Follow Focus
24
Spy Trick
WE WERE ON THE ROAD—or in the air—every week until Thanksgiving. We covered all of Western Europe, finishing with West Germany. There were still two consulates in northern Germany that we had to travel to. We’d not yet made it to Dusseldorf or to Hamburg.
The best part of the trip the week before Thanksgiving was getting together with my sister, Naomi. We spent two days in Frankfurt and she came over from Wiesbaden.
“What is my little brother doing flying around with a black passport?” Naomi demanded. “And where are your other wives?”
Naomi had a tendency to jump to conclusions on minimal evidence. She could be quite judgmental.
“Anna and Patricia are in London with our two children, Toni and Alex,” I said. “Ronda and I have been appointed to install new equipment in embassies and consulates as part of my alternative service.”
“They finally gave you your CO status? Good. I’m glad. I’ve always felt bad about not supporting you. But I couldn’t. Not just because of my career. We had different fathers,” she said. I looked at her in alarm. “No, I don’t mean literally. But the man who raised you is a very different man from the one I knew. I can’t… I just…”
“Naomi, what is it? You look really upset. I didn’t mean to bring up anything unsettling.”
“It’s just… I still can’t think of our father without seeing the gun he held to my head.”
“What?!”
I could have swallowed a fly with my mouth open like that. I wouldn’t have noticed. My father? Hold a gun to my sister’s head? What the hell?
“You don’t know anything about it, do you? I don’t know all the details, but Dad used to run around with his brother Lewis, a real slimeball. I was only five, so I don’t know what the issue was, but Lewis convinced Dad that he had to show he was the boss. He got a gun and threatened to kill the whole family if Mom didn’t take him back.”
“Shit! I only found out we had an Uncle Lewis when Dad needed an affidavit to prove his birth in the US. Lewis died in prison a year and a half ago. I met our cousin, Noreen, last fall.”
“Is she anything other than a beauty queen now?” Naomi laughed.
“She’s beautiful, but um…”
“See, that’s something else we don’t have in common. Deborah and I remember Noreen as ‘the pretty one.’ She was going to become Miss America. She was going to be Barbie in real life.”
“Well, I don’t know how well she did with that. She’s been married three times. Says her older brother and sister are like her father.”
“Why was he in prison?”
“He tried to rape Noreen when she was sixteen.”
“You see? See what a crappy family we come from. Deborah got married to a soldier as soon as she was out of high school. I didn’t want anything to do with a man. I left the day after graduation and joined the Air Force. But look at you and Kat. Great artists, going to college, working for the government,” Naomi said.
“You know we still love and miss you,” I said.
“Yeah. You were the best thing about living at home. I’m sure I was gone before Kat really remembers much. There’s six years between you and me and another six before Kat.”
“Do you remember having to take me to school with you when you were in sixth grade?”
“Yeah. That was not long after Kat was born. She had to be taken to the doctor for something.”
“Is that why I had to go with you? I didn’t associate it. But I always remembered Mr. Hess. He used a big paddle on a kid who kept wandering around the class.”
“Oh, God! Yes. Everyone was afraid of Mr. Hess. Sixth grade math.”
“I had him in sixth grade, too. He still had the paddle hanging next to the blackboard, but I never saw him use it again.”
“Different world.”
“So, Mom just got back together to save the family from being killed by Dad?” I asked.
“That’s the way I interpreted it, but I’m sure there was more. It was like a conditional acceptance. She made Dad promise all sorts of things, including not seeing his brother anymore, stopping drinking, and getting rid of all the guns in the house. She made it clear that he was a guest in her house and he needed to toe the line or she’d bring charges against him and he’d never see his family again.”
“Well, I guess he was a better man for it,” I sighed.
“It’s a good thing you visited me when you did,” Naomi said, changing the subject and taking a long drink of her dark German beer. I followed suit. “I finished my degree and I’ve been accepted to officer training school. I’m moving back to Lackland over Christmas and start classes in January.”
“That’s cool! You might get to be a pilot yet. You could be flying me around Europe and the Middle East.” I told her about my pilots and the plane we were using.
“I could probably fly that with a little training. I’ve got a private pilot’s license, but mostly I help move helicopters back and forth from base to base when they’re repaired. The Air Force will never put a woman in the cockpit. We’re too delicate and weak. The helicopters, though, only require one official pilot, so I get stick time going along as a mechanic-observer.”
