minutes and then took the runway and departed. They climbed eastbound on a direct track to Entebbe. Adrian swung his seat forward between Han and Toby as they passed through transition altitude, and set their altimeters to 1013HP/2992 Inches. It was an altitude restricted for Instrument flight plans.

"Climb Checklist Captain VFR?" Adrian asked.

"Do it yourself, that's what you're paid for!" Han shot back.

Han began searching the sky for the Il-76 as they leveled off at their cruising altitude. The slow IL-76 soon came into view, its vapor trail and four engines smoking below at twenty seven thousand feet. Han slowed down to follow the slower, high wing Russian Cargo jet. He took the aircraft out of navigation track mode and went to heading mode to follow the Il-76.   
"Tell ATC we are diverting around weather, we will report back on track," he told Toby.

Toby shrugged his shoulders and began working the HF radio.

"I think it is more a formality at this point. Maybe we shouldn't talk to anyone. Kinshasa is just going to raise hell if we come up on frequency at thirty one thousand feet with no flight plan," Toby said.

"Try them on 11300. Get a cell call check, and tell them we are flight planned to Juba and deviating south due to weather. Keep it vague. Just so they know we are routing per our original flight plan."

The skies were clear and they were out of radar contact until the Entebbe border. The IL-76 was now four thousand feet below and five miles ahead.   
"Let's just see where he goes," Han said.   
"You'll get us violated and our licenses revoked. We are way off track," Adrian said.   
"So what? I don't think any of our career prospects will change. Who is going to file charges out here, anyway? Kinshasa? Central Africa Republic Civil Aviation Authority? Break, break," Han said with a threatening look at Adrian.   
"I think we will fall under ICAO, The International Civil Aviation Organization. The United Nations of Aerospace," Adrian said.

"Yeah, whatever Kofi Annam," Han said.

Almost an hour past and they continued following the Russian IL-76. Adrian, now annoyed and nervous, swung his Flight Engineers seat forward.   
"Look, as far as I can see, he's headed for Entebbe."

He held a chart out plotting their latitude/longitude positions and it pointed in a straight line for Entebbe.   
"See, he's on a straight vector to Entebbe. So let's get this thing pointed to Juba. Bangui is going to have a fit that we departed without a takeoff clearance. We are off course to Juba. For all I know they will arrest us when we get on the ground in Juba or Entebbe."

Toby said nothing.

"We keep on his tail. If he gets to Entebbe's Fir airspace boundary then I will say you are right. We keep following him to the border," Han said.

Adrian was getting under Han's skin. He said he never made it to the coffee shop to check on Lily. Traffic was too backed up. But he sounded panicked on the phone when he called Han telling him to meet him at the Airport.

"Just get to the airport. I will bring your bags with me," Adrian insisted.

Adrian seemed to have given up on investigating the company too, just as Jaime seemed to make up with Kiwi. They both, over the course of his stay, had become button down company men. Jaime was now out of sight, along with Karen and Lily. None could be reached by phone.   
"Don't worry guys. I'll take the blame for this. We are filed for Juba, somewhere. Let The Captain handle Bangui. I'm certain it's nothing money can't buy. We will fly all the way to the Ugandan Border and then cut north to Juba. That or we divert to our alternate, Entebbe. I want to know where the IL-76 is going. He doesn't even have his transponder on. Look nothing on TCAS."

The TCAS only showed a small round circle with no altitude of the IL-76, as would normally appear when encountering aircraft close to their altitude. They were back over a sea of jungle over northern Congo and no radar coverage.  
"We could be in big trouble," Adrian said.  
"Shut up!" Han said, now angry that Adrian was again asserting his lack of authority in the cockpit.  
"I said I would take the blame for this. Don't talk to me about being in trouble in this part of the world for an operation like this," Han said.

Adrian sat directly behind Toby and across and behind from Han in the Captain's seat. As Captain and Flight Engineer they seemed more intimate and in better view of each other than the First Officer. Toby was right. His job was eating food and turning on the aircraft's pitot and window heat. He sat in the right seat not wanting to argue. He peered out the right seat window into a sea of jungle. He was at least happy to be heading towards Kampala and his farm up in the hills.  
"You of all people!" Adrian said.

Han looked cross at Adrian. He could feel his temperature rising. The thought of the Candy girls duping him into a sex video was boiling beneath. He knew what he was capable of doing to people if they got the water boiling. His ex in laws learned that the hard way, his own mother always feared it more than he did. Adrian still didn't know it even existed. He felt he should come with his own warning label in multiple languages, Hazardous to one's health when pissed off.  
"Tell them we're deviating around weather on HF if you can reach anyone, 11300."

126.9. Han dialed it up on the third radio head and pointed his index finger at the frequency and eyed Adrian.   
"In flight broadcasting, if you're so concerned about safety and regulations, Captain ICAO."  
"And who was that guy by the Jeep?" Han asked, now looking over at Toby for a fight.

