June 7, 2010 - Plane Jane, released last week from Martin Pearl Publishing through Barnes & Noble, Amazon and others, are being sent to Saudi Arabia and some government agencies. A Canadian film producer has also shown interest. For those who missed the gist of the story, here is an excerpt. 

“I’ll be in back suiting up,” Mary said. “It will be totally dark in about ten minutes. Drop down to fifteen hundred feet as you approach the end of the runway. I’ll unlock the rear door, but I won’t open it or jump till you slow to sixty knots. It’s okay if you stall slightly, just make sure I don’t have a hundred knot gust sending me out over bandito land, okay?” 

 “No problem. When you exit, I’ll bank twenty-five degrees and maintain altitude on automatic pilot. Remember——when you’re ready to take off in the Gulfstream, don’t use the radio. Just give me a bleep on your walkie-talkie. I’ll have the rifle in the doorway covering the radio shack and your flight path. Not that I’ll much luck at that distance.”

At exactly eight forty-five, in total darkness, the DC-6 slowed and Mary exited headfirst. She dropped nine hundred feet before opening her parachute, never taking her eyes off the bundle hanging thirty feet below her. From it, a powerful but invisible infrared spotlight beamed down at the ground.  As she floated toward earth she used her special vision goggles to scope out the planned drop zone.

No one appeared to be around any of the airplanes and she heard no unusual sounds, no dogs, nothing. When she reached the jet, she scanned the perimeter and then released the holding cables under its tail and wings. Crouching low, she stooped beneath the fuselage and emerged at the cabin door and inserted one of the five keys she held. Fucking key, work, work! 

Yes! Grinning to herself, she entered the cabin and closed the door behind her. She flipped on the main switch and saw that the fuel tanks were full and the batteries completely charged. She clicked her handheld walkie-talkie to signal Martinez who was flying overhead, then hit the starter. The Rolls Royce engines whirred to life, but instead of moving in a forward fashion, the Gulfstream rocked back and forth. Moron!  

Forgot to remove the chocks from the wheels. With engines running, Mary raced outside, removed the blocks that held the wheels in place and rushed back to the pilot’s seat soaking in sweat. She screamed, “Full goddamn throttle——go, you little sweetheart——go, go!” The plane roared down the dark runway with lights out, racing blindly toward the directional radio beacon she had placed at the end of the runway, reaching a hundred and twenty knots before rising into the moonlight sky. 

The walkie-talkie crackled. “Sister Mary, this is Jesus. You have sinned——again.  Say ten Hail Mary’s and I’ll see you in El Paso.” 

THE Mexican caper was just another day at the office for their growing company, Charter Aircraft Leasing Ltd., or CALL, as it was known in the trade. CALL was the outfit you contacted if your firm leased an airplane to a client who decided not to make any more payments and disappeared into the fog of phony registrations and repainted tail numbers. 

Someone had to find and repossess those aircraft, often from criminals, deadbeats and modern-day pirates willing to go to extreme lengths to hide and disguise their booty. Mary, who liked to refer to herself as a CALL girl, and her partner, Jesus Martinez, often took on the repo jobs no one else could handle. The risks had paid off handsomely: in just three years CALL was bringing in more than $10 million in annual revenue. But it hadn’t been easy in the beginning.