I looked at my sister. Two words I would never use to describe her were ‘delicate’ and ‘weak.’ She was heavier than when I’d last seen her, but it looked like she was really solid. I had no doubt that if we were in a wrestling match, I’d lose.
“I guess that proves the oxymoron,” I said.
“What?”
“Military Intelligence. Two words that get put together that are seemingly incompatible. If they were smart, they’d have you flying.”
“Thank you, little brother. I’ll stick with my training to fly and maybe when I retire from the Air Force, I’ll manage to snag a job as a commercial pilot.”
We’d gotten together early in the afternoon and Ronda joined us for dinner. She’d taken the plane to Brussels and back to deliver a dispatch.
I thought about that. Our family was in London. I was with my sister in Frankfurt. I had a sister in Japan and one in Minneapolis. Our parents lived in Illinois. We had a home and business in Ontario. And Ronda had taken our plane to Brussels for the day. I wondered when I was finally going to get the feeling of sophistication I thought I should have after flying all over the world. I still felt like a small town hick.
We got back to London about the same time Adrienne got to town. We’d planned this pretty well. Ronda and I had been in the air for four weeks and only home on weekends. We’d have three days in the office before Thanksgiving and then have a long weekend off.
First, though, I had a date with the mother of my children. Saturday was Patricia’s twenty-fourth birthday. We celebrated in the time-honored way of finding places to photograph her and then spending the afternoon in the darkroom together.
True to form, Adrienne declined the opportunity to stay with us, and insisted that she would stay in a hotel like a good pet. Fortunately, she’d chosen a hotel that was practically next door to our flat.
Toni was excited to see Aunt Addie and wanted to show her everything about London.
“This is my room, Aunt Addie. You can use my WC if you want to. And I’ll take you to school, too! We learn so much! It’s hard to keep it all in my head,” Toni said.
Adrienne shot a look of surprise at me. Since arriving in London just two and a half months ago, Toni’s vocabulary and sentence structure had improved remarkably. Patricia said that while she liked Miss Lisa in Antioch, the school tended to talk down to the children and Toni was ready to move much faster. The American School in London provided an education compatible with the system in the US, but far more aggressive in its instruction.
“I can’t paint as good as Aunt Kat yet,” Toni continued, showing Adrienne her newest pictures. “Can I paint you, Aunt Addie?”
“Of course you can, Miss Toni. We can do it this week while Daddy and Mom Ronda are at work. If Mom Anna and Mom Patricia say it’s okay,” she quickly added. She glanced at Anna and blushed a little.
We’d seen the opening of The Bacchae in the West End the first of November. I’d even managed time that weekend to get to the theatre for some photos. I had set up my darkroom in the small study in the apartment, which was exactly where Jane had once had hers. We all decided to see the show again during the Sunday matinee. Old Auntie agreed to watch the children. We met Peter and Jane at the theatre and Adrienne immediately zeroed in on Jane’s growing tummy.
“Please tell me you are really pregnant,” Adrienne said. “Are you happy?”
“I’m thrilled!” Jane said. “And yes, I don’t think I could get any more pregnant than I am. Though the doctor says I should expect the feeling to multiply in the coming weeks. We’re at seventeen weeks now and I’m already thinking it’s time for delivery.”
“Just wait,” Patricia laughed. “You’ll be sitting with your legs crossed before long for fear the baby will just slide out. But he’ll have his own schedule and won’t budge a minute before he’s ready.”
“We’ll probably go up to Plympford after the holidays and I’ll spend the last trimester sequestered there. My clients are already reacting in surprise when I lug my equipment in to take their photos,” Jane said.
We were ushered into the theatre and took our seats. Just before the curtain, Kathleen and Damien joined us. The show had improved since Stratford—even since it opened here in London. I won’t say it got rave reviews, but it was favorably received and Damien was confident they’d close out the year in the theatre.
Of course, The P Pirates had left after their initial two-week engagement, during which they had carefully auditioned and rehearsed musicians to take their place. I thought that was good. These girls brought a different energy to the performance than the rock group. I’d say they were more a part of the ensemble than separate performers.