"Do you know something I don't?"

Toby said nothing.  
"He looked like someone you wouldn't want to mess with down here."

Han could see Toby's lips moving as he gazed out the right window into a sea of jungle below.  
"We follow that Russian jet to the Ugandan border. If he crosses the border he must be going to Entebbe. At the border we cut north to Juba. We will land a few hours behind schedule.

Bangui to Juba and you're worried about a flight plan?"

Han stared down Adrian at on the Flight Engineers panel.   
"What is this? London Heathrow to Tokyo Narita?" Han said.  
"Well, well, well. You couldn't have put that better than Jaime. And I thought he was a real cowboy pilot. How things have changed," Adrian said.

"You don't want to piss me off, Adrian. You're not even on first base when it comes to that."

"Stop it, you two!" Toby yelled out.

"I'm tired of grown men bickering like children in a tree fort. You are professional pilots flying a jet aircraft. Quit behaving like little children!"  
Han looked forward at the IL-76 trailing below with its four vapor trails streaming out. Adrian sat back in his seat. He switched the fuel heat on and opened a fuel cross feed valve to balance fuel in the wing tanks. They sat in silence following the IL-76 over the open jungle. After two hours, the IL-76 began a gradual descent. They were 180 miles from the Ugandan border.  
"We follow him. Who is violating what now?" Han said as if vindicated.   
"If this guy can flight plan and land at the wrong airport and the wrong country, I guess we can too. After all, it's the same company!"

Han's eyes grew wild. He put his hands on the thrust levers and powered back, descending with the IL-76. A white strip of open ground appeared below and the IL-76 made a turn to downwind and then a steep descent to base leg. They followed the aircraft down and as the IL-76 turned onto final, Han turned on his landing lights, letting the Russians know they were following. Han glanced down at the airstrip and could see a turning node on each end of the runway and in the center, a taxiway leading to a ramp for cargo offloading. It seemed a standard setup for remote African runways. Han thought in his head what the landing performance of each aircraft was. The IL-76 could land on half the runway length and surely try to take the only taxiway into the freight ramp halfway down the runway. Han was following far to close in trail and feared the IL-76 would block the runway and not permit him to land. As he descended and banked towards the IL-76, now on final, the TCAS began to blare out "traffic, traffic" over the loudspeakers as they closed in on the IL-76. Han wanted him to land long, and then he could block him at the end of the runway. It seemed a game of chicken. Too close a landing behind the IL-76 and he could hit it on role out. That seemed almost assured if the IL-76 tried to turn off on the taxiway to the ramp midway down the runway. Han dialed emergency frequency 121.5.

"Ilyushin on final, this is operator 321, how do you read?"  
The Ilyushin dived towards the runway, its landing gear and flaps still up.

"Ilyushin on final, this is operator 321, we are landing behind you, one mile in trail, please land long. Emergency fuel, we cannot go around," Han said.

"More lies, and now you're going to get us all killed."

"Shut up, Adrian!"

The Russian Flight Engineer was out of his station and looking out the Captains side window at the diving B-727 behind them.

"He's going to hit us if he tries to land that close in trail!"

The Russian Captain heard Han's voice over the radio on emergency frequency 121.5. His First Officer looked over at him, and he held his hand up calmly not to respond to Han's transmissions.   
"That crazy, hot head is going to land behind us. What do you want to do?" the Russian First Officer said.

The Russian Captain wanted to land short and taxi off at the only taxi way onto the ramp halfway down the runway. He peered through the windscreen and saw the B-727 diving from downwind to base behind him.   
"He's got a lot faster approach speed," the First officer said.   
"He's going to chew our tale off if he tries this," the Flight Engineer said.   
The Russian Captain, quite calm, still flying the Il-76, as if he could fly an approach in his sleep and still not be distracted by his First Officer, Fight Engineer and an aircraft coming up on his tail, shrugged his shoulder.   
"Then we'll land long and roll out to the end."   
"Are you sure?" the First Officer said, quite agitated.  
"Well," he said, scratching his razor stubble in a not so caring fashion.

"We can make the turn off, and I would say his wing clips our tail as he comes rolling by us on the runway. That will start a fire and destroy both aircraft."

He pointed his finger at the landing gear handle and called for final flaps. He glanced back at the Flight Engineer to do the landing checklist himself in silence. He seemed to be having an easy going conversation, as the IL-76 dived toward the jungle floor and the strip of compacted gravel below them.   
"If we go around he may block the runway, and then we have to divert to somewhere more than civilized with a lot of very hot freight and little fuel. And if this crazy son of bitch is going to follow us in here, I'm sure he will do that. Either hit us rolling out as we taxi off the runway onto the freight ramp taxiway, or block the runway and make us divert. So we land long and role to the end of the runway," the Russian Captain said.

