“I think Smote fixed some of the controls. Stagmatter has been swearing about something not being right,” said Tench. “I don’t know if that will help, though.”
“Smote must have done enough,” said Julie.
“A man of many talents,” said Tench. “Anyway, our number two choice is to get ourselves out of here through that back entry.”
The engine started again and ran but it was backfiring. Stagmatter began swearing. Tench and Julie could hear him through the door. “He’s still fighting with the controls,” said Tench. He could tell something was not working the way the big man had planned and the aircraft was not developing the necessary revolutions in one of its engine. The plane was vibrating hard from the port side but the starboard engines did not seem to be developing the same tremor. Tench tried to glance out the window. It was a small opening which had a transparent cover crusted with age. “Lots of black smoke from the exhaust,” he said.
“We have a way out,” Tench said, pointing to the rear of the plane. “Back there is the place where the gunner gets out. Smote used it to escape.”
Julie and Tench began to move her father toward the rear of the plane. Ahead of them they saw more of the large fuel bags which had been put into the tail space.
“Since Smote left, the Africans have loaded more gasoline tanks into the plane. They are smaller but they cover the doorway,” said Tench. He stood up and pushed at one of the bags.
He estimated the bladder bag weighed about two hundred pounds. “We can move them,” he said. “Takes both of us, though.” Julie helped him shift the large rubber tank to the side. Underneath it Tench pointed to the shape of a box like doorway panel that was half uncovered.
“One more try,” said Julie.
As the bag moved away, they felt the bottom of the plane begin to incline.
“Stop,” said Julie. “We’re shifting enough weight to tilt the plane.”
The pilots’ doorway opened and a streak of light came back through the aircraft body. Tench moved back against the side of the fuselage as the light played around the floorboards and over the rubber of the tanks.
In front Tench could see Stagmatter’s head. He could not make out his face but he knew the man’s eyes were sizing up the back of the plane, wondering what had changed the weight distribution.
The plane tilted back to where it had been. The floor was leveled again.
Stagmatter said to Owerri, whose shape Tench also could not see, “Just some of the fuel shifting. We’re all right but we better hurry.” Stagmatter propped the door open but turned back to his controls.
“The gasoline inside the bag. It shifted weight.” They could hear the fuel sloshing inside the bag.
“What do we do?” said Julie, her voice tense in the darkness.
“If we are careful to only move the fuel bag sideways, the weight will not be changed fore and aft. Then we can get at the doorway,” said Tench.
The third engine which had been giving trouble, perhaps due to Smote, was now running smoothly. Tench felt the pilot run up the engines and the plane vibrated more violently.
“He will take off soon,” said Tench.
The two of them pushed on the bag. The air they breathed was heavy with gasoline fumes mixed with the stink of their sweat.
“On three, let’s go again,” said Tench, knowing that her shoulder must be giving her incredible pain. He had no choice but to get her to help him.
“One, two, three,” Julie pushed then slipped down on the floor , her bare feet sliding on the grease covered steel.
“Are you all right?” Tench said, bending down.
“Just my shoulder. Let’s go again.”
She got up. “One, two, three.” This time the bag sat on top of thicker floor grease and slid sideways about a foot.
“I think that is enough,” said Tench. He went to his knees and felt with his hands in the darkness to find the levers to the trap door.
He found them and snapped them open. The door was freed up. A breeze of fresh air came in.
“The door is open,” he whispered.
They could see more because of the lights of the mansion behind the plane. The ground was moving quickly beneath the door. The breeze was strong, kicked up by the huge propellers as the engines strained to build up takeoff power.
Tench looked forward to where Strake lay. “Let’s get your father out first.”
They pulled him by his feet toward the doorway.
“I can’t wake him up,” Julie said, trying to slap his face, to stir him.
“Don’t worry. He’ll probably be safer if he’s asleep and relaxed. Come on, we’ve got to get him out.”
