 -EPISODE ONE:
Captured at Jalapa
by Ron Fox
I remember the first time I saw Gus's Cessna 402. It was a sleek airplane with tip tanks and good paint. It looked fast and out of place with all of the older "passed their prime" smuggler aircraft usually seen on the border. I found out much later that it had belonged to a dentist in Reno who had placed it into service with Gus's enterprise on the border for a share in the profits. It was to make many trips south onto landing areas never intended for small- wheeled aircraft. The first time I saw the airplane, it was sitting on the ramp near Gus's hangar at the Brownsville International Airport. I walked around it, admiring its lines, itching for a chance to fly it. The first time I tried to open the cabin door, I had difficulty figuring out how it worked and it was my memory of this difficulty which helped me one morning at the Jalapa Municipal Airport in the foothills of the mountains of Posa Rica.
It was a typical dawn arrival at the Jalapa Municipal Airport. A 2:00 am departure from Brownsville, began by heading directly south out over the gulf in total darkness. The airplane was heavily loaded with car stereos in the two nose compartments and TV's and
blenders in the cabin all the way to the roof. It was loaded well, the high-density packing of the car stereos in the nose, all taken out of their boxes and wrapped in brown paper, helping to keep the center of gravity of the airplane within comfortable limits. The weather satellite photos I had seen earlier at the airport weather service office showed clear skies all the way to Jalapa and I was expecting a routine run. It was routine until just after my arrival at Jalapa.
The Jalapa Municipal Airport, being in the foothills of the Posa Rica mountains, was not flat. It's main runway running east and west was not flat either. If you landed to the west, by the time you got to the end of the runway, you couldn't be seen from the rest of the airport because the runway sloped downwards until its western end was out of sight. This provided us with a comfortable area to unload the airplane. Supposedly, my ground crew leader was to have cleared my arrival with the tower personnel before I arrived, since the airport was not open until later in the morning. I was not to call for landing clearance, but just land and turn around at the far end of the runway shutting down the engines to allow unloading.
The load I was hauling this morning was for Julian's father, Mr. C., our best receiver. I was always comfortable flying for Mr. C. with Julian as the ground crew leader. It was Julian who welcomed me warmly and put me at ease on my first flight south and I never forgot his friendliness. He looked young, perhaps in his early twenties, with a cherub baby face and medium-length black hair. He had a sparse mustache which I took to be an attempt at looking older than he was. It only made him look younger. We flew more hops to Mr. C. than any other receiver and our pilots rarely had any trouble, probably due to Mr. C's strong influence around the Vera Cruz area. I was relaxed.
Cruising along the coast, about 30 miles out over the water, after passing the night lights of Tampico, I flew towards the one VOR navigation station in this area of Mexico called Posa Rica. Passing over the station in the mountains there were very few ground lights to guide me, but they weren't necessary for this route. I simply took an outbound radial that would take me right over the southern edge of the mountains and down into the
Jalapa valley. The morning dawn was just beginning to break as I spotted the last high ridge I must fly over, close to the peaks, before descending into the valley, looking for the airport. My timing was perfect. It was necessary to have just enough light to clear this ridge visually. One didn't like to trust the mileage reading of DME in the mountains. A letdown too soon would have the obvious consequences.
 With clear skies, finding the airport was easy and I headed straight in for a power-off landing to minimize the noise. I rolled out at the end of the runway and turned the airplane around after seeing Julian and the ground crew scrambling towards me. Before my props had stopped, Julian's unloaders were busily throwing TV's and blenders man to man in a line to a large truck which was parked to left of the plane just behind the wing. I got out of the 402 and greeted Julian. We didn't spend too much time at our leisure watching the crew unload or having our customary beer on the tailgate of his bright red pickup. Airport property usually invoked a sense of urgency.
I walked around the front of the airplane and positioned myself beside an unloader to take car stereos out of the forward nose compartment as he was unloading the rear nose compartment. We were laying the stereos on the ground while another unloader carried them around the nose to the truck. As I reached into the compartment to get another armful of stereos, I happened to look up the runway and saw a bright blue Ford van racing towards us with an illuminated rotating red light on its roof. Turning to my left to ask the unloader beside me, "Who the hell is that?," I discovered he was not there. In fact, all of the unloaders were silently climbing over the airport fence just to the west of the runway.
In a panic, I ran around the nose of the airplane and was rounding the wing tip headed for the cabin door just as the van screeched to a stop in front of the truck holding most of the contraband. I had just stepped on the second step of the air stair door, when I felt a hand grab my elbow. I turned to look at the uniformed airport security guard and saw him motion with his finger for me to follow him back to his van. I was captured. According to the unwritten rules of the game we were playing, I was supposed to go with him quietly. Physical resistance or the use of firearms would be breaking the rules, result in rough treatment, a longer stay in a Mexican jail, and a more expensive release. I went quietly.
Good old Julian! He was leaning against the fender of the big truck seemingly unperturbed. He hadn't run away like the rest of his crew. The security guard brought me over to where Julian was standing and began a conversation with him in Spanish. They both were talking very excitedly, waving their arms around. Julian, the guard, and I were standing in a rather small circle as this conversation went on. When Julian would say a few sentences, he would take a half-step to the side and the guard would take a half-step to stay directly in front of him. Since I didn't understand Spanish, I was not taking part in the conversation at all. All the guard's attention was being directed at Julian.
