Flight of the Serpent

by R. R. Irvine writing as Val Davis

  “Where’s the regular driver?” Christensen asked.

  “Ted’s sick, I’m told.” Wiley laid his clipboard on the counter. “The order says you have an underground tank, plus a truck.”

  “The tanker truck’s damn near empty and the underground’s down about half. So you might as well fill them both up. I’ll show you the way.”

  As soon as Wiley was left alone, he attached the feeder hose to the tank and pretended to start the flow. When he was certain he wasn’t being watched, he quickly entered the hangar and went to work.

  Chapter 51

  Nick still couldn’t believe what she was seeing, four men planning a peacetime bombing mission. Until they’d emptied the tanker truck into the Lady-A, she hadn’t believed they’d actually go through with it. Even watching them load those damned bombs she’d wheedled out of Sawicki hadn’t seemed real. It had been more like one of those old newsreels, remote and slightly off-speed. To make matters worse, they’d all armed themselves with .45 automatics, war surplus the same age as the Lady-A.

  Nick moved away from the desk, hugging herself to hide her shakes from the others. More than anything she wanted Gault to give up his mission and stay with her. But she’d never ask it of him. At least they’d have tonight together, before tomorrow’s takeoff.

  Paula joined her to whisper, “You care about him, don’t you? It shows on your face. Matt looked a lot like John.”

  “I know.”

  “He cares about you too, you know,” Paula said.

  “Maybe, but not as much as the Lady-A.”

  Paula smiled. “You’re probably right. But I’ve seen the way he looks at both of you. Since the Lady-A isn’t talking, that leaves it up to you. You’re the only one who can talk him out of this mission. If you don’t, chances are they’ll all end up dead.”

  “He says the odds are fifty-fifty.”

  “I don’t believe it and neither do you.”

  Christ, why couldn’t Paula have waited? Tomorrow would have been soon enough to put into words what Nick had been brooding about all day. That the mission was hopeless.

  “Do you know what gives pilots nightmares?” Paula said. “Fire. And do you know how much gasoline a B-24 carries? Nearly three thousand gallons.” She shook her head violently. “Every time I think about their chances, I see the Lady-A going down in flames.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Gault called to them.

  “You, of course,” Paula answered.

  He crossed the room to hug them both. “Today, I feel twenty-one.”

  He swept Nick off her feet.

  In midair, looking through the window, Nick spotted a fuel-truck driver leaving the Lady-A’s hangar. Something about the way he moved alerted her. He looked like he was trying to sneak off unseen.

  “John,” she said, “behind you, the man coming out of the hangar. Should he be there?”

  Gault set Nick down to look for himself.

  Christensen joined them to say, “He’s a new man. He’s delivering fuel.”

  “He has no business in the hangar, then.” Gault started for the door.

  “John, relax,” Paula called after him. “The man’s probably never seen a B-24 before. He’s a sightseer like everyone else around this airport.”

  “He looks suspicious to me,” Nick said, sorry once the words were out because of their effect on Gault.

  “God damn it!” he shouted. “Nobody goes near the Lady-A when she’s getting ready for a mission.”

  It was Christensen who charged through the door first, with Gault right behind him. Nick jointed the exodus to keep from being trampled by the others.

  “Wait up!” Christensen shouted at the driver, who was about to climb into the cab of his fuel truck.

  The man swung around, facing them, and went into a crouch. His hand came up as if to point at them. In that split second Nick saw the gun.

  “Get down!” she shouted.

  She didn’t hear the shot, only Christensen’s gasp as he collapsed onto the taxiway.

  Gault dropped to one knee, tugging at his jacket to get at his .45. Roberts was doing the same.

  Another silent shot ricocheted off the tarmac at Nick’s feet. Christ, he was shooting at her.

  As if in slow motion, Nick saw the robber’s surprised look change to a smile as he redirected his aim at Gault. Please, she thought, not John. She threw herself at Gault as a shot snapped close over their heads.

  Gault landed on his elbow. The impact jarred loose the .45. He scooped it up again, braced his elbows on the tarmac, and took careful aim.

