Flying to Pieces

by Dean Ing

  Campbell shook and released it, finally drawing deep breaths again, standing up with a sheepish look around. "She's got a good left, boys,"

  he said. To Myles, he said, "Was that a roll of quarters I felt, or were you just glad to see me?"

  "Enough of this love-in," Mel said. "I'll still be glad to see you on this operation, buddy. If we're going to be depending on one another, our disagreements ought to be short and sweet."

  "Thanks, but I'm out," the chastened Campbell replied, rubbing his belly reflectively. "Appreciate the offer, and good luck to you. It's just not a risk I'm comfortable with." He walked to the door, then turned with his hand on the knob. "Maybe I shouldn't say this," he said slowly, "but I keep thinking about the Greenamyer expedition." Without another word, Bert Campbell squared his shoulders and walked out.

  When the door closed, Coop Gunther was first to speak. "I heard that, and I'm thinking about it too. Greenamyer damn near made it, folks."

  The Greenamyer expedition, to recover a huge B-29 many years after its forced landing in Greenland, had cost one man's life and half a million dollars before its end, the survivors dejected, the aircraft a burned hulk destined to remain in a frozen wasteland, a monument to failed dreams. But before their final disappointment, Darryl Gree namyer and His friends had actually got the big plane taxiing. Their valiant, doomed effort had its detractors, but it had come within moments of total success and might never be forgotten as long as airmen swap stories or write histories of the skilled and daring.

  Wade Lovett looked into the eyes of the remaining Boffs and saw gleams of dedication. Win or lose, he realized, they hoped to be remembered in the same way.

  4 --------------------------------------------

  Lovett finally gave in on one detail that evening after Coop Gunther shamed him into it, with, "So what is it with you? I'm in, Myles is in, so's Quinn, but you still won't say where the friggin' island is! I'm a great-grandfather, Wade; you think maybe I'm old enough to keep a goddamn secret?" Lovett agreed then that the island had to be identified without further delay, for serious planning. In themselves, old Elmo's map coordinates said a lot. That close to the equator, the climate would be fully tropical and they'd have to cross virtually the entire breadth of the Pacific to get there. The name, Fundabora, meant no more to Quinn or Gdnther than it had, to Lovett, so Mel Benteen filled them in quickly.

  Before World War 11, Fundabora had been one of numerous islands under Japanese mandate, a hundred square miles of sunny innocence roughly halfway between Guam and the Philippines. The natives, when they happened to feel like it, exported phosphates, copra, and a few, pearls on a ho-hum basis. When the Japanese used whips in 1942 as a wake-up call to their new wartime needs, virtually all of those dusky citizens simply sailed the hell away in outrigger canoes one night to what they imagined would be safety in the Philippines. They never returned.

  The Japanese promptly imported native labor from other islands and turned Fundabora into a hell of forced labor camps with armed sentries and shore patrols. A single airstrip was pounded by manual labor into the southern tip of the island, but Fundabora became one of those points of land bypassed by the Allies in 1944, not worth its cost in American lives.

  It was a matter of record that, when the Japanese abruptly abandoned Fundabora in 1945, their empire was preparing for an all-out, genocidal defense of its home islands. Secret stores of munitions were cached; fuel dumps were. hidden; and literally thousands of aircraft were put away, many of them on what we now call Taiwan, earmarked to be flown by teenaged, inexperienced Kamikaze pilots in their final apocalypse.

  The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs had been the gigantic exclamation points that stopped these plans in midstride. Many Japanese and virtually all Americans remained blissfully ignorant of the mass civilian suicides and banzai charges that actually did take place on Guam, Tinian, and Saipan; the merest foretaste of the carnage that Imperial Japan intended to trigger on its own shores-when the Americans invaded the home islands in 1945. To that end, it pulled its soldiers back, and planned a final surprise attack that was quashed only by the emperor's surrender speech-a speech that some Imperial officers proposed to ignore until peaceable factions won out.

