Root and Branch by Preston Fleming

Author:Preston Fleming [Fleming, Preston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780999441848
Publisher: PF Press
Published: 2020-06-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen: Loadmaster

“Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity.”

–Leon Trotsky

EARLY JUNE, CORVUS BASE

Little more than an hour after the Tetra-owned C-130 dropped its cargo over the Puerto Rico Trench, and only a few minutes after landing at Corvus Base, Zorn remained seated in the cockpit of the freshly landed aircraft, his lap belt and shoulder harness unbuckled, while the rest of the crew ran through their post-flight checklist and talked with the tower by radio. Off to his left, Zorn could feel the steamy midday tropical air waft into the cockpit through the open crew door. There was no point in getting out of his seat yet because no ground team had appeared.

“Message for Clifford Weaver from the tower. Do you copy, Cliff?”

The relaxed drawl coming over Zorn’s headset was that of the middle-aged pilot, Travis.

“I read you loud and clear,” Zorn replied, acknowledging his alias for the flight.

“Word just in from the base chief’s office is that your onward leg to the other transit site and from there to North Africa can’t be completed at this time. It’ll have to be rescheduled. Meanwhile, you’re booked with us for tomorrow’s flight back to Dover.”

“Damn,” Zorn muttered. He had been counting on the trip to North Africa to see how repatriation was handled.

“How about my meeting with the base chief tomorrow morning? Is that still on?”

“Roger that. And the base club is open tonight for drinking.”

Zorn felt disappointed at the change in plan but knew there was no point in arguing. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. It had taken only two days since asking Larry Lawless to arrange his visit to an offshore transit site before Pat Craven called him with an invitation. The original idea had been for Zorn and Craven to take a five-day junket over the Labor Day weekend to a pair of Caribbean transit bases, and from there to a North African repatriation center. Now he was traveling alone to a single Caribbean site.

So why the rush to book the trip over Labor Day if arrangements weren’t solid? And why hadn’t Pat Craven shown up to fly with him? Had Craven known that detainees would be jettisoned over the Puerto Rico Trench with video camera rolling? Was it all a setup?

Zorn could see he had fallen into a trap. He couldn’t report the dumping of detainees to anyone in authority outside of DHS without violating his nondisclosure agreements and implicating himself in the dumping. Yet Craven was clearly the one who’d set him up. On the other hand, if Zorn said nothing on his return, he might later be seen as complicit. And the longer he waited to speak, the worse he would look. That made it essential for him to collect as much evidence of wrongdoing as he could to prove his good intent. After all, he had done no wrong in contracting with DHS for risk assessment and air logistics services. And Triage technology was not in itself to blame for the dumpings.

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