James Rawles - Survivors - A Novel of the Coming Collapse

“You left out that I’m a great cook and an excellent dancer.”

All three of them laughed.

Finally, they sat down to a four-course dinner that was served by the cook and dutifully attended by the maid. The conversation over dinner ranged from flying, to shooting, to duck hunting, to Arturo’s recollections of what Blanca was like as a little girl, and, of course, to tennis.

Ian got to try out some of his new Spanish phrases. His fractured grammar and conjugational foul-ups earned him a lot of good-spirited laughter. Arturo was gracious, saying only: “You are learning quickly, my boy. And I’m glad to hear you use a good Castilian accent. So many Americans I meet, even scientists and engineers, are educated only in the gutter Spanish.”

After a long pause, Arturo glanced over the top of his glasses and asked gravely, “Are you Catholic?”

“Yes, sir. Born and raised, Irish-Catholic. I still attend Mass faithfully.” Realizing that he was taking a huge risk of offending his host, he added: “But additionally, I have come to more of a personal faith in Jesus Christ. Between him and me, I feel no need of a mediator. The pope and the priests are fine for ceremony, but I truly feel that I’m saved personally: by Jesus, by faith in him alone, by his grace, and with my sins paid for by his sacrifice on the cross. I love Jesus with all mi corazon .”

Arturo brightened and clasped his hand on Ian’s shoulder. “I feel the same way also. It is refreshing to hear that from a fellow member of the church.”

Everything continued to go well until it was time for cigars and brandy. Arturo was slightly miffed when Ian accepted a snifter but refused a cigar, saying, “ Lo siento mucho, senor, but I don’t smoke. No fumo. ”

As he trimmed and lit his cigar, Arturo tut-tutted and then said resignedly, “Oh, well, you pilots are such health nuts. You don’t know what you’re missing. Honduran cigars are just as good as los Cubanos . But I can say I now smoke only about one of these a month.”

Blanca joked, “You know, Daddy, I gave up cigars years ago, when I decided to follow in the steps of Amelia Earhart.”

As Blanca gave Ian a ride back to the base, she went on and on about how well Ian had gotten along with her father, mentioning how unprecedented that was. After a couple of minutes of driving on in silence, she said simply, “I think he really likes you, Ian.”

“I like him too.” Then he asked: “Where’d you get that pearl necklace?”

“Before they were married, my father and mother went on a trip to the Islas de la Bahia. Those are our Bay Islands on the east coast. They were snorkeling and Daddy dove to bring up an oyster. Inside of this oyster was this pearl. Later on that same day my father asked my mother to marry him. The pearl, it was too big and fragile for a ring, so it was placed on this necklace. Ever since then, my father nicknamed my mother conchita , which means ‘little oyster.’ And now he sometimes calls me that.”

After a long pause, she added, “My mother gave me this when she was dying of the cancer.”

“Lo siento mucho, Blanca.”

“It’s okay. That was a long time ago.”

“May I call you conchita ?”

Blanca giggled, “Yes, Ian, you may, but not in public! You see, among the lower classes-especially in Argentina- conchita has a different, a very crude meaning; so please don’t you call me that around other people-or at least around anyone from Argentina.”

“Si, mi conchita.”

She drove on in silence, obviously deep in thought.

After passing through the formalities with the air base’s gate guards, Blanca turned to face Ian and said, “You know, Mr. Lieutenant Doyle, you were very clever, finding out all those things about me from Consuelo.”

“Yes, I must admit I do overplan things.”

“So, why did you do all that-the orchids and the Almond Roca? I think also the flamenco music.” Her voice grew sharp. “Why?”

Doyle coughed nervously. “Because I fell in love with your voice on the radio from the tower, even before I ever laid eyes on you. And when someone like me loves someone as much as I love you… well. I’m the kind of guy that will nearly warp space and time, just to make everything fall into place. I am absolutely head over heels, crazy in love with you, Blanca.”

Just then her car reached the driving circle in front of the White House.

“Perhaps I will see you again, Ian,” she said, ushering him out with a wave and a smile. He blew her a kiss. As her eyes lingered on him for a moment, he added, half shouting: “Encantado, Senorita!”

As he approached the front steps of the White House, Ian Doyle stopped in his tracks. He realized why Blanca had worn the pearl necklace. That pearl had been a key part of her father’s marriage proposal to her mother. Wearing it had been her way of telling her father: This man is bona fide marriage material.

The next few weeks were a blur. The squadron’s operational tempo increased, and Ian was flying a lot. Most of his contact with Blanca was by correspondence. Their love letters began cordially but became more familiar and gained a note of passion as time went on. Partly because two of the Hondo Expedition pilots had fallen ill with traveler’s tummy, Ian was flying as much as six days a week, a grueling pace.

Most of Ian’s missions were uneventful. The only real excitement came on a couple of flights when his plane’s radar warning receiver went off over hostile territory. These were mainly Gun Dish radars, part of Russian-built ZSU 23-4s-four-barrel 23mm antiaircraft cannons. The plane’s radar warning receiver (RWR) going off caused a bit of angst and prompted some lively discussion at the postflight debriefings.

On a Sunday forty days into his Honduras rotation, Blanca took Ian flying. Above his objection to split the cost, she treated him to a two-hour rental in her favorite plane, an Italian-built Pioneer P200. It was a very small, sleek, low-wing plane that had unusual dual sticks in a side-by-side cockpit.

As they approached the plane for their preflight, Doyle said, “I was expecting you to rent some zippy biplane with seats fore and aft.”

She grinned. “I think a side-by-side configuration like this is much more, ah, romantica , no?” Quickly changing subjects, she said, “The dry weight of this bird is only 260 kilos-light as a feather!”

“Oh, man, that is light! Did you know that an F-16 weighs about twelve thousand kilos fully fueled?”

Blanca was wearing a very attractive white flight suit with zippers everywhere. As they walked around the plane, checking the fuel tanks, wiggling the wings, and checking the flaps and rudder, Doyle’s eyes kept drifting back to Blanca. The flight suit certainly accentuated her trim figure.

They pulled the chocks and climbed aboard. Sitting in the plane’s left seat, he admired Blanca’s finesse as she worked the radio and rolled out to the taxi strip, craning her head to do repeated 360 eyeballs of both the plane’s control surfaces and her surroundings. She didn’t miss a beat. After getting takeoff clearance, she punched in the throttle and took off after a surprisingly short roll. Climbing out at seven hundred feet per minute, she took the plane up to ten thousand feet and headed west as they chatted about the plane’s characteristics.

“What’s this bird stressed for?” Ian asked.

“Four g’s pos, and two g’s negative.”

Doyle nodded approvingly.

Blanca continued, “It’s been upgraded to a 110-horsepower plant. She’ll do 145 miles per hour, at altitude. Redline is 5,600 rpms. Oh, and watch your sink rate if you pull more than a 60- degree bank. I think you’ll like flying it. It takes very light control forces. I love this plane because you don’t have to muscle the stick.”