And the dynamic between Dora and Eugene as Pentheus and Dionysus was incredible. Devon was listed under both names in the program as playing Pentheus. The Weird Sisters, of course, were everything they’d been in Stratford and then some. Dionysus openly seduces the three of them in the first act. But he did the same number on Dora in in the second act, transforming her on stage as he seduces Pentheus. Revealing Pentheus changed into a female version of himself was more dramatic than I’d imagined when I saw the show in Stratford. She still had fine breasts!
“Isn’t she phenomenal?” Peter asked. “The best of all worlds. Beautiful woman on top and all man below!”
“I thought you were enamored with Eugene,” I laughed.
“Well, I’m not so traditional as to be monogamous,” he confessed.
We went to dinner with Kathleen, Damien, Eugene, Dora, Peter, Jane, and my family after the performance. The theatre didn’t do an evening performance on Sunday. Damien determined that the return on investment was not high enough to justify the strain on the actors and musicians. As it was, they had a matinee and evening performance on Saturday, so they were bringing in a good house for six performances a week.
When Dora saw me, she rushed to me and gave me a big kiss. Well, she looked like a million bucks, so I didn’t resist too much.
“You are my hero. You found me just when I needed something more than drag shows and gave me to Damien and Eugene. I am so thankful to you, my one-time roommate.”
“My friend, you’ve always deserved this recognition. I just happened to be near the opportunity.”
“Just as you were for Anita,” Adrienne said, slipping her hand through my arm to pull me away from Dora.
“How is our sweetheart doing?” Damien asked. “I only regret I didn’t have the right place to keep her. She was just itching to stretch her wings.”
“She flew the right direction,” Adrienne said. “The studio put her under contract immediately and has her working in couple of short projects. The big one, however, will start filming in the spring with the plan being to release before the year-end so they qualify for the 1974 awards. She will be great as Delia.”
“Is that what they’ve named the girlfriend?” I asked.
“It’s a little up in the air. The placeholder names are Sam and Delia. There are some who think it’s too blatant,” Adrienne answered.
“It does sound like Samson and Delilah,” I said. “I’m sure Brent and Bert will come up with something more suited. Development is coming along well?”
“They are working hard, master. They will attempt to begin filming by May and, of course, will want you to come to LA as soon as possible after your break starts. They are also looking for more exciting ideas from the world-traveling team of spies.”
“We really aren’t spies,” I objected.
“Tell her about the new watch idea,” Ronda prompted.
“Okay. So, we travel all over the world and we have to make phone calls to other places. But I never know exactly when I can make the call, because what time is it now in Tokyo? I’d have to get a map out and count the time zones away from Greenwich mean time. Which would be easy, except that it’s tomorrow there. So, Spy Boy needs a watch he can speak to and say, ‘Time in Tokyo.’ The watch changes time to Tokyo time. It should automatically update when he flies from London to Germany, for example, because he’s in another time zone.”
Adrienne took notes and we eventually went home to bed. Or my wives went home to bed. I went to Adrienne’s hotel and to bed.
We had a lot of briefings the first three days of the week. We’d been gone for the better part of a month and the Deputy Chief of Mission wanted a report on what we’d been doing. Of course, Mr. Martin wanted a report, and wanted to discuss our responsibilities with Mr. Abbey. It seemed there was some debate in the embassy over whether our plane was a waste of resources. Mr. Martin reminded him that the plane was not an embassy resource so he had no business speculating about whether it was a waste.
Then Robert Brice, the Assistant Minister of Security, wanted a briefing about what we’d observed regarding the security at the various embassies. He’d recently been assigned to a task force reviewing embassy security and its implications. He wanted to know if the photography systems I’d installed prior to this fall could be retrofitted with the locking device. I discussed it with the team in Boston and they assured me they’d investigate and come up with another solution.
Everyone, it seemed, wanted to see the photos I’d taken so far on my European tour. I’d carefully separated out my personal photos from the State Department photos by the simple expedient of carrying two cameras with me now. I had a plane on which I could pack just about anything I wanted to bring. I’d purchased a new Nikon F2 before we left for Europe and it became my personal camera while the old Nikon was now owned by the State Department.
