“When we are next airborne, I will execute a scan. Assuming human skeletons with implanted metal content are reasonably rare, your father can probably be located.”
Somehow, that made me feel worse rather than better. Even though I had asked for the help, in a way I didn’t really want to know. As long as Dad was missing, I could hope that he was still alive, even against all common sense.
I was pretty sure Pegasus would find Dad, and I was pretty sure he would be dead. Discomfort or not, for my own peace of mind, I needed to know what had happened to him. I didn’t matter whether Truefield had killed him, or if he really had been kidnapped like Hauptmann had told me. Maybe if we found Dad’s body, I could figure something out from his remains, where and how we found him. Clearly I wasn’t going to get any help from Pegasus in avenging my father, but then my limited taste for vengeance had already run dry in the stress of the last few hours.
The machine was rubbing off on me.
Besides, I’d brought a lot of this on myself. I’d signed myself up for trouble by going along with Floyd’s obviously criminal intent in the first place, seduced by the magic of Pegasus. If Mr. Bellamy’s story was true, and I figured it was, Dad had never been blameless. There were old sins and crimes going back to the First World War. The only real innocent was Mrs. Bellamy, regardless of whatever grudge Mr. Bellamy had carried in the twenty-five years since Floyd was born.
But I still needed to know about Dad. And Dad’s fate wasn’t going to be knowable until we got Pegasus out of Mr. Bellamy’s barn and away from the Kansas City Mob and the Bellamy Gang.
“What are the people in those cars doing now?” I asked Pegasus.
The image shrank to include more of the area around the farmhouse. I tried to imagine the lens that could do all that, somehow distributed among the specks of Pegasus’ magic dust. The three incoming automobiles slowed to a stop in front of the house, next to the old Ford coupe. On Pegasus’ scan the vehicles showed up as simplified schematics, like the house had, to the point where I couldn’t identify the make or model. There were four people in each car.
Floyd’s breath hissed. That meant he was worried. Twelve mobsters come to call on four old men. It didn’t look good for his father if negotiations got energetic. As I suspected they would.
“Can you see those license plates?” I asked Pegasus.
The image jumped and switched back to the greenish photographic-type view I had seen before. The three cars filled the screen in sharp focus. Now I could see that they were all Cadillacs, Series 75 limousines from about 1941. Even the mob couldn’t get new cars during the war. Cadillac had been building tanks for Uncle Sam, and Detroit was only just now retooling.
Pegasus blew up the view to center on the license plate of the lead car. It was a Missouri registration. This was definitely Roanoke Joe and Vinnie the Snake. Along with ten of their closest friends, no doubt heavily armed.
I had to figure a way out of here that didn’t leave those guys or Mr. Bellamy’s friends hanging on our tail. “Look Pegasus,” I said. “You say you won’t kill anyone. I guess I can understand that. I’m not eager to do it either.”
I meant that. I had been so frightened, so angry, for much of the past few days that I expected to be ready to kick butt and take names. Maybe Pegasus’ Quaker morals were infectious. But pacifism in the air or not, I had always tried to be a prudent man. Leaving these guys behind us wouldn’t be prudent.
“You’ve got a lot of capabilities,” I continued. “Can you disable those automobiles so that when we takeoff from here they won’t be able to use them to chase along after us?”
It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but determined men on the ground could follow an aircraft. This part of Kansas was covered with straight-line roads that ran in gridded squares, all to bring produce and livestock to market.
Pegasus didn’t answer for a moment. I wondered if it was busy, whatever that might mean. “I can take care of the problem,” the computational rocket finally said. “Those vehicular electrical systems are unshielded and extremely vulnerable.”
To what the electrical systems were vulnerable was an open question, but Pegasus obviously commanded more physics than I would ever understand. I looked at the view screen. The image had pulled back to the original view, over the shoulder of the house. Half a dozen men in long coats stood in front of the three cars. More waited in the cars. Mr. Bellamy and Mr. Neville walked off the front porch to meet them.
“Pegasus,” I said, “I think that this would be a good time for us to leave.”
“Do you wish me to disable their personal weapons as well?” said Pegasus.
I laughed. “Of course. I didn’t know you could do that.”
A low hum filled the cabin, like the noise of a poorly maintained transformer. One of the smaller view screens lit up with a curve diagrammed against a grid. The curve kept rising in an asymptotic path. I assumed it related to energy output, but I could only imagine what that energy source would be. I figured the energy itself was electromagnetic. Obvious, really, in light of the comments Pegasus had made about the automobiles.
I looked back at the main screen. The detail was mediocre at the current magnification, but I could see at least two of the newcomers had started to twitch. The sniper on the roof was also having trouble with his weapon, taking first one hand off then the other to shake them out, as if ants were crawling on him.
Pegasus spoke in my ear. “Takeoff sequence commencing in twenty seconds.”
“Hang on, Floyd!” I called out. I could hear him crooning to himself. He was terrified — maybe the first time in my life I’d seen him so upset. Tough cookies, I thought. I’d given him fair warning, I didn’t have time for anything else from him. I was watching the view outside, waiting to see what miracle Pegasus would produce.
By now all of the men in front of the house, including Mr. Bellamy and Mr. Neville, were jumping around. It looked like they were yelling at each other, judging by some of their motions, including the shaken fists. Pegasus wasn’t providing any sound, but it was clear enough what was likely being said. Mr. Bellamy threw his shotgun onto the ground as the remaining occupants of the three Cadillacs came tumbling out of their cars. The sniper on the roof dropped his rifle. The weapon slid down the roof and pitched off the front, barely missing Mr. Neville as it fell to the ground.
“Ten seconds. I suggest your grab the control handles, Vernon Dunham.”
Out in the yard, they were stripping off their clothes now. Belts and suspenders were being thrown away, and all the men had thrown down their guns. Some of the Italians grabbed knives and other weapons from under their coats and down their pants and tossed them on the ground as well. One of the Cadillacs was vibrating noticeably.
“You’ve got a way to heat all the metal out there,” I said.
“Yes. Unfortunately, I am afraid that I might set fire to the house as well. I am destroying the barn in five seconds.”
I counted down. Four Mississippi, three Mississippi, two Mississippi, one Mississippi.
The inside of the barn had been visible on one of the smaller screens. The building blew away with a roar that I could feel in my bones while the television image shuddered, blacking out for a second or two. It flickered back to life to show shattered wood flying off in all directions as Pegasus rocked back and forth. The f-panzer rocked on its tracks, nearly toppling, as the straw blowing around it caught fire. I wondered about the cats and chickens.