Dead Tropical

By Kevin William Barry

John Randal Ex Australian Army chopper pilot
receives an offer of a job on Oreck Island, a tropical
paradise off the coast of far north Australia.
Just days after his arrival, dozens of people are
struck down with a mysterious and deadly virus.
The entire island is placed under quarantine.
Now John, with the help of two German Doctors sent
to the island by an organisation known as the Phoenix
Foundation, must race against time to find a cure for
the deadly pathogen.
But what is the truth behind the deadly disease,
and how is John's ex wife involved?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin William Barry
• Release date: Oct 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781519934376

Kevin William Barry

Kevin William Barry is the Australian author of numerous novels. He lives on the Atherton Tableands, Far North Queensland Australia with his wife Cathy

Book preview

Dead Tropical

A Novel

By

Kevin William Barry

Dedicated to Joan Patricia Barry

A man simply couldn't have asked for a better

Mother.

This is a work of fiction. Oreck Island, the place where the story is set,

exists only in my imagination. There is no such island, or for that

matter, any similar island off the east coast of Far North Australia.

With thanks to Nick Falloon of GBR Helicopters, Port Douglas

I'd also like to thank the beautiful Angela Carelli,

that's her on the cover.

Surely the only way back from the abyss is to recognise

the true worth of our fellow man

Chapter 1

THE LITTLE GIRL WAS in a hurry, a desperate hurry. So much so, she didn’t have time to stop and chat with her friends as they sat playing happily on the beach. She just kept running, tearing along the sand, as fast as her tiny legs would carry her. She leapt over the half buried rocks and bits of driftwood, dodged around the huge clumps of seaweed which had been dislodged from the ocean floor during last night's storm, and ignored the flotsam and jetsam, the detritus, the waste discarded by her fellow islanders, which had been swept into the storm drains by the evening rain, and then washed up on the shore with the morning tide.

Yesterday she would have faltered, taken a few minutes to search for treasure. A pretty seashell, an interesting piece of coral, perhaps something useful amongst the refuse. She’d often dreamt that one day she might even find something more exciting, maybe an old and weathered bottle, one sealed tightly with an ancient cork and containing the last desperate pleas of a shipwrecked sailor. A man marooned on some desolate island far away to the east. But it wouldn’t happen today. Today she was in a hurry. A desperate hurry.

Soon she reached the esplanade, and taking care not to scuff the toes of her shiny black school shoes, scrambled over the rocky seawall and dropped down onto the footpath. She raced to the curb, and then, after taking a microsecond to make sure the gap in the traffic was adequate, bolted across the road to the Police Station. She ran inside and stopped for a few seconds, trying to figure out where she should go next. There was a large counter, like in a shop, with a fat man in a blue policeman’s uniform behind it. He looked down at her and smiled.

There’s a dead black man on the beach, the little girl told him. He’s all blown up like a balloon and he smells really bad too. You’d better come.

The little girl spun on her heels and before Constable Paul Yates could stop her, she’d bolted back outside. Paul followed her as quickly as he could, but that was not an easy task. Being the only copper on duty, he couldn’t very well just leave the station unlocked while he went off chasing some little kid with a vivid imagination half way around the island. He wasn’t a young man anymore either. He’d be fifty nine in November, and it had to be said he wasn’t going to be a very fit or healthy fifty nine. He’d lived on the island most of his working life and for a man like Paul, that meant lazy days with bugger all to do. He took long lunches and spent many late nights pitting himself against a bottle of whisky or a beer keg. He was overweight, slovenly, and smoked forty a day, and sometimes the stuff he smoked came from the evidence locker. So it was hardly surprising he found keeping up with the little girl hard work.

She was right though. There was a dead black man on the beach. And just as she had said, he was blown up like a balloon, though perhaps like an inflated black rubber glove would have been a better analogy. The man's entire torso had inflated with the gases produced as he began to decompose. His arms and legs, rigid with rigor mortis, stuck out from the rest of his body like some bizarre, black rubber starfish.

Paul phoned for an ambulance, telling them not to hurry, and then called Dr Vince Rutledge. The island didn’t have a proper mortuary, just a small room with a large refrigerator which was attached to the medical centre, and Dr Vince was the closest thing to a coroner anywhere between here and the mainland.

