Before Irene left El Carmoli, the commandant had promised to send a radio message to Bilbao and alert them that an American airplane was on its way to provide humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Basques. Whether or not this transmission was successful, she met no resistance at all during her flight or landing, from either the Condor Legion—that was the German air force operating for the rebel side—or the loyalist aircraft doing their best to defend the region. When she put on her headset and radioed the Bilbao tower on the frequency the commandant had given her, she was given clearance to land, but there was no one to greet her, no sign at all that she was expected. She jumped down from the airplane. A few men ran past, toward the control tower. She didn’t recognize the scattered airplanes on the ground, but she saw at a glance that they were ancient and dilapidated, no match at all for the airplanes of the Luftwaffe, which she had inspected on an overseas lecture tour two years ago. Some kind of hasty grass netting covered each of them, to disguise them from above. Irene felt the sun on her neck and took off her leather jacket, but not her flight suit. She followed the men toward the tower, and just as she reached it, the faint thud of a propeller engine began to grow in the distance, from the southwest.

Irene turned and looked up at the sky. Two airplanes approached like a pair of birds, too fast and too high to land. She put up her hand to shade her eyes. What the hell are they doing? she thought, not comprehending at all for some reason. Irene had never in her life encountered an airplane that was not a friend to her. Of course she knew that this was war, that airplanes were now divided into ally and enemy, but it didn’t seem real. War was not real. Not until she heard the quick thuds of bullets, not until she saw the dirt spray up in neat, evenly spaced spouts, like a stone skipping over the water, did she realize what was happening.