Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse

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.”

Glancing at the GPS, she declared, “Okay, hombre, now we are outside of the TCA, and we can plaaay.” Banking sharply left and right to get a view under the plane’s wings and swiveling her head, she said, “I see empty skies.”

Doyle echoed, “Ditto, I confirm I see no traffic. Let’s play!”

Blanca snugged the straps on her X-harness and, with no cue needed, Doyle did likewise. Blanca then immediately launched into a series of aerobatics that would have made most other passengers puke. Doyle was whooping and laughing. She burned through seven thousand feet in less than a minute, doing rolls, loops, and spins. At one point Blanca’s flight bag levitated to the ceiling as they pulled negative g’s. Doyle snatched it and tucked it under his arm.

After climbing back up to ten thousand feet, Blanca put on a devilish grin. She launched into another series of maneuvers, even more violent. At one point Ian’s vision narrowed from the effect of pulling three g’s. Doyle never once felt tempted to take the controls, even when she intentionally put the plane into a flat spin. She deftly recovered and they both laughed. She climbed once again and put the plane through a pair of Immelmann turns and then a neat four-point roll.

“Now you show me something!” she said, making a show of throwing her hands up, off the stick.

Quickly drying his palms on his pant legs, Doyle grasped the other stick. He then took a couple of tentative turns, getting a feel for the aircraft. He throttled the engine up slightly and then adjusted the trim wheel to counteract the propeller’s torque. This took a couple of tries to get just right, since he was unfamiliar with the gradation of the wheel.

“Esta bien! You just showed me a very nice four-point roll. Now, this is an eight- pointer!” After completing the roll, he continued: “And this is a sixteen-pointer.”

After completing the second roll, he said, “Sorry, that was a little sloppy. I’m not used to a plane where I’m fighting prop torque like this. Flying jets spoils a man.” After a beat, he shouted, “Hands on stick!”

She obliged.

He then declared, “It’s your aircraft!” and dropped his hands.

She was quizzical. “What? That’s all you show me?”

As she resumed control, he explained, “Look, Blanca, I didn’t come up here to show off my fighter-jock stuff. I came to see you do your thing.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think you’re beautiful, and I think that your flying is just as beautiful. Muy bella.”

Blanca beamed and deftly banked to dive toward Lake Yojoa, visible in the distance. In the dive, their ground speed got above 160.

He truly was impressed by her flying ability. He recognized that she was a natural for stick and rudder as well as situational awareness. The thing that impressed him the most was her gracefulness in both right- and left-hand turns. Most pilots were good at only one or the other, depending on their handedness. He commented to her on this, and she explained, “Mi papa, he’s the tennis guy. Since I was a little girl, he insist that I learn everything ambidextrous-no, ambidextrously-even with the holding of a fork.”

“La tenedor,” Doyle reminded himself aloud, from a recent lesson.