Before too long, the guard had moved around the circle, continuously facing Julian, and I found myself standing directly behind him. I could tell Julian was intently watching this guy as he talked and, when the guard turned his head to look up the runway just for a moment, Julian looked at me and darted his eyes toward the plane. As if awakening out of a fog, I realized I was behind the guard and started tip-toeing quietly backwards toward the cabin door. Almost there, I turned around to run the last few steps and, as I did, I saw the guard turn around and look at me, starting after me with a surprised shout. I bounded up the stairs, turned around quickly and slammed the bottom hatch. I reached into my boot and got my .25 caliber automatic. It was then in an instant I realized the guard wasn't carrying a firearm. I also remembered the trouble I first had opening the cabin airstair door and figured this guy would have at least as much trouble as I did figuring it out. I threw my gun towards the tail of the plane and slammed the upper hatch, practically on this guy's hand.
In fact, he moved his hand away from the opening just as it slammed shut. I ran up the cabin to the cockpit and jumped in my seat. My butt had hardly hit the seat when I started cranking the engines for a hot start. Mixtures off, throttles full forward, crank, crank, crank.
 As I turned to look at the right prop turn, I noticed this same guard now over at the side of the runway having difficulty picking up a large rock. As he strained to pick up the rock, I kept glancing at the right prop turning over, urging the engine to start. The guard was waddling over to the plane, behind the right wing. I realized, when he bent over with the rock, that he was going to put the rock in front of my right wheel to keep me from leaving. I began yelling at the engine, "Come on, baby, fire, fire, fire!." Just as the guard put the rock down on the runway and began sliding it around the tire, the engine started with a roar. The last I saw of the him, the guard was rolling backwards, head over heels down the runway from the blast of the prop-wash. Holding my brakes, I cranked the left engine and it caught with a roar. I began a full power take off roll heading up the sloped runway.
I was going to get away! Letting out a whoop of joy, I urged my steed on, faster and faster. "Go, baby!", I yelled, picking up speed. Then, about a third of the way up the runway, I notice movement from my left, out of the corner of my eye. Another blue van with a rotating red light! He was traveling at a high speed on a road that was erpendicular to the runway. If he kept going, he would drive right onto the runway. "No, he wouldn't", I yelled, but that's exactly what he did. He came screeching to a halt right in the middle of the runway, about a thousand feet away. Another shot of adrenaline jolted my roller-coaster mind. I was flip-flopping from despair at being captured, to elation at escaping, back to despair at what was unfolding before my eyes. Once again time slowed down. Fractions of seconds seemingly became seconds, seconds seemingly became minutes and I found myself calculating my chances of having enough speed to jump that van by the time I got there. It didn't look good.
A quick glimpse of my airspeed indicator showed 30 knots, less than half of what I would need to fly. The distance to the van was about a thousand feet which, ordinarily wouldn't be a problem, but I was going uphill. Could I go around the van? The runway was narrow and the edges were rocky. Not much chance there. I looked up at the van again, then down at my airspeed, 40 knots. I was bending the throttles forward. I wasn't going to get any more power. 45 knots, the van was getting closer, less than 500 feet now. I knew I was mere seconds from being there. My head was frozen, but my eyes darted from the van to my airspeed indicator, back to the van, back to the airspeed. Van, getting closer now, airspeed 50, van getting very close now, airspeed 55. There was no stopping now, there wasn't room. All my senses were straining, I was holding my breath without realizing it.
At the last possible moment, I pulled back on the yoke as far as it would go into my lap. Just as the nose started coming up, I pulled up the landing gear before I was even off the ground. It looked like I was going to hit the van. I was watching it intently. The last I saw of it, I noticed a man in uniform sitting on the right passenger seat. He had just leaped to his left, his arms outstretched away from the oncoming plane he was sure was going to crash into him. I don't really know how much distance separated my plane from that van, but it couldn't have been much as I roared over it.
Jumping off the ground in a mushy wobble, the plane settled back down close to the runway into ground effect. This provided just enough cushion of air to keep the airplane flying as it picked up speed, the stall warning horn blaring at me in protest. The wings rocked lazily, and it took a lot of aileron to keep them off the ground. First one, then the other would roll off to one side and I had to pump the ailerons dramatically. Picking up speed quickly now, I was able to pull back on the yoke and start climbing! Once again elation hit me and I let out another whoop of joy. "Hot damn," I yelled, as I began gaining altitude.
 Looking back over my shoulder after climbing three or four hundred feet, I saw the blue van on the runway. The two guards had gotten out and one was sitting on the ground. There was Julian's red pickup and the panel truck at the far end of the runway, just sitting there. Contraband was blown all over the place. Julian must have known escape was impossible. I felt a sudden stab of concern for him. He had stayed behind and provided me with a chance to escape. I admired his cool and hoped he would be all right. Upon my return to Brownsville, Gus met me at the hangar after my inbound customs inspection. He was laughing and, as he clapped me on the back, said, "I heard all about it, Ron. Got away by the skin of yor’ ass, you did! You coulda' stayed right there and not
had any trouble, but I guess you didn't know that.
Those airport guys were just looking for some pocket money. They thought Julian would grease their palms a little, seeing as how they caught you. He passed out a few thousand pesos and they let him go with the stuff. It cost him a few extra thousand because you scared the shit outta those guys in the van. I wish I coulda seen their faces!" and he laughed again. "C'mon, let's go to the office and get Amy to pay you. Then you can buy me breakfast and tell me the whole story. This is gonna
be another good one."
"Aw, man,” I whined. "I almost killed myself over nothin'?"
Copyright 1998, BUSHPILOT, all rights reserved
Watch for more Ron Fox Smuggler's Tales in the weeks ahead - Editor
Reprinted with the permission of the author
For this and other stories online, visit Ron Fox BushPilot Web site.
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