Death and Honor

[TWO]

Lockheed Air Terminal Burbank, California 1805 4 August 1943

Clete had moved into the Lodestar’s pilot’s seat as they had approached the U.S.-Mexican border. He decided that it would be better to have an American voice—and one familiar with American procedures—dealing with the en route controllers and the Lockheed Terminal tower than a Spanish-tinged one who didn’t really know what he was doing.

And as there were military air bases all over Southern California, he had also thought it possible, even likely, that they would be intercepted by Air Force or Navy—or even Marine—fighters because someone hadn’t got the word about an Argentine airliner having been cleared to enter the country. He knew how to talk to another American fighter pilot; none of the others did.

But no fighter had appeared off his wing, and when he called the Lockheed Terminal tower for approach and landing instructions, the air traffic personnel matter-of-factly gave them to him.

When Frade turned the Lodestar on final and felt he could finally relax, a warning message came from a remote corner of his brain:

Not yet, stupid.

You’ve come too far to get sloppy at the last minute and dump the airplane on landing.

If Lindbergh—probably then as tired as I am now—had dumped the Spirit of Saint Louis while trying to land at LeBourget, he wouldn’t have been remembered as “Lucky Lindy, America’s Hero.”

No, he’d now be remembered—or forgotten—as just one more crazy man who had tried and failed to complete a flight across the Atlantic.

I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that when Lindbergh was on final to LeBourget, he told himself, “Careful, Charley, don’t fuck it up now!”

Ninety seconds later, Frade greased the Lodestar in. For a moment he was elated, but then he had the further presence of mind to tell himself: And not yet either, stupid. You won’t be finished until they put the wheel chocks in place. You really don’t want to run over the Follow-Me truck before you’re parked.

Three minutes later, when the ground handler signaled that he should cut his engines, and he had done so without anything falling off or blowing up, he smiled at Delgano.

“Gonzo, we have apparently cheated death again.”

Delgano smiled back and shook his head, then started to unfasten his shoulder harness.

Clete decided, with an audible sigh, that now he really could relax.

Then he looked out the side cockpit window and saw that ground handlers were not the only people who had met the Lodestar. There were assorted uniformed police, Border Patrol officers, two Military Policemen, and several other men in business suits waiting to greet the visitors from Argentina.