Clayton turned and shouted to his flight engineer. “Butch!”
“Yes, sir.”
“How much fuel do we have left?”
“Twenty-five minutes, if we’re lucky.”
Paul Lunsford leaned forward from the nose. “Captain, I’ve got an idea?”
“Let’s hear it,” Clayton answered, hanging on the controls.
“Let’s climb out of this mess and look for the center. I once read somewhere that the eye is supposed to be the calmest part of any hurricane or typhoon. Let’s find the eye and see if she’s over land. If not, we’ll follow it until it is over land. And hopefully one of our bomber bases.”
Loran shrugged. “Sounds OK by me.”
“Let’s do it,” Clayton said, pulling up on the controls. The Mary Jane climbed skyward, the four radial engines straining. The dark-gray cloud turned to a lighter gray. Like magic, the instruments returned to normal. The sun burst through. Then, they were above the cloud. The altimeter read 32,000 feet.
“RADAR OPERATOR TO COMMANDER. I GOT A READING OF A COASTLINE BELOW US THROUGH ALL THAT. BY THE SHAPE OF IT, THOUGH, SHE’S NOT TINIAN.”
“There it is, captain!” Lunsford shouted. “Through some scattered cloud.”
“Where?”
“Off starboard.”
“Yeah,” Clayton nodded. “Butch, how much fuel?”
“Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, tops.”
The cloud below thinned out. The air was calm. It was an awesome sight. Any of the crew members who had a window watched in awe at the circular wall of cloud that surrounded them, three or four miles higher than their altitude.
“Holy shit! That’s Guam!” Loran shouted. “The eye is over Guam. Hot damn! That looks like the navy base at Agana. Geez, those runways are too small, though. We have to make North Field where the B-29 base is.”
“Too late,” Clayton said, pointing in the direction of the base. “Look, North Field is too close to the storm wall. It’s the navy base, short runways or no short runways.”
“You’re right.”
Clayton banked left and began to descend quickly. “COMMANDER TO RADIO OPERATOR. CAN YOU MAKE RADIO CONTACT?”
“I’M RUNNING THROUGH THE FREQUENCIES NOW, SIR.”
AGANA
Captain MacDonald and a skeleton crew had kept the base open through the first stage of the typhoon, weathering it out in the administration building. Now, in the eye, MacDonald came out for air, standing on the steps of the building, scanning the base. Startled, he heard prop engines overhead and glanced up. What! Who the hell was out in this! At first the sight of a four-engined B-29 circling on final approach — gear down — didn’t register. As it kept banking, it was then that he clearly saw eight letters on the shiny metal surface below the port window.
What the… Crap! It was the Mary Jane.
Aboard the Mary Jane, Clayton aimed the nose for the very edge of the nearest runway so that he would have plenty of room to slow down at the other end. If he could.
“Wing flaps, forty-five degrees.”
Loran’s left hand went for the aisle stand where the switches for the landing sequence were situated. “Wing flaps, forty-five degrees.”
“COMMANDER TO RADIO OPERATOR. RETRACT ANTENNA.”
“ROGER, COMMANDER.”
Clayton nodded. By experience, Loran knew what that nod meant, and his hand went again to the aisle stand, this time for the automatic flight control system. He flicked the switch to OFF.
“COMMANDER TO ENGINEER. MIXTURE?”
“AUTO-RICH.”
“BOOSTER PUMPS?”
“ON.”
“FUEL PRESSURE?”
“SIXTEEN INCHES, COMMANDER.”
Loran moved the supercharger controls to ON and the propeller controls to a cruise speed of 2,000 RPM. At the same time, he carefully watched the speed as the ground and runway raced towards them.
“Speed 130, Ian… 125…”
MacDonald ran into the administration building and burst into his office.
“Tower!” he belted into the telephone receiver. “This is Captain MacDonald.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s the B-29 doing out there?”
“He said it’s an emergency, sir. He said he has to land. He only has ten minutes or less of fuel.”
“What was his callsign?”
“Hawkeye three-six.”
“Oh, no! Stop him!” MacDonald demanded.
“I can’t, sir. It just landed.”
MacDonald slammed the receiver down, then picked it up again and tapped out another number. It rang twice before someone answered.
“Security.”
“This is Captain MacDonald. I want two of your men to meet me in front of the runway side of the administration building in one minute, with a jeep and guns loaded. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Clayton feathered the brakes, pressing harder each time, as the end of the runway loomed closer. Finally, he was forced to press all the way.
“Come on, Mary Jane, stop. STOP!”
MacDonald sprinted down the hall, and by the time he flew out the door the jeep was waiting for him.
“Follow that bomber!” he yelled, out of breath, at the driver.
“Aye, aye, captain.”
At the end of the runway, the tired crew tramped down the nose hatch and walked free of the bomber. They had come to a stop only fifteen feet short of the runway’s edge.
“Where are we, Ian?” Loran asked. “I thought this was Guam.”
“Look over there,” Clayton said, pointing across the runway. “More of those strange fighters with no props.”
Schwartz felt for the film he had removed from the camera. It was still inside his breast pocket. His eyes went to the black skid marks down the runway. “What a ride that was!”
“Hey,” Marshall called out, “here comes a jeep.”
“Man alive, that’s a Superfortress,” the jeep driver commented, as he drove closer.
“Stop right here, now!” MacDonald said.
The driver slammed on the brakes sixty feet short of the bomber. MacDonald jumped out, ten feet from the aircrew and pulled a gun on them. Behind him, the two security men held their guns high while they jumped from the jeep. MacDonald stared at the bomber and saw the letters Mary Jane below the pilot window and the painting of the busty girl in a green bathing suit. This wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t. “Who’s Captain Clayton?” he wanted to know.
“Right here.” Clayton stepped forward. “How’d yuh know my name?”
“Never mind that. I know a lot of things about you.”
“What is this place? I thought we were landing at Agana.”
“Get out of here. Get back in your bomber and GO! Now!”
“Are you kidding?” Clayton shouted back. “Our tanks are nearly bone dry. Where are we supposed to go in this storm? We don’t have enough fuel for a proper takeoff!”
“I don’t care! Get out of here, or we’ll shoot you on the spot.” MacDonald couldn’t think of what to say next. Then… “This is… this is a restricted US Navy area. You have no business being here.”
The guards pointed their guns at Schwartz and Marshall.
Clayton glanced over his shoulder at his crew. “I think they mean it, boys. Let’s go.”
“Why did you let us land in the first place?” Loran asked MacDonald.
Chapter nineteen
GUAM
Les heard the rustle of the palm tree leaves across the street. The wind was coming from the opposite direction and the sky was growing darker by the minute. “We better get back in the house,” he said to his father and Cameron. “The calm is over. Here comes the second blast.”