The ambulance arrived less than four minutes after Paul’s phone call, which was fast for them, but then it was probably because the ambulance station was only a mere three hundred metres further up the beach. No one would ever believe it had anything to do with any degree of work ethic on the part of the island's paramedics. The three men, the little girl, and the forty or so onlookers who had gathered for a sticky beak, stood around Billy Calypso’s corpse and debated, firstly how he had died and secondly, how they were going to get his massively distended body into a body bag, not to mention into the ambulance. Popular opinion was, drowning for the first, and no idea for the second.

Perhaps you could stick him with a pin, suggested the little girl who had discovered the body, then he’d pop like a balloon.

Eventually Billy Calypso provided the answer himself. At first he’d been in the shade, but as the sun worked its way higher and higher in the sky, he was soon baking in the sweltering, mid-morning heat. The gases inside him built up rapidly, then on reaching critical mass, Billy’s corpse let out a long, noisy and terrifyingly smelly fart. His body rapidly deflated to less than half its previous size and everyone within a ten metre radius of the corpse made a rapid retreat up wind.

Constable Paul Yates decided he didn’t want his breakfast anymore. He bent over and threw up.

Chapter 2

THE BAY MARE STOOD grazing just a few metres away. Not that the stallion's brain was capable of understanding the concept of metres, or for that matter, the concept of a few. He simply understood that she was near. Close enough to see the light of the scorching, midday sun, glistening upon her sweat soaked flanks, and close enough to hear the rhythmic, thud and scrape of her hooves, as she pawed at the dry, dusty, iron packed earth in search of a morsel of grass.

Somehow, perhaps through some ancient instinct, he knew she was pregnant, carrying his offspring, as did four other mares in the herd. That was the main benefit of being the alpha male in a herd of over a hundred animals, you were able to ensure your lineage. In fact his offspring now numbered eleven, some were fully grown adults, others adolescents, and some mere babies who still suckled at their mother’s teats at every opportunity. His lineage was strong. Though considering the current drought, perhaps the words ‘ensure your lineage’ was a little overstated.

The rains had been poor this season. The waterholes had all but dried up. The rolling plains and foothills which made up the herd's territory were normally lush and plentiful at this time of year. Now they lay barren, wasted and denuded of all but the hardiest vegetation. Many of his herd had already succumbed to the ravages of the drought. None had escaped its wrath entirely. Even the great stallion himself had been left emaciated by the extended dry. His once magnificent black coat was dull and lifeless. His ribs and hips stuck out alarmingly, and his skin was peppered with crusty, weeping sores. Sores that were swollen and puffy, as if the bones beneath might at any second, erupt through his hide. His mane was coarse and limp, and his eyes, huge brown orbs once glistening and shining with life, were glazed over, translucent and vacant.

But even in his weakened state, he was still a magnificent creature, and none of the herd would ever dare to challenge his authority as leader. It was he who walked at the head of the slowly migrating swarm. He who would lead them over the mountains to a place where food was plentiful, where the grass was thick, lush and delicious. A place he had visited before when he was little more than a foal.

Though he was not aware of how he knew of this place, he simply did. He knew of its existence and somehow he knew how to get there. For the rest of the herd, this was enough. Enough that he lead them ‘somewhere’.

Slowly the herd plodded after him, massing and swirling around in a roughly arrow head shaped swarm with the black stallion at its apex. He took them closer to the mountains where the terrain was harsher, the fodder even scarcer. But his heart sought out what lay beyond the mountains. There the snow up on the peaks melted a little sometimes, and the water dripped onto the ground and formed tiny puddles. The puddles swelled and joined together, then trickled down the slope, coalescing with other trickles, until they formed a creek which in turn, flowed down into the lush, green valley just over the next rise. An oasis of green where the others grazed.

The others were like them but not like them. They too ate the delicious green grass which sprang from the earth. They too walked the world on four legs. But they were slow. Slow to move and slow witted too. They had huge, viciously pointed horns which grew from the sides of their massive heads yet they were docile and refused to run or kick or bite or gore at the evil two legged creatures who sometimes walked amongst them.

The stallion shook his head and snorted nervously at the mere thought of the two legged creatures. It was they and not the others which kept his herd from the valley. It was they who frequently brought death to the herd, not the others.

He lifted his head from his grazing and sniffed the air. There was something there. Something...yet perhaps nothing. Oblivious to their leaders concerns, the herd continued their slow amble towards the valley, gradually making their way up the side of the rise and then over the other side.