Of course, Thanksgiving is not a holiday in the UK but the embassy celebrated both American and British holidays. We had great fun having Peter and Jane join us for Thanksgiving dinner. Patricia and Anna took charge of the kitchen, though Ronda and I were right in there cooking, too. Old Auntie was invited to sit with the family for our feast.
We all got time with Adrienne and loved having her with us. I promised I’d make time to come to LA as soon as my spring stint was over. Adrienne promised to return for Alex’s birthday in February.
Then Ronda and I were in the air again.
I’d taken the precaution of checking with my boss about whether I was permitted to meet with Brother Hector Costas while I was in Greece before I contacted Hector. It took a couple of tries to track him down, but I was joyfully invited to meet with him. We compared notes and locations before deciding to meet in Thessaloniki, where the consulate was.
Ronda and I took off Monday for the long trip to Athens. Our pilots filed the flight plan and we left Monday mid-morning with equipment for Athens and Thessaloniki. It was a six-hour flight. Nancy served us a nice lunch and took food up to the pilots, then came to sit with us. Or to lean on the wall next to us. She’d configured the airplane for us specifically so we wouldn’t need to have people sitting across from us. We suggested we move back to the couch seat, which was not used for takeoff or landing, but was a comfortable meeting area with two regular seats across from it.
It soon became obvious what was on Nancy’s mind. She thought this was a good time to have a little personal time together since we were traveling so far and only had two visits to make. And she’d figured out in South America that the way into our bed was through Ronda, not me. She zeroed in on my partner with kisses and offered caresses. Well, it wasn’t the first time we’d been with Nancy. We all made out a little, but didn’t get too involved until after we arrived in Athens. An embassy car took us with the equipment to the embassy, and then off to our hotel where we were on our own for the night.
The pilots had everything locked up tight and went to a hotel nearer to the airport.
I thought of Nancy a little like Beth’s sister, Valerie. Val had been a stewardess on Pan Am before she retired to get married and have a baby, which, if I had computed correctly, should have arrived this past fall. But in her flying days, Valerie had been a party girl. The phrase ‘coffee, tea, or me’ was written for her. Nancy would have been a party girl if she’d been on a commercial airline. As it was, we were her only passengers and she’d already gotten bored with the pilots.
We ordered room service for our dinner and were delighted with the array of food that was delivered, along with a bottle of robust red wine. As we ate, we continued to get cozy and we all seemed to loosen or lose items of clothing before we were finished eating.
I hadn’t seen Nancy naked in several months. She wasn’t much, if any, older than we were. I’d turned twenty-four in September, Patricia the day Adrienne arrived, and Anna would turn twenty-four just after we got home from this trip. Ronda was the youngest of us and wouldn’t turn twenty-four until February eleventh, a week before Alex’s first birthday.
Nancy was about five-three and was slim as most stewardesses were. She had short brown hair and nice mouthful breasts. Her bush was trimmed, but not shaved. It gave a nice accent to the shape of her hips. Once her clothes dropped so did the rest of her inhibitions. We had a raucous roll in the hay with the three of us trading places often. In one of her favorite moves, Ronda got Nancy to ride her face while I plowed the stewardess from behind. Nancy and I both got off and Nancy stayed in position long enough to make sure Ronda took flight on her tongue.
We collected the equipment from the embassy loading dock and took it to the new passport center where we met our students. We had four to train and they were excited to have the equipment that would make their jobs easier.
After training, Ronda and I met with the ambassador to get his photo and to deliver the envelope sent by the State Department. He invited us to an early dinner, which we enjoyed. We had even better food than our hotel served. The ambassador was very interested in news from the West, but had a report he wanted to give us.
“Greece is a hotbed of unrest,” the ambassador said. “The monarchy was officially eliminated this summer. The country has been ruled by a military junta since 1967. We would not normally have continued relations with a country under a military dictatorship, but frankly, it is all that has kept the country from falling to the communists. Unrest is abundant. There was an uprising just last month that resulted in bloodshed as the army marched onto a college campus to put down the demonstration. Frankly, I don’t give the junta much longer, but I’m very cautious about who I say that to. I’m saying it to you rather than writing out a formal document. Once you are back in England, I’m asking you to contact your superiors in the State Department and give them this report.”