  When starving native laborers broke out of their camps on Fundabora in mid-1945, they took their first good look at the whole island. Ousting a few soldiers, they found modest stockpiles of food, no Japanese left to guard that airstrip, and no visible aircraft for anyone to guard, Most of those natives elected to stay on Fundabora. For one thing, they learned that most nearby islands had been converted to bomb craters while 'Fiindabora remained serenely beautiful with beaches of white sand and creeks descending from old volcanic promontories. Visitors used to say the island made Tahiti look like the black hole of Calcutta.

  After the war, when nearby island chains became Lin trust territories, Fundaborans felt they'd had enough laws to last them an eternity. They followed the lead of Palau and declared themselves an island republic, not subject to Micronesia's constitution or anyone else's. No one warned them that a country catches laws the way a dog catches fleas, and that its citizens should be careful to pick the kind of itch they want to scratch. No one else cared much that the Republic of Fundabora, left to its own devices, soon had a President-for life, one Matai Pelele, who believed that might made right because he and his friends had discovered the cache of small arms left by retreating Japanese.

  Because the new Fundaborans had been forced immigrants from other islands, postwar Fundabora reflected a mixture of island cultures.

  Pelele, a three-hundred-pounder of prodigious appetites, kept several wives and imposed an annual ritual in which men literally wrestled for tribal leadership. To no one's surprise, Matai Pelele defeated all comers. According to rumors at the time, it helped that his wrestling opponents were first treated -to a few days of orgies while Pelele sipped papaya nectar and dispensed booze with a free hand.

  Some years later a consortium bribed Pelele, whose phosphate deposits had been largely worked out under Japanese rule, to let them build a vacation haven with quaint cabanas and a sprawling white monstrosity of a colonial palace complete with indoor toilets and a gasoline-driven generator. The dock was improved for paying guests, cruise ships visited for a generation, and Matai Pelele kept himself as happy as one of the local giant clams. Happy, at least, until his accidental death during the annual leadership games in 1978. That was when his son, Jean-Claude Pelele, filled the presidential throne.

  Jean-Claude, it was said, looked like his father; that is, like a copper-sheathed NFL defensive tackle. He liked womena lot. He liked them so much, he could not resist sampling the more fetching ladies who rented cabanas only to find themselves bundled off for a midnight tussle with King Kong. When the Dutch consortium manager raised enough hell over the antics of young Jean-Claude, he got the attention he asked for, but not the sort he wanted.

  According to one rumor, he escaped with tribal outcasts. No one off the island could say, since he hadn't felt like dragging thirty pounds of radio transmitter along with him. Another rumor seemed more likely; some Fundaboran splinter groups had reintroduced ritual cannibalism, a return to an older tradition, and Jean-Claude liked to keep his people happy.

  By the middle 1980s, cruise ships no longer visited Fundabora, which for all commercial purposes might as well have sunk into the Philippine Sea.

  Especiay where tourism was concerned, the place was a non-place.

  Fundabora still had sporadic contact with Manila, Palau, and Guam whenever trading ships happened by. Fundabora's chief export was now a trickle of pearls. Presumably, said Mel, Fundabora still maintained dock facilities and electric power. She doubted aloud whether they had anything very modern in the way of medical facilities.

  It was obvious that Quinn, who needed kidney dialysis twice a week, could not leave the States for Fundabora. Quinn's argument-that he could kick in fifty thousand bucks and they'd need someone stateside with good contacts and a
head for business-sounded better as the evening wore on.

  "Or you could airlift all that cash and take your chances," Quinn shrugged. "And if you do, you're as Looney Tunes as some people already think you are. Do yourselves a favor, and don't." the total assets of Lovett, Revefido, Mel Benteen, and Quinn himself came to a bit over three hundred thousand, disappointingly small for such an expedition.

  Gunther had never made any secret of his near-poverty but for Vic Myles, the admission was hard. "The survival magazine biz is just about extinct," he told them, "and royalties on my books could be better.

  Truth is, if I can't wheedle an advance from a publisher on an expedition I can't even tell 'em about, I'll be in the same bucket with Coop."

  It was agreed that Myles and Gunther could borrow some thing for expenses, since the two could pass as copilot and flight engineer, though Lovett also had his ratings. Their major advantage was the old Douglas transport. "We'll be refueling on U.S. territory part of the way," Reventlo pointed out. "San Diego to Kauai, then Mejit in the Marshall chain then Rota. After that it's only a few hundred miles to Fun dabora. Fake a medical emergency or something of the sort. Or we may have to overfly it and find our way back by fishing boat.