An engine on the left side of the plane began to run rough, blasting out black smoke. “The same one, again,” said Tench. They smelled the exhaust fumes of the big engines.
“We’ve got a quarter mile to go before we’re over water,” said Tench.
Strake’s legs were hanging down into the air below the plane. “Push him,” said Tench. He and Julie managed to get the man out through the doorway and saw him fall several feet to the ground where he hit, bounced slightly, rolled to the side and lay still.
Julie looked down at the ground, her left hand stroking her wounded shoulder, blood trickling over her tee shirt.
“He’ll be all right, Julie. Keep moving. You have to get out.”
Julie put her bare legs into the wind rushing along the underbody of the bomber. A dog was running along about five feet beneath them. “That’s Captain Bob’s dog,” she said with excitement in her voice as though she had been given strength by the presence of the animal.
She grinned at Tench, hunched forward and jumped.
Her Minnie Mouse tee shirt snagged on the sharp edge of the trap door. As she hung in the air, her feet dangling, her eyes beseeching him to do something, he clawed at the metal edge, trying to free the cloth. The cloth began to rip, pulling up from her waist towards her shoulder. Her body began to strip itself from the fabric, first the arm and shoulder then moving across her chest. He at the same time pulled as hard as he could against the cloth that held her body weight against the plane, trying to tear it away, the combined effort of the forward thrust of the aircraft and her weight pulling backward exerting a tremendous force against all the strength that he could find in himself to free it. He counted to himself, breathed hard and then gave a substantial thrust upward on the cloth. It finally ripped apart, sending her flying into the air.
The bomber was at the shoreline, the wind from the engine propellers forcing ripples across the shallow water. The plane was about ten feet into the air. He moved his head in the wind preparing to jump.
Then he noticed another strange sight. The old workboat that had belonged to the Captain had remained floating even after the guards had tried to sink it. Now it was drifting directly under the path of the rising bomber.
Tench bent his head through the hole preparing to jump. He saw the yacht ahead slowly moving out through the shoals into deep water and the Bay channel water. The yacht had already been loaded with the rest of the Africans and Marengo was probably at the helm. The yacht engine could be heard coughing and roaring as its exhaust shipped water in the tide wash. In less than an hour the yacht would be long gone, probably to rendezvous with one of the freighters serving Baltimore, perhaps one with the lion’s head on its containers.
He heard a noise. He straightened up and looked around. Then he saw Stagmatter crawling towards him, an automatic pistol in his left hand, his right pulling him along. He must have looked behind again and had seen the light of the open escape door. Owerri was flying the plane. The plane had slowed its ascent, the engine still giving trouble. It was still close to the water surface, not more than ten feet above the waves.
“I should have killed you along with the old man,” Stagmatter called, froth coming out of his angry mouth, as he hurried, grabbing at the bouncing metal floor. “Tell me what you did to my airplane.” Then he screamed, “W
hat have you done?”
Tench did not answer, trying to lower himself into the hole so he could jump clear. Then Tench was through and falling, a shot going by his face as Stagmatter finally got close enough to fire.
Outside, Tench saw Abraham reach the Captain’s workboat and leap aboard. Then he lurched to the roof of the cubby cabin. The workboat was directly in line now with the flight of the big airplane, the top of its cubby cabin not more than five feet below.
Tench went under the surface and then bobbed back. He saw the plane moving away from him. Abraham had climbed on the old boat and stood on the top of the little cabin. The dog’s eyes were alert and angry, its mouth open in a vicious snarl.
Then with horror he saw Stagmatter’s arm drop down into the air stream as he held his pistol in a direct aim at Tench.
Julie called to Tench from the shoreline, “Over here, Tench. Here.” He turned and tried to wave her to duck down, to keep away from Stagmatter’s gun. He turned back to Stagmatter.
