"I know what it is, of course. A radar? What are you going to do with a radar?"
"Guess," Clete said.
"My best information-el Coronel Martin's best information-" Delgano said without missing a beat, "is that there is no German replenishment vessel in Samboromb¢n Bay."
"That was yesterday," Clete said. "If I left my cargo and my passengers here, could you arrange transportation for them and guarantee their safe arrival to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo?"
"No," Delgano said after some thought. "I could get a truck, but there would be at least a dozen checkpoints on the highway between here and there. Authorization from Colonel Porterman-a shipping manifest-might get them past the Army checkpoints, but not those of either the Polic¡a Federal or the Provincial Police. They would want to check the cargo against the manifest. The only way I could ensure getting through them would be to be there and I have to be with the airplane."
Clete grunted thoughtfully.
"They could stay here until after..." Delgano suggested.
"And if the coup d'‚tat fails, then what happens to them?" Clete didn't wait for a reply. "I'm not going to leave them here. That brings us back to two choices: taking off with them aboard, which I'm not at all sure I can do, or leav-ing them here, to make it by road to some airfield near here where I can get 110-130-octane aviation gasoline."
"Posadas," Delgano said immediately. "It's 130 kilometers from here; two hours, maybe a little less, by truck."
"Long-enough runways? Capable of handling the Lockheed?"
Delgano nodded.
"OK. Posadas it is. Let's get some breakfast."
If the fuel gauges were to be trusted-and Clete had learned from painful ex-perience that this was something wise birdmen did not do-there was just barely enough fuel remaining aboard to get them to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.
That was not good news; he would have been happier if the tanks had con-tained just enough AvGas to get them to Posadas. The Lockheed would have been that much lighter.
He briefly considered pumping gas out of the tanks. That was obviously not practical. It would have been time-consuming in itself. And, since there were no empty barrels at the landing field to pump it into, they would have had to wait until empty barrels could be brought from the barracks out to the strip.
A second truck sent from the barracks to take aboard the radar had made it out to the Lockheed without trouble. By driving across the grass of the pampas, Clete noted somewhat smugly, and staying off the muddy road.
He was almost through giving Capitan Delgano enough of a cockpit check-out to enable him to work the landing gear and flaps controls on orders, and to operate the radio direction finding system, when Captain Maxwell Ashton III came up to the cockpit.
"The radar's on the truck," he announced. "But just between you and me, mi Mayor, I'm more than a little nervous to see my radar going off by itself."
"There will be no awkward questions asked at checkpoints of five happy Brazilian civilians in a civilian car," Clete said. "There would be if you guys were on an Army truck."
"OK," Ashton said. "Good luck!"
"If I can't get this thing out of here, you're on your own," Clete said. "I'm sorry about that."
"Yeah, well, let's see what happens," Ashton said.
He touched Clete's shoulder, then turned and left the cockpit.
Clete looked around the cockpit a moment, then got up and walked through the cabin to make sure the door was closed properly. When he returned to the cockpit, had strapped himself in, and looked out the window, he saw that the thorough Capitan Delgano had arranged for a fire extinguisher to be present against the possibility of fire when the engines were started.
It was not, however, the latest thing in aviation-safety technology. It looked as if it belonged in a museum. It was a wagon-mounted water tank, with a pump manned by four cavalry troopers. Presumably, if there was a fire, and the four of them pumped with sufficient enthusiasm, a stream of water could be directed at it.
But since water does not extinguish oil or gasoline fires with any efficiency, all it was likely to do was float burning oil and/or AvGas out of the engine na-celle over the wing and onto the ground.
Clete threw the master buss switch and yelled "Clear!" out the window.
The four cavalry troopers, startled, took up their positions at the pump han-dles.
Clete set the throttles, checked the fuel switch, and reached for the left en-gine START Switch.
The left engine started, smoothed down, and he started the right engine.