"I just told you. I don't have any experience in airplanes like that; I'm a fighter pilot."
"So what are you telling me?"
"The strip in Santo Tome is dirt and short. For one thing, I'm not sure if it will handle the weight of the Lockheed. Equally important, since I had trouble here, I'll probably have more trouble at Santo Tome. Where I'll be landing at night, with jury-rigged runway lights."
" 'Jury-rigged runway lights'?"
"When they hear me flying over the strip, a couple of guys on horses are going to ride down the sides of the runway and light the landing lights, which are clay pots filled with sand and gasoline."
Ashton stroked his mustache with his index finger, then met Clete's eyes.
"I don't know what the word is, maybe 'practice.' If you had more practice, could you learn to land the airplane the way you're supposed to?"
"That's not possible."
"What's not possible? Getting any better at landing it?"
"Getting more practice."
"Why not?"
"Colonel Wallace has set up a meeting at 0900 tomorrow with the appro-priate Brazilian Customs officials to handle the paperwork for an international flight. There cannot be a record of this flight; therefore, I have to get out of here tonight."
"You can't fix that? Get Graham to fix it?"
"It would take at least twenty-four-more likely forty-eight-hours to ex-plain the problem to Colonel Graham and have him tell Wallace to butt out. I've got to get the airplane out of here tonight."
"So what happens?"
"There's a couple of possibilities. The basic problem is that there is maybe a fifty-fifty chance that I'll wreck the airplane trying to land it...."
"If that's the odds, why are you going to try it?"
"I have to try. I can't just chicken out. I told some people I'd get them an airplane."
"If you crash it, it won't do anybody any good."
"I will have tried. And I may get lucky."
"You are a dangerous man, mi Mayor."
"And we now know that the submarine-supply vessel will be in Samboromb¢n Bay in five or six days."
"And if you wreck the airplane with the radar on it, where will that leave us?"
"No worse off than we are now, unless you can come up with some way to get your team and the radar into Argentina and to Samboromb¢n Bay by your-self."
Ashton considered that a moment, then shrugged.
"One option," Clete went on, "would be to drop the radar-and maybe you and your team-by parachute onto the Santo Tome airstrip. Then I would try to land it."
"Would getting rid of that much weight make landing it any easier?"
"I've been thinking about that. The simple answer is yes. The less weight, the better. But you've got five people. That's a thousand pounds, tops. You told me you've got five crates..."
"Four," Ashton corrected him.
Clete nodded.