Durban Air Force Base is identified as a refueling stop near Chicago on the flight arranged to take Andy McGee from Andrews Air Force Base to Hawaii. Although the plan makes the base a potential hinge in the McGees’ escape, the available account presents no arrival there: its importance lies in the route, and in the competing plans attached to it.

Place and Planned Route

The itinerary scheduled one refueling stop at Durban Air Force Base, near Chicago. Andy’s Wednesday schedule placed the departure from his quarters at 12:30, with Cap Hollister driving him toward the eastern checkpoint. They were to collect an escort of two cars at Parking Area C, continue to Andrews Air Force Base, and board the plane at approximately 15:00. Hawaii was the stated destination; Durban was the sole listed stop along the way.

How the Stop Is Confirmed

Andy did not initially know where the plane would refuel. He instructed Cap to work the question naturally into a conversation with Puck, rather than ask in a way that might draw attention. Cap later asked Puck while discussing a vacation, and Puck promptly named Durban, Illinois, outside Chicago. Cap then touched the note in his pocket, connecting the answer to the information he had been carrying. The exchange supplies the location behind the schedule’s more formal designation, Durban Air Force Base.

Escape Possibility and Narrative Significance

The stop matters because the scheduled route could serve a purpose beyond getting Andy to Hawaii. John Rainbird, watching the escape plan take shape, guessed that Andy intended to travel with Charlie McGee and that Cap could get her off the Shop grounds. Rainbird did not know exactly what Andy meant to do after reaching the flight. He considered several possibilities, including a diversion in Washington, D.C., or getting off at Durban and having Cap request a staff car; in the latter case, he imagined the pair disappearing into Chicago before their story reached the newspapers.

Rainbird’s scenario is conjecture, not a confirmed account of what happens at the base. Durban Air Force Base thus functions as a point of uncertainty in the planned journey: it is both a recorded refueling stop and a possible break in the Shop’s control of the travelers. The evidence establishes its place in the itinerary and in Rainbird’s deductions, but not that the plane lands there or that the McGees escape through Chicago.