He edged the nose to the left.
The needle started to rise.
He held that course.
The needle continued to rise.
And then the needle began to drop.
What the hell! Is that goddamned transmitter moving, or what?
He moved the nose and the needle stopped dropping, then began to slowly rise.
“Mother, there’s an—”
“Radio silence, goddamn it!”
“—airplane, a great big sonofabitch, at eleven o’clock, maybe two thousand above you.”
Archie looked up and found it.
“Chicks, follow me, above and behind.”
The needle was now almost at the maximum peg.
Archie edged back on the stick and advanced his throttles.
It’s a Constellation, that’s what it is.
Another one. The Marine full bull colonel and the guy who looked like Howard Hughes had flown into Sidi Slimane in one.
But this one isn’t one of ours! There’s no bar-and-star on the fuselage!
“Mother, what the hell is that? No American insignia.”
“Above me and behind. And for the last fucking time: radio silence!”
Archie caught up with the Constellation and drew parallel to it.
He saw that painted on the three vertical stabilizers were identical flags, the design of which Archie could not remember ever having seen.
The fuselage was boldly lettered SOUTH AMERICAN AIRWAYS.
Archie pulled next to the cockpit, and a voice—an unquestionably American voice—came over his earphones: “Hello there, Little Lockheed. Where the hell have you been? I was getting a little worried you were lost.”
“What the hell is going on here?” Archie blurted.
“The general idea,” the voice said calmly, “is that you are to escort us into Portuguese airspace and keep the bad guys from shooting us down.”
“Are you American, or what?”
“The bad guys can be recognized by the Maltese crosses on their wings and fuselages,” the voice said. “You seen anything like that flying around up here?”
&
nbsp; “Negative.”
“Okay. Get above and behind me. You might want to put one or two of your little airplanes below and ahead of me on this course. I’ll let you know when you can go home. Probably in twenty minutes or so.”