The plane dipped closer to the water surface. The boat was now beneath the fuselage. At that moment the dog surged upward from the boat, jumped toward Stagmatter whose dangling gun hand was not more than five feet away. Abraham’s snarling jaw grabbed Stagmatter’s hand. The pistol fired, the shot going wild. Stagmatter tried to pull away from the dog. Abraham would not let go, his wild body hanging in the air, feet kicking, as the bomber continued to fly forward, rising more above the water. Stagmatter was holding on to the plane’s fuselage with his other hand, as he shook at the dog, blood now coming from his tortured hand as the dog’s teeth ripped at his skin.
The bomber’s four engines were stirring up clouds of spray from the shallow tidewater. The morning sunlight was just breaking through the darkness and Tench could see the welcome sight of a Coast Guard cutter, one of the bigger ships coming full speed at them. Its search beams were sweeping the water not more than five miles away.
He saw a trail of smoke heading up from the water’s surface and watched the small round tube causing the smoke trail as it traveled toward the tan colored left wing of the bomber. He saw a glint from the pilot’s window, as the African raised her jeweled hand, in a futile attempt to stop her doom. The tube impacted just in front of the left wing, the smoke of the projectile scattered among the wind blasts of the two left side propellers. The impact of the object produced an immediate explosion, and the plane veered further to the left, its left wing bending backward, broken off by the impact, and its wing tip trailing in the water. Then in a slow left turn toward the water the great plane banked and its nose came full speed toward the water and the yacht, the top wing twisting the bomber over, all engines still turning. The other wing became almost vertical aloft and perpendicular to the fuselage, driving the remains of the bomber down to its destruction.
The explosion broke the dog’s hold from Stagmatter’s arm and the animal fell towards Tench in the water. Stagmatter turned and with terror watched the rush of flames coming toward him inside the fuselage. His foot which had been holding him in the doorway was stuck in sliding debris from inside the plane. He dropped the gun and used both hands frantically trying to free his boot. He pulled faster, harder, as the flames crept toward him, then screamed as he was engulfed. He became instantly a black stick figure with dancing fire moving over the outline of his body.
A fireball lit up the water and its glare moved over the land towards the mansion where the old windows crackled with pinpoints of light. The yacht exploded as the plane crashed into it, throwing the hull of the boat up into the air, dropping out burning figures of men who flailed at the air in their vain attempts to escape the burning flames.
Deep from his memory, Tench could hear Katy’s little song again, strangely prophetic from so long ago,
“Clap your hand, Black Eye Susan,
Black Eye Susan, Clap your hand.”
Chapter Twenty-four
10 AM Sunday August 22
Out on the Chesapeake Bay in front of the Strake mansion several Coast Guard patrol boats were anchored with small rubber launches running to and from the shore and circling the disintegrated wreckage of the B24 Liberator bomber, mostly framed spars stabbed into the shallow bottom and into the totally destroyed shell of a yacht. Along the shore several bodies were laid out covered with body bags and waiting for airlift to the medical examiner in Baltimore. Owerri’s body had been identified only by the many jeweled rings on her charred fingers and Stagmatter only by his great size. Marengo was not identified as his body disintegrated along with the Africans when the boat was hit, and only scorched body parts were left, enough to make up the number of persons on board, but not discernible as to which body they belonged to.
FBI agents went in and out of the mansion and Stagmatter’s office in the museum collecting cartons of exhibits. The mayor had been by, bustling, planning her public relations. Tench and Julie sat on the porch with Smiley and Kate. Smote was standing on the lawn near the bulldozer, his eyes on the hole in the ceiling of the tunnel where he had pulled back the covering fish net. Satter was next to him, his hand resting on Smote’s shoulder.
“How is your wound?”
“Much better,” Julie said.
“This investigation will lead deep into Africa, several countries, I suspect, before it runs out,” said Tench. “Stagmatter and Owerri must have had dozens of accomplices who helped to arrange this attack.”
“If my father can be revived from the drugs they gave him, he will help. I know he will,” said Julie.
“The terrorists started working on your father years ago,” said Tench.
