Assassin (17 page)

“G
OOD
L
ORD,”
A
LEX
H
AWKE HEARD
C
ONGREVE SAY IN HIS
headphones, “What was that?” They’d encountered a patch of rough air climbing out and the little seaplane was bucking like a frisky bronco.

“Mere bumps in the road, Constable,” Hawke said, grinning.

“Well, I don’t see any bloody bumps,” Ambrose said, peering down at Penobscot Bay out his starboard window, “And I certainly don’t see any roads down there, although I dearly wish I were on one!”

“Nothing to fret about, old thing,” Alex said, “It’s just that there’s more turbulence the closer you are to the surface. It will be smoother once we climb out and gain a little altitude.”

“Hmm.”

“At any rate, according to my charts here, there are no roads leading from Maine to Nantucket Island.”

“It must be great fun to find oneself so amusing.”

“It is, actually.”

The famous detective closed his eyes, and attempted to lean back in his small seat and compose his hands, interlacing his fingers upon his sizeable belly. He was in heather tweeds, a three-piece suit; but, in a typical display of sartorial indifference, Ambrose was wearing a yellow and white striped shirt from Thomas Pink and an old pinkish-green madras bow tie he’d acquired long ago at Mr. Trimingham’s shop on Front Street in Bermuda. All accented with a white silk scarf.

Alex Hawke banked the seaplane, carving a graceful arc into the dome of sky over the dark blue waters of the bay. His flight plan called for climbing initially to five thousand feet. He rechecked his compass and charts and set a southeasterly heading towards Nantucket Island. The sun was taking a peek over the eastern horizon, sending arrows of gold streaking across the dark bay and slanting through the deep Maine forests falling away beneath the silver plane.

Congreve was exhibiting his usual uneasiness with small aircraft. His situation was not helped by the fact that he’d consumed a fair amount of Irish whiskey in the cozy bar of the Dark Harbor Inn the night before. So he was suffering a mild hangover, he’d announced at breakfast that morning, and pointedly informed Alex that he would appreciate a smooth flight back to the island of Nantucket.

As long as Alex had known Congreve, the man would never admit to an actual fear of flying. He simply masked his jangled nerves and discomfort in a cloak of cranky irritability. Alex had long ago concluded that what bothered Ambrose most about going up in the sky with someone else was that it involved the total surrender of control. ‘I don’t enjoy hurtling through space sealed in an aluminum tube,’ was the oft-heard quote.

“All I’m saying, Alex,” Congreve now said, eyes still clenched shut, “is you designed the damn plane yourself. I’ve mentioned this to you before. I simply don’t see why you couldn’t have at least added an extra engine.”

“Could have done, Constable. But the result would have been a somewhat less airworthy aircraft.”

“What?” Congreve sputtered. He sat forward and looked at Alex. “You don’t mean to say that an airplane with one engine is safer than one with two! Preposterous.”

“I mean almost exactly that,” Alex said, smiling over at him. “I know it’s counterintuitive but it’s true…in a way.”

“Now I’m going to hear one of your infamously breezy explanations, am I not? I’m quite sure that, should we now be plunging into the sea, I’d be hearing a most complete scientific explanation of the deadly malfunction at fault in my demise.”

“Should we lose
Kittyhawke
’s single engine, Constable,” Alex said patiently, “we would have the ability to simply glide until we found a suitable landing spot. The plane would respond perfectly normally to all controls.”

“Ridiculous,” Congreve sniffed, jamming his unlit pipe between his teeth. “If you had a second engine we shouldn’t have to ‘glide,’ as you put it, at all. We should simply keep flying on the second engine until we reached our destination.”

“Quite right, except for the fact of torque,” Alex said. “A twin-engine craft loses power on one side, and the force of torque produced by the remaining engine wants to flip the plane over on its back. Quite dicey, actually. Responsible for many fatal crashes.”

“Can we talk about something else?”

“Certainly. I assumed you were interested in the aeronautics of—”

“Fatal crashes? Please.”

