Shooting Script

'Why the hell should we care about you?' J.B. asked politely.

'I'll come to that. My point is Diego gotme into your job, not the other way around. You already knew him – and who he was.'

'You're guessing pretty wild, fella.'

'You forget I've seen her at work. ' I nodded at J.B. 'The day she hired me, she had a complete breakdown on my costs, she knew all my flying history, she probably has a set of my grandmother's fingerprints. Don't tell me she'd let Diego get mixed up with you without even knowing hisname. I just don't believe she'd fall down on the job that far.'

There was another silence. Then Whitmore said, still calm: 'Okay – so we knew. So what? He was a good kid. And he still spoke Spanish.'

'You asked me another question that day,' I said. 'You asked me about a camera plane: something with twin engines where you could put a camera in the nose. That was a frame, too: the answerhad to be a bomber, like the Mitchell. And then Diego's agent found one for you – and you gave Diego the okay to fly in it with me. Just what the hell were you and him planning with that bomber?'

After a while, Luiz sighed and said: 'We've been called, Walt. Time to turn up our cards.'

Whitmore frowned, grunted, and lifted his huge shoulders in a slow shrug. 'Okay, so you guessed it. Well, I guess after we'd finished with the plane and the kid knew how to fly it, we were going to let him use it.'

'For what?'

He shrugged again. 'He had an idea he could get hold of some bombs, then if all the jets were lined up, the way we sawthem, he could have' – he snapped his fingers – 'like that. Knock 'em all out in one pass. Change the whole balance in the República.'

'You were going to back abombing raid?' I asked incredulously.

'Hell – you saw what bastards were running the place, when we were down there.'

I stared around: at J.B., who was hunched in her chair, staring resolutely into her whisky; at Luiz, leaning on the refrigerator, thoughtfully opening and closing the door.

'You all knew this?' I asked.

J.B. took a fast jolt of rye. 'I knew. Hell, I advised it, in a way.'

I said: 'This isn't just a cow-town with a crook sheriff and a drunken mayor; this is somebody's country. Somebodyelse's country.'

Luiz flipped the door shut with a thud. 'It was my country -once. Long ago, and under a different name, of course. But I went to school with Jiminez. He is a good man. So – perhaps you could say it is all my fault.' He frowned suddenly and very sadly. 'Perhaps, anyway.'

Whitmore said: 'Hell, no. I'd've backed the kid anyhow.'

'I see.' I nodded. 'I see. Well, at least that means it doesn't matter so much that he got killed, does it?'

Luiz stared sharply; Whitmore frowned. 'How d'you figure outthat?'

'Because the poor bastard would've killed himself anyway, trying to handle that Mitchell. And if he didn't he'd certainly have got himself killed in the attack. He only had to miss one jet – one – and he'd've had Ned Rafter sitting on his tail inside three minutes.'

'He was a good kid,' Whitmore said.

'He was a sports-car driver. That Mitchell's a professional aeroplane – and an air war's a professional business, too. It isn't as easy as it looks in the movies. Why the hell d'you think the Republica's paying Ned a thousand dollars a week or whatever?'

He'd looked a little pained at the crack about the movies. But then he sighed heavily. 'Well – yeah, maybe you're right.

But we had a sort of other idea, too. We kind of thought you might take it over. How d'you feel?'

What I felt was that the world was coming loose at the hinges if I was really sitting here with a drink in either hand being asked if I just happened to feel like going on a mission to bomb the bejazus out of somebody's air force.

And what's so odd about that? Less than two weeks back you were offered a job at$750a week to fly jets against somebody else's rebels in somebody else's hills. You didn't think that was so odd. All right, now the other side's made you an offer.

Well, maybe so – but these people aren't rebels; they're two Hollywood stars and a top American lawyer. The thing's crazy. It's like a Walt Whitmore film.

So? Maybe that's exactly what he wants. He's spent the last thirty years playing this part in the movies – maybe he wants to have a crack at it in real life. Maybe he thinks it's just that simple. Haven't you ever heard an actor talking politics before, Carr?

'You're a pro,' Whitmore said.

'No. That was a long time ago.'

Luiz said: 'Such as last Saturday, over Santo Bartolomeo?'

I gave him a look, then said carefully: 'Look – Diego's been murdered already. That means-'

'Yeah.' He nodded decisively. 'I'd kind of hate to drop it now the kid got dead.'

'The Diego Jiminez Ingles Memorial Bombing Mission,' I said grimly. 'But that means they know something's up. They've already got me on the list – probably they know about the Mitchell, by now.'

Luiz moved his shoulders delicately. 'It will, indeed, be most difficult. For myself, I do not think one old bomber, one pilot – and afighter pilot, too – could do this thing.'

'Hell, I coulddo it,' I said. 'I've practised ground-attack work, and if they're lined up like we saw them-' Then I looked at him and said slowly: 'You bastard. You tricky bastard.'

He smiled softly.

Whitmore said impatiently: 'You fly this mission and you'll get your plane back.'

After a moment, I said: 'How the hell can you promise that?'

'We can get you a written guarantee from Jiminez: when he takes over, first thing he'll do is let you take your plane out. Okay?'

J.B. suddenly shook her head. 'Let's level with him, Boss. We'vegot a written guarantee from Jiminez. Got it that afternoon in Santo Bartolomeo. That was the real point of the trip: we'd arranged to meet Jiminez just out of town. By then you'd lost your plane, so we asked him for the guarantee. Just in case.'

'Just in case,' I said thoughtfully.

'You're a free man, Carr,' she snapped. But she didn't look at me. 'You haven't signed any contract for this. And the film job holds, whatever you do.'

But how free was I – without that Dove? I still owed money on her, and as soon as the film work was finished, I'd start missing payments on her. And London would start firing off sixteen-inch lawyers at me. I'd live through it – but I'd never own a plane again. It still wasn't a very good reason for getting mixed up in someone else's war.

I said: 'That guarantee may not be worth anything, of course…'

'I personally will back Jiminez's word,' Luiz said sharply.

'Yes? But you can't guarantee he'll win his revolution, whatever I do. He may never get near die Dove.'

Luiz glanced at Whitmore. After a while, Whitmore said: 'So put it this way: you fly the mission and you getsome plane. If Jiminez don't get in or don't pay out, you keep the B-25. Fly it, sell it, do what you like. It must be worth something. Maybe even the twelve grand I paid for it. All yours, fella.'

I smiled. 'And if I get pinched in the process, the aero-plane'll turn out to be mine, not yours – right?'

He shrugged; a huge slow movement. 'You get yourself caught, fella, and I guess the generals won't worry too much about whose plane it was.'

He had a point there, of course.

'He hasn't said he'll do it, yet,' J.B. said.

'Haven't I?' I said. 'Oh, I'll do it, all right.'

This time she looked at me, quietly, carefully. And maybe even a little disappointed. Then she took a deep breath. 'Okay – so the next problem: we're going to have newspapermen down from Miami by noon. If they see that bomber, they might start getting some right ideas. Where can we hide it?'