Part 2: Vanishing Point
Why was the client insistent on a night departure, avoiding major departure and arrival airports–and most telling, why was there a secondary cargo manifest that included something—or someone—not mentioned in the initial briefing?
The job offer came through an old contact—someone who had supplied me with several ferry contracts in the past. He knew my reputation for guaranteeing safe, on time aircraft delivery (subject to weather and Air Traffic Control) for a decent fee. This particular job was supposed to be just another simple ferry flight. The kind I’d completed a hundred times before. All I needed to do was pick up a plane in Dease Lake in the Northern BC. interior, fly it and some cargo south across the border into Washington State to Deer Park/Loomis Field airport—about 21nm north of the Control Zone of Spokane’s International airport. No questions asked.
The amount of money offered for this job was ridiculously high. How high? Let's just say it scaled heights which would make most men of integrity reconsider their deepest held principles. In this instance, one defining element made me pause before stepping off the "I don't care" cliff. The compensation being offered was not enough (almost) for me to ignore the pre-condition repeatedly whispering in my mind: no questions asked.
That’s when my spidey sense—one I never realized I had—started tingling, and not in a good way. There were definite questions needing to be asked, regardless of whether I was permitted to ask them or not. Like, why was the aircraft’s paperwork subtly different from what was the norm? Why was the client insistent on a night departure, avoiding major departure and arrival airports–and most telling, why was there a secondary cargo manifest that included something—or someone—not mentioned in the initial briefing?
Not every detail needed to be addressed before it became apparent I was being asked to do something that ran counter to both aeronautical and ground-based legalities—not to mention the moral compass of my own principles. If I were caught in contravention of any statute or law, in either country, I’d be the fall guy. This had more than a whiff of smuggling. Anything related to this type of enterprise, was never in my portfolio. I wanted no part of it.
I turned them down. No explanations. Just a firm no and then made a mental note to change my cell number.
That might’ve been the end of it if the money involved hadn’t been so obscene. You see, people who throw that kind of cash at you don’t take rejection well. There’s always an unspoken or unwritten rule—if you take the money, they own you. Lock, stock, and carburetor barrel. And if you don’t take the money?
Well …
The message came through loud and clear when I began noticing cars idling outside my apartment at odd hours. Not to mention shadowy looking figures on street corners, in grocery stores, even in the waiting room at doctor's appointments as I went about what I thought was my normal, ordered life.
Arriving home on one particular night, I found the front door to my apartment slightly ajar (I know I had locked it). I made a choice. Actually, the choice was made for me … I did what any rational (or paranoid) man with a healthy survival instinct would do. I vacated the premises with enough agency to create a vacuum in my wake. It was time to disappear altogether—on my own terms, while I still retained the capacity to cycle oxygen in my lungs.
