harder than it sounded, at least if you didn’t have the right paperwork and couldn’t travel in a legitimate manner. If you’d had a misunderstanding with law enforcement and couldn’t hop on a commercial airliner, there were only three options: boat, private plane, or foot.
Cars and buses were out because there were no roads between the two countries, nor any rail service – just some of the densest jungle in the world. That created a natural, virtually impassable barrier to movement between South and Central America, which was where he and Carmen came in.
Al ran the timeline in his head. Pick up Ernesto at ten, fill out the blanks in the bogus document, like birth date and physical characteristics, and then drive to Meteti – which would take almost all night. Ernesto then faced the hard and dangerous part – forty-four miles of jungle skirting the northern section of the infamous Darien Gap. Fortunately for Al, he didn’t do that part of the trip – his brief was to get the customer to the rendezvous point outside of Meteti, and his part of the transaction was done.
There was no frigging way he’d have taken the job otherwise.
Rightly considered one of the most dangerous areas on the planet, due to the drug smugglers’ rebel forces or armed militia – often one and the same – that controlled the area, you’d need to have a death wish to stray anywhere near the Gap. Normally, Al wouldn’t have ventured within fifty miles of it, however, Carmen’s contacts with the border shadow organizations ensured safe passage, at least to the rendezvous point. After that, Ernesto would be on his own with the guide Carmen had arranged and Al would return to his car, eighteen hundred dollars richer. He’d done the trip a dozen times and by now had full confidence in the arrangement – after all, he was still around to tell the story, so the system obviously worked.
He didn’t envy this Ernesto character the next part of the trip. If you somehow managed to evade being shot to pieces by homicidal drug smugglers or bloodthirsty armed insurgents, you’d likely succumb to any number of toxic plants, insects or animals. It was the perfect place to disappear if you wanted to drop off the face of the earth, but in the absence of someone like Carmen’s guarantee of safe passage, trying to make it through was an imminent death sentence. Every year an occasional hiker would ignore the plentiful warnings and try his luck crossing the tangled, verdant expanse and inevitably disappear, never to be heard from again. Even the police were deathly afraid of that frontier, and wouldn’t approach even the perimeter.
Not that Al cared – he was only playing glorified chauffeur as far as Meteti, and after going for an early morning hike, would be out of the deal. He understood his role; the police had checkpoints all along the southern part of the Transamerica highway, as the two lane strip of asphalt was self-importantly labeled, and unless one had, say, a diplomat for company, it could be difficult to make the last fifty miles. That was his value. Al had zero issues with ferrying a fugitive to the middle of nowhere as long as he got paid. Who was he to judge his fellow man? Carmen wouldn’t have helped a murderer or rapist, and anything less was just a question of local laws being bent. He’d been around long enough to understand that everyone made mistakes – his philosophy was: do the job and let God sort it out in the end.
He inspected the document with satisfaction. This was the easiest money he’d ever make. Beat the hell out of roasting in his oven of an office, that was for sure.
Chapter 8
The rutted dirt runway glistened with dark mud following the constant afternoon showers. The private twin-prop plane struggled to maintain control as it came in to land. The pilot wrestled with the flaps, eventually straightening the craft and gliding to a slithering halt by a waiting late model Toyota Land
Cars and buses were out because there were no roads between the two countries, nor any rail service – just some of the densest jungle in the world. That created a natural, virtually impassable barrier to movement between South and Central America, which was where he and Carmen came in.
Al ran the timeline in his head. Pick up Ernesto at ten, fill out the blanks in the bogus document, like birth date and physical characteristics, and then drive to Meteti – which would take almost all night. Ernesto then faced the hard and dangerous part – forty-four miles of jungle skirting the northern section of the infamous Darien Gap. Fortunately for Al, he didn’t do that part of the trip – his brief was to get the customer to the rendezvous point outside of Meteti, and his part of the transaction was done.
There was no frigging way he’d have taken the job otherwise.
Rightly considered one of the most dangerous areas on the planet, due to the drug smugglers’ rebel forces or armed militia – often one and the same – that controlled the area, you’d need to have a death wish to stray anywhere near the Gap. Normally, Al wouldn’t have ventured within fifty miles of it, however, Carmen’s contacts with the border shadow organizations ensured safe passage, at least to the rendezvous point. After that, Ernesto would be on his own with the guide Carmen had arranged and Al would return to his car, eighteen hundred dollars richer. He’d done the trip a dozen times and by now had full confidence in the arrangement – after all, he was still around to tell the story, so the system obviously worked.
He didn’t envy this Ernesto character the next part of the trip. If you somehow managed to evade being shot to pieces by homicidal drug smugglers or bloodthirsty armed insurgents, you’d likely succumb to any number of toxic plants, insects or animals. It was the perfect place to disappear if you wanted to drop off the face of the earth, but in the absence of someone like Carmen’s guarantee of safe passage, trying to make it through was an imminent death sentence. Every year an occasional hiker would ignore the plentiful warnings and try his luck crossing the tangled, verdant expanse and inevitably disappear, never to be heard from again. Even the police were deathly afraid of that frontier, and wouldn’t approach even the perimeter.
Not that Al cared – he was only playing glorified chauffeur as far as Meteti, and after going for an early morning hike, would be out of the deal. He understood his role; the police had checkpoints all along the southern part of the Transamerica highway, as the two lane strip of asphalt was self-importantly labeled, and unless one had, say, a diplomat for company, it could be difficult to make the last fifty miles. That was his value. Al had zero issues with ferrying a fugitive to the middle of nowhere as long as he got paid. Who was he to judge his fellow man? Carmen wouldn’t have helped a murderer or rapist, and anything less was just a question of local laws being bent. He’d been around long enough to understand that everyone made mistakes – his philosophy was: do the job and let God sort it out in the end.
He inspected the document with satisfaction. This was the easiest money he’d ever make. Beat the hell out of roasting in his oven of an office, that was for sure.
Chapter 8
The rutted dirt runway glistened with dark mud following the constant afternoon showers. The private twin-prop plane struggled to maintain control as it came in to land. The pilot wrestled with the flaps, eventually straightening the craft and gliding to a slithering halt by a waiting late model Toyota Land
Similar Books