He adjusted the throttles and pulled the oversized yoke in a gentle fashion, aiming the IL-76 towards the gravel surface carved out from the jungle floor.

Han asked for flaps 40. Adrian took a small screw driver out of his flight engineers table and unscrewed a small bolt that only allowed the B727's flaps to go past the 30 degree position.   
"This is very none standard. Get ready on the power."

Flaps 40 was used in the early days on very short runways, and created an immense amount of drag and noise as the old JT-8 engines had to be spooled up high to keep the speed up and sink rate down. It would allow the B-727 to slow down and possibly prevent a collision with the IL-76 if he didn't cooperate and roll out to the end of the runway.

The IL-76 landed and Han could see the burnt rubber smoke off the tires as it touched down and rolled down the runway.   
"He's rolling to the end," Adrian said as the B-727 radar altimeter read 100 hundred feet on short final. Adrian was delighted at the short approach, precision coordination, and seemed to forget about his dissatisfaction with Han. The B-727 landed and Han pulled the thrust levers into to full reverse and manually deployed the ground spoilers. As the aircraft decelerated it shook violently on the uneven gravel runway. The flaps, all the way down in the 40 degree position, shuddered violently. He pressed down as hard as he could on the brake pedals and stopped short of the Il-76. The IL-76 swung around at the end of the runway and now faced the B-727. The Russian Captain left his landing lights on that now flashed bright at the B-727 as it came to halt 200 hundred meters from the IL-76, nose to nose on the runway. The Russian Captain kept the landing lights on as if a statement of his annoyance. The IL-76's four engines, high wing, T-tail and huge bogeys looked like a sumo wrestler ready to do battle against its opponent. The Russian Captain set the parking brake. He waved to his Flight Engineer to shut the engines down and told the load master to lower the cargo ramp.   
"We aren't going anywhere for a while. Just shut it down and tell that fool Indian to start cooking me some breakfast," the Russian Captain said. It was four o'clock in the afternoon.  
Han swung the B-727 perpendicular to the runway, blocking the IL-76. His left seat position was in full view of the IL-76 off his left shoulder, and the Russian Captain reached up and shut his landing lights off as if he had been beat at his own game. Han looked to his right side and saw a Boeing 767 on the cargo ramp. He saw it out the corner of his eye on roll out, but his adrenaline was pumping too hot for it to register. His aircraft was now sitting perpendicular to the runway, two thirds from the end with the IL-76 to his left and the B-767 off in the distance on the cargo ramp. Han got out of his seat and went into the cargo bay. He opened the cargo door on the left side of the aircraft that now faced the parked IL-76 on the runway. The Crew Chief on the IL-76 was already out in front of the aircraft hooked up on jacks with a thirty meter cord. He crouched down on his knees and lit a cigarette and held the coiled up head set cord in one hand plugged into the front underbelly of the IL-76. Han had seen similar scenes on US military bases of aircrew on headsets hooked up to C-130's, C-141's, C-5's, and C-17's. The Russian Crew Chief looked over with his sunglasses and wrapped up cord. He was most likely talking to the Russian Captain still in his seat and now eating breakfast with a small glass of fine Russian Vodka. Adrian went through the shutdown checks himself.   
"Great job Toby, you really took charge of that situation. Thanks for backing me up too."   
"What did you want me to do? Take the aircraft from him? Overpower him? Get into a fight on the flight deck at flight level 310?"  
"You could have been a little more assertive. You're Second in Command!" Adrian shot back.  
"He threw his father-in-law down a flight of stairs for Christ's sake. He isn't shy of physical confrontation!"   
"Well, I guess we are all full of excuses today."  
Toby hunched forward in his seat and pulled out a newspaper and began to read. He looked over his left shoulder at Adrian, still looking at him disappointed.   
"Why are you always looking over my shoulder, every time I turn around?"

"Because I'm sitting behind you on the Flight Engineer's panel, you idiot!" Adrian shouted.  
"He was going to find out sooner or later. It was just a matter of time. Maybe now is as good a time as any. About us, about this operation," Toby said.   
Han pushed one of the containers out the cargo door. It was heavy, but he was still strong and able to role it along the rollers to the edge of the cargo door and push it over the edge. It hit the tarmac with a thud, and one corner crinkled and a side split open.   
"Are you going to do something about this? Or are you just going to blame me?" Toby said.   
Adrian lit a cigarette and leaned back in his Flight Engineers chair.   
"I can run the APU for another hour or so. Then I'm shutting it down. Otherwise we won't have enough fuel to even get to Entebbe."

