Different Circles

As had been the takeoff, the landing at Simon Bolivar International Airport was anticlimactic and went rather smoothly. Jake was directed step by step by Caracas Center to descend and enter the landing pattern for an ILS approach to Runway 27. He was slid in between a Viasa Airlines MD80 that was three minutes ahead of him and a LASAR Airlines 727 that was three minutes behind him. Jake, as was his habit, had his nav radio tuned to the ILS frequency so he could see the glide scope on his instruments, but hand-flew the actual approach himself. He touched down neatly on the centerline at exactly the spot he wanted to only four minutes behind the ETA he had calculated. Though the runway was long enough that he did not really need to use reverse thrust to slow down, he used it anyway, partially because simply having it was a novelty that his Chancellor did not enjoy, but mostly because the thought of a fully loaded 727 right behind him on its own approach made him want to get his ass off the runway as quickly as he could.

The ground controller directed Jake to go immediately to the international terminal alongside Runway 10 and to park there and await the customs officers. Jake acknowledged this and followed the route he had been given. The terminal had multiple gates, at which were parked about half a dozen commercial airliners from three different countries. Jake’s assigned parking slot was on the tarmac well away from any of the gates. There were no other aircraft parked there currently. He brought the plane to a halt and then shut down the engines and the avionics. Since there was no APU, the air conditioning and air circulation died with the engines.

“Well, let’s open this thing up and see what’s in store for us,” he said.

He opened the main door and unfolded the steps. He and Laura stepped outside and enjoyed the fresh, thick air of the near sea level elevation. It was a beautiful day, cloudless, with bright blue sky overhead, about seventy-five degrees, and a gentle breeze blowing from the west. The humidity was a little thick, but no worse than Florida or Georgia or Tennessee.

“Welcome to Caracas,” Jake told her, giving her a side-armed hug.

“I’ve been here before, remember?” she said. “Already have a stamp on my passport from this very building.”

“Did you do the thing with the groupies here?” he asked.

“Nope,” she said. “Venezuela was early in the tour, before I discovered my relief valve.”

“A pity,” he said. “Venezuelan chicks are hot.”

“Have you ever done a Venezuelan?” she asked, her tone light, teasing, and not the jealous interrogation that many wives would display. Laura was just simply not like that, which was one of the reasons he loved her and had married her.

“Nope, never have,” Jake assured her, lying smoothly and completely and without guilt—with hardly even a mental acknowledgment deep in his own mind that he was lying. After all, the one time he had been with a Venezuelan had never happened. It was all just a dream now. “I nailed me some Mexican pussy back in the day though.”

“Oh yeah?” she asked. “How was it?”

“It was all right,” he told her. “They’re not much into keeping things trim down there.”

“But that wasn’t a deal breaker, right?”

“Oh, hell no,” he told her.

She punched him playfully on the shoulder and he playfully accused her of domestic violence. She countered by suggesting that domestic violence was probably not even against the law here. He was about to reply to that when a door opened on the terminal and three men stepped out. All of them were in uniform. All of them had sidearms strapped to their waists. One of them carried a clipboard. One of them had a black Labrador retriever on a leash.

“It looks like the welcome wagon is here,” Jake said, starting to feel a little nervous again.

“Yep,” she agreed.

The three men approached and stood before them. The dog sat on the ground at its handler’s feet, grinning that grin that only labs could grin.

“Welcome to Venezuela,” the man in the middle—the one with the clipboard—said in slightly accented English. “I am officer Sanchez of the Customs Department.” He did not introduce the other two men.

“Thank you,” Jake said. “I’m Jake Kingsley. This is my wife, Laura.”

Sanchez nodded. “We were expecting you, Señor Kingsley. You just flew in from Bogota, correct?”

“Correct,” Jake said. “And please, call me Jake.”

“And I am Laura,” Laura put in.

Sanchez nodded. “As you wish. Your passports, por favor?”

They took out their passports and handed them to him. He opened Jake’s first, flipping to the picture and the actual document first. He examined the document carefully, made a few notations on his clipboard, and then flipped to the pages where the stamps were. “I see you are well traveled, Jake. Mexico, Spain, Italy, United Kingdom, France, Monaco, Italy, Japan, Australia, New Zealand. Two trips to Colombia. This is your first visit to Venezuela?”

“Yes, it is,” he said.