Bert Brodowski

"I'll tell you something true, Jones. You're the first man I've met in a long time who didn't ask if 'Bert' was short for Roberta or Bertha, how my nose got broken, or how I wound up in Panama with my own biplane."

- Bert Brodowski

Bert Brodowski was an American pilot for hire in Central America. She was based at an airstrip not far from Santa Clara in Panama. She flew a 1930 Stearman C-3B biplane and had brown hair, hazel eyes, and a crooked nose.

In the summer of 1941, she had hired Tomas and Geraldo to watch her place while she was away on flights. She had arrived at her airstrip one day to find a man with a whip fighting against her two drunken hired men. While still landing her plane, she fired a warning shot into the air, and got the man's attention. Under the aim of her pistol, she learned that he was Indiana Jones, and was looking for Bert, not realizing that she was Bert. Jones hired her to fly him to Palmar Sur, Costa Rica.

After landing at the Amalgamated Fruit Industries plantation in Costa Rica, Brodowski was paid an additional fee to wait a day for Jones to seek out what he was looking for, and determine where to fly next. Jones returned and asked to be flown to the Yucatan, offering to pay for her fuel to have her return to Panama afterward. Brodowski realized that Jones was caught up in some sort of trouble and demanded to know the whole story. Over dinner at a local inn, Jones gave her the Reader's Digest version of his mission, but Brodowski didn't believe him at all. Jones showed her a round stone which gave her a vision, and thus verified his story, and she agreed to take him to Uxmal in the morning, after getting the more complete version of the whole story.

The next day, Brodowski discovered US Army soldiers guarding her plane, and rushed to Jones to alert him to their presence. At the inn, Major Nichols, accompanied by four soldiers, tried to arrest Jones and Brodowski, but the pair escaped through the jungle and in a river. Reaching her plane, Brodowski and Jones pretended to be a piloting couple arguing and breaking up, in order to distract the soldiers guarding her plane. Brodowski managed to fool the guards into allowing her to start up her plane and swung the biplane around to pick up Jones, who had gotten into a real fight with the pilot of a mail plane.

Making a few refueling and rest stops on the way, she flew Jones to the Pyramid of the Sorcerer at Uxmal. Landing in a clearing, Jones paid her extra, and instructed her to fly to Merida and alert the US Consulate to Nichols' treachery. She responded by asking he was brushing her aside, but Jones let her know that her mission to Merida was more important than waiting for him. She agreed to go, but stayed a while to rest her legs before the next flight.

While Jones went inside the pyramid, Brodowski was seized by Nichols, who had arrived before them and hidden his plane. At gunpoint, he forced her into the Akashic Hall of Records and confronted Jones and the formerly-believed-to-be-deceased Reginald Brooksbank. As Jones tried to bluff Nichols, Nichols let go of Brodowski, and shot at the archaeologist, but hit Brooksbank instead. Brodowski began to beat up Nichols and knocked him to the floor, but he got up and ran into the orbs in the Hall, and was destroyed in a flash. As the chamber began to shake, Brodowski and Jones fled to the jungle, and the Hall of Records vanished.

In Merida, Brodowski used some of her payment to buy some new clothes and rent out a hotel suite. As an extra reward, Jones slipped her a paper with Brooksbank's forecast for the winners of the 1941 World Series, telling her she could be set for life with a few well-placed bets.

Appearances

 * Indiana Jones and the Pyramid of the Sorcerer