Predator by Richard Whittle Read Free Book Online Page A

Contrasts on Balkan Tour,” read the headline on the first article they filed, which noted that jagged rocks in a rutted, unpaved road in the Yugoslav province of Macedonia had dented the Dodge’s gas tank and “smashed” the exhaust pipe. A July 22 article reported a “rough, three-day drive” across the Iraqi desert from Syria to Baghdad. Eight days later, they were in Kabul, Afghanistan: “4 Yale Men Greeted by Afghans with Free Tea and Free Shave,” the headline said. “The Afghans are not far from Stone Age culture in some places,” the Yale men reported. “Their standard of living is the lowest the expedition has seen. But they have a pride and independence that command respect.” Three weeks later, Times readers learned that “Driving through the Khyber Pass into Pakistan was like moving into a new world, or at least a different age.” Once out of the pass, which cut through Pakistan’s ungoverned North West Frontier Province, the Yale men saw that “an amazing number of areas were set aside for specialized military training.” Even in Peshawar, a relatively modern city, “the tribesmen stroll through the streets carrying rifles,” they reported. “A glance at their long knives and war axes made it easy to believe their reputation as among the fiercest warriors in the world.”
    The expedition was a great success, and it only whetted Neal’s appetite for adventure. A few days before Christmas that same year, his parents were startled to get a long-distance call from Neal and his brother, Linden, who was one year younger and one year behind Neal at Yale, saying they were on their way home to Denver for the holidays but were spending the night in Pittsburgh. They would also need to spend a night or two elsewhere along the way, they added, for they were flying themselves home in the Yale Aviation Club’s two-seat Aeronca Chief airplane, which with a 65-horsepower engine didn’t fly very fast. In fact, following the Pennsylvania Turnpike across the state as a navigation aid on that dreary winter day, Neal and Linden had seen cars below moving faster than their plane.
    Their parents were flabbergasted. Flying yourselves? That was when their sons explained how they had each taken forty hours of flying lessons at four dollars an hour that fall. Linden had gotten his pilot’s license the day before they left New Haven. Neal would get his license only after the holidays, but they were already pretty proficient pilots. Otherwise, the Yale Aviation Club wouldn’t have entrusted them with its Aeronca. It was all part of a marvelous idea Neal had for a trip even more audacious than the Yale Daily News Asian Expedition, but they would explain that part when they got home.
    Four days later, safe and sound in Denver, Neal and Linden told their parents they wanted to buy a small plane of their own and spend the next summer flying through Latin America. They would start in Denver, hop to Mexico, and then fly through Central America to Panama, over the water to Colombia, and then weave down the jagged Cordillera de los Andes mountain chain on the west side of the South American continent to Santiago, Chile. Turning east, they would fly to Argentina, then head north through Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela, and across the Caribbean before landing in Miami. They planned to conclude their journey back in New Haven as the fall semester at Yale began.
    Originally Neal had wanted to spend the summer flying across the Soviet Union to see what lay behind the Iron Curtain, but the Soviet embassy in Washington never got the brothers the necessary permission from Moscow. Since both Neal and Linden had studied Spanish at Yale, they had decided instead to explore Latin America and look for a business opportunity to pursue after college. “Presented with a fait accompli,” as a newspaper article later recounted, “their parents became resigned