Operation Caribe

5

IT WAS AN unusual airplane, a leftover from World War II, rebuilt and customized.

It started its life as an Arado Ar-95W, an amphibious biplane designed in the mid-1930s by the German military and sold to the Chilean Air Force just before the war. It had an art deco look to it, lots of curved surfaces and stainless steel accents. The large, front-mounted engine spun a huge wooden propeller. Below its bi-wings was a large floatplane.

At some point, the plane’s original thirty-five-foot fuselage had been stretched to forty-four feet and expanded to accommodate a six-person passenger compartment. The addition of an enclosed cockpit provided side-by-side seats for a pilot and copilot. Four Plexiglas observation bubbles were installed along both sides of the fuselage, making it perfect for aerial sightseeing, and retractable landing gear was added. The interior of the plane featured highly polished wood and gleaming aluminum, and was now equipped with a quadraphonic sound system. The result was a seventy-year-old hot rod that flew.

But the airplane’s uniqueness didn’t end there. The Ar-95W was also foldable. Its wings, slightly swept back in the original design, hung on hinges that allowed them to be folded back and down. The rear third of the fuselage was also hinged and could be folded forward. The struts that held the pontoons folded upward. Even the propeller was hinged to be folded backward.

The odd, flexible design came from the notion that, had the Ar-95W gone into mass production, it would have been an ideal recon aircraft for German U-boats, because in its folded-up position, it could be carried inside the submarine itself.

So, the plane was very unusual.

But not any more unusual than its owner.

* * *

COLONEL CAT WAS in his middle forties, though his long ZZ Top beard made him look older. He always wore the same clothes: tattered island shirt, ragged shorts, dirty sneakers and a long-sleeve denim jacket. He was well known around the Fort Lauderdale airfield where he housed the Ar-95W and all over the Bahamas. He had the Caribe look and the demeanor down pat. If you wanted to go, he was the man who’d fly you to Margaritaville.

Colonel Cat hired out his unusual seaplane for a number of functions. He gave sightseeing tours of weird Bahamian locations, like the Stairs of Atlantis, the Tongue of the Ocean and the islands’ mysterious Blue Holes. He would take people deep-sea fishing, flying out to an ocean location to fish right from the cabin of the plane. He also flew scuba enthusiasts to hard-to-reach dive sites.

A lot of his business, though, involved transporting people who had chartered yachts waiting for them in the Bahamas. Many of these customers were novice sailors not experienced enough to handle what could be a rough crossing over from Florida, a transit that involved fighting the fast-moving and unpredictable Gulf Stream. Other charter customers were people who might be carrying items they did not want airport security to see, or for whatever reason didn’t have a valid passport. Some were just out-and-out criminals. Most wanted to travel without leaving a paper trail.

These special clients usually had money and weren’t afraid to spend it, allowing Cat to charge premium prices for his shuttle service. In most cases the flight from Fort Lauderdale to the Bahamas took under an hour, and as an extra bonus Cat could land the customer right next to his chartered boat. He even helped with their luggage, whatever it might contain.

As Cat liked to say: “Discretion is my middle name.”

* * *

HE HAD TWO customers this morning; they were typical in just about every way.

He was a sixty-ish married, wealthy banking executive from Ohio. She was a “hostess” at a bar on Miami’s South Beach. She was one-third his age and stunning.

They had met only recently and were in a whirlwind romance of sorts. The executive had quietly chartered a yacht for three days out of Alice Town in North Bimini, intent on getting some alone time with his new paramour.

He’d seen Colonel Cat’s ad in the local Beach Scene Magazine and called. Cat got the banker to agree to pay $1,000—cash—for a private flight over to Bimini and back.

* * *

CAT FUELED HIS plane and was ready to go from the Fort Lauderdale airport by 9 A.M. The happy couple arrived by limo a short time later.

He loaded their luggage. The banker was clearly drunk with lust. Cat couldn’t blame him; the hostess was gorgeous.

They took off at nine-fifteen and were soon heading east. The hostess sat up front; the banker was behind her, massaging her bare shoulders as they flew. After a lot of small talk, Cat went into his pitch.

“If you have a few extra minutes, I can show you some interesting sights,” he began. “Lots of strange things out here. Some people don’t realize it, but the Bahamas are right in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle.”

The couple agreed, and once over North Bimini, Cat began pointing out various places of curiosity. The Stairs of Atlantis. The area of ocean where the famous “Flight 19” was thought to have gone down. An oval reef formation called UFO Rock. And finally, an isolated island the locals called “Via-grass Cay.”

The banker asked Cat the meaning of its name.

Cat explained the people who lived on the island had cultivated a strain of marijuana that, in addition to providing a long-lasting high, also was an herbal Viagra.

