Operation Caribe by Mack Maloney Read Free Book Online Page B

the ‘ES’ tag. It was because of them that we finally decided to contact you. We believe this is proof the Muy Capaz have become more emboldened with this last wave. Three pleasure boats were found drifting on Easter morning, no sign of their passengers, absolutely wiped clean and nothing out of place. Then, a police boat that had investigated all three was later found washed up near Palm Beach—its officers long gone. Now, with these three deputies still officially listed as missing, this hasn’t become a ‘cop-killer thing’ yet, if you know what I mean. But again, in our opinion, these last few slides are telling us that the Muy Capaz is becoming more able, and more efficient in leaving no clues behind.”
    Twitch just stared at the slides as they slowly passed across the screen again.
    “Or maybe,” he said under his breath, “they’re telling us something else.”

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