Suddenly the stallion stopped and lifted his head. His large pointed ears swivelled to face the into the wind, catching the merest hint of the sound which carried to him on the breeze. He'd heard this noise before. It was the noise of death. The noise of the flying machine that roared like thunder and spewed a white hot death which tore into your flesh, and left you to die slowly, agonisingly. He had seen his mother die in this way, and although the actual event was long ago and had almost dissolved from his memory, he somehow still remembered the terror.

With the noise of a thousand banshees, the helicopter burst over the crest of the escarpment behind them and roared overhead, scattering the herd in all directions. The stallion rose up on his hind legs and pawed at the air, screaming his displeasure and terror at the deafening din thrown up by the flying machine. He turned and took off at a gallop, instinctively heading for the cover of the few sparse trees which grew a few hundred metres further down the slope. The hard, sharp, shale of the ground tore mercilessly at his unshod hooves but in his terror he was oblivious to the pain and ran on.

A noise like a thousand bolts of thunder erupted from the flying machine and one of the herd went down, the animal's body pitch poling, head over flank, tossing and tumbling into the dusty earth. Another explosion and this time the bullet struck a young, grey mare. She was thrown sideways, the side of her once beautiful face erupting in a geyser of blood as she too went down.

All around him the herd fell. Some were killed outright. Others lay writhing and bleeding in the dust, their lives slowly draining from them. Still the stallion continued his frantic race towards the protection of the trees. But he would never reach them. His hooves slid violently on the loose shale and his legs went from under him. He fell heavily, sprawling along the ground. His hoof jagged against something immovable and he felt his fetlock snap and a searing bolt of pain scorch through his leg. He tried to regain his feet but the leg dangled uselessly and he collapsed again as soon as he tried to put his weight on it. He whinnied in agony, puffing and blowing from the exertion of his flight and tried once again to regain his footing.

The helicopter shot overhead and then banked sharply to the left, coming back for another strafing run. The stallion, in his pain and terror managed to get to his feet and reared up once again on his hind legs as if he might somehow smite the flying machine from the air. There was another explosion and a puff of smoke and a brilliant flash of light from the front of the machine. The stallion felt the bullet strike. Felt the white hot slug of lead thud into him, tear into his flesh and rip through his mighty heart.

One hundred and two wild brumbies died that morning. One hundred and two beautiful, magnificent, majestic animals massacred, so that the livelihood of the cattleman who grazed his beasts in the next valley would not be threatened.

Chapter 3

JOHN RANDAL PULLED back on the cyclic and lowered the collective, and the chopper stopped dead as if some gigantic hand had snatched the machine from its flight path. It hovered for a nano-second and then as the pilot hauled on the collective, it shot straight up twenty or so metres before spinning one hundred and eighty degrees and then dropping back down to skim just above the tree tops. The manoeuvre once again put the horses on his left, giving the sniper a clear shot at any beast that may have survived the initial onslaught. The exercise was futile. Not a single animal remained alive.

The shooter whistled a few notes of admiration at the pilot's skill and smiled, shaking his head in wonder.

You’re not bad for a youngster, he proclaimed. I thought old Gillie could fly one of these things, but he weren’t as good as you mate. I thought for a second you’d overcooked it when you took us between those two ghost gums. We must have missed the buggers by no more than a few centimetres either side. He laughed and reached over and slapped the young man on the shoulder. John nodded his acknowledgement of the compliment, but refused to smile. He didn’t like Darius. He suspected the old man's enthusiasm was generated more by his blood lust for the slaughter of the animals below, than any true appreciation of his flying skills. He grunted and swung the Robinson R44 helicopter around to the north and headed for home.

John Randal hated this type of work. He loathed and detested the senseless slaughter of the brumbies more than he could put into words. It was not he who’d pulled the trigger, yet he knew he was equally culpable for the massacre. His heart was filled with shame and he knew from bitter experience, the images of the dying animals would haunt him for many weeks to come.

Fortunately, this type of work was only a very small part of his job. Generally speaking he loved piloting the little chopper, and he had to admit he was lucky to get the work. Especially since the Civil Aviation Safety Authority had nearly taken away his licence just four months ago.

