Once they left Luanda, navigation was surprisingly simple. Twenty minutes out of Luanda-still in a slow climb passing 9,000 feet-Canidy saw a light to their right and pointed it out to Whittaker. “Probably Salazar,” Whittaker said, but then corrected himself.
“It has to be Salazar. According to the chart, there’s absolutely nothing down there but jungle and that town.” Canidy leveled off at 10,000 feet, flew far enough to the left of Salazar so that no one would hear the airplane, and pointed the nose toward Malange, 110 miles farther along. Five minutes later, faint but unmistakable against the absolute blackness, they could see another glow of lights. He flew the lights to Ca colo, then to Nova Chaves, again far enough to one side so that no one could hear the engines. Ten minutes after passing Nova Chaves, they spotted a yellow glow that had to be Kasaji, in the Belgian Congo, for there was nothing else resembling civilization for three hundred miles.
They were now over the border-which made them now absolutely illegal.
They had entered the airspace of a neutral, German-occupied country without permission. The least offense they could be accused of now would be violating airspace. Later, after they loaded the ore, they would be smuggling. Unless, of course-and this didn’t seem unlikely-the Germans to whom the Belgians would have to turn them over decided the best way to deal with the situation-cut down on the paperwork-was to shoot them on the spot. The London chief of station wants Whittaker to shoot me. He won’t do that, and I damned sure won’t shoot myself Why would the Germans, before they shot me, suspect I knew anything more than my orders? And probably damned little about why I was flying this airplane except that I was ordered to. Then the glow that had to be Kolwezi appeared dead ahead, a soft yellow spot that seemed even from a distance larger than the other towns. As they got closer, the lights came into focus and took on a strange pattern like a lopsided bull’s-eye-lines of lights forming concentric circles. “What the hell is that?” Whittaker asked. “The copper mines,” Canidy said, “the largest man-made hole in the world.”
“Kolwezi,” Whittaker said to the microphone, “this is Belgian African Airways Two-zero-six, five miles west. Request you light the runway.”
The lights came on a moment later, not at all bright, but two parallel lines of them, with three Vs, forming an arrow at one end. Canidy had never seen lights like that before. He cut back on the power and lowered the nose. Though there was no communication from the tower, when he had touched down and begun to slow, he saw the headlights of a car racing down what had to be an unlighted taxiway parallel to the runway. He taxied all the way to the far end of the runway, and concluded that getting out of here with a full load was not going to be as difficult as he had feared. The runway was wide and very, very long. It was paved with some sort of crushed stone that was almost certainly mine tailings.
Canidy shut down the engines as Whittaker went aft to open the door.
When they climbed down the ladder, a man cradling a shotgun in his arm like a hunter was standing there next to another European. “Bonsoir, Monsieur Grunier,’ Canidy said. “We were beginning to give you up,” Grunier said. He did not seem surprised to see Canidy, although the last time they had seen each other was in a small boat off Safi, Morocco. Grunier had been bound and gagged because his pathetic pleading to remain in Morocco had been more than Canidy could stand.
Awkwardly, because of his shotgun, Grunier climbed into the C-46 and looked around. Then he climbed down again. While he was in the airplane, the runway lights went off. Grunier looked at Whittaker and matter-of-factly said, “I will kill you if you attempt to leave without me.”
“What the hell is he talking about?” Whittaker asked. “The last time he was offered government transportation, they left me behind. I guess he doesn’t want that to happen to him,” Canidy explained, and then turned to Grunier.