We listened to the ambassador for more than an hour and then he questioned us on what he had said. This was a new level of being a courier. I was hoping we could remember everything. When we got back to our room, we were a little slow getting started with Nancy and she was worried. We finally decided we’d need to go through everything on the flight in the morning.
Nancy finally got our attention.
Dennis and Richard were waiting at the plane when we arrived. It seemed that we were no more than up than we were down in Thessaloniki. Our crew checked into a hotel for a well-deserved break. We’d be staying in Thessaloniki until Friday morning so we could meet with Brother Hector on Thursday. I wondered how the monk was doing.
The consulate was in an older pre-war building and had three levels of security on the steps leading to the third floor where the offices were. We had plenty of help getting the equipment to the room set up for it. We got all the instruction done on how to use and secure the equipment. I felt this consulate was possibly the most at-risk installation we’d undertaken so far. It wasn’t the first military dictatorship we’d been in, but it seemed the least stable.
The consul general thanked us for the letters we brought. We did not go out to eat, but he had food brought in to his office where we ate as he gave us his own report to pass on to our superiors. I was having difficulty keeping up with all we had learned and hoped that between Ronda and me we’d be able to piece together the complete report.
“The communists have not launched any concerted attacks in fifteen years,” the consul general said. “You live a hundred years after the end of the American Civil War and you can see the lingering effects yet today. For us here, it has scarcely been twenty-five years since the communists were outlawed at the end of the Greek Civil War. There are many living right here in Thessaloniki who took an oath of loyalty and disavowed the communist party in order to avoid prosecution.”
“The military is keeping them under control?” I asked.
“The closer to our border with Bulgaria, the less under control they are. Our region still has a higher rate of child abductions than other parts of the world, though nothing like the 30,000 who were kidnapped and lost during and right after the civil war,” he said. “If the junta collapses—and it has shown signs of weakening—it is likely that the communists will move to become active in Greece again.”
The news was sobering. I didn’t think we got anything that approached this information in our news reports. And the news was about as anti-communist as you could get. If you disagreed with the right wing politicians, protested the Vietnam War, or suggested better equality—like the equal rights amendment—you were quickly labeled as a pinko commie.
Ronda and I slept restlessly that night, simply holding onto each other. In the morning, we debated whether she would join me on my visit to Hector. We were to go to the Osios David, a fifth century church and one-time monastery. I suggested that perhaps she should call Nancy and do some shopping. Ronda felt otherwise.
“I don’t want to be alone here,” she said reasonably. “I think the city is beautiful and I’d like to see more of it. With you. We go together.”
“You know you will need a long skirt and head covering,” I said. “It’s an Orthodox church.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a long skirt and a headscarf.
“When I was briefed for Greece, our contact suggested a long skirt and headscarf might be appropriate in some places,” Ronda said, smiling. “Let’s get ready to go.”
I dressed in a suit and tie with my hat and my camera. Today, I was using the new Nikon for my personal photography. Technically, we were just sightseeing around Thessaloniki. Of course, we still had a consulate car and driver shuttling us around. We stopped for a little breakfast of a cheese pie with nuts and honey. It was sweet and yummy. It was served with a cup of the darkest, richest coffee I’d ever had. The server poured it at the table, alternating between cups as he filled them. We could see the grounds going into the cup.
Using her German as a common language to speak to the server, Ronda found that we were to sip the coffee slowly so the grounds settled to the bottom of our cups. Yes, German. This whole area of Greece had been occupied by the Germans during World War II. Learning German had been necessary for survival. At the consulate, we’d been told about three consulate attachés who had been apprehended by the Germans before they could pull out. Two were later released, but one had been executed.
We sat with our coffee for an hour, allowing it to settle as we watched people all around us doing the same. Then our driver took us on a driving tour of the city, pointing out several interesting sites, like the statue of Phillip of Macedon, Alexander the Great’s father, and the white tower. A little after noon, he delivered us to the Osios David and we went in to tour the mosaics. Just stunning!
“Nate! Welcome to Greece!” Brother Hector said. I turned to face him and honestly wouldn’t have recognized him if he hadn’t spoken. He had a full black beard and wore his little pillbox hat and a long black robe. Quite a different impression than what he’d given in England almost two years ago.
“Brother Hector. It’s great to see you. Is it permitted to take photos in here?”
