new uniform, a rookie. Nice guys. The kind I liked to soft-con.
A stewardess brought me a cup of coffee as we taxied toward the runway. I sipped the brew and watched the plane traffic on the strip ahead. It was late Saturday night, moonless, and the aircraft, distinguishable only by their interior lights and flickering exhausts, dipped and soared like lightning bugs. I never ceased to be fascinated by air traffic, night or day.
Wright was apparently not one to use the squawk box. All three officers had headsets, and none of the three had offered me a set for monitoring. If you weren’t offered, you didn’t ask. The cockpit of a passenger plane is like the captain’s bridge on a ship. Protocol is rigidly observed, if that’s the tone set by the skipper. Tom Wright operated his jet by the book, it seemed. I didn’t feel slighted. The conversation between the three and the tower was clipped and cursory, rather uninteresting, in fact, as most such one-sided exchanges are.
Suddenly it was real interesting, so interesting that I started to pucker at both ends.
Wright and Evans exchanged arch-browed, quizzical looks, and Hart was suddenly regarding me with solemn-eyed intensity. Then Wright twisted around to face me. “Do you have your Pan Am identification card?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah,” I said and handed it to him, stomach quaking as Wright studied the artistic fake. “This is National 106 back to tower… uh, yes, I have an ID card here… Pan Am… looks fine… Employee number? Uh, three-five- zero-niner-niner… Uh-huh… Uh, yeah. M-mm, just a moment.”
He turned again to me. “Do you have your FAA license?”
“Yes, of course,” I said, attempting to act puzzled and keep my bladder under control. It was bulging like a Dutch dike at high tide.
Wright examined the forgery closely. He was the first real pilot to inspect the illicit license. He scrutinized it with the intensity of an art expert judging the authenticity of a Gauguin. Then: “Uh, yeah. FAA license, number zero-seven-five-three-six-six-eight-zero-five… Yes… mul-tiengine… check-out ATR… Looks fine to me… I see nothing wrong with it… Uh, yes, six foot, brown hair, brown eyes… Okay, you got it.”
He twisted and handed back my ID card and the purported license, his face reflecting a mixture of chagrin and apology. “I don’t know what that was all about,” he said with a shrug, and did not ask me if I had any ideas on the subject.
I did, but I didn’t volunteer any of them. I tried to convince myself that nothing was amiss, that the tower operator in New Orleans was just overly officious, or doing something he thought he should be doing. Maybe, I told myself, there was an FAA regulation requiring such an inquiry and the tower operator was the first to observe the rule in my experiences, but that didn’t wash. It had clearly been an unusual incident for Tom Wright.
The three officers seemed to have dismissed the matter. They asked the usual questions and I gave the usual answers. I took part when the conversation was industry-oriented, listened politely when the three talked of their families. I was nervous all the way to Miami, my insides as tightly coiled as a rattler in a prickly pear patch.
Wright had no sooner touched down in Miami than the sword of Damocles was once more suspended over my head. The ominous one-sided conversation commenced while we were taxiing to the dock.
“Yeah, we can do that. No problem, no problem,” Wright said curtly in answer to some query from the tower. “Take over, I’ll be right back,” he said to Evans, getting out of his seat and leaving the flight cabin.
I knew then with certainty that I was in trouble. No captain ever vacated his seat while taxiing save under extreme circumstances. I managed to peer around the cabin-door combing. Wright was engaged in a whispered conversation with the chief stewardess. There was no doubt in my mind that I was the subject of the conversation.
Wright said nothing when he returned to his seat. I assumed a casual mien, as if nothing was amiss. I sensed that any overt nervousness on my part could prove disastrous, and the situation was already castastrophic.
I was not surprised at all when the jetway door opened and two uniformed Dade County sheriff’s officers stepped aboard. One took up a position blocking the exit of the passengers. The other poked his head in the flight cabin.
“Frank Williams?” he asked, his eyes darting from man to man.
“I’m Frank Williams,” I said, getting out of the jump seat.
