Leg 21: TBPB-TTPP
Pilot: Bryan K.
The comforting sound of a prop turning waked me up. But I rapidly got anxious when I realized I was lying down on a cot, wearing only my underwear.
I opened my eyes to see that the prop I thought I was hearing was instead a ceiling fan spinning above me. I reached across to the small table next to my “bed” and grabbed the bottle of water that was on it.
- “Looks who’s back from the land of the dead!”
- “Tom?”
- “Glad to see you alive Flyboy! I thought we lost you for awhile!”
- “Where am I? “
- “Relax, you’re safe. We’re in Saint Lawrence, not far from Bridgetown.”
- “Bridgetown?”
- “Yup, Barbados. You’ve been around a little bit since the last time we talked.”
- “What happened?”
And so Tom started explaining me the events of the last months.
- “We lost track of you in San Juan. Since our encounter in Cuba, I had a guy following you to watch your back. You’re new to this, and I wanted to make sure no one had picked up on you. He was actually in the same restaurant you were when you disappeared. Only thing he saw was a young boy walking up to you with what looked like an envelope. You then walked to the washroom and never came out.”
- “What happened”, I repeated.
- “Not sure about the rest. We kept a discreet surveillance on your plane, but someone using your identity showed up one day, showed all the proper papers and filed a flight plan to St-Thomas. So we kept some guys in San Juan to search for you, and I sent another team to St-Thomas to figure out who was flying your plane… and why.”
- “What happened…”
- “Again, not much we know. The other “Bryan Kirk” kept quite busy in St-Thomas. After about a week, he left for a little blitz of the Islands, and we followed him all the way to the Martinique. All we were able to observe was that a lot of cargo was loaded and off-loaded from your plane. But we still didn’t have a clue of your faith.”
- “Where was I?”
- “I’d love to know that! A few weeks ago, the cops in San Juan found you lying naked in a ditch outside of town. Your captors probably left you for dead. I have some “friends” at the police headquarters who were watching out for any signs of unidentified bodies or things like that.”
- “Bodies?”
- “Give me a break Flyboy! You had just disappeared. In these countries, that’s never a good sign!”
- “I guess I was not dead!”
- “Nope. You were severally drugged, but all in one piece. You’ll note some burns and bruises on some ‘parts’ of your body. My guess is you got beaten up a bit.”
- “So what the heck am I doing in Barbados?”, I said now that my near-death adventure had my full attention.
- “I didn’t tell you I was done! While we were getting you in a secure location to patch you up, my boys got a little more active in La Martinique with your replacement. He was getting a little to comfortable, and they snatch him one night. Took him a damn long time to start talking, but he finally spilled his guts.”
- “So?”
- “The guy is part of a big time smuggling network. Arms, drugs, money, you name it. They heard about the Six Pack through some informant they “had” in Montego Bay. Seems at least one of friends spend too much time there and spoke way too much about your plans. Since you have the biggest and fastest bird of the crew, and a nice and reliable Canadian passport, they decided to track you down and “switch” you. I still can’t figure out why they didn’t take you out. But here we are!”
- “Why Barbados?”
- “I talked to my bosses about this whole mess. They want to bring that whole network down big time. At the moment, you are the only link we have. They might come back for you soon. We just took one of their guys out and you just came back from the dead. You are now a nuisance to them.”
- “Not sure I like that feeling!”
- “Don’t worry. We’ll have you covered. And we are also trying to get more “juice” out of their guy. He might know more, although their button men usually don’t.”
- “Here’s the plan. We flew you here so you could pick-up the route. Your buddies in the Six Pack were worried, but we send them some regular emails with your signature. They don’t have clue you disappeared. And for all I know, they were probably too drunk to notice most of the time!”
- “Back off!”, I replied, protecting the honour and reputation of my buddies. “So it’s just business as usual, all is nice, and international smugglers want to kill me! What a joy.”
- “Will you let me finish! We’ll have constant surveillance on you. And from now on, you’ll have a co-pilot. I got Teresa flown down from Cuba, and she’ll be acting as your wife.”
Now that’s a pleasant thought!
So here I am. Lying in a small hut in Barbados, after surviving what seems to be quite a frightful adventure, and getting ready to just resume my ATW like if nothing happened. Not the scenario I had imagined when I left CYND last November!
- “You’ve been resting here for several days. Our doc says you are back to full strength and that the drug they used on you is completely flushed out of your system. I propose you leave tonight, as discreetly as possible. My guys have checked and re-checked your bird, and it’s all ready to go. Actually, you are leaving at around 10:00pm and your flight plan to Port-of-Spain is already filed.”
- “How nice of you!”
***
The smells of Grantley Adams International Airport got my blood going. I had only faint memories of the last time I boarded my Conquest but seeing it all ready to go outside a GA hangar actually made me smile. I missed my plane, and it was good to feel alive again. As I approached it, I saw Teresa climb out of the cockpit and start running towards me.
- “Senor Bryan! I am so happy to see you! Tom told me you had been killed.”
- “How nice of him! So I hear we are gonna be travelling together for some time. You up for it?”
- “I am SOOO up for it. I want to find the terrible people who did this to you and make sure they pay the right price for what they’ve done!”
Interesting…
We continued talking for a few minutes and then walked towards the airplane to start the pre-start routine.
The weather was excellent and that made things easy. It had been awhile since I had been in the pilot seat of my Conquest, and the last thing I needed was bad weather to make things worst!
This late at night, traffic was light as Teresa contacted the tower for our IFR clearance. That was quickly granted, and we made our way to runway 09.
- “If you don’t feel well enough, I can handle the takeoff Senor Bryan. I actually flew your plane from La Martinique to here. Tom wanted me to get comfortable with it.”
- “It’s okay. You handle the speed calls and the flaps. I’ll take care of the rest. And please, drop the Senor and just call me Bryan.”
We received our takeoff clearance as we reached the holding point, so I quickly lined up the plane, applied the brakes, increased the throttle, released the brakes… and off we were!
It did feel good to be back in the air again. With Teresa handling communications and the flaps, I raised the gear and trimmed the plane for a nice direct climb to 20 000’.
- “I do hope you are feeling well enough to continue with your trip Bryan. I am not sure it will be all pleasure.”
- “Well, I want to get to the bottom of this myself. I am not sure exactly what happened to me, so might as well find out.”
The rest of trip went fairly rapidly. At 100 nm from Piarco International, ATC gave us our first vectors for an approach to an ILS landing on runway 10. We started our slow descent to 10 000’ as instructed. As we did so, I was surprise by how dark it was around us. Even from this altitude I still could not see any signs that the island of Trinidad was in the distance, ahead of us.
But I did eventually. A small headwind, no turbulence to deal with, everything was perfect to approach Port-of-Spain. Teresa had already tuned the nav radios to the localizer frequency (109.700) and set the CRS to 103 degrees, so all I had to do was follow the needles, and keep a close eye on my approach speed.
As was the case in Barbados, air traffic was minimal in the Piarco tower airspace. At 22:59pm, 56 minutes after taking off from TBPB, we were landing (a bit roughly I will admit) on runway 10, and taxiing towards the GA parking area.
After shutting down the engines and turning off all the systems, we climbed off the plane just as a Land Rover was rolling towards us.
- “Welcome to Port-of-Spain Flyboy!”
Of course, it was Tom. “Come on. We found you a safe place to spend a few days. Looks like we were not the only ones who watched you leave Barbados.”