In 1983, I was hired by a Learjet charter company based at Lakefront Airport in New Orleans. Although we were a legitimate charter operation, rumors were that we were really a front and money laundry for a major group of political players involved in a series of questionable special activities. After about a year with “the company”, I began flying a wise guy named Barry Seal, a gregarious man of forty with a quick wit and photographic memory. In the early 1980s, Barry was becoming a legend around the backwaters of southeast Louisiana. Local pilots had all heard the rumors that Mr. Seal was a covert agent of God-only-knew-which government agency. He had accumulated a wide assortment of airplanes and helicopter and would appear out of nowhere at Lakefront or any other Gulf Coast airport and disappear just as quickly, usually in a black Mercedes or black Hughes helicopter. For the next six months, I would be Barry Seal’s Geronimo Line, his air escape route in a dangerous Drug Enforcement Agency mission to capture Pablo Escobar, a notorious Columbian who ran the Medellin Drug Cartel. I flew his Learjet 23, a six seat rocket ship that had enough room for Seal, two politicians and two Tumi suitcases. I figured he was either one hell of a suitcase salesman or was running cash all over North and Central America. Soon, I was catapulted into a wild world of coordinated activity within a cloud of secrecy. Our operation took us all over the country and I was trained to leave no tracks. Everything from jet fuel to hotel suites was paid for out of a seemingly endless supply of cold cash.
Flying for Barry was never routine and wherever we went there were always armed guards, their gun handles protruding above the belt in the back. They would patrol our driving routes and station themselves around any hotel where we stayed. Anywhere we went, Barry would hand me a new digital beeper and I was never certain when it would light up with orders to launch. Those orders were always short and specific. He expected that I arrive not a minute early and not a minute late. It might be two in the morning or two in the afternoon, but I was always to have one engine running and the entry door unlocked. Once Barry was safely inside the plane, he would roar, “Haul ass” and I would immediately taxi to the runway and get us airborne, the true destination a mystery until we were in our hideout, the dark blue stratosphere 40,000 feet up. I had no idea who might be in pursuit, but I knew that I didn’t wanto find out even as I tried, but usually failed, to anticipate Seal’s next move. As the mission to capture Escobar progressed, Barry began telling me of a second assignment. We would be soon be flying cargo for Uncle, which was his term for our covert government operation. One morning, we launched from Lakefront and flew to Columbus, Ohio, and over the next few weeks, courtesy of the American taxpayers, the Ohio National Guard arranged many things for us. One of which was a training course for Mr. Seal on the four engine Lockheed C-123 Provider, a Vietnam-era military cargo plane. A few weeks later, on a warm Key West night in June 1984, I stood on the tarmac next to the Lear and watched as the Provider was loaded with crate after crate of M-16s and ammunition. The work was precise and clean. Six athletic men, all dressed in black, loaded the entire plane in less than ten minute sees.
Dynastic Successions Book 