White Cargo

32

“The question is, who took it?” Meg said.

“It doesn’t much matter who took it,” Cat replied. “Without it, we’re fucked. There’s no way to call in the raid.”

“Sure, that’s plain enough, but it matters a hell of a lot who took it. I mean, if it was just a simple burglary, that’s one thing. If Prince had the cottage searched, that’s quite another.”

She had a point. “You’re right. If Prince finds out what that radio is, we’re dead. We’ve got to report it stolen.”

“Isn’t that just going to attract a lot of attention?”

“Sure, but if we report it, and if it was a burglary, then we have some chance of getting it back without Prince’s finding out what it is. On the other hand, if Prince had the place searched, then it can’t hurt to report it, since he already knows. It might look bad if we didn’t. There’s always the chance that he’s got it and doesn’t know what it is.”

“Okay,” Meg said, “we report it and see what happens. Anyway, I think this is a straight burglary; one of the staff, maybe.”

“I hope you’re right, but even if it is, unless we can get the radio back—”

“It’s not all that bad,” Meg interrupted. “I mean, we don’t have to get Jinx out of here today. We can just wait until the conference ends, fly out of here in their helicopter, and report everything when we get back. We can give Hedger and his people the whole layout here, and they can take particular care about Jinx’s safety when they come in.”

“I wish it were as easy as that,” Cat said. “It might have been once, but not anymore.”

Meg turned to face him. “Cat, what are you telling me? What did you do tonight?”

“I killed Denny. I followed him to the discotheque men’s room, then shot him and hid his body in a pantry. They might not find him immediately, but we’ve got another five days to go on Prince’s program, and they’re bound to find him before then. He’s bound to be missed.”

“But even if they do find him, they have no way of knowing it was you.” She paused. “Do they?”

“Not unless somebody noticed that we both went to the men’s room. I don’t think anyone did — they were all distracted at the moment — but I can’t be absolutely sure. Even if they can’t connect me with the killing, when they find the body, things are going to get a lot tougher around here. Security has been pretty lax, but it’ll get real tight. Even if we last the five days, Prince could leave first with Jinx, and we’d be right back where we started.”

“So what’s your plan?” Meg asked. She leaned forward. “You do have a plan, don’t you?”

“No,” Cat replied, “but I have an idea. I wish it were a better one. Tomorrow morning, early, I want you to go and find Prince — he’ll probably be on the tennis courts — and make a tennis date with him the following morning at eight — no, at seven, if he’ll sit still for it.” He got up and started to change clothes. “Make sure it’s mixed doubles with Jinx. And don’t tell him about the burglary. Let me do it.”

“Okay, I can handle that. What’s the rest of your idea? Mixed doubles is not going to get us out of here.”

“I’ll tell you when I’ve figured it out.”

“Swell.”

At seven the next morning Cat jogged easily up the path past the main house, then turned for the airstrip. He hoped nobody would be there this early in the morning. All the way, he tried to remember exactly a conversation he’d had with his flying instructor a few months back. The man had been cautioning him never to hand-spin a propeller unless he was prepared for the engine to fire, whether the switch was on or not. “You could have a hot magneto,” the man had said. “In fact,” he had continued, “that’s the way airplanes get stolen — the thief just bypasses the ignition system and hot-wires the engine directly to a mag.” Cat wasn’t sure he could hot-wire an airplane, but there was one sitting down there in a jungle clearing that might fly them out of this place, if he could hot-wire it.

The path turned and he came into the clearing. His heart sank. The pilot who had flown them in from Leticia was working on the helicopter, apparently changing the oil. Cat waved to him and kept running. He began to run around the clearing, then, at the point where the workers were still felling trees, he began to run directly toward where the helicopter and the Maule airplane were parked, counting his steps. He drew up next to the helicopter, multiplying in his head. The clearing was longer than he had thought, about two hundred yards.

“Morning, Hank,” he said to the pilot, panting.

“Hi, how you doing?”

“I’m wearing myself out, I think,” Cat laughed. “I’m not in as good shape as I thought.”

“Never could see it, running,” the pilot said, continuing to work.

