Life Is A Highway

In an hour, we were at the Giradot airport, southwest of Bogota.  When she wasn’t busy making purses out of rope, Sasha had earned a pilot’s license.  The Cessna Citation was a big investment, but it seated eight, and carried us and the loot to our destination.  Our old stomping grounds, Panama.

The plane covered the 500 miles to Paso Blanco in less than two hours.  The small town was just northeast of Panama City.  We drove to the house we’d rented.  Barbie and I counted the cash.  Jozefien separated the gold and silver coins and weighed them.  Candy and Sasha sorted through the jewelry.  

The final score was $12 million cash, gold and silver $4.2 million, and about $2 million in jewelry.  Not a bad haul for two years of hard work.  Of course, if I’d been loyal to Mr. Rojas, I could make more than that over the long run.  This was never about the money.  It was about Jozefien, and the thrill of the chase.

The house was near the crest of a gradual slope.  You could see down the street in both directions.  The road was the only way in or out.  

Meeting with a fence, and exchanging millions of dollars worth of gold, silver and jewelry for cash, is a risky business.  He would only need to bring a few armed men to overwhelm us.  

The location of the house allowed us to see the man coming, and keep an eye out for others.  Jozefien and Barbie were stationed down the street on opposite sides of the house.  Mr. Mendoza’s car approached, and stopped at a specified intersection.  We had not told him the exact address.

Jozefien met the man and looked through the interior of the car.  She had him open the trunk.  He had come alone.  She told him the house number and resumed her surveillance.  He pulled in the driveway and I let him in.

Mendoza looked over the coins and the jewelry.  He had cash.  I put randomly selected bills in a scanner and let an app evaluate them.  They were real.  Mendoza’s reputation for being an honest criminal panned out.  Not that he wasn’t about to seriously gouge us with his offer.  He knew we were in a hurry and weren’t going to say no.

He offered sixty cents on the dollar for the gold and silver, and $600,000 for the jewelry.  Close to what we were expecting, but not quite.  I texted the numbers to Jozefien.  She said to take the offer on the coins but negotiate for more on the jewelry.  Mendoza and I shook hands after agreeing to an extra hundred thousand.  

The suitcases we carried up the stairs at the bank in Panama City held just over $15 million.  We entered the door marked Trujillo Financial Consultants.  Below the name was a list of the services they provided.  We were interested in the last item on the list, international money transfers.

A normal fee to for this kind of transfer would range from 5 to 15 percent.  When I negotiated the deal with Mr. Trujillo, he referred to this as an asymmetrical transaction.  We would have to pay 30 percent.

Such is the fate of criminals.  We stole from Mr. Rojas.  Other people stole from us.  When our airplane touches down in Europe, there will be $10.7 million waiting for us in our Swiss accounts.

While we stood in line at Tocumen International Airport, waiting to go through customs, I looked at my watch.  It had been nineteen hours since I cracked the Lumberjack’s skull.  I wondered if he was still alive.

The Air France flight would take us from Panama City to Lisbon, Portugal.  From there, we would make our way across Europe by railroad and riverboat.  Madrid, Paris, London, Brussels, for starters.  We’d stay in each place long enough to enjoy the cuisine and the sights.  Not too long, in case Mr. Rojas had men looking for us.

Criminal networks range across oceans and continents.  Western Europe is wide open, not the best place for hiding out.  Things change the farther you go east.  We would spend six months working our way in that direction.  Then cross the border to our hiding spot.  Russia.

Where people with money are quite welcome.  The Iron Curtain fell decades ago.  Communism is long gone.  But international crime networks are frowned upon.  Russia is an ancient society with its own set of rules.  Looking for us there would be difficult, and tricks like bribing the police will backfire more often than not.  It is a place where we can lay low for a while.  

I knew, of course, Jozefien would get bored soon enough.  I wondered what our next adventure would be.  No doubt, something more dangerous than robbing a drug baron.

We boarded the airplane, stowed the luggage and sat down.  Jozefien grinned at me and said “Alberto…”

When she paused, I thought “Uh oh, here it comes.”  But she caught me off guard, as always.  She leaned in, kissed me on the cheek, and said, “You are a good criminal, and an even better husband.  I’ve decided I’m going to keep you.”

Jozefien put her head on my shoulder.  By the time the plane took off, she was asleep.