Charles Vella

Poor Richard Charles Vella

How was Les supposed to know what these guys were up to? There he was, just a guy earning an honest, well, relatively honest living. Squeaking by, barely, until he met Delilah. But Les's more promising love life raised the burn rate on his modest means to the red line. So when Ira mentioned that a national airline had missed some payments on an airliner, Les wasn't in the mood to ask questions, or even to listen to Ira's vague concerns about the assignment. Les needed the money and the Department of Commerce, or maybe Ira's other, more shadowy, employer, needed Les. That was how capitalism worked, and Les was a capitalist. So Les jumped at the job, and landed in an African jail. OK. That's bad. But at least things can't get any worse. Then why isn't Les relieved when Ira's real boss, the CIA Station Chief, bails him out? And what's the deal with Lennox, the guy he's teamed up with, who sits in the copilot's seat, flipping through skin rags and not saying a word? And what kind of a job is this anyway? Just fly the plane in and out Les. No big deal and a get out of jail free card. Good deal, right? Just one thing Les, and this one thing is very important. No questions. At all. About anything. Got it. No questions. I mean it's none of Les's business anyway, right? But someone should have asked his mother, Ira, or anyone else who'd ever known Les. Keeping his big mouth shut is one life skill that he'd never mastered. And, unfortunately, Les is not quite as dumb as he looks. As he puts the pieces together on what Lennox is really doing it slowly dawns on him that things can get worse. Much worse. Until suddenly things are as bad as they can get for sure.