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What the hell are they going to do, play chicken? Frade thought, then said, “Jesus, I hope those Russians blink first!”
Suddenly, coming from the rear on both sides of the Connie, there was a burst of tracer fire—four red lines arching across the sky—and then another, and finally a third, single line of tracers, brighter than the first two.
“Ach du Lieber Gott!” von Wachtstein said.
“Not to worry, Hansel,” Frade said. “What they’re doing is testing their guns.”
“For Christ’s sake, I know tracers when I see them,” von Wachtstein said. “What was the last single burst? The bright one?
“That came from the Hispano-Suiza 20mm machine cannon,” Frade said. “The parallel tracer lines came from the four .50-caliber Brownings. You didn’t know that?”
Frade looked out his side window. The P-38 pilot who had tested his guns had pulled up next to them. He waved and grinned cheerfully.
Clete could see enough of the YAK-3s now to know that he had never seen one before. He looked at the leading edge of their wings waiting for the flashes of their weaponry.
They never came.
All of a sudden, the noses of the Russian airplanes lowered and they dived, quickly becoming smaller and smaller dots.
“I think the decision was made not to shoot us down,” von Wachtstein said softly.
“They would have had to go through Archie and his guys to do that. I wasn’t worried.”
I was scared silly, is what I was.
Terrified. About to wet my pants . . .
Frade reached for the radio control panel and switched to Air-Ground Channel Four.
“Tempelhof, this is South American Airways Zero Zero Four.”
“Double Zero Four, Tempelhof. I read you five by five. How me?”
Thank you, God!
“Five by five, Tempelhof. We are approximately sixty miles out at ten thousand, indicating three-fifty. Request approach and landing.”
“Double Zero Four, maintaining present course, begin to descend to five thousand feet at this time. Report when you have the field in sight.”
“Understand descend to five thousand and report when I can see you.”
“Affirmative. Be advised there have been reports of Soviet aircraft operating on your course.”
“Tempelhof, be advised my Little Brother and his pals chased the bad birds away. Beginning descent to five thousand at this time.”
“Tempelhof, Zero Zero Four. At six thousand and I have the field in sight.”
“South American Double Zero Four, maintain present altitude until over the field. Then commence descent in ninety-second three-sixty-degree turns. Report when at fifteen hundred.”
“Understand when over the field, commence ninety-second circular descent to fifteen hundred.”
“Double Zero Four. Affirmative.”
“I’m surprised anybody’s still alive,” Clete said as they slowly descended over the rubble of what was once the German capital. “Jesus, this is worse than Cologne or Frankfurt.”
“I don’t think Frankfurt or Cologne had as many thousand-bomber raids by the Americans in the daytime, followed by English thousand-plane raids at night,” von Wachtstein said matter-of-factly. “Hamburg is supposed to be even worse.”
“Tempelhof, South American Zero Zero Four at fifteen hundred.”
