LACKING VIRTUES (57 page)

Chapter Forty-Two

Warner’s rental car wasn’t a station wagon, but you could at least fold the rear seat forward. This extended the luggage compartment from the backs of the front seats all the way through the trunk to the end of the car.

Steven and Nicole were able to lie down and stretch out. With blankets and maps from Steven’s studio, and well-arranged articles of clothing from Warner’s cold weather bag, they could cover themselves and hide from view whenever Warner came to an
autoroute
toll booth.

Driving out of Paris, they had debated whether to take the
autoroute
, the high-speed expressway, or less traveled but slower country roads. They had decided it made sense to go for broke, to try to get across the Belgian border, scarcely two hours away, before the manhunt was made public and extended to the rest of France.

They were near Valenciennes, the last French town before the border, when the 6:00 a.m. news forced a change of plans.

“Frank, this is bad,” Steven said. “Get off the road. I mean
off
the road. Now! Down that embankment. Forget the border. They’re looking for this car.”

Warner pulled onto the shoulder and turned off his headlights. The morning was chilly, perhaps 40 degrees. It was still dark, but the metallic gray arc of dawn glowed to the east.

“Go on, drive down there,” Steven said. “You can make it.”

“When these trucks pass,” Warner said.

The news droned on in French. Warner hated not being able to understand it. But there were a few words that rang loud and clear through the sonorous cascade of meaningless sounds, words such as Marx, LeConte and Nicole Michelet.

The Belgian border was just five miles ahead. Five miles, he thought, could be a long way.

The news report ended, replaced by irritating European rock. Warner checked the rear view mirror.  No one coming. He eased the Peugeot down the steep embankment and bumped onto the service road. He came to an intersection and opted for an unmarked two-lane.

“Steven, what did they say?”

“Everything we don’t need to hear. The police are looking for me. They think I stabbed Sophie and kidnapped Nicole. Can you believe it? They also say I might be in a rental Peugeot, the model and color of this one. They gave a license number. I assume it’s ours. How the hell could they know that, Frank?”

“I don’t know. Claussen must have recognized the CVR as a part from one of the Boeing crashes and taken if from there.”

“But how?”

“Steven, it’s pointless to speculate. It doesn’t change our  situation. All that matters is that we’re in serious trouble. I think you should know that, Nicole. I’m not just talking about me and Steven. These are desperate men, your father included. If we are taken into custody, they’ll find a way to justify getting rid of all three of us. As I said, we’re in serious trouble.”

“I know,” Nicole answered. “I don’t want to think about it, Mr. Warner, but I know what you say is true.”

She was, Warner thought, showing a lot of composure after what she had been just been through.

“It gets worse,” Steven said. “They described me and Nicole. The police apologized for delays at airports, toll booths, ferries and border crossings. And they’re involving Interpol in the manhunt. Getting out of France isn’t salvation. They’ll be looking for us all over Europe.”

“Shit.”

“Amen. Listen, Frank, here’s another question for you. If they announced Nicole’s name, why aren’t they mentioning you?”

“Because they don’t want to alert our government. I will simply fall into the Sophie category if we’re caught.”

“Meaning?”

“You killed me for the car.”

“Terrific. Let’s not get caught.”

“Good idea.”

Headlights were coming toward them, bouncing eerily through the early morning mist. The tree-lined road was narrow and the approaching vehicle large. Warner turned off on a dirt tractor path to let the aging fertilizer truck clatter past. He was about to continue his aimless drive when he spotted something that jolted his mind into high gear. He pointed into the mist. “See it?”

“What?” Steven said.

“Just look.”

“The wind sock?”

“That’s right. Where there’s a sock, there’s usually a plane.”

“You know how to fly?”

“Yes.”

“Well, why not?” Steven said. “I don’t see any other way out of here.”

Warner slammed the Peugeot into reverse, bumped back onto the two-lane and turned up another dirt road that ran in the general direction they wanted to go.

***

The air sock was attached to a sawed-off telephone pole at the end of a narrow grass strip. Warner got out and walked the field. There were signs of landings, depressions in the soft earth, but none looked recent.

Steven came up beside him. “Well? Where’s the plane?”

“Either in that old barn with the tanks out front or somewhere else for the winter. Shall we have a look?”

The entrance was secured with a massive padlock. Warner pried one side of the rickety wooden door open and shined his flashlight through the crack. There was an old yellow biplane inside, the prettiest thing he’d seen since Claire came home.

“Go get your maps out of the car,” he told Steven. “I’ll need to do some plotting before we take off. And bring your gun. Screw on the silencer and shoot the lock off. Carefully.”

“There’s really a plane in there?”

“There is. A Boeing Stearman, if I’m not mistaken.”