He blew smoke up towards Toby, and dropped some ashes on the center console radio head.  
"Remember, Toby, these are my aircraft on the ground. So enjoy the air conditioning for the next hour."  
Han dropped the aft air stairs and made his way up the gravel packed strip and across the ramp to the B-767 offloading identical crates and containers. He walked up the portable air stairs leading to the cargo door of the Boeing B-767. It was a much bigger operation, as the B-767 had almost twice the capacity of his B-727 and over twice the range. He stood back from the cockpit door and gazed at the Captain at the controls of the B-767. He must have seen the IL-76 and the B-727 come in, and he must have watched Han walking up the runway onto the cargo ramp.  
The B-767 Captain turned around in his seat and placed a gold Kruger Rand coin on the center console next to a soiled furry stuffed animal.   
"Put that in your cash box and take it out in a year. It'll be worth twice the fiat."

He winked at Han.  
"And if it's not?" Han asked.  
"Then the banks are lying to you," Leather Gloves said with a smile.

"It's a small world."

"No, aviation is a small world," Leather Gloves said.   
"How did you know I was here?"

There was no need for hugs or salutations. They picked up right where they had left off after their last flight, six years back.

"From the glowing recommendation that you sent to Karen on me. How else? I can't thank you enough. Much appreciated Han-doe."  
The loadmaster, a man in his late sixties in overalls and flannel shirt, came up with coffee. His hands slightly trembled and coffee spilt onto the center console as Leather Gloves took the cup before he completely lost control of it. Leather Gloves used the small furry beast to soak up the coffee on the radio heads, not seeming to care. He pushed the toy into his hand and it let out a muffled squeal. He must have replaced his leather racing gloves with the small furry squeeze toy, Han figured. The sound was so muffled; it tricked oneself into thinking the squeal was coming from somewhere else. The furry squeeze toy could have been a cat, dog or bear, deduced Han. It would spend its life flying all over the globe in leather gloves safe strong grip. Someday, when it had finally given its last squeal, its fur ground with sweat, and its small soft body mutilated into a wad of cloth, Leather Gloves would gently unfold his grip and let it roll out of his hand into the plastic waist bag attached to the side of the center consul. It should have been a minor distraction, just as his leather racing gloves should have been, so many years ago during his intern flying. They just seemed to say more.

'So Karen forges her own recommendations too,' Han thought.

He nodded his head agreeing to himself.  
"Well, you're welcome."  
The aircraft log book rested on the jump seat and Han lifted the cover up and flipped through the pages. It was a standard aircraft log book with carbon copies in pink and yellow above the white sheets on top removed at maintenance stations. He flipped through the book and saw pages where Adrian had done daily inspections and 'A' checks. He had also done a thorough acceptance inspection over five months back out of Sharjah in the UAE. Han pulled the thick binder cover over the top and tapped his knuckle on the top of the log book as if accepting defeat.  
The First Officer, Malik Kiambang, nodded to Han from the right seat. He had about as much experience as Han did when starting out in the Metroliner, and would spend many hours being assisted by leather gloves and his new furry creatures. Han winked at him.

"Welcome aboard, Malik."

Malik smiled back. He was barely twenty one, and everything on him seemed shiny, bright and new.  
As Han made his way across the open freight ramp back to his B-727, he stopped halfway across and looked back at the B-767. He could see the cockpit and was certain both could see him. Leather Gloves didn't gossip, though. He didn't have the capacity to do so. His world consisted of things he wished to squeeze the life out of, abandoned by all colleagues who had long ago written him off as a derelict. Jaime's acquaintance, Lin He, was oddly coming together now too. Moon Gunwoo from the Seouler Daily Informer was looking for a North Korean man who bribed and terrorized a Pharmaceutical Company CEO in Seoul. His alias was Im Hwa. C1 and C2, almost without thinking, called Lin He a Japanese name, Hayashi Kazu, when Han mentioned the name. Im Hwa, Lin He, Hayashi Kazu. Before leaving to see The Captain and having his shoulder pounded into sushi, as The Captain described it, he spun those names into his computer. It was so simple it seemed almost sophisticated in how they could dupe the unexpected. Hayashi, Lin and Im. All the same Chinese Character 林.

"Im was a used in South Korea, but in the North it was Lim, as they kept the original pronunciation. In Chinese it was pronounced Lin, and in Japanese Hayashi! All three names were distinguishable in three languages with the same identical character."

Han smiled and shook his head. It now made perfect sense why he was here too. His uncontrollable temper.

"Well, time to find out what's in those boxes."

He walked up the B-727 aft air stairs and to the cockpit. Adrian and Toby sat at their stations. Han pulled out the crash ax and leaned over Adrian's Flight Engineer seat. Adrian looked forward at his instrument panel and Toby sat buried in his newspaper. Adrian reached up to shut the APU down and flipped the battery switch off. The Aircraft became completely quiet, with no electrical power and air conditioning.   
"Better for talking, hey? There are two of them from Sharjah with the same tail numbers. Karen can fill you in. Her husband runs type ratings out of Addis Ababa on Ethiopian Airlines B-767 simulators."  
"Where are they headed?" Han asked.  
"Northern China. It's a long haul operation now."  
"Long Haul, now that's a killer," Han said.  
Adrian put his hand on Toby's shoulder, in front of him in the First Officers seat.

