David Shafer - Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

“I’ll take the pill,” said Mark. “Actually, fuck it. I’ll take the pill and the sleep mask.” He liked benzos. He popped the little capsule in his mouth and made that head-throwing-back motion of the pro pill taker. “You’re on point, Leila or Lola or whatever. You and Nancy Reagan here are responsible for me.” He rolled his seat back.

“You really want to do this?” Leo asked Leila.

“Yeah. I do,” she said.

“As you wish,” said Leo and slipped his mask over his eyes.

The skaters had finished and were dragging the power washer back to the skate park. Trip handed the chief skater an amount of cash and a thumb drive. Three of the bike messengers pulled up beside them; one of them had Leila’s bag, and he tossed it into the back of the Wagoneer.

Dripping wet, and now gunmetal gray, with no roof rack and new plates, the Wagoneer crept out from beneath the grotto under the bridge.

Mark slipped on his own little sleep mask; it was the kind you get in business class. “This is really a very niii…” he began, but then found he couldn’t say anything else.

Leo’s blindfold let in a tiny bit of information — he could just make out large shapes, and patches of light and dark. He should try to figure out where they were headed. There was a 3-2-1-Contact with a similar setup, he dimly recalled — the Bloodhound Gang was trapped in the back of a windowless van, but they determined their location by listening to something? Or timing something? Or fashioning a periscope?

Okay. Plot device of long-ago PBS children’s drama not important at this moment, Leo reminded himself.

Trip Hazards must have been confident of the vehicle’s new costume, because he drove at a normal speed, and in more or less straight lines; no more lane-cleaving rights. They were headed north on MLK. When they took a right on what felt like Columbia, Leo figured they were headed to the airport, but by the back way. Trip must know Portland, because a stranger to the city would have taken 84 to 205, which on a bad day might be jammed-up. They drove east on Columbia; past the Humane Society and the heavy-machinery rental yards. Then Leo felt them take the left that was almost certainly into the dinky golf course; the whine of a nearby golf cart confirmed it. They would take a left now. They did. Then there would be the bump-bump of crossing the MAX tracks. There was. Now a wide left onto the terminal approach? Yes.

But then they pulled right, shy of the terminal building. They were leaving the main trail. Leo began to worry. What if this guy was not who he claimed to be? Or would that be whom?

“What did you say your name was?” Leo asked.

“Trip Hazards.”

“And you’re from Dear Diary?”

“That is correct.”

Are you sure? Leo mouthed the words at Leila, or at the shape and smell of Leila.

“Trip, I’m taking this stupid mask off Leo,” said Leila, and she put her hands on the back of his head. It was the second time she’d touched him.

“Don’t do that, Lola,” said Trip sharply. The Jeep swerved as he twisted in the driver’s seat.

But it was too late. She’d taken off the mask, made him see. They were in the business-aviation part of the airport, approaching a huge hangar.

“You don’t have to worry about Leo,” said Leila, tough as tacks. “Anyway, he’s with me.”

At first it seemed like Trip was going to call bullshit on that; his shoulders looked pissed off. But then he surveyed them both in the rearview, exhaled in a way that conceded the point, and said, “Very well. This was a pretty unorthodox extraction anyway. Leo, can you move your friend?”

Leila found a luggage dolly while Leo lifted the slack Mark from the front seat of the Wagoneer. Awkwardly, they lay Mark down on it. He hmmphed and stirred, but did not wake. They wheeled him across the vast hall of the hangar to the small airplane that Trip seemed to be prepping for flight. In a distant corner, a jumpsuited mechanic was tinkering in the wheel well of a gleaming business jet. Otherwise, they were alone. Over in the main terminal, thought Leila, grandmothers were taking off their belts for the TSA, but here she could wheel an inert human from a Jeep to a tiny plane, no problem.

Leo strapped Mark across the two rear seats of the plane and then sat beside Leila on strict and narrow seats, vinyl-upholstered, facing their slumped abductee.

“Either one of you know how to take a carotid pulse?” Trip asked them from the front seat when they were all in the plane and the doors were closed.

Leo nodded yes and knelt out of his seat to press two fingers to Mark’s neck. He looked at his watch and then cast his eyes down in concentration, counting the beats of Mark’s heart. Leila stirred for Leo. When she’d first seen him, she’d thought he was scattered and lost-seeming, but now this fearlessness on her behalf. Why was he here? Was it love? If love, could she return it? Did she want to? He did cause in her some excitement. That letter of his. Was it his orphanhood? And why was that appealing?

“Seventy-five and strong,” Leo reported. “Breathing steady and clear.”

Jumpsuit Guy left the jet he had been tending and walked over to the plane they were in. By means of a little tugging wagon attached to their front tire, he towed them outside, through wide hangar doors. Trip showed Leila and Leo how to use the headphones. Leila crowned Mark with a pair, and set the little knob to Noise Cancel. Outside, in the August dazzle, their plane seemed even smaller than it had inside the hangar. Jumpsuit Guy stripped out of his jumpsuit. He was a heavyset Native American — looking man with a ponytail, wearing a faded ball cap and a T-shirt that said Gun Control Means Using Two Hands . He got in on the left side of the plane, beside Trip, and donned a sharp pair of aviators.

“Lola, Leo,” said Trip, “this is Mild Max. He’ll be our pilot today. I’ll be the copilot, third officer, purser, and head steward. Here, have some nuts.” He twisted around and offered Leila and Leo foil envelopes of cocktail nuts.

Driving across the tarmac, the little plane felt spindly. But then Mild Max made a tight one-eighty at the top of the runway. There was a pause, as if for breath, and then the engines started to bellow. Leila, in a rear-facing seat, felt herself pressed against her four-point belt. They went from brrrr to bzzzz and then the wheels lifted free, and then there was no going back.

They climbed steeply. A thrum ran through the whole metal body of the plane and into her chest. Soon, Leila could see the cobra curves of the Columbia River far below. She leaned across Leo to look through the window on his side. He smelled a little like toast. Plus that nice mild dank, like a handful of mushrooms.

When Mark woke — if that was the word — he figured he was dead and going to heaven. There was no sound at all but a pleasant wash. And what were those? Clouds? Really? It was clouds after all?

But, no, he was not dead. He was in a plane, a very small twin-engine plane. There was Leo Crane. And there was the girl from the Heathrow lounge — Lola or Leila or whatever. The time before was coming back to him. They’d collected him from Nike…No, they’d been waiting there for him. Then the pursuit and rescue by the same vehicle. The skate park and the power washer and the pill.

His head felt like a bag of crabs. Same as when he’d woken in the under-lit hallway of that hipster-kitsch hotel this morning. The dude who’d given him that hog roofie was up there in the cockpit, beside the pilot. The pilot looked like a fat, Indian George Clooney.