When The Great Famine of 1948 - 1950 had struck Northern Europe, Spain and Italy, or, to be more precise, Franco and Mussolini, had bought their survival by shipping free food into the stricken countries. The supplies of Spanish rice and Italian pasta had probably been the margin that prevented the famine from killing hundreds of thousands of northern Europeans by starvation. Even now, with the Baltic and North Sea too polluted for fishing, most of Europe's fish supplies came from the Mediterranean.
They'd won survival, not acceptance. Throughout the 1950s, Spain and Italy had been pariah states. The standard description of southern European politics in those days had been "Mussolini speaks only to Franco and Franco speaks only to God". Almost inevitably, the two pariah nations had gravitated together, at first informally, then in an ever-growing network of trade and tariff treaties. Eventually, they'd been formalized in an alliance known as the Mediterranean Confederation.
It wasn't as close as it sounded. Appearance had always counted for more than reality in both Spain and Italy, but it was still a group to be reckoned with. In fact, with Spanish control at the Atlantic gateway by way of its fortresses at Gibraltar and Ceuta and Italian control in the middle by way of Sicily, Malta and Libya, the Mediterranean Confederation had a potential stranglehold on trade across the whole area. There was an American fleet in the Mediterranean, and one of the reasons they were there was to make sure that potential did not become reality.
But, all of that was appearances, not reality. In reality, the Mediterranean Confederation was a weak structure on shaky foundations. Despite its name, it was an alliance, not a discrete political entity and its members had differing aims and objectives. They were also very different countries.
Spain was still a dictatorship, ruled with the absolute authority of General Franco. Certainly, his relationship with Hitler had allowed him to seize Gibraltar when the British had started their slow collapse under Lord Halifax but that was all. It had taken decades for Spain to recover from the depredations of the Civil War and its isolation hadn't helped. Spanish rule in its North African provinces was weak and ineffectual, they only retained authority because there had been no credible challenger to that appearance.
Now, that was changing. Once the situation on the African Littoral started to deteriorate, they had nothing to fall back on. The Spanish Air Force still flew German piston-engined fighters and bombers from World War Two. Their Navy was mostly port-bound relics of the same era and their Army hadn't changed since its victory in 1939. Spain was a grim, bleak place these days
Italy, now that was a different matter. Mussolini, dismissed pre-war as a pseudo-Hitlerian buffoon, had turned out to be a cannier politician than anybody had credited. He'd pulled out of Greece, withdrawn forces from the Egyptian border and made peace with his enemies, internal and external. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Italy had been faced with a virtual civil war between Mussolini's Legati, the Monarchists and the residue of the communists. He'd managed to avert that, allegedly inspired by a shot of a Roman legionary standard and its inscription SPQR in a film about the Roman Empire. Critics had said that the compromise he'd come up with was one only an Italian could think of and only Italians could make work.
Even Mussolini's worst critics had to admit that the scheme had worked. The Italian Constitution provided for a Parliament with two chambers. The senior of the two was the Senate whose members were supposed to represent the institutions of state, the Church, the Judiciary and the provinces. The other chamber was the Legate which was supposed to represent the people and was directly elected by popular vote. The hereditary Speaker of the Senate was the King, the hereditary head of the Legate was Mussolini and his heirs. The two were supposed to balance each other and, because their positions were hereditary, take a long-term view that the elected members of the houses would lack.
Mussolini had also shed the bombast and posturing that had made him a laughing stock during the 1930s. Perhaps the total destruction of Germany had given him a dreadful foresight of where such behavior would lead. Perhaps he was smart enough to understand that the time for such performances was over. Nobody knew for sure, but for the last decade of his life, his behavior had been as circumspect as earlier it had been boisterous. When his wife had died he'd married his long-time mistress Clara Petacci and lived quietly in Rome. He'd died eight years ago and his official position had been inherited by his son Romano Mussolini.
It was Romano Mussolini who was approaching in the line of limousines. A talented painter and jazz musician, he was a very different man from his father. On taking power, he had announced that his objective was to create a second renaissance for Italy, a rebirth of culture and style in an era that sorely needed it. He'd taken Cosimo Medici as his model and become a patron of arts and humanities, a builder of monuments and wonders. Most rulers with such plans created megalomaniac atrocities but Romano Mussolini had simply made money available and looked for the best architects and artists he could find. Then left them to do their jobs.
Under his rule, Italy had been reborn as a country of gaiety and vivacity; one where good food, good wine, music and laughter were not just considered the desirable norm but an indispensable part of life. The country made a brilliant contrast to the austere and stark dictatorship in Spain. With the renaissance had come prosperity. Italy now had the cultural authority that France had once held, Italian goods were sought worldwide for their style and a visit to the country was considered essential for any self-respecting tourist. Italy, Kozlowski thought, could have done far, far worse than Romano Mussolini.
Two men, two women and a young child got out of the middle limousine. One of the men was Romano Mussolini, the other the American Ambassador to Italy. "Colonel Hazen, Major Kozlowski, I have the honor to present the Speaker of the Legate, Signor Romano Mussolini."
The two pilots snapped out textbook parade ground salutes. Mussolini looked faintly embarrassed, as if he knew he should return the salutes but didn't know how. Which was true.
"Gentlemen, forgive me for not returning your salutes but I am embarrassingly bad at such things." Mussolini gave a disarming smile "My father was much better at military courtesies. I hope it is enough that I say how delighted 1 am to see you. I am most grateful that you have come to visit our country and brought these beautiful aircraft with you. May I present my wife, Anna Maria, my daughter Alessandra and my sister-in-law Sophia."
Kozlowski followed Colonel Hazen down the guest line. Mussolini beamed proudly when he introduced his family and had an engaging friendliness that both pilots found instantly likable. His wife had the slightly flustered charm of most young mothers at a formal affair with a young child to care for. At the end of the line Mussolini's sister-in-law was purely, undeniably, drop-dead gorgeous. Colonel Hazen was already taking Mussolini and his family over to his RB-58 Spider Woman. Heaven be praised, that left Kozlowski to look after the sister-in-law.
"May I show you over Marisol Signora?"
"Please call me Sophia, Major, I have too much formality in my life. But I would very much like to see the legendary Marisol who lead the raid on Myitkyina."
"I'm Mike, Sophia. Please be careful on the steps, it’s easy to slip. This is my crew station here, the pilot's cockpit. Aft of me is the Bear's Den where Eddie Korrina works and right aft is the Electronics Pit. That's Xav Dravar's seat. I'm just the bus driver, I fly the aircraft. Eddie is our offensive systems operator, he operates our air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles while Xav looks after the defensive systems, the jammers, decoys, threat location systems and the rest."