"Got Toby slotted in for a B-767 type rating, so I guess they'll need more bright young wiper snappers like Malik over there."

"So Toby, did Karen send you all the question and answers for your check ride too?"

"They're putting the main hospital in right here. Network control will be on the fifth floor, with those big screens of the world, just like at your old airline, Han."  
Han gripped the crash ax he removed from the aft bulkhead. Adrian had put on quite the charade explaining the inside workings of the highly modified B-727 to him. His investigation was all a charade.   
"You go to hell, Adrian."  
"You think this world is so innocent? You're in this like the rest of us. You just don't know it yet."  
"We'll see about that."   
He took the crash ax and ran out of the cockpit. He pushed two wood crates out the cargo door onto the ramp and then ran through the cargo bay and down the aft air stairs. His anger was starting to boil up like a tea pot. He gripped the crash ax along the neck close to its head. He ran from the back of the aircraft toward the broken crates and containers on the ground. He would tear them to pieces.

*****

Subhadeep, the Indian Aviation Entrepreneur, crouched down and peered out at Han from the forward observation nose cone of the IL-76. He had made this area his private quarters and adorned it with as many homely things imaginable, including red velvet carpets, a curtain with gold tassels and small silver bells that jingled as the IL-76 hit turbulence. A role up mattress provided some sleep in fetal position as the IL-76 made gentle Dutch Rolls through the sky at night. On a shelf, next to a stack of airline management textbooks sat a small lacquered box with fine inlays not much bigger than a pencil box. It was attached to a leather shoulder strap with a 9 mm Walter P38 that hung off exposed metal paneling in his nose cone office. A parade grounds ready hat with beautiful feathers in a semi-circular pattern rested on a small shelf above the holster and pistol and a fake UK passport. He adjusted his glasses to his bloodshot eyes and straightened his scuffed up tie. His tailored business suit was ruined from months of being permanently marooned on the IL-76. He had a scratch and smudge of dried blood on his chin, maybe from shaving or possibly a sharp metal edge on the Russian transporter. His hair was jammed forward and back at the same time.

The IL-76 became his home after the Lagos accident. Limited choices had reduced him to the Russian's galley boy on the next IL-76 taken out of mothball, as if waiting patiently for another serial number to crash and burn in a third world power outage or war zone. It amazed him how quick a new IL-76 appeared out of mothball storage, and how the same crew, still suffering from noticeable injuries, so nonchalantly climbed into it, strapped themselves to their stations and began running checklists.

His authority on all matters was stripped clean with the exception of duties delegated through the alcoholic Russian loadmaster and a sea of bureaucratic paperwork he was allowed to work on in his spare time during cruise when the flight crew was sound asleep at their stations. The loadmaster had sewed a black armband, not so different than those worn by the NKVD in their time of glory, with the letters SWAT in bold red Russian running script. Subhadeep was told it represented rapid response, on your heels, shoot from the hip problem solving, and that all mid-level airline corporate managers had them as a band of pride and courage. Just like the American SWAT team so eulogized in media and film. He wore his SWAT armband as a badge of honor, making it part of his permanent attire, even sleeping with it. To the Russian loadmaster, SWAT simply stood for Shit, Water and Trash, which Subhadeep was now responsible for.

For the most part, he was quarantined to the forward nose cone observation station, which during most phases of flight was filled with adrenalin pumping excitement and led to continuous vomiting. It was that or return to Delhi and drive an egg cart. One filled his head with fear and the other with sheer terror.

He had heard those sounds pounded in his head all across that city before, Boiled Egg, and those childhood memories terrified him far more than the fear of dying in a fiery crash and a life of make believe paperwork and projectile vomiting in the IL-76 nose cone. At least he had a job in the aviation industry and a mid-level management job at a growing airline. He gazed out the IL-76 nose cone at Han and the spilt cargo on the runway.

"My god, man, destruction of company property!"

He pulled out his Aircrew Conflict Resolution Flowchart, which he personally designed and laminated, but was forbidden by the loadmaster from distributing to the cargo bay or flight deck. It was designed specifically for such events, and could be utilized by air crew in the middle of any dire in-flight or ground emergency, when everyone on the flight deck had either run out of answers or found themselves, simply, shit out of luck.

