The Honor of Spies

Fighter aircraft from fields in Scotland flew out over the ocean to escort them safely past German fighters flying out of France. To keep a German fighter formation from happening upon a fleet of transports, the transports flew separately.

The same protection system was put in place as the transports flew from England to North Africa. They were escorted out over the Atlantic by fighters, then flew alone far enough out to sea to avoid German interception as they flew south, until they were met by North Africa-based American fighters over the Atlantic a hundred miles at sea, then escorted to North African air bases, most often Sidi Slimane.

"Aircraft squawking on One One Seven, this is Mother Hen. How do you read?" Captain Dooley inquired. They were approximately 130 miles out over the Atlantic.

"Mother Hen, Five Oh Nine reads you loud and clear."

"Grandma, read you five by five. I should be able to see you. Are you on the deck?"

"Actually, Mother Hen, I'm at twenty thousand. From up here, I can see what looks like a bunch of little airplanes at what's probably ten thousand. Is that you?"

Dooley looked up, searching the sky. He saw the sun glinting off the unpainted skin of an aircraft that looked vaguely familiar, and for a moment he had a sick feeling in his stomach.

Jesus Christ, is that a Condor?

The Germans were running their long-range transport, the Condor, from fields in Spain to South America. The 94th had been ordered to "engage and destroy" any such aircraft they encountered.

Archie Dooley did not want to shoot down an unarmed transport.

Orders are orders.

Fuck it!

"Mother Hen to all Chicks. Follow me. Do not--repeat, do not--engage until I give the order."

He pushed his throttles forward and began his climb.

Getting to twenty thousand feet didn't take much time, but catching up with the sonofabitch took a hell of a long time.

He has to be making three hundred miles an hour! I didn't think the Condor was anywhere near this fast.

Jesus, that's not a Condor!

What the fuck is it?

Dooley finally pulled close enough to see that the airplane, whatever the hell it was, was American. There was a star-and-bar recognition sign on the fuselage, and when he picked up a few more feet of altitude, he saw that U.S. ARMY was painted on the wing.

He looked back at the tail to see if there was a tail number.

Tail, hell. It's got three of them!

"Five Oh Nine, this is Mother Hen."

"Oh, hello there, Mother Hen. I wondered how long it was going to take you to get up here."

Dooley pulled closer and parallel to the cockpit of the huge--And beautiful! Jesus, that's good-looking!--airplane.

The pilot waved cheerfully at him.

Dooley saw that he was not wearing an oxygen mask.

Don't tell me it's pressurized! It has to be. He's at twenty thousand with no mask!

Jesus, I know what it is. It's a Constellation! I've seen pictures.

What the hell is it doing here?

Dooley saw that his airspeed indicator needle was flickering at 320.

"Five Oh Nine, Mother Hen. We are going to form a protective shield above and ahead and behind you and lead you in."

"Thank you very much."

I will be goddamned if I will ask him if that's really a Constellation.

Dooley went almost to the deck with the Constellation, watched it touch smoothly down, then shoved his throttles forward and picked up the nose so that he--and the rest of the flight--could go around and get in the landing stack.

When Dooley's P-38 was at the end of its landing roll, he was surprised to see that instead of at Base Ops, where he expected it to be, the Constellation was at a remote corner of the field, where maybe fifty people were hurriedly erecting camouflage netting over it.

"Mother Hen to all Chicks. Refuel, check your planes, but don't get far from them. I was told to expect another mission when we got back."

He switched radio frequencies from Air-to-Air Three to Air-to- Ground Two.

"Sidi Tower, Mother Hen is going to taxi to the Constellation."

"Negative, Mother Hen. You are denied--"

Dooley turned his radios off and taxied to the Constellation.

By the time he got there, the camouflage netting was in place and the staff car of the base commander was parked at the foot of a long ladder that reached up to the fuselage of the Constellation.

The base commander glowered at Dooley.

Fuck it! What's he going to do, send me to North Africa?

He started to shut down the Lightning.