Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [294]
Scott’s plane was Number One. It would go to Hardstand Number One. A loading master had the chart of the plane and had a trailer loaded with cargo, Trailer Number One.
When each plane cut engines in the matching hardstand number the matching trailer pulled up to continue the cycle flawlessly. The mobile planeside briefings brought in the latest weather data and flight-plan changes.
Number Seventeen reported an oil leak, was pulled out of the bloc, and a new craft took the number.
The control centers charted each bit of loading and maintenance information, engine hours, cargoes, air-traffic bloc times, and fed the data back to the control center at Headquarters in Wiesbaden.
Turn-around time for the bloc was to be forty-nine minutes. Scott grabbed a ride to his office with the Production Control jeep.
He asked the operator for the Loveless number.
“Colonel Loveless residence.”
“Hi ... it’s me.”
“Hi, me.”
Scott heaved a sigh. “Ja oder nein?”
“Ja.”
“You ... you mean it?”
“Yes.”
“Listen, I got to run. I’ll call you soon as I get back from Berlin. We take off in the morning.”
“I’ll wait to hear from you.”
Scott returned to Big Easy One beaming. He clapped his hands together to beat off the cold. Nick handed him the trip sheet. He pinched Nick’s cheek. “You’re a nice Greek boy, Nick Papas, a nice, nice boy.”
“What’s it? What’s it?”
“Tell Lieutenant Kitchek he’s a nice Polish boy and to check out this nice bird.”
“The way you’re flying you might reach Berlin ahead of the bloc.”
Nick grumbled off. He knew what had happened. Scott was going on leave tomorrow. Ten will get you fifty, Hilde was going with him. It was going to be like Cindy all over again. He wanted Hilde to have held out. The bastard always won.
“Before you get too happy,” Stan said, “that low in the North Sea has deepened. Berlin is full of weather. It’s a cinch we’ll have to land by GCA.”
“Good,” Scott beamed, “I need the practice.”
Stan looked to Nick as if to say ... is he crazy?
“Fly this bird,” Scott said when they passed Fulda.
He needed to think. He stretched in a makeshift bunk. The long-eluded victory was almost his. Scott chastised himself for not confronting her with this decision earlier. What the hell, the longer the wait, the sweeter the victory!
He decided to play it smooth and wait until she gave all the signs. He had never wanted a woman as much as he wanted Hilde. And dammit, she never meant to let him go all the while!
Thirty-five minutes past Fulda, Nick shook him from his reverie. He returned to his seat.
“How’s the weather?”
“Ceiling in Berlin is five hundred feet, visibility a half mile.”
Scott grunted. It was getting close to minimums. The altimeter showed the plane losing altitude. Scott glanced out of the left window and saw the thin white line forming over the black boots, a sight that always quickened the pulse of a pilot.
“Watch the ice, Stan,” he said, easing the yoke back to bring the plane to proper altitude.
While wetting down the props and concentrating on the instruments, they had no way of knowing a fuel line in the engine was breaking from metal fatigue and would drip raw gas onto the hot cylinders.
“Tempelhof Airways, this is Big Easy One forty minutes east of Fulda at six thousand feet. Center-line check.”
“Big Easy One, this is Tempelhof Airways. We have you under radar control. You are on center line. Report at each thousand-foot level. You are cleared to descend to four thousand.”
“Roger.”
The fuel line ripped open.
“Big Easy One this is Tempelhof. Ceiling three hundred feet, visibility one half mile. Winds fifteen knots from the northwest, braking action poor. Turn over to Jigsaw at forty-five.”
Jigsaw! The code name for ground-controlled approach. A chain reaction of tension was set off down the entire bloc.
They were all flying blind. Teams of specialists in the electronic shacks on the side of the runways would soon guide their flight by ethereal voices.
As turbulence shook Big Easy One the hot exhaust ignited the