Clive Cussler - The Race

“He’s a tip-top machinist,” said Archie. “Supports himself working freelance, fashioning parts. The hangar cars have lathes, drill presses, hones, and gear shapers. If all of a sudden they need a part, Platov can make it faster than the factory can ship it.”

“Here comes our girl!” said Isaac Bell.

“At last,” said Archie, clearly relieved despite his earlier assurances.

Bell watched the yellow speck that his sharp eyes had spotted on the horizon. It grew larger rapidly. Sooner than Bell expected, it was close enough to present the shape of a sleek monoplane. He could hear the motor make an authoritative smooth burble.

Archie said, “That’s the Celere that Preston Whiteway bought back from Marco’s creditors.”

Isaac Bell eyed it appreciatively. “Marco’s last effort makes most of these others look like box kites.”

“It’s a speedster, all right,” Archie agreed. “But the talk around the infield is it’s not as strongly constructed as the biplanes. And there are rumors that that’s how Marco went broke.”

“What rumors?”

“Back in Italy, they say, Marco sold a machine to the Italian Army, borrowed against future royalties, and immigrated to America and built a couple of standard biplanes he sold to Josephine’s husband. Then he borrowed more money to build that one she’s flying on now. Unfortunately, they say, back in Italy a wing fell off the one he sold to the Italian Army, and a general broke both legs in the smash. The Army canceled the contract, and Marco was however you say persona non grata in Italian. True story or not, the mechanicians agree that monoplanes aren’t as strong as biplanes.”

“But all that biplane strength comes at the expense of speed.”

“Maybe so, but the birdmen and mechanicians I talked to all say that just getting to San Francisco is going to be the hard part. Machines that strive only for speed can’t stay the whole race.”

Bell nodded. “The sixty-horsepower, four-cylinder Model 35 Thomas Flyer that won the New York – to – Paris automobile race probably wasn’t the fastest, but it was the strongest. Let’s hope that Preston didn’t buy our client a death trap.”

“Considering the flocks of telegrams Whiteway sends her every day, you can bet he had that machine examined from stem to stern before he bought it. Whiteway wouldn’t take chances with her life. The man’s in love.”

“What does Josephine think of Preston?” Bell asked.

It was not an idle question. If anyone knew her state of mind regarding Whiteway, it would be Archie. Before he became the most happily married detective in America, Archibald Angel Abbott IV had enjoyed many years as New York City’s most avidly pursued eligible bachelor.

“In my opinion,” Archie smiled knowingly, “Josephine admires the aeroplane that Preston bought her very much.”

“No one has ever accused Preston Whiteway of exercising intelligence in his personal affairs.”

“Didn’t he once carry a torch for Marion?”

“Blithely unaware that he was risking life and limb,” Bell said grimly. “My point exactly.”

He started toward the open section of infield where the machines were alighting. Joe Mudd’s sturdy red tractor biplane had taken to the sky while Bell was listening to Platov and was approaching to land ahead of the yellow monoplane. While Josephine circled around to let it go first, the red biplane floated to the grass and rolled along for a hundred yards to a stop.

Josephine’s machine came down to earth at a steeper angle and a much higher rate of speed. It was traveling so swiftly that it seemed that she had somehow lost control of it and was falling out of the sky.

CONVERSATIONS CEASED.

Men put down tools and stared.

The yellow aeroplane was mere yards from smashing into the grass when Josephine hauled back on a lever that raised small flaps on the back of her wings and the elevator on her tailpiece. The airship leveled out, slowed, bounced on the grass, and rolled to a gentle stop.

There was a long moment of stunned silence. Then, from one end of the infield to the other, mechanicians and airmen whistled, clapped, and cheered her stunt, for it was clear that she had come down exactly as she had intended, relying on her skill to thumb her nose at gravity.

And when a slight figure dressed head to toe in white climbed out of her compartment behind the wing, a roar of approval thundered from spectators in the grandstand. She waved to the crowd and flashed a gleaming smile.

“Well done!” said Isaac Bell. “Preston Whiteway may be an idiot in his personal affairs, but he can spot a winner.”

He strode to the yellow machine, pulling ahead of the long-legged Archie. A burly detective dressed as a mechanician blocked his way. “Where you going, mister?”

“I am Van Dorn Chief Investigator Isaac Bell.”

The man stepped back, though he still eyed him carefully. “Sorry, I didn’t know you, Mr. Bell. Tom LaGuardia, Saint Louis office. I just got shifted here. I saw you talking to Mr. Abbott. I should have assumed you were on the level.”

“You did the right thing. Never assume when your client’s life is at risk. If you stop the wrong person, you can always apologize. If you don’t stop the right person, you can’t apologize to a dead client.”

Archie caught up. “Good job, Tom. I’ll vouch for him.”

Bell was already heading for Josephine. She had climbed onto a crosspiece that connected the landing wheels to lean into her motor and was adjusting the carburetor with a screwdriver.

Bell said, “Those hinged appendages on the back of your wings appear to give you extraordinary control.”

She looked down at him with lively eyes. Hazel, Bell noticed, a warm green color in the sunlight, edging toward a cooler gray. “They’re called alettoni . That’s Italian. It means ‘little wings.’”

“Did they slow your airship’s descent by enlarging the wing’s surface?”

Returning her attention to the carburetor, she answered, “They deflect more air.”

“Do alettoni work better than warping?”

“I’m not sure yet,” she said. “They don’t always do what I want them to. Sometimes they act as a brake and slow me down instead of keeping me level.”

“Can they be adjusted?”

“The man who invented them is dead. So now we have to figure it out without his help.” She made a final adjustment, sheathed her screwdriver in a back pocket, jumped to the ground, and offered her gloved hand. “I’m Josephine, by the way. Who are you?”

“Sorry, I should have introduced myself. I’m Isaac Bell. I’m Van Dorn’s chief investigator.”

“My brave protectors,” she said with a frank and open smile.

She was tiny, Bell thought. Barely an inch over five feet tall, with a pretty upturned nose. Her direct gaze was older than her years, though she had a young woman’s voice, thin and girlish. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Bell. I hope ‘chief investigator’ doesn’t mean Archie’s been fired?”

“Not at all. Archie is in charge of your personal safety. My job is to intercept your husband before he gets close enough to harm you.”

Her eyes darkened, and she looked fearful. “You’ll never catch him, you know.”

“Why not?”

“He’s too sly. He thinks like a wild animal.”

Bell smiled to put her at ease, for he saw that she was really afraid of Frost. “We’ll do what we have to to deal with him. I wonder whether you might give me any clues to his behavior. Anything that would help me run him to ground.”

“I can only tell you things about him that won’t help. I’m afraid I don’t know anything that will.”