“Not usually, but I don’t see the priest around. I don’t have a mirror. It’s Father Deacon now, but just Hector with you. If you can take photos without a flash, go ahead.”
“I won’t get the colors, but I’m pushing 400 ASA film to 1600. I can definitely capture a lot of the beauty in black and white,” I said.
I introduced him to Ronda and then quickly focused and snapped the photos. He led us into a courtyard where we sat at a table under a tree to talk.
He gave us a little of the history of the church, which was filled with intrigue as the daughter of Roman Emperor Patronius Maximus had become a Christian, even though her father was persecuting the Christians. She got him to build her a house and bath in Thessaloniki, which she converted into a church filled with the mosaics. In order to keep it secret, she covered them with animal skins and plaster. The church had been converted to a mosque during the Ottoman empire, but early in the twentieth century it was regained by the Orthodox church who restored the original mosaics and opened it as a church.
Just then, a young woman I thought I recognized brought a tray of sandwiches and cold drinks to us. It took a minute before I realized that it was Helen Adams, who had been Hector’s assistant in England. She was very pregnant.
“Helen! My goodness, I hardly recognized you!” She was wearing a long skirt and a headscarf like Ronda’s, but also wore a colorful blouse. She set the tray down and gave me a hug. “This is my partner, Ronda,” I said, introducing her. “Helen was Hector’s assistant at our Location Portraiture intensive.”
“And is now his wife,” Helen added.
“Wow! Congratulations!”
“Priests can have wives?” Ronda asked.
“We’re Orthodox, not Catholic. The monks take vows of celibacy, but I had not taken any vows when I came to England and met Helen. We were married well before my ordination, which was only three months ago,” Hector said.
“Do you hear from any of the others in our session?” Helen asked. She glanced at Ronda and raised an eyebrow.
“Yes. We visited Rohan in Calcutta as part of our first mission for the State Department. Then, let’s see, we caught up with Gretchen for just a few minutes while we were in Munich. Oh yes! We went to Lady Jane’s wedding in May and now we’re renting an apartment from her in London,” I said with a grin.
“I wasn’t exactly sure what you meant by introducing Ronda as your partner,” Hector said.
“Well, the two of us work for the State Department, traveling around the world and visiting embassies. But we consider ourselves husband and wife.”
“Why not make it formal? We can conduct the service right here,” Hector suggested.
“Well, that would make it hard on our other two wives back in London,” I said. “And on the children.”
“Here! I’ve brought luncheon sandwiches and cold drinks,” Helen said. “Eat something. And tell us more about this fascinating family.”
We had a good time catching up and swapping stories. Helen and Hector had fallen in love during that three-week intensive two years ago. She investigated Orthodoxy and determined that she could definitely live in that faith. As soon as she showed up on Hector’s doorstep, they’d begun living together and were married within a month after Helen completed her conversion and was baptized.
“So, are you taking pictures?” I asked. It was obvious that I was since I was carrying my camera.
Hector looked quickly around the courtyard and verified we were alone. Then he and Helen both leaned close to us.
“There is always something to take pictures of, but not often someone to share them with,” he said, looking around again. “I have been taking pictures of movements near the border. These are not for the government. I once had a contact to whom I transferred my photos, but he has disappeared. I fear he has either had to flee or is dead. Do you have a couple of rolls of new film I could talk you out of?”
That startled me. I turned to Ronda who kept my film in her dispatch bag. She removed two rolls in plain black cases. I handed them to Hector and he examined them. Then he put the two rolls back on the table. He subtly showed me that he had the two still in his hand and the ones he put on the table were gray containers.
“No, those won’t do for my needs. Thank you for trying.”
I pushed the two rolls toward Ronda and she put them in the courier bag.
“Sorry I couldn’t help,” I said cautiously.
“If you can pass these on to your Secretary, I’m sure he will know how to use them. And lest you think otherwise, I am not spying on Greece or anyone in it. But there are places in the north where I can hike into the mountains with my camera and suitable lenses to take pictures all around. I suppose some of them might show parts of a communist country.”
“I’ll make sure they get passed on. Are you in danger, Hector?”
“I think not. I don’t plan any adventures farther than the door of our church until long after the baby is born. Tell me: What should I expect when I’ve become a father? I mean… that type of father.”
