As Johnny Murk and Harrison Douglas watched, horrified, the first fighter made a long, lazy turn, then steadied out in a shallow dive toward the Beaver on the beach. The water beside the Beaver boiled furiously.
“He’s shooting, he’s shooting,” the pilot on the beach shouted into his radio. He didn’t wait for another pass. He spun his plane 180 degrees and began his takeoff run. After an amazingly short distance he was airborne.
Another jet was inbound on a strafing run, so the bush pilot laid his Beaver over in a hard right turn and skimmed away over the forest eastward.
“They’ve boogied,” P. J. O’Reilly told the president. The duty officer in the White House command center was giving him the blow-by-blow over a telephone. “Douglas and Murkowsky’s thugs found where they had been, and the marks of the saucer, but the saucer and crew are gone.”
The president indulged himself in the same dirty word the Big Pharma guys had used.
“So we’re back to square one,” the leader of the free world said to no one in particular. “Well, that saucer is somewhere. Tell those satellite people and air force weenies to find the thing or I’m going to start biting heads off.” He grabbed his coffee cup and threw it at the wall.
The saucer broke surface about ten miles from the cave. Charley Pine lit the rockets and took it out over the surface of the bay for another ten miles, accelerating quickly, and turned while still subsonic. A nice, clean four-G turn back toward the cave and the Beavers.
“Charley!” Egg said sharply.
“When you go gallivanting to kidnap and murder people, you gotta expect to find a few potholes in the road,” she replied.
The saucer was now pointing straight at the Beaver circling off the beach. It was about a thousand feet above the water and turning from right to left. Charley adjusted her course as the saucer rocketing toward the Beaver accelerated though Mach 2. The two craft came together almost too quickly for the human eye to follow; then the saucer was by.
Without turning for a look, Charley raised the nose and turned the rockets full on. The nose rose until the saucer was climbing straight up into the dark northern sky on a pillar of fire.
The wash of the saucer hit the Beaver like a punch from God. Only the craftsmanship of the de Havilland engineers who designed her — and a whole lot of luck — kept the bird from losing her wings under the hammer blow. The pilot fought to control his steed even though the instruments vibrated so badly that he couldn’t read them. Just as he realized the bird was responding to his control inputs, the radial engine quit. Dead. A vast silence engulfed the pilot and Johnny Murk and Harrison Douglas.
It was broken by the muted roar of a jet engine. An F-16 was coming in slow, with the gear down, apparently to look them over.
The pilot ignored the fighter. He was pushing levers and pulling knobs and flipping switches and resetting circuit breakers, trying to get the engine to crank. It wouldn’t.
The pharma moguls could hear the whisper of air passing the fuselage.
“It can’t end like this,” Douglas cried. “Oh, God, no!”
Johnny Murk was holding on to the back of the seat in front of him so hard that his knuckles turned white. He rested his head on his hands and closed his eyes.
Down the Beaver came, with a stationary prop. The pilot abandoned his efforts to start the engine and concentrated on finding a place to land. Open water along the beach. He turned hard, got set up, slipped to lose some excess altitude, then straightened her out and flared onto the water. The floats kissed and the bird drifted to a stop.
Another jet went over a few hundred feet above them.
“Now what?” Johnny Murk belligerently demanded of the pilot, who was in no mood to be abused.
“Well, fuck you, asshole,” that craftsman said. “I guess I’ll tinker with the motor while you clean out your underwear.”
“I’ll have your job—”
“Oh, fuck you again. And shut up. If you don’t behave yourself, I’ll throw you in the water and you can swim home. Maybe next spring we’ll find you entombed in a big ice cube.”
11
When the saucer was in orbit and the earth was slowly spinning beneath, Adam Solo came forward and donned a headset. He said nothing aloud.
After a bit he took off the headset and said to his comrades, “I’ve talked to the other saucer again. It will leave orbit in about three hours and create a diversion.”
“What kind of diversion?” Charley asked suspiciously. “Gonna kill a few folks to keep the rest honest?”
“Certainly not. Let not your heart be troubled. Now, let’s put our heads together and see if we can come up with a plan to avoid capture until the starship arrives.”
Egg was still strapped into his seat. He rubbed his face vigorously. When he finished, Solo said, “I appreciate the risks you are taking on my behalf. I could have merely zoomed off in a saucer and you could have stayed in Missouri, watching the adventure on television. It’s me they want, not you.”
Egg said nothing.
“Oh, I know,” Solo continued, looking at Egg. “You thought about that and rejected it. Too dangerous for Rip and Charley. You didn’t even think about yourself. You three are good shipmates. I hope I am your friend.”
“I hope so too,” Egg replied. “Okay, does anyone have any ideas?”
Meanwhile, in Canada, a stick of paratroops dropped onto the beach near the rocky promontory where four armed thugs huddled. They surrendered instantly, without a shot being fired. The pilot of the Beaver drifting off the beach set Johnny Murk and Harrison Douglas rowing. He put them on the floats and gave them paddles. After much effort, they beached the dead Beaver. They too instantly surrendered to the waiting paratroopers, who were laughing at them.
Then the assembled contingent waited for helicopters from the States to arrive to pick them up. The whole crowd went into the cave and soon had the fire blazing brightly. While the captain in charge of the soldiers inspected the Viking ship in the cave, Johnny Murk and Harrison Douglas conferred in low tones.
“We’re not beat yet. That Solo thinks he got us, but you and I know that this is just one battle. We’re going to win the war.”
“Amen to that,” Harrison Douglas said. He remembered how he felt when he thought the gunmen would capture Solo in mere minutes. Filthy rich. He and Murk would own this damn planet. And everyone on it.
They made their plans.
“A saucer is coming out of orbit, Mr. President.” An air force colonel from the command center delivered the news to the president the next morning while he huddled with his national security team.
“Where will it come down?”
“First indications are the trajectory will bring it into the Washington area in about an hour.”
“Is this the saucer that just left Hudson’s Bay?”
“No, sir. It’s the one that has been up there for several weeks.”
The president, O’Reilly, the secretary of state, the national security adviser, and five of O’Reilly’s aides stared with open mouths at the colonel.
The president recovered first. He made a shooing motion at the officer as he said, “Keep me advised.”
When the door was again closed, hubbub broke loose. “Here? Washington? What could this mean?”
“Is this an attack?”
“Are aliens arriving?”
“They’ll probably demand our surrender.”
“Maybe they just want to negotiate for Adam Solo, establish friendly relations, get some fresh food.”
“And lay some of the local dollies, perhaps? You’re a moron.”