Insurance (676 words)

Insurance
by W. David MacKenzie

Presidente Santos International Airport in Cahama, Angola was a joke. One grass runway, one tiny building, one mechanic/porter, and one customs officer. The only thing that made it “International” was the charter-only crop duster that shuttled back and forth from Namibia for oil and diamond execs to inspect their wells and mines. That’s why I chose it, easy in and easy out.

“Você tem qualquer coisa declarar?” asked the solitary uniformed customs officer in bored Portuguese as he finished flipping through my passport.

“I have nothing to declare,” I said flatly in English. I met his gaze and held it. Red surrounded the nearly-yellow white of his eyes, like someone had colored them in with a crayon and a dried up highlighter pen. He blinked and unzipped my suitcase.

“Eu não tenho nada declarar.” I repeated. His dark face looked up at me. That got his attention, all right. He didn’t expect me to speak Portuguese. I placed a hundred kwanza note on top of my luggage. His next move would either be to close the zipper and stamp my passport or proceed with the inspection. These rural inspectors were hard to figure out. Sometimes they’d be needy enough to take the bribe and other times they’d flex all the righteous bureaucracy they had at their disposal. The inspector opened my luggage and the note fluttered to the floor.

So be it.

With carefully practiced carelessness my toiletries were dumped on the floor, shattering a vial of cologne and improving the aroma of the customs shack and my polo shirts were piled onto the open inkpad next to the inspector’s passport stamp. He rummaged through all of the clothes in the suitcase and finally came up holding my conservative, yet still nicely tailored, business suit like he was strangling a chicken for dinner. Those wrinkles were never going to come out, but I just stood there, unmoving and without expression as he thrust a hand into each of the pockets looking for some bit of contraband he could use as an excuse to arrest me. He found it.

“Ayyyy!” he screamed and yanked his hand from the left inner pocket. He dropped the coat on top of the open suitcase in surprise then he dropped to the floor himself, writhing in agony as the venom-induced pain moved up his arm. I leaned over the inspection table and looked at the man as spasms began to wrack his body. Soon he’d be frothing at the mouth, then paralysis and death by cardiac arrest. It was a bad way to die.

I gingerly grabbed the side of the suitcase and flipped all of the remaining contents onto the convulsing inspector then snapped the apparently empty case closed and set it on the floor beside me. A small movement caught my eye as my “insurance policy”, the delicate death stalker scorpion, climbed to the top of the pile of clothes, assumed the classic pinchers-out tail-up pose, and proclaimed itself king of the laundry.

As the customs inspector quieted and neared death, I brushed aside the ink-stained polo shirts and used his stamp to validate my passport. I picked up the suitcase and the disassembled sniper rifle secreted in the false bottom, walked confidently out to the porter who was chatting with the pilot of the idling plane, and handed him my documents. He found the Angola stamp and returned my passport then helped me aboard the small aircraft, handed my luggage in after me, and closed the door.

The pilot and the porter traded thumbs up signs then the engine raced and we were on our way. I looked at my watch. I’d made good time at Presidente Santos International Airport and I was right on schedule to meet with my target. The death of the customs inspector might make my exit a little tricky but maybe the porter would find the hundred kwanza note and consider himself well paid to chalk it up as an accident. No matter, really, it was a sunny day and I had backup plans aplenty.

------
Story Copyright 2006 by W. David MacKenzie