He was a handsome, swarthy young man, who obviously knew it and thought he was able to charm any woman. Linda Westerling knew the type well. Although she had no idea what he was saying, she stood still and pretended to look shyly at the ground. When he laughed, she did too, and she held her hands together underneath her burka to keep them from trembling.
She heard some increased activity down at the center of the base about a half mile away and could see soldiers running around frantically. She drew in her breath. Corrina must be making her run. That meant that Myers and the President would be arriving.
She had to get rid of this paramour—and soon! But how? She didn’t have a clue. She couldn’t very well just do what she normally did in a bar and tell him to go kiss his own behind.
She sighed apprehensively and leaned for a moment on the fuselage of the old WWII airplane, just below the exhaust manifolds. As she did, her hand trembled as it had been doing underneath her burka for the last fifteen minutes. The soldier turned and happened to see it.
Mistaking her trembling hand as a desire for him, he smiled. He removed the AK-47 from over his shoulder and lay it down on the wing behind him. Linda’s eyes went wide, as he grabbed both of her arms and squeezed them gently, apparently attempting to go further than just talk. But as he did, she looked up at him in fright and he saw her blue eyes through the veil.
His eyes opened wide and his mouth dropped open. He said something that sounded like a curse word and shoved her backward. He said the word again louder, his face twisting in hatred. He reached for his AK-47 and stepped backward a couple of paces.
Linda gasped in terror and stepped back up against the old P-51. The soldier sneered at her and spat on the ground, as he brought up the AK-47. He flipped off the safety, brought the automatic rifle up to his shoulder and said the word again.
From out of nowhere, a rock flew and hit him in the head knocking him to the side. He flopped over on the wing, the AK-47 clattering onto the ground. He crumpled to the ground underneath the wing. Linda gasped and looked up to see Jim Myers waving cheerfully at her, tossing another baseball-sized stone up and down in the air. Two other men walked beside him—one dressed in rags, the other dressed in what appeared to be a high-level soldier’s uniform.
She leaned heavily against the fuselage and breathed deeply for a few moments, her heart beating like a trip hammer against her chest. In another moment, he would have killed her! She put her hand up to her throat and swallowed hard. She would have begun sobbing, if she wasn’t still so scared.
Standing in front of her was a bearded, haggard looking man dressed in rags. He looked up at her. “You’re the one who’s going to fly me out of here?” he asked incredulously.
Linda’s mouth opened in astonishment. “You’re President Beckman!”
He nodded.
“I recognize the voice, but—” she stopped in mid-sentence, realizing all at once that time was short. She squirmed down out of the burka and shook her head clear. “I didn’t recognize you dressed like that.”
“Well that’s the point,” the soldier next to him said. “You sure you know how to fly this thing, Miss?”
“Does she know how to fly this thing?” Myers said. “You just wait and see what she does!” He laughed. “Did you bring along the hand grenades?
“Yeah. I got them.” Fuller pulled two grenades out of a small bag by his side. “And you know how to use them I suppose?” He looked Myers up and down.
Myers took them from him and took a deep breath. “We’ll see.”
“Well, maybe I’d better do it then,” Fuller said.
“No!” Linda put her hand out. She was just finishing up her inspection of the plane, walking up on the wing and pulling back the plastic bubble canopy. “He used to pitch for the Yankees. He knows how to throw them—believe me.” She motioned for the President to follow her. “Up here, Sir.”
“How much time do you need, Linda?” Myers said, looking nervous.
No soldiers had taken notice of them yet. Most of the activity was around the stadium, where soldiers seemed to be searching systematically from the center of the base outward.
“Not much,” she said pulling back the seat and sticking her head into the space behind it. “Drag that bozo out from under the wing there would you?” She motioned down to the unconscious soldier on the ground. “I don’t want to run over him. Not that I care about him all that much. I just don’t want to damage the landing gear.” She dusted off her hands and helped pull the President up onto the wing.
“Does this thing have two seats?” he asked.
Linda shook her head. “Afraid not. But there is a compartment just behind the pilot’s seat. I just checked. This thing’s been used to smuggle more than just drugs. It has some cushioning on the floor and even some seatbelts, where you can strap yourself in lying down.”
“Well that’s convenient,” Beckman said, looking apprehensively over his shoulder. “But how are we going to take off? They’ve got pillboxes all along the runway.”
Linda helped the President into the plane, pulling back on the seat and gently pushing his shoulder in through the opening. It was a tight fit. “It’s all right. They’re all faced outward away from the runway and we’ve got a way of getting rid of two of them.”
She made sure that the President was strapped in and pushed the pilot’s seat back into its place. Outside, Fuller and Myers looked around uneasily. The searchers were getting closer.
“Hurry up, Linda,” Myers murmured, just above a whisper.
She sat down and strapped herself in—tight. All of the fear and apprehension she felt before was gone. She was in her element now. This is where she felt comfortable and in control. She closed her eyes for a moment and saw the pre-flight checklist in her head.
She began pushing buttons and flipping switches. “Forty inches of manifold pressure,” she said to herself. “Emergency boost control on automatic … supercharger control in automatic, not low … coolant and oil switches checked and on automatic … fuel booster pump on normal.”
She pulled the plastic bubble canopy over herself and locked it down. “This is for you Daddy,” she said, looking upward. She took a deep breath and waved at Myers and Fuller to move out of the way. Myers held up the hand grenade. She nodded and started the engine.
The propellers moved slowly, and the engine whined, coughed a couple of times, whined some more, and then caught, roaring to life. Soldiers for hundreds of yards away turned toward the loud noise and knowing instantly what it was, stopped what they were doing and rushed toward the plane. At one of the closest bunkers, a soldier’s head popped up out of one of the rear windows and looked at them in astonishment.
Fuller pulled Myers with him, a few yards to the side of the old German Messerschmitt, where no one could see them. Myers threw the first grenade into the bunker’s window. The soldier ducked down, and the grenade exploded inside with a dull boom.
Linda put both feet on the brakes and slowly added throttle until the engine was in full roar. There would be no time for a run up.
Myers threw the other grenade perfectly, and it too exploded with a dull boom.
Fuller pulled him down with him and pointed to the soldier still on the ground. “Hand me his AK-47!” he shouted above the roar of the engine.
Linda put on twenty degrees of flaps and six degrees tail, heavy for the tail wheel. She pushed the stick forward so that the tail wheel was on full swivel and then she let go of the right brake. The P-51 swung rapidly to the left, facing down the tarmac alongside the runway. She pushed the manifold pressure up to sixty-one inches and then let go of the brakes.
Myers handed the AK-47 to Fuller. “Shoot at her!” Fuller shouted over the roar of the engine as the P-51 leapt down the tarmac. “Just make sure you miss!”
Fuller stood and shouted something angrily in Farsi, firing off the AK-47 just above Linda’s head. Myers fired his pistol in the same way and grinned as he watched the old warbird lift off smoothly up into the air.
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