  Nick held her breath, but had no illusions. They were up against a professional.

  Nick heard Gault gasp. God, he was hit, but he continued to aim the .45. By now, the gunman was firing continuously, a regular cadence. At any moment she expected to feel the impact. And with her lying prone like this, he’d be going for head shots, her head and John’s.

  A slug ripped out a chunk of asphalt inches from Gault’s face. He didn’t flinch, but calmly pulled the trigger. The .45’s slide locked open. He was out of ammunition.

  Even as the thought flashed through her mind that they were all as good as dead, Nick realized that Gault’s shot had hit home, hurling the man into the side of the fuel truck. His eyes went wide, staring with disbelief as he toppled, face forward, onto the tarmac.

  Nick twisted around to see if anyone else was hit. But everyone was down, flat on the tarmac. When she turned back to Gault, he was up on his hands and knees and crawling toward Christensen.

  Nick followed. There was a hole in the mechanic’s chest, but he was breathing.

  “Is anybody else hit?” she shouted.

  “Me,” Paula said. “But Brad’s worse.”

  Nick scrabbled to the copilot’s side. He was dead. She picked up his .45, then went back to Paula.

  “I’ll be okay,” Paula said. “No arteries hit, thank God.” She was applying pressure to a thigh wound. “See to Theron first.”

  Before Nick could move, an automatic weapon opened up from the parking lot.

  She fired back without seeing a target, hoping to God she didn’t hit some hapless bystander. To her left, slugs gouged holes in the asphalt. She dropped flat but kept looking for a target.

  Where are you, you son of a bitch? There, behind the Chevy. The bastard had an Uzi, and he was firing it at Gault and Christensen.

  Nick raised up on one knee. Shoot me, you son of a bitch. Her sudden movement caught the second gunman by surprise, causing him to be a split second too late redirecting his fire. She shot him twice, once in the head.

  Nick lowered the gun and turned to Gault, who was staring at her with a look of total disbelief. “I told you my father taught me,” she said, trying to hold the shock at bay, not wanting to tell him that she’d never fired a gun under conditions like this. So this is combat, she thought, this is what men go through in war, and was happy to have never experienced it before.

  In that instant, Nick realized she was the only one who’d escaped without a scratch. Campbell had rubbed his hands raw skidding on the tarmac. Yarbrough’s pinkie finger was obviously broken. He straightened it with a grimace.

  A siren sounded in the distance, probably one of the airport’s emergency units.

  “The police are going to be here any minute,” Yarbrough shouted. “If we’re going to fly, we’d better do it now.”

  Gault gestured at Nick. “Give me the gun.”

  Nick double-checked the safety before handing it over. Blood was streaming down his left arm. She moved forward to examine the wound, but he stepped aside.

  “It’s from a ricochet,” he said as he rubbed the gun against his thigh to erase her fingerprints.

  “For the record,” he said. “I shot those two men. No one else had a weapon. Is that understood?”

  “Stop playing hero,” Paula said. “You can’t fly without help in the cockpit, and Nick’s the only one left.”

  “No.”

/>   “I’m going,” Nick said. “I’m going to fly away with you, John.”

  “Whatever we do,” Campbell said, “it has to be fast. That siren’s getting closer.”

  Gault jerked a thumb at the dead man next to the tanker truck. “God knows what he did to the Lady-A while he was in there.”

  A second siren began to wail.

  Nick knelt beside Paula. “Is it okay to leave you?”

  “Time’s up,” Paula said. “I’d try to talk you out of it but I know you too well.” She smiled at Nick. “Both of you. Now leave.”

  Gault looked to Yarbrough and Campbell. Both nodded their agreement.

  “I’ll stall them as long as I can,” Paula said.

  Nick hugged Paula good-bye. “Omnia vincit amor,” Nick said. At Paula’s startled look, Nick explained. “Love conquers all. I read it in the letter of a woman I’m researching.”

  Paula blinked back a tear. “Not death,” she replied.