“You’re a smart guy,” Cat replied. “It’s never too late not to start.” He took a deep breath. “You fly the Maule, too?”

The pilot nodded. “Yeah.”

“Mind if I have a look at her?”

The pilot looked suspicious. “What for?”

“I fly a Cessna 182 RG. I’ve never flown a Maule, but I saw one demonstrated once. Pretty impressive. I’ve got some farmland back home that wouldn’t work for a proper strip, but I might be able to get a Maule into it and out.”

The pilot stood up and wiped his hands on a rag. “You don’t need much room for a Maule,” he said. “Come on.” He beckoned Cat toward the airplane.

Together, they pulled back the camouflage netting to allow access to the cockpit. The man opened the door and waved Cat into the pilot’s seat. “It’d be a nice airplane by any standard,” he said, “even if it didn’t do short-takeoff and landing stuff. It’s got the same Lycoming two hundred and thirty-five horsepower engine as your 182 RG, but the airplane weighs about five hundred pounds less than yours.”

“Variable pitch propeller,” Cat said, fingering a knob. He pointed at a handle next to his seat that looked like an emergency brake lever on an old car. “What’s this?”

“Manually operated flaps,” the pilot said. “They work faster than electric ones. Try it.”

Cat pulled on the handle and immediately, the flaps snapped down.

“That’s twenty degrees,” the pilot said. “There are two more notches — forty and fifty degrees.”

Cat pulled the handle again, and the flaps dropped more. “How about a demonstration?” he asked.

The pilot laughed and shook his head. “No sireee, not until they clear at least another fifty feet of strip.” He pointed to the other end of the clearing. “Those trees are sixty, seventy feet high. I got the thing in here by the seat of my pants — scared the living shit out of me — but I’m not flying it out until I’ve got some room for error.”

“I don’t blame you,” Cat said. “Those trees look pretty daunting.” They did, too. “Talk me through the procedure. I’d like to have an idea how it works.”

“Well,” the pilot said, “you push the button on the flap control and hold it in so it doesn’t grab a notch; you put in twenty degrees of flaps, and you sit there with the brakes on and rev the thing up to full power. Then, when you think the engine is going to leave without you, you let go the brakes. Ever flown a tail dragger?”

“No.”

“It’s not like the tricycle gear on your plane. Almost as soon as you’re rolling you give ’er some forward stick to get the tail up. You watch your airspeed, and at forty knots you slam in all fifty degrees of flaps, then yank back on the yoke. She’ll spring right off the ground and pick up airspeed real fast, go up to fifty, sixty knots all at once. You’ll think you’re on a ride at Disneyland. Then, at about a hundred feet, when you’ve cleared any obstacle, you start easing off the flaps until you’re flying it just like a normal airplane.”

“Sounds pretty straightforward,” Cat said.

“Don’t you believe it, buddy,” the pilot snorted. “The manufacturers say you ought to have seventy-five or a hundred hours in the airplane before you try any radically short-field takeoffs. I’ve got about a hundred and ten right now, and it still scares the shit out of me.”

Cat reached forward and flipped on the master switch. There was a whine as the gyros behind the instrument panel started to spin.

“Hey, don’t do that!” the pilot said.

“Sorry,” Cat said. He flipped off the switches, but not before he had glanced at the fuel gauges. “What’s her range?” he asked.

“’Bout four hundred and fifty miles,” the pilot said. “Come on, we’d better get her covered up again. The Anaconda doesn’t want to get spotted from the air.”

Cat got down from the airplane and helped the pilot get the netting over it again. “Well thanks for the tour,” he said. “I’d better get myself some breakfast. You’d better, too,” he said to the pilot. “You down here every day this early?”

“Well if I’ve got something to do on the aircraft, I like to get it done before the heat gets up.”

“I don’t blame you,” Cat said. “I can feel it coming on now.” He gave a little wave and started jogging up the trail toward the main house. The takeoff sounded pretty hairy, but he was encouraged by one thing. In the map pocket at his feet had been a clipboard with a log sheet attached. And stuck under the clip had been the ignition key. He would not have to hot-wire the airplane.

But that was a moot point. The fuel gauges had read less than a quarter full. He would have to think of something else.