As Han wailed away at the cargo, Subhadeep attempted to call the Russian Captain on intercom but was shocked in his temples through his headsets while transmitting. After multiple Taser style temple shocks from the Russian intercom system, he pulled himself together and took out a blank Confidential Human Factors Report from a plastic V file containing a number of documents and bureaucratic paperwork he had fashioned for Captain Raymond R. Ryan's new airline. His Company ID, CADOC logo, and photo with employee number 02, just below The Captains 01 number, hung off his shirt pocket. He had not delivered them to other employees, as they were just a test run, as was the Confidential Human Factors Report and Aircrew Conflict Resolution Flowchart.   
"My god man, have you lost your mind? This will go into your employee file."  
Han Bin Employee Number 09

Report on conduct of Captain Han Bin

Addressed to Nurse Xiumei.  
Subject...  
He tapped his pen as he heard the screams from Han as he slammed the crash ax against the container.  
Anger Management...   
He nodded to himself in confidence and continued writing his description of events.

*****

The Russian Captain sat in his IL-76 cockpit seat watching Han take swings at the containers next to the open cargo door of the B-727. The loadmaster came in with hot coffee and biscuits and set them on the center consul. A gas fired oven cooked eggs, sausage, bacon and bread in the galley. A Smoke stack ran up through the fuselage and the smell of home cooked food and fresh coffee wafted through the cargo bay and cockpit. It was the best ride in town and the loadmaster could sleep on the cargo while Subhadeep did the dishes or cooked his favorite biryani on Indian cuisine night, approved once a week by the Russian loadmaster.

"He did a great job getting that thing in her," the Russian First Officer said.   
"I think they will call in that crazy Mexican to get it out though. It's too difficult a takeoff with us stuck down here blocking a quarter of the runway, and far too dangerous with the trees on each end. I think they need someone who can bend the numbers if you know what I mean," the Russian Captain said.

He lifted his eye looking at the Flight Engineer, who nodded in agreement.

"The Mexican is a good stick. Cool headed too," the Flight Engineer said.  
"But this Korean guy is a real hot head. A real anger streak in him," the First Officer said.

"I heard he threw his ex-father-in-law down a flight of stairs. An Evangelical Minister," the Russian Captain said.

"He should go see Nurse Xiumei for human factors counseling," the Flight Engineer said.  
"Should we call Captain Ryan and let him know?" the First Officer asked.  
"He already does. No need."

The Russian Captain waved his hand in the air, stopping any phone calls.  
"Just make sure that stupid Indian doesn't throw up in the avionics bay again. At least give him a trash bag with no holes in it."

"He almost knocked out one of the INS units. It's still a little off and drifts more than the other one. Gummed up the gimbals, the bearings," the Flight Engineer said.  
"Just keep him in the observation nose cone. You let him out of there and he will really turn this operation into a maze of paper work," the Russian Captain said.  
They all nodded in agreement, looking through the cockpit as Han split the last layer of plastic covering off the container. Stacks of cash, US 100 dollar bills peeled off the container like petals coming off a dandelion from the distance. He turned the torn up container on its side and let its contents dump in a pile on the ground.   
"Medical supplies!"   
He screamed and swung the ax into the bills sending them scattering across the compacted dirt and gravel runway. Bills littered the compacted gravel airstrip and flew around the B-727 and IL-76, one sticking to the Russian Captain's windscreen on the Il-76. Han took another swing at the stack and looked behind to see Adrian and Toby coming from behind. Adrian and Toby held their hands up high.   
"Just take it easy, Han. Put the ax down," Adrian said.   
"It's going to be OK," Toby said.

"No one has been hurt yet. Put the ax down and let's talk," Adrian said.  
"Medical supplies! You two were in on this whole thing from the beginning. Corporate mercenary criminals!"  
Han held the crash ax handle midsection along the handle and curled his other fist, both chest-high. He grimaced at them, showing his teeth, warning them not to come closer. He pulled the crash ax towards his chest and stepped toward them as if to attack. Toby and Adrian both reeled back in terror.   
"You're all in on this. You're all a bunch of criminals!"   
Han bolted towards the aft air stairs of the B-727, his only chance of escape. He climbed the stairs and raised them from the inside and locked the aft pressure door. He ran through the cargo bay towards the cockpit. He could fly single pilot. He stood up in the cockpit and began working the Flight Engineers panel and overhead panel for engine start. He turned on the battery switch and started the APU. Fuel boost pumps on. Air conditioning packs off. He flipped on the hydraulic pumps and closed the cargo door. He glanced up at the air conditioning duct pressure. Good pressure for engine start. Parking brake set. He hit the start switch and watched engine N1 rotation. He pulled up the fuel cut off switch and the number 1 engine shuttered as it lit off. He started all three engines and put the aircraft generators on and turned the APU off. He scanned the Flight Engineers panel and set up the air conditioning and pressurization systems. He would make any other adjustments once airborne.

He sat down in his Captain's seat. If he didn't get off the ground he could end up like Karen, Lily and Jaime, he figured. He could end up in the company hospital morgue. He knew their secrets and he knew who would be coming for him. He pushed the power levers up and jumped the main wheel chalks that Adrian had put in place. He selected flaps 25 and turned the aircraft toward the departure end of the runway. He would fire wall the engines for max thrust and pull it up close to stick shaker, stall speed, to clear the tree line. He figured enough fuel to make it to Entebbe and then a dash to the Korean Consulate. He ran through ditching procedures in the jungle as a contingency.