He’d had a plumb job while he was in the army, flying the huge twin rotor Chinooks, carrying troops and munitions and anything else the brass told him to. He’d done a brief stint in Afghanistan, just a little over five months, and had been home in time for Christmas with not a scratch on him. In fact he’d barely even seen any fighting, though he’d seen the devastating results of it often enough.

Once he was back home, he'd spent the next twelve months carrying out innumerable fetch and carry missions, and of course, participating in the inevitable war games the army insisted on holding every few weeks. That year he spent many hours in the air transporting troops and equipment from one side of the state to the other. Most of the time, seemingly for no other reason than to help the Department of Defence justify its enormous budget. Sadly, as the global financial crisis hit harder and harder, the DOD’s budget morphed into something somewhat less than enormous, and John found himself spending more and more time on the ground and less and less in the air.

Around the middle of the year, a friend of a friend sent a message through the grapevine. If he wanted it, there was a job waiting for him on the civilian side of the fence. So when his military service came up for renewal a month later, he politely declined the offer. That was a little over a year ago and at first he'd been pleased with his move into  civilian life and commercial aviation. He had plenty of work, most of it varied and interesting, and the job paid well. Soon he began to amass a sizeable nest egg, something he’d never been able to do in the army.

Despite the financial nightmare the rest of the world found itself in, the state of Queensland was undergoing a boom. It was rich in natural resources, and rapidly emerging economies such as China and India were crying out for steel and coal and aluminium. On the central east coast the State Government had built a huge, new, coal handling conveyor. Kilometre after kilometre of thick, black rubber belting, rumbled out over the ocean, carrying tonnes of the dirty, black and brown fuel to the gigantic international cargo ships anchored offshore. Most days there were dozens of them, all patiently waiting their turn to be loaded with whatever valuable commodities the former third world countries could lay their hands on.

The port needed workers to operate and maintain it, so a small town sprang up. It quickly grew into a large town, which along with the port itself and the rail head from the coal mines in the interior, needed water. The government was faced with the option of either piping it hundreds of kilometres from the reservoirs in the south, or building a desalination plant nearby. The plant would pump water straight out of the sea, and through a process known as reverse osmosis, extract all the salt, turning it into useable, drinkable, fresh water.

After exhaustive consultation with both engineers and bean counters the government decided on box number two, and tenders were sent out for the construction of a twenty thousand megalitre desalination plant. The tender was won by Candleford Engineering and work started in earnest less than a month later.

Four months after that, the first of seven specially designed and built pumping units was ready for delivery to the pumping station prior to installation and commissioning. Of course the most economical and sensible way of transporting the unit from the foundry where it had been built to the desalination plant, would have been to put it on the back of a truck and send it by road. But that year was an election year, and the State Premier felt that to have the massive machine flown in, hanging below a huge helicopter for the whole country to see, was a media opportunity to good to pass up. The date was set, every media outlet in the country received an invitation to the grand opening, and John Randal’s employer, Camden Aviation, was engaged to affect delivery of the massive pump.

The standard selection process by which the government would choose a company to fly the huge machine to the coast would, at least under normal circumstances, have gone to the company that submitted the best quote when tendering. But as Camden Aviation was the only company on the central coat with a heavy lift chopper capable of transporting the pump, they got the gig almost by default. They charged accordingly.

Most small airfreight companies choose to limit their fleet to fixed wing aircraft, and those specialising in aerial egg beaters, normally keep to the smaller choppers, which more often than not, are adequate for ninety percent of the work on offer. Most, but not all. Camden had an Erickson S-64.

Erickson S-64 Aircrane helicopters don’t come cheap, not even when they’re nearly thirty years old and have spent thousands of hours in the air. Camden’s beast had first seen service flying personnel and equipment out to the oil rigs in the North Sea. Then in 2001, she had been sold to a Saudi Sheikh, who if the log books could be trusted, only used her very infrequently. Never the less, it had been fastidiously maintained. So in 2010, when the old girl once again came on the market, Douglas Camden prostrated himself before his bank manager, and begged for some money to buy her. On October fourth the Erickson arrived, strapped to the deck of a Panama registered freighter. It was then shipped up to the city and finally Camden Aviation’s hanger, on the back of a goods train.