  "Why not Honolulu and Guam instead," Myles complained, studying the charts. "Some joints there I haven't hit in years."

  "Because we don't want to be any more obvious than we must," Reventlo said. "I've already filed for my refueling clearances. Miz Benteen has a list of your booster shots, and I advise you to look to your mosquito netting."

  "Not to mention passports," Lovett put in. "If we manage to land on Fundabora, we must look like people who were bound for Australia, putting down for an emergency."

  I wondered about that," said Chip, looking up from the palm-top computer he was using.

  Myles jerked a thumb toward the youth. "And how about the kid here? We gonna have to worry about him?"

  "He's flying home tomorrow," Lovett'said quickly, and smiled in Chip's direction. "Sorry, Chip. That's just how it is.

  "I know it. Don't have to like it," the boy replied.

  Myles glanced over Chip's. shoulder and shook his head. "Never use those things myself," he said in his first friendly words to Chip.

  "You pick it up fast," Chip murmured, and kept at it. "I can type twice as fast as I did with Mom's old typewriter, and editing's a snap."

  It was long after midnight when the meeting broke up, Lovett electing to sleep on a cot in the hangar. He welcomed an excuse to avoid his apartment because, while Chip and Reventlo had agreed to share the master bedroom, Myles and Gunther would take the spare bedroom. That left the living roo h for Mel Benteen, by her own choice; and Wade Lovett had enough troubles without that. The Benteen broad, m couc he thought, had more touchy triggers than a flotilla of naval mines.

  For Lovett, the next few days fled like felons. He called Roxy to make certain Chip had made it home without a hitch, and thought it best to ignore her entreaties. After admitting that Chip had arrived home with all his parts intact, she wondered aloud if Lovett himself felt well.

  "Sure, if you discount a touch of senility," he said, trying to keep it light. "Goes with the territory."

  Evidently she missed the sarcasm. "We need to talk, Dad. I'm worried about you."

  "We are talking, Roxy. And one of usls talking nonsense. If I stop right there, we can claim total agreement, hm?"

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Oh-toss hundred-dollar bills from tall buildings; try a system to beat Vegas roulette wheels wearing a pyramid on my head. Maybe consult a gypsy before I plunge on the commodities market," he said, reaching beyond the absurd. Then, more calmly: "Or maybe something a good deal less inane. You'll find out sooner or later. Until then, you'll have to trust me.

  "I just don't want you to make any mistakes you'll regret," she insisted, with a catch in her voice that bothered Lovett more than he would admit.

  "A little late for that, honey; I started early. And after sixty-plus years of risk I'm still suckin' wind, so give me a little credit. I swear to you, my marbles are all still in the sack."

  "I know you think so," she said, now tuning up to cry, "and you sound all right. So did Mother, at first, until she forgot how to use a'stick shift and then started forgetting things like making her shoes match.

  I'd feel a lot better if you'd tell me where you are; let me come and talk with you about all these sudden changes."

  Lovett took a deep breath, maintaining his calm with effort. "Roxy, there's an old Chinese curse that says, 'May you live in interesting times.' Who would consider that a curse? Fatcat mandarins who love the status quo, that's who; they don't want interesting times, they want everything nice and dull. No changes. And that means no possible improvements that might upset their lives.

  "My life has been a little too nice lately. Too dull. I concede that I'm taking some risks, but they're mine to take, Roxanne. I truly, truly appreciate your concern, honey, but if you don't get the hell out of my way, Papa is gonna whack your bottom. I love you, Roxy, and I've got to go now."

  He had hung up while his daughter was talking. He had never done that in all his life, and it bothered him for a long time.

  Mindful of Coop Gunther's lack of funds, Lovett first offered to fly the old fellow in the Varieze. But, "I'll take a bus. Bad enough I'll climb aboard a crate I know inside out, next week," Gunther said. "Ain't no way you'll get me shoe horned into a little bitty plastic dart that won't haul more'n two guys and looks like it's flyin' ass-end forward."