  Gault grabbed Nick’s hand and headed for the Lady-A, Campbell and Yarbrough right behind them. As soon as they were inside the building, Nick said, “I don’t think that bastard had time to go aboard. If he did anything to the Lady-A it’s got to be out here.”

  They split up. Nick racked her memory for everything she knew about B-24s. Funny, she thought, it was easier to deal with them when they were in pieces.

  Gault was searching the bomb bay when she noticed the scratches. The screws holding the underwing access panel in place had been disturbed.

  “John,” she called. “Take a look at this.”

  “You’re right,” he said as soon as he inspected the area. “Theron would never tolerate such sloppy work.”

  Gault went to work with a screwdriver. When the panel dropped open, Nick half-expected a booby trap to go off.

  “Son of a bitch. Look what we’ve got.”

  The explosive wasn’t large, about the size of a candy bar, but it would have snapped the fuel lines and ignited the gasoline.

  They checked the other access panels, but nothing was immediately obvious.

  “Do we keep looking?” Campbell asked.

  Still more sirens sounded in the distance.

  Gault looked directly at Nick and she knew that he was speaking only to her. “We’ve run out of time.”

  Chapter 52

  Odell’s beeper went off. The signal, which caught him in the men’s room, sent him running for his office, zipping up along the way. Inside, snap-locking the door behind him, he lunged for the secure line. Chairman Smith was waiting.

  “Gault and his bomber are on the move,” Smith’s voice came over the line. “Like I said, a resourceful man, dangerous. He and the archaeologist both.”

  The Chairman’s tone had a ring of finality to it. Unless Odell was mistaken, the panic button was about to be pushed.

  “The bomber’s movement would seem to confirm failure by those Blackbirds of yours.”

  “The Director’s, you mean,” Odell shot back.

  “Of course. That’s what I meant to say. They’re probably dead in any case. Now, considering the cruising speed of a B-24 bomber, I figure you have two and a half hours to implement your evacuation. Maybe a bit less. You’ll be picked up separately, Frank, after everyone else is gone. Except, of course, Director Maitland and his cronies.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll have a talk with them now, Frank. They’ll think your evacuation plan is for their benefit. Now move!”

  “Where will I be picked up?” Odell asked, wondering if he’d left it too late, wondering if all his back doors had slammed shut.

  “On the pad, Frank, by my own personal helicopter.”

  Christ, Odell thought. Was he being set up? “I’ve taken precautions,” Odell said. “I’ve left behind my own life insurance policies.”

  “Of course you have. I expected nothing less. Now stop worrying and start the evacuation.”

  Chapter 53

  Nick said a prayer as the Lady-A turned onto the taxiway and headed for the main runway. Engine start-up had been nerve-racking. With the turning of each propeller, she’d expected another booby trap to explode. But so far, everything had gone smoothly, even her help with the copilot’s checklist.

  Now, sitting there belted into the copilot’s right-hand seat, she felt a fool. Not her career, not her father, and certainly not the Benson sisters could keep her from doing what she knew to be wrong. I am a fool for love, she decided, and wondered if this was what Pearl Benson meant when she’d told her daughter, “If love’s a sin, so be it.” Had she too abandoned all rational thought and run off to an uncertain future? Pearl’s sister, Lillian, had never recorded a single word in her own diaries about what had happened to her twin. Instead, Lillian had called love a kind of madness.

  And what will happen to Dr. Nicolette Scott? she thought. Is she mad?

  Gault tapped her on the shoulder, held up crossed fingers, and asked the tower for takeoff clearance. If the police were there already, the B-24 would be grounded.

  “Proceed to runway 34R,” the tower said.

  “That’s the long runway,” Gault told her on the intercom. “Ninety-five hundred feet long. We shouldn’t need it, but with our bomb load it’s good to have some leeway.”

  As he spoke, Nick scanned the instruments. She didn’t know what to look for, really. After all, she belonged to the generation that expected warning lights on the dashboard, not real gauges.

  Buffeting caused her to look up to see a jumbo jet ahead of them on 34R. Wide-eyed passengers were waving from their porthole windows. Nick waved back. Hi there, folks, we’re just on our way to drop a few bombs.