As he lined up and began to push the thrust levers up, he could see heavy Caterpillar earth movers enter and block the departure end of the runway. With half the runway now unusable, The IL-76 sitting at one end of the runway, and heavy equipment on the other, Han figured his chances of a successful takeoff were now reduced to zero. He would be past V1, decision speed, and somewhere between his rotation speed and V2 around the moment of impact with the heavy equipment, and most certainly a fireball and instant death. He pulled the thrust levers back. He could taxi down to the equipment and try from the other side, but the IL-76 tail was too close to the runway centerline, another almost certain crash. As he thought of his options, a small King Air 350 turboprop drifted down to the jungle floor, its nose at a steep angle, driving towards the heavy equipment blocking the runway. Just as it looked as if it were to impact the earth movers, it flared and landed on the shortened compromised runway between the earth movers and his aircraft. Its props went into full reverse and it stopped less than thirty meters from the nose of Han's B-727. As the King Air 350 and B-727 stood face to face, the telephone with no function in the B-727 began to ring. Its ringtone was hooked into the engine fire warning system, a very loud bell that rang loud in his ears, and lit up all three engine fire warning lights on the center pedestal. He pulled his head down in surprise at the loud ringing, not sure at first if it was a real engine fire. He picked up the phone and put it to his ear. He said nothing and listened as the turboprop blocked any attempt to move.

"Mr. Han, is this an inconvenient time to talk?" Lin He asked.

The B-727 cockpit stood six feet taller than the King Air 350 cockpit, face to face, less than thirty meters apart. From Han's seat he had to look over the instrument panel and nose cone containing the aircraft radar to view the tiny aircraft, a fraction the size of his three engine jet. Han could see one pilot in the cockpit, and another in the Copilots seat of the King Air with a cell phone to his ear. Kiwi opened the cockpit window of his King Air 350, and Han could see his trademark O'Neal surfers T-shirt and straight cut shoulder length blond hair and wraparound sunglasses through the King Air cockpit windscreen.   
"If you think this is going to end with me surrendering, you've got another thing coming.

You move that aircraft and I'll take you and me together."   
Han released the parking brake and pushed the thrust levers forward. The B-727 aircraft leaped towards the tiny King Air turboprop. He stomped on the brakes, allowing the nose gear strut to bounce the B-727 up and down, letting Kiwi know he could kill him in a ball of flames in a split second. The King Air could still spin around and taxi out clear of the B-727, but not before Han could stop it. He had seventy tons of machinery at the touch of his hands. His aircraft had no cargo and little fuel with overpowered engines. He could not only destroy the King Air if he wished, he could do serious damage to the IL-76, tearing into its wing and engines. He could them taxi up and ram the B-767 if he truly wished to sabotage the operation. Since they had blocked the runway, he could use the B-727 as a ramming tool rather than a way of escape. Aircraft were strong and could take immense stress and pressures required to fly through the air at close to the speed of sound. But on the ground they seemed delicate as fine China, and the slightest dent or incursion sent then to the hanger for expensive repairs. If he hit any part of these aircraft, including the tough built Russian IL-76; it would ruin them permanently, possibly even causing a fuel leak and fire. He would have to make a fast egress and a run for the jungle if it came to that. He would head east through thick jungle towards the Ugandan border and Lake Albert. Even if he failed to walk in a straight line, an east bound direction would take him somewhere into the Rift Valley and civilization.  
"Temper, temper young man,"

Lin He's voice was calm and cool.  
"Lily, Jaime and Karen are gone. Maybe you killed them. You think I'm stupid enough to trust you. You think I won't take you with me, I will!"  
The King Air turboprop engines spun a wax glass as the shadow silhouette in the copilot's seat stood with phone to head.   
"I know you have a history in Seoul. I know you have been avoiding me for a reason. You have an identity to keep, Im Hwa, Lin He, Hyashi Kazu! An identity the chief reporter Moon Gunwoo from the Seouler Daily Informer would be interested in. You abducted Park Taeri as well!"  
If he rammed the King Air, it would kill the two inside. It would do severe damage to the B-727, and would require him to use the cockpit escape rope to exit out his cockpit window and attempt a run for the jungle. His head raced through jungle combat survival skills from his infantry days in the Korean Army.   
"Mr. Han, if you wish to kill yourself, I will clear the runway for your departure. I give you a 50/50 chance of clearing the trees on the other end, or landing safely in your condition. You may even need to ditch the aircraft for lack of fuel. If you survive a crash, I give you a next to nothing chance of surviving the Congo jungle. Even if you are so lucky, a jail cell will await you wherever you land. So if you wish to make a run for it, then I will give you that opportunity.