“Mr. Williams, would you please come with us?” he said, his tone courteous, his features pleasant.
“Certainly,” I said. “But what’s this all about, anyway?”
It was a question that also intrigued the three flight officers and the stewardesses. All of them were looking on with inquisitive expressions. None of them asked any questions, however, and the officers did not satisfy their curiosity. “Just follow me, please,” he instructed me, and led the way out the exit door. His partner fell in behind me. It was a matter of conjecture on the part of the flight crew as to whether or not I had been arrested. No references had been made to arrest or custody. I was not placed in handcuffs. Neither officer touched me or gave the impression I was being restrained.
I had no illusions. I’d been busted.
The officers escorted me through the terminal and to their patrol car, parked at the front curb. One of the deputies opened the right rear door. “Will you get in, please, Mr. Williams. We have instructions to take you downtown.”
The officers said nothing to me during the ride to the sheriff’s offices. I remained silent myself, assuming an air of puzzled indignation. The deputies were clearly uncomfortable and I had a hunch this was an affair in which they weren’t really sure of their role.
I was taken to a small room in the detective division and seated in front of a desk. One of the deputies seated himself in the desk chair while the other stood in front of the closed door. Neither man made an effort to search me, and both were overly polite.
The one behind the desk cleared his throat nervously. “Mr. Williams, there seems to be some question as to whether you work for Pan Am or not,” he said, more in explanation than accusation.
“What!” I exclaimed. “Why that’s crazy! Here’s my ID and here’s my FAA license. Now you tell me who I work for.” I slapped the phony documents down on the desk, acting as if I’d been accused of selling nuclear secrets to the Russians. He examined the ID card and the pilot’s license with obvious embarrassment and passed them to the second officer, who looked at them and handed them back with a nervous smile. They both gave the impression they’d just arrested the President for jaywalking.
“Well, sir, if you’ll just bear with us, I’m sure we can get this straightened out,” the one behind the desk observed. “This really isn’t our deal, sir. The people who asked us to do this will be along shortly.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “But who are these people?” He didn’t have to tell me. I knew. And he didn’t tell me.
An uncomfortable hour passed, more uncomfortable for the officers than for me. One of them left for a short time, returning with coffee, milk and sandwiches, which they shared with me. There was little conversation at first. I acted miffed and they acted like I should have been acting-like they wanted to be somewhere else. Oddly enough, I grew relaxed and confident as time passed, dropped my pose of righteous indignation and tried to ease their obvious discomfiture. I told a couple of airline jokes and they started to relax and ask me questions about my experiences as a pilot and the types of planes I flew.
The queries were casual and general, but of the kind designed to establish if I was a bona-fide airline pilot. One of the officers, it developed, was a private pilot himself, and at the end of thirty minutes he looked at his partner and said, “You know, Bill, I think someone’s made a helluva mistake here.”
It was near midnight when the “someone” arrived. He was in his late twenties, wearing an Ivy League suit and a serious expression. He extended a credentials folder in which nestled a gold shield. “Mr. Williams? FBI. Will you come with me, please?”
I thought we were going to the FBI offices, but instead he led me to an adjoining office and shut the door. He flashed a friendly smile. “Mr. Williams, I was called over here by the Dade County authorities, who, it seems, were contacted by some federal agency in New Orleans. Unfortunately, the officer who took the call didn’t take down the caller’s name or the agency he represented. He thought it was our agency. It wasn’t. We really don’t know what the problem is, but apparently there’s some question as to whether you work for Pan Am.
“Frankly, Mr. Williams, we’re in a bit of a quandary. We’ve been proceeding on the assumption the complaint is legitimate, and we’re trying to clarify the matter one way or the other. The problem is, the employee records are in New York and the Pan Am offices are closed over the weekend.” He paused and grimaced. Like the deputies, he wasn’t certain he was on firm ground.
“I work for Pan Am, as you will learn when the offices open Monday morning,” I said, affecting a calmly