After that little exchange, we continued to sit and talk for another hour before Helen got up to bring us a pot of coffee. I wondered if I would sleep at all that night. It took us another hour and a half of talking before we’d finished the thick concoction.
We left Hector and Helen, finding our driver still waiting outside the church. He did not seem to be at all impatient and took us around half a dozen more sites. Then we found a restaurant for dinner and went back to the hotel. We needed to be at the airport by nine to return home.
We met our crew in the lounge and headed across the tarmac to our little plane. Dennis used a remote control to open the door and drop the steps. We followed the pilots with Nancy behind us.
As we were getting buckled in, the plane lurched a little as another person hit the steps and jumped into the plane just before Nancy hit the button to withdraw the steps and close the door.
“Hey!” Nancy yelled as the guy shoved past her. He carried a small bag and a pack in his hands.
“Dennis! Get us in the air! It’s hot!” the guy yelled as he slapped the button to close up the plane.
“Excuse me, are you our passenger?” I asked. “We didn’t get a notice. We’ll be on our way to London in a few minutes.”
It wasn’t unusual for us to pick up a passenger on one of our trips—usually someone returning to the embassy in London. They didn’t usually jump aboard with such a flair.
“You can continue to London after you drop me off,” he said. “I’m commandeering my plane to head for Egypt.”
“This is my plane,” I insisted. “I don’t know who you think you are, but the plane goes where I say it goes.”
“I’m not taking orders from a kid. Dennis, get us out of here.”
“He’s right, Major. It’s his plane and he outranks you.”
“We don’t have time for this. If that Fiat gets in range, they’ll target the fuel tanks. Dennis!”
“We’re moving. But until Nate says so, we’re headed to London.”
It wasn’t the first time someone thought they could order a change in flight plan on the spur of the moment. We’d dealt with a couple of others who thought their position entitled them to special treatment. They usually backed down quickly. Dennis didn’t waste any time getting to the runway and getting us airborne. Once the Fiat made it through the gates, men piled out of it trying to get a shot in at us. Thankfully, they only had handguns and we were quickly out of range.
“Now,” the Major said. “You need to take me to Egypt. This is not a request.”
“Sorry, but until you start explaining things we are bound for London. You have some explaining to do as to why you think you can commandeer a State Department plane.”
“State Department? This belongs to the company.”
“It was retired from the company,” Richard said, coming out of the cockpit. “Surplused and sold to the State Department.”
“That’s fubar. Here,” he said, handing the co-pilot a small device. “The coordinates are programmed in. Just follow the instructions.”
“Major, we can’t do that,” Richard insisted.
“Goddammit, Rick! This could have been a simple trip. Now it’s a hijacking.” He pulled a gun from inside his jacket. “Take the GPS and get me to the Sallum drop point.”
Richard glanced at me and took the device to the cockpit.
“What’s a GPS?” Ronda asked calmly.
“Experimental technology launched in the secret service ten years ago. There are twelve satellites in orbit that will tell you your exact coordinates,” the Major said. “Look, kids, sorry to take your plaything away from you, but this is critical.”
“If you explained what you’re doing instead of hijacking our plane, we might have been a little easier to convince. Without the gun,” I said. “You have to know that once you pulled that, you were committing a federal offense.”
“Yeah. It doesn’t make a difference. I’m not going back. I’m done.”
“So, you’re headed for Egypt to retire?”
“Libya. I can’t ask the guys to fly over the border there, though. They know this route.” He paused and looked around, the gun still in his hand. Nancy had started to get up, but I waved her down. “God! What did you do to my plane?”
“Not your plane,” I repeated.
“Get up and make yourself useful,” he said. He gave me a shove toward Nancy’s seat. “Cutie, move to the front with the other piece. You won’t be serving drinks on this trip.”
“What are you doing?” Nancy demanded.
“Retrieving some property. Now move.”
Nancy left and the Major handed me an odd-shaped screwdriver.
“Don’t get any ideas with that. You’d be dead before you got close enough to use it. Next to the door, there’s a panel with screws that match this tool. Loosen them and remove the panel.”
“Won’t that cause the plane to have problems?”
“Interior only. You can replace it once we get what I need.”
