CHAPTER TWENTYThe B-17’s engines fired up, one by one, each of them coughing a cloud of black smoke before settling down to its steady drone. The morning fog had burned off and the sun glinted off the airplane’s aluminum skin. The only paint on the Flying Fortress’s exterior was its identifying data, its World War II Air Force insignia, and the huge portrait of Bessie Smith with the Bessie Blue logo in bright blue lettering on the airplane’s nose.
The airplane stood on the North Field runway. A camera crew rode on a motorized dolly near the airplane’s wing tip, slowly rolling past the engines and toward the cockpit.
Lindsey stood in the mouth of the Double Bee hangar with Ina Chandler and Lawton Crump. Crump sipped from a steaming paper cup. Lindsey caught the odor of coffee. Behind them