“Here’s an idea, old thing. Why don’t you fly the plane?”

“What?”

“I’m quite serious. I think it would be good for you. Here, I’m turning it over to you. You’re flying. You have control.”

Alex took his hand off the Y-shaped yoke between them. “Now, you take the stick and say, ‘I have control.’ ”

“Are you mad?”

“Better take the wheel, Constable. Plane will fly itself for a while, but watch what you’re doing…”

Ambrose regarded him for a long moment and then put his hand gingerly on the yoke.

“You’re supposed to say, ‘I have the airplane,’ ” Alex said. “So there’s no confusion, you see.”

“All right, then, I have the airplane,” Ambrose said and hauled back sharply on the yoke. “Let’s take her up.”

“Easy, watch your airspeed,” Hawke said. “You don’t want to stall.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning we lose lift, go into an uncontrolled downward spiral, excessive speed rips the wings off, and we plunge screaming into the ocean. Unless, of course, you use the rudder to stabilize the plane, regain control. Then, we climb once more into the wild blue yonder and live happily ever after.”

“What needs to happen now?” Congreve asked, and Alex saw that perhaps he was beginning to enjoy himself.

“Your nose needs to come down before you stall us out.”

“Ah. So I just push this thingy forward?”

“Yes. Easy on the thingy, however. These are subtle adjustments, requiring a light touch. Just ease the nose down smoothly. I’ll throttle back a bit…good…right there is quite good. Steady. I’ll adjust the elevators and the ailerons for trim. Give me the wheel a tick. Turn left, we bank left, see? So, I correct and level her out. And use the rudder for yaw.”

“Rudder? Where the hell’s the rudder?”

“Those foot pedals you see in your footwell. I have a set as well. Right and left rudder pedals. I’ll deal with those. Okay. She’s trimmed. Now, we just use throttle to change altitude. Watch this. Revs up, we go up. Revs down, we go down. Quite simple, this airplane. Just like a see-saw that moves in three axes.”

“It is, actually, isn’t it?” Congreve said, a broad smile on his face as he toyed gently with the plane’s attitude. “I never realized.”

Hawke turned and stared at his lifelong friend, a warm smile lighting up his eyes. The man simply never failed to startle and amaze. Despite his little snips and snaps and idiosyncrasies, the man had no end of courage and displayed sangfroid under any circumstance. Like Churchill himself, the man could wander through a hail of bullets with a bemused smile on his face. Hell, Hawke had seen him do it and more than once. Subsequently, he would quote Winston, saying, “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”

“Well, Captain Congreve, your copilot is going to take a little nap,” Hawke said. “See the horizon line? Just keep our wings level with that. Left and right stick controls the ailerons, remember. Watch your airspeed and the rev counter dials. There, and there. See them?”

“Yes, yes.”

“What’s our current RPM?” Alex asked, tapping the dial. Congreve leaned forward and squinted at it.

“Two thousand?”

“Good. There’s the throttle. Keep it that way. There’s the compass. Our course, as you see, is one-two-thirteen. Try to stay on that heading. One final navigation tip: keep the Atlantic on your left and you can’t go wrong. Nighty-night. Wake me just before landing. I don’t think you’re quite ready for that bit yet.”

“You’re quite serious? Dozing off?”

“No need to worry. In the event of an emergency, the cheeks of your bum will act as a flotation device. G’night, all.”

Hawke leaned back and closed his eyes, a broad smile on his face. He should have given this flying lesson years ago. Congreve, despite appearances, had the bottle for just about anything he ultimately had to face head on and he always had. It was the secret of his rise to the very top ranks of Scotland Yard and—

At that moment, the airplane angled down slightly and began a righthand spiral.

“Alex!” Congreve shouted. “I didn’t touch a thing!”

Hawke sat bolt upright, grabbed the wheel and pushed hard left to correct the right-handed spin. The control felt far too loose in his hand. Too much give. Yes. Something definitely wrong with the ailerons, the hinged flaps on the trailing edges of the wings that controlled banking or rolling.

