Once free of the enclosure, Dodge had a little more room to get comfortable with the controls. The Float Car was moving smoothly over the manicured landscape, keeping a constant elevation of only a few inches. From a distance, it looked exactly like a beat up old truck with an open cab, rolling across the field. Dodge however, needed it to do more than just float across the ground. "How do we make this thing fly, Doc?"
"The gearshift lever. Pull back to make it — whoops!"
Dodge had impulsively yanked back on the lever before the scientist had finished speaking and the result was that the small craft immediately shot skyward. "Got it," Dodge said, easing back on the stick a little to curtail the runaway ascent. Although it had lasted only a few seconds, they were now hundreds of feet above the lights of Fort Meade, their only point of reference. Without any source of external light, it was almost impossible to tell where the ground ended and the sky began. Dodge eased off on the accelerator control and turned the wheel, causing the machine to pirouette in mid-air as he scanned the horizon looking for a second reference point. After a few turns, he caught a glimpse of a distant black ribbon cutting a dark swath through the city lights and intuitively realized he was looking at the river.
Unlike an airplane or any other sort of flying machine, the Float Car made absolutely no noise as it raced through the night, so they had no difficulty hearing the low wailing noise that began to roll up from the ground. The sky was suddenly crisscrossed with the beams of high-powered searchlights which immediately began to sweep the area where the Float Car hovered.
"Air raid sirens," exclaimed Newcombe. "We’re still over the base."
"They’ll be putting planes in the air. We need to get moving."
"They will track us with radar," the scientist continued. "The radar antennas are aimed at the sky. If you fly low, you might be able to avoid detection."
Dodge complied immediately, pushing the stick forward and the craft swooped low to the ground. He leveled it out when he caught a glimpse of a few treetops just below and then accelerated in the direction of the river. He steered the machine in broad arcs to avoid the klieg lights that now seemed to be randomly sweeping the sky. Satisfied that the hunters had lost the scent at least for the moment, Dodge hastened on toward the river, deviating only when the way ahead took them through a well-lit area,
"Where are we going now?" asked a wide-eyed Newcombe.
"I chartered a boat-plane to take us most of the way to our destination. It’ll be a bit of a squeeze, but we should be able to stow the Float Car with the cargo; it’s not nearly as heavy as a real automobile." He playfully slugged the scientist’s arm. "Quick thinking back there, Doc. Bronzium, huh?"
"Something I read in a Secret Agent ‘X’ story," Newcombe confessed.
"I can tell already that I made the right decision bringing you along." It was only then that he realized that he had inadvertently brought someone else along as well. He glanced back to where Miss Amelia Dunham sat gripping the armrests of her chair for dear life; her face was so white that it positively glowed in the darkness. With the distinct impression that he wouldn’t have too much trouble convincing the woman to disembark at the earliest opportunity, he allowed himself a vindictive grin and returned his attention to the task at hand.
In fact, the blond woman was not nearly as terrified as her demeanor seemed to indicate. While the Float Car and its abilities certainly taxed her credulity, it took more than gut wrenching aerobatics to rattle the nerves of a woman who, only a day earlier, had parachuted off the Empire State Building into the heart of a hurricane. Yet, while Jocasta Palmer might have greeted the night’s activities with a laugh and a toss of her flaxen mane, she reckoned that her current alter ego would not be quite so sanguine and thus did her best to act the part of terrified damsel-in-distress.
The encounter with the MP had proved serendipitous; it was plainly obvious that the mysterious Dodge Dalton would not be as easy to manipulate as Newcombe. He seemed a stubborn sort and dead set on kicking her to the curb at the earliest opportunity. He had been unmoved by her threat to expose his activities to public scrutiny and her intuition told her that he would be equally immune to her feminine charms; so what did that leave? She continued to ponder this as the strange flying machine swooped low, avoiding heavily populated areas as its driver made a beeline for the river.
Dodge slowed their breakneck pace as he brought the Float Car down over the broad expanse of the Severn River and began cruising slowly up the water course, scanning the banks until he spotted the bonfire that Fuller had set as a beacon to guide him in. He steered the Float Car toward the ruddy glow and soon Jocasta was able to distinguish the outline of an amphibious airplane bobbing at the end of a rickety looking pier on an otherwise rural shore. As the craft settled down above the wooden deck, two figures emerged from the interior of the plane to greet them. She immediately pegged one of the pair as the policeman, but it was the other man, a stubbly saturnine figure wearing ill-fitting mechanic’s coveralls and a black watch cap, that raised her hackles. There was something familiar about the man, a nagging memory that she could not quite pinpoint. She didn’t associate his face with peril, but the simple fact of her tingling intuition was enough to raise her level of awareness. The rough fellow hung back, lingering near the aircraft, but the policeman advanced to greet Dodge.
"I take it there were a few hiccups," he observed.
Dodge grimaced. "Suffice it to say, our departure did not go unnoticed, but we stayed low to avoid the military radar beams."
"What about her?"
"A reporter who decided to tag along. There wasn’t time to put her off back at the lab." He raised his voice so that his words would be audible to the stowaway. "We’ll leave her here."
His eyes lingered on Jocasta, prompting her to flash her disarming smile, but before she could speak in her own defense, the lawman took the words out of her mouth. "Are you sure that’s wise? A reporter? She could expose this whole affair in the press."
"She doesn’t know enough to expose anything."
"Oh yes I do," she chimed. "I know everything. I was eavesdropping the whole time. I know about the Outpost and the theft at the Empire State Building. If you don’t take me along, I’ll tell the world."
Dodge growled and balled his fists threateningly, but the policeman again headed him off. "Like it or not, she’s right. And we really don’t have time to waste in discussing this." He turned to her and gave a mock bow. "How do you do, Miss? I’m Tom Fuller."
"A right proper gentleman, you are. Amelia Dunham of the London Daily Telegraph."
"You’re British?"
"And you’re quite the detective," Dodge interjected. "But as you said, we’re pressed for time. You can swap telephone numbers when we’re in the air."
Jocasta’s perfect lips turned down in a pout and she stuck her tongue out at Dodge. "Never mind him, Mr. Fuller. He’s just jealous."
"Please, call me Tom."
Dodge rolled his eyes and turned to Newcombe. "Doc, this is the FBI agent I told you about and this is…" He paused as he got his first look at the man in work clothes and then turned back to Fuller. "This is our pilot?"
"Mr. Burton." Fuller dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Just the man for, shall we say, discreet activities.