  Vic Myles had an editor or two to bamboozle, promising to meet them in San Diego before the 2,500-mile first leg to Hawaii. So it was Mel Benteen who accompanied Lovett to Portland, after he saw Chip off on his flight home. At least she didn't try to tell him how to fly. On reflection, he realized why: she'd spent her youthful years flying with Elmo. When it came to taking criticism of his piloting prowess, Elmo Benteen had ranked right up there with Hermann Goering.

  Portland had its share of surplus stores, as Reventio had promised, and Lovett did not stint on his supplies. He said nothing about the rolls and cans. of composite materials he added to the tool crates. Most of his B.O.F. fraternity might hoot at Kevlar and epoxy, but you could build an airplane with them using only hand tools and somehow, Lovett thought, he doubted they'd find any metalworking machine shops on Fundabora. For all they knew, any aircraft they ound inight need rework before you could even tow it.

  And besides, Lovett just plain liked the sound of "advanced composites"

  better than "retarded aluminum."

  As Reventio signed forms on Friday, Mel helped Lovett stow their supplies aboard the transport while Gunther made their preflight inspection. With a few courtesy lights in that cargo section and a functioning toilet in the rear, the old plane seemed downright luxurious. They were in the air by noon, Gunther uneasy and up front with Reventio because the dual controls, he claimed, at least gave him the illusion that he could wrestle with his luck. Lovett strapped himself near Mel Benteen in a sturdy old bucket seat next to the windows, and his pocketful of cheap foam earplugs found a willing taker.

  When those engines aren't quite synchronized they drive me nuts. Reminds me of Dad's Catalina," Mel said above the din of big radial engines.

  "They should," Lovett replied. "This one was refitted with the same Pratt & VVMTNEYS. We used to call 'em 'Briggs & Strattons' but they get you there."

  If they got you there, they did it at a leisurely hundred and fifty miles an hour. As Reventlo and Gunther flew south past Oregon's Coos Bay, their two passengers were wandering up and down the plane's length, checking tiedowns, silencing the little buzzes and rattles of sympathetic vibration that made a C-47 sound like an airborne junkyard shaken in a sack.

  Mel distributed fruit juice and chicken salad sandwiches as they droned down the San Joaquin Valley. "Think of this as noblesse oblige. First guy who treats me like a flight attendant scares up his own coffee," she told them, but no o
ne was that foolhardy.

  They landed in San Diego before sundown, where Victor Myles met them during refueling. As promised, he had picked up a few cartons of in-flight meal packs. "I brought a few other things," he said, nodding at a cart that was, loaded to its capacity. Myles wore hiking boots and his shooting jacket had its pockets stuffed. Lovett's stare at the heap of goods was disbelieving. "You forgot the pipe organ."

  "Naw, it's in there someplace with the bull fiddle," said Myles. "Hey, a survivalist goes prepared. Ah, some of my stuff is a little, uh, delicate, so let's treat it right." ' Reventlo, after signing for the fuel, turned and regarded Myles with misgivings. "Define delicate."

  Myles, boosting a huge duffel bag up with Gunther and Mel assisting, puffed, "You know-delicate, sensitive."

  Reventlo waited until the fuel man had driven away, all too aware of Myles's work with explosives. "Sensitive as in breakable, or a s in boom?"

  "Yeah," said Myles, wrestling a heavy carton.

  "All this stuff comes back off right now," Lovett said.

  Myles faced him squarely. "Those planes we're after? According to you, Elmo said they're in a cave. We don't know how much dirt or how many trees we gotta remove to get I em out. Who wants to take a year doing it all with picks and shovels? Come on, goddammit, let's have a show of hands!"

  Reventlo blinked, looked at Lovett, and shrugged. "I hate to admit Myles is right, Wade," he said. "But if I'm unaware of what he's brought, I needn't declare it."

  "I dunno," Lovett hedged.

  Myles grabbed up a carton sealed by duct tape, deliberately dropped it at his feet. Lovett had time only to flinch before Myles picked it up again and said, "You think I nurse a death wish? Every detonator is packed so far away from the next one, it'd be no worsen a firecracker."

  Reventlo smirked. "Every what, Victor?"

  "Desecrator," Myles said quickly. "Distillator, deprecator. I forget,"