“Problem with the aileron cable,” Alex said, moving the yoke loosely left and right and leaning across Ambrose’s chest to check the starboard aileron. “Christ, barely responding.”

“What did I do?”

“Nothing. Mechanical problem.”

“A-ha. One of those. Beastly luck.”

“Hold on to your hat, Constable!” he shouted. “I’ll go see what the matter is.”

Alex quickly unbuckled his harness, climbed out of the left-hand seat, and headed aft. The aileron control cables were just under the metal floor panels stretching back to the tail. Just here was the connection to the ailerons—all he had to do was pry up the floor panel and see what the devil—

Good Christ, this section of cable had parted almost completely! Only a few strands remained intact. Bloody thing looked as if it had been cut, sawn through, leaving just enough intact to make the sabotage unnoticeable until after they were airborne. Thank God he’d caught it in time. Now, if he could figure a way to jury-rig something, they just might be able to limp home.

“Everything all right back there?” Ambrose shouted over his shoulder.

“Wish I could feather-bed you, old thing. But, no, everything’s not quite right back here. Just keep her flying.”

Someone was trying to kill him. Someone who had seen him with Patterson at Dark Harbor. Or, someone with prior knowledge that he would be there. If Patterson was right, this could just be the work of the Dog. But, God knows, there were plenty of suspects available on Congreve’s endless lists.

He kept tools and lengths of cable stowed in a nearby bin. He was reaching for them when the plane’s angle of descent increased noticeably. “Ambrose,” he shouted over the engine’s roar. Keep her nose up! Only fore and aft movement of the wheel. No ailerons at all until I can jury-rig something up back here!”

“Anything else I can do?” Ambrose shouted back over his shoulder. He’d pulled back on the wheel and they were climbing again.

“Best touch wood, old thing, and quickly.”

“I don’t see any.”

“Your forehead should do it.”

“Alex, please.”

“Remember the old Yank expression ‘a wing and a prayer’?” Alex said, grinning. “I’ll work on the wing bit and you work on the prayer!”

Hawke grabbed wire, cable, wrenches and pliers and turned his attention back to the ailerons. At that moment, he was shocked to see the last strands of wound cable part with a loud bang. The plane made a stomach-lurching bank to starboard.

“Bleeding hell, Alex!” he heard Congreve yell, the panic in his voice palpable, “Are we going down?” Congreve turned around in his seat, his face deathly white. As he twisted towards the rear of the plane, he pulled the wheel back with him, holding it in a death grip.
Kittyhawke
angled sharply upwards, sending Alex careening towards the tail.

The little plane shuddered and stalled. The sudden loss of airspeed now sent it rolling down into a violent right-hand spiral. The sickening rate of descent and the degree of spin meant the airplane was now only moments away from being completely out of control. Any second now, speed could rip the wings from the fuselage. With no time to even scramble forward and take over, Alex instantly realized that Congreve himself would have to do it.

“Ambrose!” he shouted, keeping his voice as level and calm as possible under the circumstances. “Shove the wheel full forward! We need a steep dive to regain airspeed! Get her nose down! All right, good! Now. Those two pedals in your footwell! The rudders! I want you to stamp on the left one just as hard as Billy-be-damned! Do it right bloody now!”

“Aye, aye!” Ambrose shouted, and Alex saw the man lurch forward and left as he shoved the wheel forward and stomped on the left rudder pedal.

Alex half ran and half tumbled forward towards the cockpit, the plane now nosed over into a screaming dive. Full left rudder was all that would save them now. He jumped into the seat, startled by how far and how fast they’d descended. The blue sea was rushing up towards them. At this speed, they had maybe thirty seconds to live.

“I’ve got the plane,” he said to Ambrose, his hand on the wheel and his left foot now nailed to his own left rudder pedal. The plane was responding to full left rudder, the spin had slowed, but they were running out of time and air and all he could see out the cockpit windows was spinning water.

“Good God, we’ve had it, man,” Congreve said, and closed his eyes.