I set to work loosening the screws. They had little plastic covers over them that kept them concealed. Once they were all loosened, the panel came free. Behind it, I found stacks of money.
“That’s years of retirement savings,” he said. “Let’s go back to the front.”
I went up to the table where Ronda and Nancy were sitting.
“I need your bag, blondie. Give it here.”
“You can’t have the bag. This is a diplomatic courier bag. The contents are confidential property of the United States Government,” Ronda said defiantly.
“Dump it on the table. I don’t want the contents. I need the bag.” He pointed the gun at me and raised an eyebrow. “If you care about this guy, you’d better do what I say.”
Ronda immediately emptied the pouch onto the table. It contained her black passport, several envelopes, lots of film, master keys for the equipment, and our instruction manuals. She handed it to the hijacker. He shoved it at me.
“Take it back to the back and load it.”
He followed me to the back of the airplane again and watched me stuff the courier bag full of money. He shined a flashlight into the space to be sure I’d emptied it completely. Once he had the bag over his shoulder, he seemed to breathe easier. He watched me reattach the panel and then sent me back to sit with the women.
I let them know I was back and sat in the seat behind them. In a few minutes, he came forward with a bottle of scotch and four glasses on a tray. He set it on the table and told Nancy to pour us each a glass. She handed them around and the Major offered a toast.
“Here’s to retirement. May you all live long enough to see yours. And here’s for your trouble.” He tossed five straps of hundreds on the table. “There’s $10,000 for each of you on this plane. Just don’t think of doing anything heroical or trying to call for help. It would be best if you all just forgot about this little detail.” He reached in a pocket and pulled out a black plastic bag from the galley. He handed it to Ronda. “This will have to substitute for your courier bag. Nice bag, by the way. I’ll see that it gets lots of use.” He sat in the back of the plane where Nancy usually sits, and left us up front.
“What are we going to do?” Nancy asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “We deliver him where he wants to go and then we go straight home.”
“I’m sure we’ll have to stop and refuel after we go all the way south to Egypt,” she said. “I hope Dennis and Richard know where we are.”
“They do,” I said. “They might not have been in on this from the start, but they know what’s happening and where we’re going. They know the Major. We have to just sit tight. I’ll deal with them when we get back to London. Not before.”
“What about the money?” Ronda asked.
“Put mine in the courier bag. Do what you want with your own. I need to turn at least one strap in to the State Department.”
It was nearly three hours when we felt the plane slow and start descending.
“Drop zone in five minutes,” Dennis’s voice came over the intercom.
I turned to look back at the Major who had not said anything in the past hour and a half. He was wearing goggles and a jumpsuit. He had the courier bag around his neck and a backpack.
“Everyone fasten your seatbelts. Entering drop zone,” Dennis announced.
“Here’s to Air America! Long may she fly!” the major yelled.
He slapped the button lowering the rear door. Pressurization in the cabin dropped and we all had popping ears as the temperature dropped. Then the Major hit the close button as he stepped out of the plane. We looked out the windows to see if his parachute was visible. We didn’t see anything. We felt the door close and cabin pressure start to return to normal.
“Sorry, folks,” Dennis said over the speaker. “We’re turning and heading north. We’ll need to stop on Crete to refuel, but we’re good to continue to London as soon as we can get up again.”
“Is there a terminal where we can get a sandwich or something?” I asked Nancy. “I need to put my feet on solid ground again before we take off.”
Nancy got a book out and looked up the airport. It had a paragraph in it about every airport in the world, or so Nancy said.
“Small airport, but it has a café, bar, and restrooms.”
“That will do.”
Nancy returned to her seat in the back and in another hour, we began descent into Chania Airport on Crete. When Nancy put the stairs down, we were met at the bottom by a military guard. They checked our passports and asked a few innocuous questions then let us go into the terminal to get food. I went straight to a phone. It was a pain getting the right drachmas sorted out so I could call Mr. Martin. He wasn’t in the office, of course. It was still early morning in Chicago. But I left a message and then called the British embassy to speak to Robert. I explained what had happened and my suspicions. He told me not to worry. He’d take care of it. I wasn’t sure what that meant.
When we took off, it was nearly six more hours to our home base in London. Ronda and I held each other’s hands as we finally touched down at the end of an exhausting trip.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
