up to fourteen passengers and cruised at 120 knots. The aircraft was almost as old as Liz. Thankfully, it had been updated with two GPS receivers, a new altimeter and a marine band radio in addition to the usual UHF, VHF and HF radios. It looked and handled like a mosquito on a leash after the heavily armed, superpowered choppers Liz had flown in the air force, but she’d gotten used to its aerodynamics and thoroughly enjoyed taking it up.
The mechanic prepping the Ranger had seen as much service as the aircraft itself. Retired after thirty-plus years with the Mexican air force, Jorge Garcia could take the Ranger apart and put it back together in his sleep.
Liz had formed a close friendship with the affable, mustachioed mechanic during her months in Mexico. She couldn’t count the number of beers they’d shared after work or the meals his wife, Maria, had fed her. Hefting her flight bag, Liz joined him on the pad.
“Buenos días, Jorge.”
“Buenos días, Lizetta.”
His pet name for her usually produced a smile. Liz had to work to dredge one up this morning. She was gritty-eyed after the late-night session on the beach and still steaming over Donny’s betrayal.
“Is the Ranger ready to fly?”
Grinning, Jorge patted the helicopter’s fuselage with a callused palm. “She is.”
Stowing her bag in the cockpit, Liz did a careful walk-around. The American-Mexican Petroleum Company was paying her serious bucks to ferry its cargo and crews. She took her responsibilities to AmMex and to her passengers seriously. Before transporting anything or anyone out to the patch, as they referred to the monster rising up out of the sea, she made sure her craft was airworthy.
Jorge followed, marking off the checklist items as Liz completed them. They had worked their way from the rear rotor to the main-engine driveshaft before Liz dropped a casual question.
“Did you hear any rumors about some trouble last night?”
There hadn’t been any mention of a shooting in Piedras Rojas’ morning newspaper. Probably because Piedras Rojas didn’t have a newspaper, morning or otherwise.
“What kind of trouble?”
“Gunshots down at the beach just after midnight. A dead body, maybe.”
The mechanic’s eyes rounded above his bushy black mustache. “Are you saying you go to the beach after midnight?
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“It started out that way.”
“Ayyyy, Lizetta, that is not wise!”
She certainly couldn’t argue the point. Last night’s misadventure had driven home just how unwise.
Despite its slow pace and mañana approach to just about everything, Piedras Rojas was only a half-hour drive from La Paz, situated at the very tip of the Baja California peninsula. The city had become a major crime center since antidrug operations in the Caribbean had forced Colombian drug lords to shift their operations to the Pacific coast.
The cartels’ vehicle of choice for their smuggling trade was the Mexican tuna fleet that operated out of ports all along the coast. The tuna boats were fast, long-range clippers that could spend months at sea. In a good year the fleet generated approximately a hundred million dollars in tuna revenue. A single boat could carry a load of cocaine worth twice that. As a result, drugs, corruption and violence had become a part of life in this corner of the world.
“Then why do you go to the beach so late?” Jorge wanted to know.
“Donny sent me an e-mail.” The words tasted as sour as three-day-old frijoles. “He’s dumped me. Seems he’s fallen for a foreign news correspondent.”
The mechanic fired off a string of highly colorful Spanish. Liz caught only a few of the more exotic phrases, but they were enough to produce a reluctant smile.
“That was pretty much my reaction, too.”
Spitting out a final curse, Jorge squinted at her through the iridescent waves of heat rising from the dirt pad.
“Will you go back to the States now?”
“Maybe. I haven’t decided.”
“But the helo you have saved every peso to buy! The charter service you plan to start! You do not need this pig, this Donny. You can start your own company without him.”
Liz didn’t tell him about her now-empty bank account. No sense broadcasting her monumental stupidity in making Donny joint on her account when he’d somehow never got around to putting her on his.
Nor did she care to reveal that she didn’t have enough cash left to cover her rent, due tomorrow. She’d have to swallow her pride and ask the smarmy AmMex on-site rep for an advance on next month’s salary. Trying not to wince at the prospect, Liz repeated her often made promise.
“When I do open my own charter service, you will most definitely be my chief mechanic.”
“Bueno! We make a good team, yes?”
“That we do.”
Satisfied, Jorge returned his attention to the pre-flight checklist. While he inspected the main driveshaft forward coupling for grease leakage, Liz checked the engine inlet and plenum to make sure they were clear of obstructions. The rumble of an approaching vehicle announced the arrival of their passengers.
The bus pulled up at the terminal and a half-dozen men filed into the building. Liz went back to the pre-flight inspection, knowing it would take the sleepy-eyed terminal official a good half hour to search the crew members’ bags for drugs and alcohol, weigh both men and luggage and show them a video explaining the safe boarding and ditching of a helicopter at sea. The video would play twice, once in English, once in Spanish. Hopefully, the non-English-, non-Spanish-speaking crewmen would get the idea from the video.
When the crew filed out of the terminal, Liz pasted on a smile and went to double-check their IDs against the manifest provided by AmMex. Like most of the men working the big rigs, these were a mixed bag of nationalities and skills.
A big, beefy Irish driller led the pack. A Filipino welder followed, then a Mexican radio operator and two Venezuelan cooks. When the last passenger stepped forward, Liz read off his name from the manifest.
“Devlin, Joe.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The slow drawl brought her head whipping up. “It’s you!”
He responded to that with the same wolfish grin he’d given her last night. “Yes, ma’am.”
Two
Devlin waited while a variety of expressions flickered across the face of the woman OMEGA had ID’d as Elizabeth Moore. He’d spent most of what was left of the night after the fiasco on the beach assimilating the background data headquarters had assembled on her.
He had to admit the info was pretty impressive. After completing USAF flight school at