This was a full-blown symphony to the banker’s ears. He quickly asked Cat how he could buy some of the weed.

Cat remained coy. He’d done this before.

“It’s impossible to get,” he replied. “The people who live down there are very picky who they share it with.”

By this time, Cat had turned the plane back to the southwest and was heading for Alice Town, where the couple’s chartered yacht awaited.

But the banker was insistent.

“There must be a way,” he said, slipping five hundred-dollar bills into Cat’s shirt pocket. “Am I right?”

* * *

THEY LANDED TWO minutes later. Cat taxied up to the waiting yacht and helped the pair unload their luggage, including the girl’s sizable jewelry case.

As she climbed aboard the yacht, Cat pulled the banker aside.

Cat asked him: “Where will you be tonight?”

“We’ll be moored near an island called Thomas Cay,” the banker replied. “Do you know it? Real isolated. No one around to interfere.”

Cat nodded. “I know the place. If I can snag a bag for you, I’ll fly it in after dark. If I can’t, I’ll return this five spot when I fly you folks home in three days. Deal?”

“Deal.”

They shook hands and Cat returned to the floatplane.

Waving merrily to the couple, he took off, circled the yacht once, then headed back to Fort Lauderdale.

* * *

HE MET HIS next two customers at 11 A.M.

They were a middle-aged couple from Arizona. He was an author; she was his research assistant. He wrote books on the Bermuda Triangle and its alleged UFO connection—but his latest book was in trouble. Because he had nothing really new to say on the topic and no photos of any consequence, he’d written the book at home in Tucson, fabricating all of it. His publisher had caught a whiff of the hoax and demanded an authentic book or a return of the hefty advance.

Desperate, the pair had hired a small research vessel to cruise around the Bahamas in an effort to find something—anything—to write about, all without wanting their publisher to know. They were especially looking for photographs of UFOs, which as hard as they might be to provide, were by now being demanded by the publisher.

The flight over to the Bahamas was a bit tense, though Cat gradually filled it with small talk about seeing strange lights in the skies over the Bahamas for years. In fact, he said, he’d taken many pictures of them himself.

By the time they touched down near the Great Harbour Cays, the author was begging to buy Cat’s UFO photos at $250 an image.

“Tell me where you’ll be tonight,” Cat suggested, helping unload the couple’s luggage onto their leased yacht. “I’ll fly back with the photos. If you like them, then we can talk.”

* * *

CAT’S NEXT CUSTOMER flew out of Fort Lauderdale at 2 P.M.

He was a professional sports fisherman from Alabama. A lucrative tournament was being held in the Bahamas in two weeks. It was going to be televised and would award large cash prizes. The fisherman wanted to get to the islands early and relax before the tourney.

Or at least that was his story. A few minutes after taking off, the fisherman admitted the contest was to be held at a yet-to-be-disclosed location somewhere off South Bimini. His plan was to go around the South Bimini islands in his rented boat looking for likely places and trying his best to get a feel for them. It was a violation of the contest rules—which was why he’d hired Cat to fly him over. Again, no paper trail.

“I might know a better way,” Cat told him.

“Which is?” the man asked.

“I’m flying a couple of that tourney’s judges out here in a few days,” he said. “And they’ve already faxed me a list of their destinations. One of them must be where the tourney is being held, right?”

The fishermen couldn’t believe his luck.

“How much?” he asked.

“I couldn’t take anything,” Cat protested weakly.

“Consider it a tip, a bonus,” the fisherman said.

“Tell me where you’re going to be tonight,” Cat said. “I’ll fly out with the maps. You look at them, figure out the sweet spot—and then we can talk about a tip. Deal?”

The fisherman gave him an enthusiastic fist bump.

“Deal,” he said.



Off Thomas Cay

Six Hours Later

THE BANKER WAS sitting on the stern of his rented yacht. The girl was up on the bow, at the opposite end of the boat, as far away from him as possible.

Night had come. The last of the sun’s rays were disappearing over the horizon and the stars were coming out above. A half moon was rising in the east.

The banker took a long, sad sip of his scotch. “This was a big mistake,” he thought out loud. Just as he had feared, his performance so far had been underwhelming.

Then he heard a noise off in the distance. He looked up and saw a light approaching from the west.

“Damn,” he whispered. “Could this be the cavalry?”

He watched the light as it flew overhead and started a long slow turn down toward the isolated bay where the chartered yacht was anchored.

The banker was on his feet as the Ar-95W floatplane came down and skipped along the water. The girl was suddenly at his side.

The plane taxied up next to the yacht, so close the banker was concerned its long wings might actually clip the leased boat. But at that moment, he would gladly have paid for the damage. If the wacky pilot was carrying what he’d promised, it might just turn around this disaster yet.