Over the ensuing four years the old beast had been chartered just nine times, but such was the nature of these flights, that she had already paid for herself, and was now returning a handsome profit for her owner. The one hour and thirty five minute round trip from the city to the carpark at the foundry and then on to the desalination plant further up the coast, would be the cream on the cake, and Doug Camden, John, Chris the mechanic and Theresa, Camden Aviation’s one and only office worker, were all looking forward to the sizeable influx of cash the job represented. An influx which John suspected had come just in the nick of time.

Tuesday the twelfth dawned in fine fashion. Perfect flying weather. Twenty six degrees centigrade, beautiful, azure, cloud free skies, and barely a breath of wind to contend with. Chris had checked and double checked every nut, bolt, fluid level, mechanical and electrical component on the old girl and run every diagnostic check imaginable to make sure the S-64 was in tip top condition for the flight. At 0800 John Randal fired up the engines, and as the power plants warmed up, went through a rigorous pre-flight check list, ticking off each item and finding the Erickson to be in perfect readiness. At 0836, after logging his flight plan with air traffic control and receiving permission to take off, John opened up the throttle, pulled up on the collective to change the pitch of the rotor and the old girl lifted majestically into the air.

The flight to the foundry passed uneventfully and less than fifteen minutes after take off, John was hovering over the pick up point. The chopper's heavy, synthetic long line, which was fixed to the concave, underside of the aircraft, was to be attached to the pump with a series of slings and webbing straps. The Erickson was fitted with a special cable system specially designed to prevent its load twisting when lifted, but due to the shape and configuration of the pump, extra precautions were needed. The pump unit had had a series of eyebolts welded to its top casing for guy lines and two huge webbing straps which were wrapped around its girth to stop it swinging about in flight.

The unit should have already been loaded onto its specially built, wheeled cradle and rolled out of the factory into the carpark. (Hopefully to the applause of the waiting throng of invited guests and media representatives), but it was nowhere to be seen. Doug, who was ridding in the co-pilots seat, whipped out his mobile phone, plugged it into the aircraft’s internal communications system so he could use the choppers headset, and dialled the Premier’s liaison officer to find out what the hell was going on. The woman was very apologetic.

We’re sorry Mr Camden, she told him, The Premier is just finishing his speech now. They should be wheeling the pump out any second.

As if on cue, the side rollerdoor to the factory rumbled open and a yellow Toyota forklift inched out across the carpark, towing the pump unit and its trailer. John noticed a few dozen people trying to follow, but thankfully someone with authority and a lot more common sense, herded them back inside. When the big helicopter descended, its down draft would create considerable turbulence, and anything kicked up by the cyclonic vortex, any loose materials or even flying sand and grit, could cause some very serious injuries. Once the forklift had reached the centre of the car park, the driver unhitched the trailer and then drove back to the safety of the factory as quickly as the Toyota would take him.

The pump unit was a strange looking device. It appeared almost like a long narrow barbell, a six metre tube, about one and a half metres in diameter in the middle section, with a bulbous conical flange at each end. One flange would be bolted to a gigantic electric motor, the other a massive stainless steel housing to which the inlet and outlet pipes leading to and from the reverse osmosis filter would be attached. According to the specifications they’d been given, it weighed nearly eight tonnes.

John dropped gradually till he was about fifteen metres above the ground and the synthetic long line was dangling just a few centimetres above the pump. Keeping the huge Erickson perfectly positioned directly above the pump, he gradually deceased his altitude. Then as previously arranged, three of the foundries employees, men dressed in stout overalls, hardhats and wearing steel toed boots, plus hearing and eye protection, scurried out of the factory and shackled the cable and straps to the pump. A few minutes later they ran back under cover and gave John and Doug a thumbs up signal, letting them know everything was good to go.

John pulled up on the collective until the engines were screaming and the whole aircraft shook like a Nun at an orgy. The torque gauges hit 100% and slowly the huge beast lifted itself and its cargo higher and higher into the sky. Two minutes later they were heading east for the coast.

The factory was on the south side of the city and the plan was to scoot across the southern suburbs as quickly as possible and then, once over the ocean, follow the coast north until they reached the desalination plant. For the next seven minutes the chopper winged its way northward and then John headed back to the east, back to the coast and the small country town which had sprung up around the railhead and conveyor. Just six kilometres further north sat the newly constructed building which would soon house the desalination pump.

Suddenly the chopper lurched sideways. Doug swore. He craned his neck, peering out of the window, trying to get a handle on what the hell was going on.

