“Quick!” Bluey whispered, glancing at the shed. “There’s a collapsible stepladder in the luggage compartment with the auxiliary fuel tank. Get it, and be quiet about it! If there’s anybody sleeping in that shed, I don’t want to wake them.”
Cat ran around the airplane, opened the compartment, and found the little stepladder. He ran back to the right wing, set up the ladder and stood on it, taking the fuel hose from Bluey. He got the tank open and the nozzle inside.
“It’s not even locked,” Bluey said in a loud whisper.
Cat squeezed the handle and fuel began to flow. The tank was about half full when Bluey tugged at his trouser leg.
“Get down from there; get the shotgun and cover me.”
Cat looked over his shoulder and saw four sleepy-looking Indians approaching them from the direction of the shack. Three of them had pistols. The fourth was wielding a light submachine gun. Quickly, he got the cap back on the fuel tank and jumped down.
“Give me some money,” Bluey said hoarsely.
Cat dug into his shoulder holster and snatched out a bunch of fresh, new hundred-dollar bills. He gave them to Bluey, tossed the collapsible stepladder into the airplane, and grabbed the shotgun. He stood under the wing, his feet apart, with the weapon held at a stiff port arms, and tried to look calm.
“Amigos,” Bluey cried out, waving to the men. They stopped, and one of them began to talk rapidly. He stopped.
“What’s he saying?” Cat asked out of a corner of his mouth.
“I don’t know,” Bluey said, “but he’s pretty mad.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You said you speak Spanish!”
Bluey shook his head. “Yeah, but this is some kind of dialect.”
The Indian started talking again, and the man with the submachine gun cocked it ominously. Cat, somewhat to his surprise, worked the pump of the shotgun noisily. The four men all stepped back, staring at it. Bluey had said it was scary.
Bluey stepped forward and held up a hundred-dollar bill. The Indian stopped talking, then waved him forward. Bluey began to speak in Spanish, smiling, waving the money. Cat heard the word “amigos” used several times. The Indians were glancing at each other.
Bluey called over his shoulder without taking his eyes from the men, “How much fuel did you get into the tank?”
“Maybe half full,” Cat called back.
Bluey continued to talk. Now he was peeling off hundreds, counting loudly in Spanish. One of the Indians stepped forward, nodding, and took the money. The man with the submachine gun still looked threatening.
Bluey turned and began to walk toward the airplane. “Just keep standing there with the shotgun,” he called to Cat. “I’m going to turn the airplane around, then we’ll get the hell out of hero.” He walked to the rear of the plane, pushed down on the horizontal stabilizer, lifting the nose-wheel off the ground, and spun the airplane on its axis. When it was pointing down the runway again, he began to climb inside. “When the engine starts, get your ass in here,” he called to Cat.
“Right,” Cat replied. A moment later the engine cranked, then fired. Cat, half backing, made his way around the airplane, waving and smiling at the four Indians. They remained impassive and suspicious. Cat leapt into the airplane, and it started to move.
“No time for a run-up,” Bluey said, shoving the throttle to the firewall. “Here we go. I hope those bastards don’t start shooting.”
The airplane rolled down the short strip, picked up speed, and lifted easily into the air, lightened by its lessened fuel. Cat let out a long sigh.
“Okay,” Bluey said, “we’ve got a little more than an hour of fuel. Let’s find Idlewild. Bravo One, this is Bravo Two.”
To Cat’s astonishment, a voice immediately said, “Bravo Two, this is Bravo One. How far out are you?”
Bluey let out a whoop. “Stand by,” he said into the radio.
He pushed a button on the loran, and it came to life. “Bearing one three five degrees, distance twenty-two miles,” he said into the radio. “Sorry we’re late.”
“Exactly how late are you?” the voice asked, suspiciously.
Bluey glanced at his watch. “Thirty-one minutes,” he replied.
There was a pause, then: “Right, you’re cleared to land, Bravo Two,” the voice said.
Bluey and Cat looked at each other.
“Does that mean we won’t get shot at?” Cat asked.
“Looks that way,” Bluey grinned.
Five minutes later, Bluey pointed dead ahead. “Field in sight!” he shouted.
Cat looked at the long strip of dirt ahead of them and smiled weakly. “How much was the fuel?” he asked.
“A thousand bucks,” Bluey said, dropping the landing gear and lowering the flaps. “Do you mind?”
“A bargain,” Cat said, and meant it.
11
A man waved them to a parking place alongside half a dozen other aircraft — a DC-3 and some light twins. They turned the airplane and pushed it backward under a camouflage net. Cat was surprised to find himself on pavement. The airstrip was evidently covered by a thin layer of dirt, and not by nature’s design. As Cat watched, a small house on a trailer was hauled into the middle of the runway, and brush was placed in other strategic places.
“Makes it hard to spot from the air,” Bluey said. “They don’t uncover unless they’re expecting you, and anybody else who tried to land would have to run right through the house.” He led the way to a low building under more camouflage netting. Inside, a man at a desk looked up. He was at least seventy, skinny with a thin, white beard.
“Bluey,” he said. He looked as if nothing could surprise him. “What do you need?”
“Hi, Mac.” Bluey flopped down in a rickety chair and gazed at the ceiling fan whirling above him. “Fuel, a car for a couple days, some stamps on my papers.”
“How much fuel?”
“Just the wing tanks. About eighty gallons, I guess.”
“A grand in advance, and five grand deposit on the car. You can make your own deal on the stamps.” He picked up a microphone and said something in Spanish. His voice boomed across the strip over loudspeakers. “There’s a capitán around somewhere.”
Bluey peeled off most of the rest of the money Cat had given him. “Right. What kind of car?”
Mac tossed him some keys. “There’s a newish Bronco outside. You bend it, you buy it, and it’s expensive.”
“Right.”
The door opened and a uniformed Colombian police officer came in. Cat tensed, but Bluey stood up, shook his hand, and held a brief conversation in Spanish. There was some bargaining, and Bluey turned to Cat. “Give me a couple thousand.”
Cat handed him another wad of bills. Bluey produced the airplane’s papers. The policeman opened a briefcase, stamped the documents in several places, then made out a lengthy form, occasionally asking Bluey questions. Cat thought he heard a reference to passports, and Bluey shook his head. Cat produced his Ellis passport and Bluey’s, and the man blithely stamped them, hardly looking at them before returning them to Cat. He had been paid, and he couldn’t care less whose passports they were. Bluey looked puzzled but paid the man without comment.
“Come on,” Bluey said when the policeman had gone, “let’s get our gear into the car and get out of here.”
Cat handed Bluey his passport. “A little present from Carlos.”
Bluey looked at it and laughed. “Oh, he’s wonderful, he is. I’ve been travelling in Europe these past couple of years, according to this. I’ll bet he told you not to give it to me until you had to.”
“He did.”
“Ever cautious, Carlos.” He looked at Cat quizzically. “Why now, then?”
Cat returned his gaze. “Because I think I can trust you.”