“How do you mean?”
“Marengo had him pegged from the beginning.”
“Daddy wanted to make money. He didn’t pay enough attention to the people who were helping him make money,” she said, looking down at her cup of coffee. “He didn’t realize that the people who were working for him were also working for themselves.”
“I just hope he recovers some of his mind,” said Tench.
She nodded. “He was a wonderful father.”
“I liked him too,” said Tench, touching her hand.
Smote walked up to the edge of the porch and looked up at Tench from the boxwood garden below. “Everything all right?” asked Tench.
“Everything,” Smote said, grinning.
“We’ll raise the Emmy, pump out the water. She’ll be all right,” said Tench.
Smote said, “She come right back, you see.”
Tench nodded. He remembered Captain Bob’s words about the boat.
“Yessir, I’d tell you boys, the best thing you can do is get yourself a boat like my Emma here. Maybe, Smote, you inherit her when I’m gone. Let me just say, don’t you start thinking that’s going to be too soon. Nossir, you take care of her and she’ll take care of you, keep you from any harm. You get a boat and she’ll be your anchor here in the harbor. She’ll wake you up in the morning and put you to bed at night just like a wife, and, while she’s afloat, she’ll make you stay around to take care of her. She’ll take care of you too, feed you and clothe you in the cold weather, and bring you home. When she’s wore out, then you cut off a piece of her that’s still good like they used to do with the old clipper ships, and that’s what you start her replacement with, only make damn sure she’s really gone before you start that new boat, so she don’t get jealous.”
“Where’s Abraham?” asked Julie.
“He was a wet dog when I pulled him into our boat,” said Katy.
Abraham, as if sensing that he was being discussed, appeared from inside the house, padding toward Tench. When he saw Smote below the porch, he went down the porch steps to nuzzle Smote. Smote stroked his back, smoothing the fur.
“Your head was too hard to get hurt, wasn’t it, Abraham?” called Tench.
Tench turned to Smiley. “It was good seeing you guys coming across the Bay,” he said. “You saved the lives of people you say you don’t like.”
“I mean,” said Smiley, �
��We ain’t going to let these people blow up the country, nossir.” He grinned and added. “I guess what’s most important is that they’re Americans we saved.”
“What were you doing here?” asked Tench.
“We followed you,” said Katy.
“She figured that little Spaniard was going to get you in trouble. We went up to your cottage to tell you. We saw the runabout was gone and figured it out. Then we got our boat and came after you. We were right, “Smiley said. “When we got here, we saw that bitch Owerri in the pilot compartment. We spotted you and your girl jumping out. We knew that they were up to something with that old airplane. So we took them out with the bossman.”
“I looked behind me and saw the Coasties coming along full speed. I figured they knew something was bad too,” said Katy.
“We done right,” Smiley said.
Tench said, “Smote got to them, alerted the local Coast Guard station as well as Satter and the State Police.”
“You like that rocket, don’t you?” Smiley said. “Trouble is the Feds took it away from me. Said it wasn’t legal for me to have. They even wanted to know where I got it.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them a fellow traded it for my old Yamaha bike. I said I never saw him or the bike again. “
“They believed you?” asked Tench, with a smile.
“Who cares? I got four more of the bossmen hid up in the woods anyway and they’s a lot more where they came from.”
“You saved our lives.” As he said this to his tattooed friend, Tench thought about the irony. He wondered who the real terrorists were, this man with the shoulder fired rocket who wanted to kill non-whites, or the African doctor who desired revenge for the evil done to her country by whites. He shook his head and resolved to stick to building race cars.
“Got to keep you alive,” said Smiley, unaware of Tench’s confusion.” I want to drive the dragster.”
Katy said, “God damn it. You ain’t much of shot, Smiley. Aim the bossman at the pilot and hit the engine. God damn thing. No wonder our soldiers couldn’t hit any of the damn Cong.”
Terror Flower (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 5) Page 19