“We’re over Hollywood. Estimate fifteen minutes. Will you light it up in a couple of minutes and call Mr. Porter Craig and tell him we’re on our way in?”
“Certainly. Give us a call, please, when you get close.”
“Will do. Thank you, Ocean Reef,” Geoff said, and turned to Jack. “You may start going down now, sir. In that direction, sir.”
He pointed down with his index finger.
Jack smiled, shook his head, and put the Cessna into a gentle descent.
The hotels and condominiums along the beach, and Miami itself, were visible to their right, as were airliners making their descents toward Miami International.
“It’s beautiful!” Marjorie said, leaning forward from the rear seat. Her fingers grazed Jack’s neck. He shifted his neck backward to press against them.
Two minutes later, Geoff picked up the microphone again.
“Ocean Reef, Six-oh-one at 5,000. We have Miami in sight.”
“Six-oh-one, Ocean Reef, we’re lighting up now. The winds are five, gusting to fifteen, from the south. You will be met.”
“Thank you kindly,” Geoff said, and turned to Jack again. “The way I usually find it is to find A1A, and then Key Largo. We’re about ten miles south.”
He pointed vaguely to the southwest, and then to the southeast. Jack nodded.
“You better strap yourself in, Marjorie,” Jack said, turning his head. She caressed his neck a moment more, then her fingers were gone.
A moment later, Geoff said, pointing to parallel rows of landing lights, “Either that’s it or somebody’s really got their boats in a row.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Jack said disgustedly, and turned slightly to the right to line up with the runway.
Three minutes later, the sleek twin-engine aircraft touched down smoothly just past the clearly marked threshold of what turned out to be a narrow but smoothly paved runway.
Jack saw that there was one small hangar; a neat-looking operations building with a small control tower on top of it; and maybe a dozen aircraft, mostly small, expensive light twins like the one he was flying, on the ramp.
It was, he decided, a very nice little airport.
A man in a sport shirt holding lighted lamps appeared on the runway and directed him to a parking space.
He got on the horn and told Miami he was on the ground, then went through the shutdown procedures.
“That’s Uncle Craig,” Marjorie said happily, and Jack looked out the side window of the airplane and saw that the man with the wands was indeed Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell.
He was the last person out of the airplane, and, deciding that caution was the better part of valor, Jack saluted him.
Lowell returned the salute.
“That’s very nice, Sergeant, but we don’t do very much of that around here.” He paused and added, amused, “But I must say, Sergeant, that you really look awesomely military. Doesn’t he, Geoff? A regular recruiting poster for Special Forces!”
“Well, he certainly would scare me to death,” Geoff said.
“Said the bride-to-be, protecting her man,” Lowell went on, unabashed. “My, you two have had a busy, busy day, haven’t you?”
“Craig, is that what I think it is?” Barbara Bellmon asked.
“Is what what you think it is?”
She pointed to an ancient, enormous, canary-yellow convertible sedan parked just off the runway.
“It is!” she said. “God, I thought it would be in a museum by now!”
“What is that?” Jack asked.
“It’s a 1941 Packard 180 with a body by Rollson,” Lowell said. “I will not explain further, because I am sure the mother of the bride-to-be will do so later in great detail. But I will say, Madame Bellmon, that the last offer I had for it—an excited little bald-headed man actually chased me down the highway in Key Largo waving his checkbook—was ten times what I paid for it in Louisville.”
“It’s beautiful,” Jack said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before. ”
“They made only thirty-two of them, the four-door,” Lowell said. “Okay, here’s the game plan. Jack’s family are in House A. The Bellmon ladies will stay with them. Geoff—the whole Craig family—are in his parents’ place, hereinafter referred to as House B. What we are going to do now is drop everybody off at House B, where festivities are already in progress. Except Jack and me, who will instead proceed to my house, House C, where Jack will be staying with me. There he will divest himself of his martial garb, slip into something more suitable, and then we will proceed to House