But you must hear me out first."  
Han kept the phone receiver to his ear. The crash ax sat in the First Officers empty seat if anyone tried to break into the cockpit. He glanced back at the Flight Engineers panel and a small annunciator panel indicating any open aircraft doors. If the aft air stairs opened, a small light would come on, and he would know the aircraft had been breached from the rear.  
"I don't kill employees of mine. I re-educate them from time to time, but I do not kill them."

Lin He's words were low key and almost charming.  
"I understand your history, and I know of your struggles to control a greater beast inside."  
"You think I have a problem with my temper? Hugh. Hugh!"

Han gunned the thrust levers again and let the wheels roll forward, hitting the brakes again and letting the nose strut rock the aircraft up and down. The King Air was now just fifteen meters from the nose of the B-727.  
"Mr. Han. Look at the cargo container you just tore apart on the ramp with a crash ax. You're single handedly manning a three crew, ninety ton certified takeoff weight, transport category jet, and you're threatening to ram it into a small turboprop, killing its crew. You're debating carrying out a death wish which may end in a ditching and almost certain death. And this is going on just as we talk on the phone."  
"I don't have an anger problem. Don't change the subject on me."  
Lin He let out a low key chuckle over the phone.

"You tossed your father-in-law, an Evangelical Minister, down a flight of stairs."  
Han bolted back in his seat, letting out a gasp of disbelief. Everyone seemed to know the story.  
"Jaime is in Addis Ababa being type rated on a Boeing B-767. He spent some time in a detoxification facility in one of our hospitals at our recommendation, before he left for training. Call him if you wish. Toby will be next in line as one of our Captains. I will need you in operations and recruiting. We will need new crew, and we have a list of your colleagues at Seoul Incheon Airways who have resigned and are now working abroad. You will be working hand in hand with Karen and Captain Ryan. Karen can fill you in on the details."

Han could detect a Northern Korean dialect with a touch of a Japanese accent.

"Before I let you go, Mr. Han, a few things to ponder. Chief Reporter Moon is one of Seoul's wealthiest men. He is always conveniently number 101 on the list of Korea's wealthiest businessmen, and he is never in the public eye. You do not acquire his wealth running a tabloid like the Seouler Daily Informer. It is acquired through a network of insiders, bribes, embezzlement and breaking every law with his connections. I'm talking about stock market rigging, commercial real estate fraud and every other kind of inside trade since he became connected with Seoul's National Intelligence Service. Someone of his power and wealth has no interest in the well-being of your type. If he did, there would be a chartered jet waiting for you, and not what is in front of you now. Always check your sources. And lastly, before we say goodbye."   
Han squeezed the old fashioned black aircraft telephone, letting the anger run from his head down his forearm and into the phone. Static came and went through the overhead speakers, and he could hear the high pitched B-727 engines from the back of his aircraft and the low drone of the King Air turboprops just outside his windscreen.  
"Nothing is so clean. No institution and no cause. Moon knows this very well. That is why he is a master of connections and an oracle of information, which he uses to his own corrupt ends. Are you one to favor such people, Mr. Han? Are you one to inform and report on your closest friends for gain and profit? My bet is that you are the opposite of such people. You wouldn't associate with a man like Moon any more than you were willing to put up with a wealthy, corrupt Evangelical Minister. And that is why you are here with us. That is why you joined our team, and why I have faith in your decisions. Good day, Mr. Han."  
The passenger door of the King Air opened. Lily stepped onto the airstrip and the door shut behind her. The King Air spun around and made a dash down the runway. The earth movers moved off the runway and the King Air 350 was away with the gear retracting into its wheel wells. It was able to takeoff or land in a fraction of the distance his own aircraft could. It was out of sight in a few seconds.

She stood in front of the nose of the B-727 with a hand held radio in her hand. Her dark nylon slacks, two inch pumps, long legs, dark sunglasses blew in the hot humid jungle heat. She put the hand held radio to her mouth and keyed the mike. It came in over the speakers on frequency 121.5 tuned to the number two radio along with the squeal of three Pratt & Whitney JT8 jet engines in the background.  
"Han, stop, please. It's OK. Everything is OK."  
His cell phone lit up on the center console. It was Karen's caller ID. He kept his eyes on Lily as he lifted his cell phone to his ear.

"Han, Karen here. I just got a call from Captain Raymond Ryan. It seems you're having a tough day?"

Han gently put the phone back down on the center instrument console without responding.  
The radio broke in on 121.5 with the high pitched squeal of jet engines behind it.

"What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?"

Lily placed the hand radio next to her hips and stared up at Han in the cockpit. She shook her head and he could notice through her anger and button down school yard strictness a slight smile coming off the side of her mouth. As the fear and anger, once again, drained out like a narcotic high crashing to the ground, her course words having a soothing effect, his hands gently moved off the throttles and down to the fuel cutoff levers, shutting down all three engines.