The pilot skillfully maneuvered the plane so its rear hatch was nearly flush with the yacht’s stern. The banker threw out a short gangplank; it just reached the rear door of the odd airplane. The hatch opened and the banker expected to see the bearded pilot walking out, hopefully carrying a bag of the good stuff.

What he saw instead were four men in ragged clothes pointing assault rifles at him.

The banker froze. The girl screamed. The first two men came across the gangplank and hit the banker hard, knocking him to the deck. Terrified, the girl ran through the cabin—two of the men chased after her. The banker tried to get to his feet but was knocked down again. This time, his assailant kept his bare foot on the banker’s throat, not allowing him to move. The banker could see that, in addition to his rifle, the man was carrying a huge machete in his belt.

These guys aren’t the police, he thought.

The next thing he knew, the banker was looking up at Colonel Cat. In the panic and confusion, the banker thought that somehow these armed men had hijacked the pilot and his plane. But then he saw Cat looking down at him and grinning darkly.

“How’s your vacation so far?” Cat asked him snidely.

“I trusted you!” the banker screamed back at him.

“Sorry, dude,” Cat replied. “I really am … but I got needs.”

For the first time, the banker saw Cat was holding a small copper pipe with a silver bowl—a crack pipe.

“You’re a f*cking crackhead,” the banker cursed at him. “Doesn’t that figure.”

Cat shrugged. “And I got a bad gambling habit, too. But you’re a lame dick pothead. So what’s worse?”

The banker was yanked to his feet and brought into the yacht’s cabin. By this time, the other intruders had captured the girl and were holding her on the deck face up. One was forcing her to drink saltwater.

“What are you doing to her?” the banker screamed at him. “Who are you people?”

One of the intruders hit him hard with his open hand, sending him to the deck yet again. That’s when the banker realized that all of the intruders, including the pilot, were wearing clear surgical gloves.

They don’t want to leave fingerprints, he thought.

The girl was pulled up to her knees. The saltwater caused her to vomit heavily, expelling her large diamond ring, swallowed just moments before.

Two intruders then ransacked the yacht, going through the couple’s luggage and finding money, BlackBerrys and more jewelry, all while the two others held the banker and the girl down on the deck with their bare feet.

The girl was looking over at the banker, absolutely terrified.

“Don’t worry,” he managed to tell her. “It will be OK.”

* * *

THE GUNMEN TOOK just five minutes to go through the sixty-five-foot yacht.

They not only stole all the couple’s valuables, they also took the yacht’s GPS system, its satellite radio and its flat-screen TVs.

They were incredibly efficient, despite their ragged appearance. Through it all, Colonel Cat sat on the stern, taking tokes from his crack pipe.

The ransacking over, the gunmen prepared to leave. Two carried their booty onto the airplane; Colonel Cat returned to the cockpit and started the engine. The banker and the girl were pulled to their feet. Both were praying the pirates would just leave. But that wasn’t the plan.

At the point of two machetes, the banker and the girl were marched into the floatplane, and soon, the strange aircraft was airborne again.

* * *

CAT STEERED THE Arado northeast, heading toward the open ocean.

The pirate named Crabbie was sitting beside him, counting the wad of cash they’d taken from the yacht. Crabbie was the senior man of the group. The rest of the gang was in the passenger compartment holding down the banker and the girl.

“How far out do you want to go?” Cat asked the pirate.

Crabbie looked out the cockpit window; the half moon was glowing off the calm sea below.

“You have two more pigeons to visit tonight?” he asked Cat in heavily accented English.

“Yes—I think good ones, or at least as good as these two,” Cat replied.

“Not too far out then,” Crabbie said.

They flew for another five minutes; by this time they were more than a hundred-fifty miles north of Bimini, over the Atlantic Ocean, with no land in sight.

Finally, Crabbie looked back at the other pirates and nodded.

One opened the plane’s rear door. It was only then that the banker and the girl realized what was about to happen.

The banker started fighting madly, but it was useless. The pirates were strong and it was obvious that they’d done this sort of thing before.

The banker gave it one last struggle, punching two of the pirates, but he was quickly overwhelmed. The pirates threw him out the open door. As he fell they could hear his screams, finally drowned out by the sound of the wind racing by.

The girl was next. She became hysterical, crying, promising the pirates anything, including sex, if they would only spare her life. But they weren’t interested. They were in a hurry.

She began fighting, too, and they had to hit her a few times to subdue her. It took longer than it should have, but finally they shoved her out the door as well. As with the banker, they watched her fall, screaming, to her death.

Two victims, no witnesses. And no bodies to be discovered. The sharks and the deep water would see to that.

Crabbie patted Cat on the shoulder twice.

“OK, let’s turn back,” he told the pilot. “More treasure awaits.”