The Flight Deck

The sky was growing a deeper shade of blackish-blue as the South American evening crawled slowly along. The shock of having the business end of a 9mm pointed at his head had begun to subside as he went about the business of flying the Beechcraft. Consulting the hand-held GPS that accompanied his “cargo” (several bales of cocaine paste and a co-pilot to assist him on this leg of the flight) he cross-referenced it with a chart that had neat circles drawn, indicating ground-based radar coverage. Their planned route took the flight deep into the interior of Venezuela before turning north to exit the coast and fly up the Lesser Antilles to the rendezvous/drop point before returning along a similar route. It was going to be a challenge – not so much because of hazards along the way – weather was clear and they’d be above any mountains, but because the distances involved would leave his tanks almost dry by the time they returned to the remote landing strip in Colombia. There’d be little room for error. Glancing back over his shoulder, he caught the last vestiges of the sun as it dipped below the horizon and thought back to the encounter.

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-SJS