Shit! The pumps coming loose, He screamed over the roar of the engine. It looks like one of the guy lines has come adrift. The bloody thing is swinging around all over the place.

Then things got worse. The remaining guy line snapped. John heard a loud thump and felt the impact through the floor as what was left of the wire, now that there was no longer any tension keeping it taut, shot up like a giant rubber band and smashed into the floor of the cockpit.

Jesus, the eyelets those idiots fixed to the pump are coming loose, yelled Doug. It’s only hanging on by the slings. It’s sliding..."

The helicopter lurched sideways, as if it had been stuck by a cyclone. John fought to keep the old girl level and on course but it was impossible. Without the guy lines to keep the pump in place, the two slings had slid along the narrow tube and now the pump was hanging straight down, with both slings bunched up around one flange. The pump was swinging back and forth through a broad arc like a giant pendulum, pulling the chopper from side to side as it did.

I can’t hold her, warned John. I’m going to have to put her down. Hang on. God knows what she’ll do when that things hits the ground. It will probably fling us over into the dirt."

John began to slowly ease the big chopper downwards, but then he had an idea. If he could stop the pump swinging around so much, he might be able to regain some control. Perhaps...yes, he headed for the conveyor, if he could get close enough to the large overhead structure supporting the belt, he told Doug, I might be able to....stop...it....swinging.

The pump swung towards the conveyor and smashed into one of the pylons, glancing off the side. Just as John had hoped, the impact almost totally stopped the pendulum effect, now it was simply spinning around and around, barely moving from side to side at all. Thankfully the Synthetic long line had a swivel mechanism built into it, to stop loads unravelling the line. Without it, the line would have snapped in seconds. Soon the pump unit stopped spinning and simply hung straight down, placid and inert. John felt the cyclic controls in his hand start to respond, and after pausing a moment to let his heart rate return to something closer to normal, slowly turned the chopper around and headed back towards the coast. Through ingenuity and a huge dollop of luck he had averted what almost certainly would have been a major disaster. More than likely he and Doug would have been killed and both the Erickson and its valuable cargo destroyed.

John knew he had done the right thing. The owners of the coal conveyor and the Civil Aviation Authority had other ideas.

Chapter 4

WHEN IT SMASHED INTO the conveyor support, the pump unit had been damaged, though not badly. The conveyor support, and as a result the conveyor itself, had also been damaged. Unfortunately for John and Doug, in this instance, the damage had been extensive. If there was anything good to say about the whole debacle, it was that someone in the conveyor's control room had seen the Erickson heading for the support pylon, judged that at any second there was going to be a crash, and hit the emergency shutdown button just moments before impact. Had he not done so, there would have been a good chance of a huge environmental disaster. The belt would have been thrown off the troughing rollers and hundreds of tones of coal would have been accidentally dumped into the ocean.

There was one other piece of good luck too, though it didn’t really seem like it at the time. Due to the huge media interest in the delivery, the whole incident had been filmed by at least six news services. Three weeks later, when John and Doug addressed the Civil Aviation Authorities inquest into the accident, they had undeniable proof that the accident had not been caused by any wrong doing on their part. It was all down to the lugs Candleford Engineering’s welders had attached to the unit for the guy cables. Inspection of the pump unit after the crash indicated the eyelets had only been tacked on, instead of fully welded as specified. Whoever had done the job, knew the eyelets only had to last an hour at the most, and assumed that as the two slings would be taking all the weight, the lugs only had to do light duty. Of course no one at Candleford was admitting any liability.

The bad news, and there was lots of it, was that John had his licence suspended until the completion of the inquest. Worse still, the State Government and the owners of the coal conveyor, both decided to launch legal proceedings against Candleford Engineering, Camden Aviation, Doug Camden personally and John himself. With the exception of the case against Candleford, all other legal proceedings were dropped a few weeks later, but not before both Doug and John had spent a considerable amount of time and money fending off the attack, time and money they would never get back.

The worst news of all was that the money owed to Camden Aviation for the delivery of the pump was to be held in abeyance until the court case against Candleford was resolved. Doug had been relying on that money. It was desperately needed to pay Camden’s creditors and without it, the business simply couldn’t continue. On the third of April, Doug Camden closed the doors on Camden Aviation and filed for bankruptcy.

Chapter 5