“A Boeing, huh? Holy Christ, Warner, when I first met you I was worried you were like my father. It turns out you’re crazier than all of us.”

“I probably
was
like your father. Hurry.”

While Steven trotted back to the car, Warner looked over the three red tanks just outside the barn door. They were mounted high off the ground on wooden stilts that were laced together like railroad trestles. He climbed the first ladder, pulled down the hose from the number one tank and sniffed it. Some kind of pesticide, forget that one.

He climbed another ladder, very rickety, and felt around for the hose to the second tank. Nothing, it had been removed. He looked at the tank more closely and saw that the bottom had rusted out.

The third tank had the word “Essence” scrawled across its face in crooked black letters. The ladder looked sturdier than the last.

The hose was in good shape. He took a sniff. Aviation fuel, but there were no gauges to indicate the level of liquid inside. He climbed on top of the tank, unscrewed the cap and shined his light down the filler hole.

The strangest things, he thought, could look beautiful in the right circumstances. Such as a battered yellow crop duster; or the reflection of liquid in a dark hole.

He glanced across the field at Steven, who had the maps in his back pocket and was holding his automatic pistol carelessly while he leaned in the car window to say something to Nicole. She raised her head, and he kissed her.

“Get your ass over here,” Warner shouted. “When we’re in the air, you can nuzzle all you want.”

Steven flipped him the bird without turning around. He kissed Nicole again, then made up for lost time with a sprint across the field. “Stay up there, Warner,” he said. “No telling where this thing’ll go.”

Warner, safety advocate for the nation, was still trying to scramble down from the tank, picturing the ricochet hitting 500 gallons of aviation fuel and sending him up in a fireball, when he was greeted by the dull report of a silenced automatic pistol.

“Goddammit,” he mumbled. He was used to being around people who shared his values; or at least pretended to.

By the time he got to the bottom of the ladder, Steven had already opened one side of the creaking double door and stood staring at the old yellow bird.

Warner picked up the lock, which lay in the wet grass with a neat round hole through its center. The kid could shoot. The kid could do a lot of things. Inspiring confidence wasn’t one of them.

“Jesus Christ, Frank, is this thing gonna fly?”

“You bet she’s gonna fly, Steven. The old Stearman’s still in use all over the world. She might not meet FAA regulations, but if the truth be known, not much does these days.”

“So, how old’s this crate?”

“I’d say seventy years, give or take. But look at this. It’s been retrofitted with a Pratt and Whitney R 985 engine. That means four hundred fifty horses and not too much oil consumption. We’ll fly to one of those deserted islands off the Dutch coast, put her down and cover her before they get any kind of a search organized, then fly our final leg in the dark.”

“This thing looks like a museum piece.”

“Let’s immortalize her. Give me a hand.”

Steven motioned for Nicole, but here Warner drew the line. He said, “I want her to stay with the car and keep watch. We’re going to be concentrating on getting this airplane ready. We need her to do something useful.”

“I thought maybe she could be useful here. You know, load the old barge up, things like that.”

“Not yet.”

Warner met Nicole halfway across the strip and had a word with her. He spoke gently. Here was a young girl being hunted down by her own father. Even in her fear, confusion and sadness, she was pleasant to look at, pleasant to talk to. She graciously accepted his explanation of why she needed to stay with the car. He liked her. It hurt him deeply to know that she would probably come to harm before this day was over.

Warner found Steven going through tools on a greasy workbench. “By the way, Frank,” he said, “how much fuel did you find?”

“Plenty, a lot more than the aircraft will hold. I’d like to convert those pesticide tanks under the wings into supplementary fuel tanks.”

“You think we can make it to Claussen’s without refueling?”

“Easily. We’ve got less than a thousand kilometers to cover and prevailing winds are at our tail. We’ll need some oil, but that’s it. We’ll take a few liters with us, top up when we land on the island. Come here. You get started flushing those tanks. I’ll rig a fuel delivery system.”

***

Nicole put on Steven’s other baseball cap, the one he wasn’t wearing. She got out and sat on the trunk of the Peugeot. Every once in a while she glanced at the barn. The door was open. She could see Steven and Warner working on the airplane. She had no idea what they were doing, but whatever it was gave her reason to hope they might somehow escape her father’s noose.

To the east the sun was rising, transforming the cold gray mist along the horizon into a blanket of orange and pink. She tried to concentrate on the gentle undulations of the hills near Belgian border; tried to find some semblance of inner peace.

But she found none. She was still grappling with the realization that her own father had been involved in Sophie’s murder and the deaths of thousands of innocent people.

She did not begin to feel better until she saw Steven and Warner pushing the old yellow biplane out of the barn and into the first light of the sun. They rolled it next to the row of tanks. Steven climbed a ladder and passed Warner a hose.