  Gault triggered his mike. “Crew check.”

  “Bombardier okay,” Campbell said from the nose.

  “Gunner on station,” Yarbrough said from the waist.

  “It’s your last chance to back out,” Gault told them.

  “Are you kidding,” Yarbrough shot back. “I’ve never had the pleasure of firing an M-60 before.”

  “Whatever you do, keep it out of sight until we’re airborne.”

  “Roger.”

  “Vic?” Gault said.

  “Me and the Nordeen are getting along just fine.”

  Gault reached across to clasp Nick’s hand. “It’s not too late,” he said. “I can fly this by myself.”

  “You’re still bleeding. Besides, first aid was part of my survival training.”

  “Nick, I—”

  The jumbo started its takeoff.

  “Stand by for takeoff,” Gault said into the intercom, then swung the B-24 onto the runway. Quickly, he went through the same procedures he’d followed on their test flight, adjusting the control tabs and setting the rudder to compensate for engine torque.

  Then he asked the tower for final clearance.

  Nick was surprised to hear, “B-24, you are cleared for immediate takeoff.” She’d half expected the police to intervene. Probably they hadn’t sorted out the carnage at the hangar yet.

  Gault turned to her. “Are you ready?”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

  His hand settled on the throttles. During takeoff, he’d told her to add her hand to his, a textbook precaution to keep the throttles from slipping.

  “Lady Luck’s still with me,” he said, smiling at her. “I’ve got beautiful women at my fingertips.”

  Gradually, he engaged the throttles, her left hand on top of his right hand. The bomber rolled so slowly at first, Nick thought something was wrong. But the throttles were all the way forward, and the engines were roaring beyond anything she’d experienced on their first flight. Even so, halfway down the runway she had the feeling they were hardly moving. Frantically, she searched for the air speed indicator. Ninety, it said, inching toward one hundred. Impossible. What’s takeoff speed, she wondered, but didn’t dare ask for fear of breaking Gault’s concentration.

  Suddenly they were lifting off.

  “Wheels coming up,” Gau
lt said on the intercom. “The serpent is airborne.”

  He banked west toward the Great Salt Lake, gaining altitude.

  “From now on,” Campbell said from the nose, “the Lady-A is gone. We’re strictly poisonous.”

  “With fangs and stingers both,” Yarbrough added from the waist.

  Gault nodded at Nick. “You didn’t know you’d landed yourself in a nest of vipers, did you?” On the intercom he said, “As soon as we reach cruising altitude, I’ll bring the serpent onto the target heading. We’ll check the M-60 when we hit the Arizona badlands.”

  “What about your arm?” Nick said. “It ought to be bandaged.”

  He pointed to the checklist. “Keep me honest, first.”

  At a thousand feet he said, “Fuel boosters off.”

  “Check,” she confirmed.

  At eight thousand feet he reduced power to 1600 RPM and Nick watched the serpent settle onto a cruising speed of two hundred miles an hour.

  North of them, thunderheads were gathering along the Wasatch front. The forecast, however, called for clear skies over most of Arizona, including the target area.

  On intercom Gault said, “How’s the Norden, Vic?”

  “As far as I can tell, the serpent’s ready to strike,” Campbell replied. “But I’d like to make one practice drop just to make sure.”

  “All right, we’ll do that after we cross the border. Right now, I’m cutting in the autopilot. Vic, you’ll have the serpent for a few minutes while Nick gives me a little first aid.”

  One by one he began throwing toggle switches. When the last one was engaged, he unclasped his hands from the control yoke.

  “Autopilot engaged,” he said into the intercom.

  “Testing,” Campbell replied.

  Ever so slightly, the serpent veered to port. A moment later the plane changed direction to starboard.

  “The serpent is behaving,” Campbell said.

  With a sigh, Gault leaned back and struggled out of his jacket, revealing a blood-soaked shirt sleeve.

  “I’ll get the first aid kit,” he said. “If she makes a move while I’m gone, grab the yoke and hold her steady.”