The Cult of the Double Axe

CHAPTER ONE

11:20 a.m., July 17, 1933

Near Evanston, Wyoming

Jack Brady gritted his teeth and ducked his head as he flew the Curtiss JN-4D into the rocky, scrub-covered Wyoming desert. It slammed down hard and without mercy, shattering the landing gear and bouncing once on the rocky ground. The plane tipped forward, nosing into the dirt, the still-spinning prop tearing itself into pieces as it chewed through shrubs and threw up clouds of red Wyoming dirt. A cloud of debris encompassed the plane, showering Jack with rock, sagebrush, dirt, and bits of airplane. The roar was horrendous, and for a moment Jack just closed his eyes and grabbed at the lucky charm around his neck, waiting for it to end.

Seconds later - though it felt an eternity - the roar stopped, the rain of debris ceased, and Jack opened his eyes. He couldn’t see anything for the thick film of dirt on his goggles. He listened to the settling of dirt and the metallic pinging of the still hot, but no longer running engine as he wiped at his goggles before pulling them off his face. The Jenny was tilted nose downward; the front third of the fuselage was buried under fresh red dirt that cascaded downward in a mock earthen waterfall.

“Cripes.” Jack threw the goggles out of the plane and climbed out of the jumbled mess. He half climbed, half fell to the ground, took two steps, brushing at the dirt that covered him, and surveyed the wreckage. The nose was half-buried in the dirt; the tail was lifted high in the air. The landing gear and right wing were gone, and it seemed that canvas and luck was the only thing holding the left wing on. It canted upward at an angle Jack had never seen in an aircraft, forced there by the weight of the plane and the rock and dirt piled up beneath it. He stepped back, pulled off his gloves, and planted his hands on his hips in disgust.

He heard the distant rumble of a truck engine, but didn’t turn toward it. It was Pete hightailing it across the desert in the beat-up Ford truck they’d bought last summer. Pete was a good friend and an even better mechanic, but Jack knew how he felt about “his” plane.

As the truck approached, bouncing across the rough terrain at speeds almost guaranteed to break something, Jack turned from the plane and started to walk toward the airfield. The rusted ten-year-old truck skidded to a stop, throwing up more dirt and dust. Jack grimace, blinking against the onslaught and slapping at his clothing with the gloves in his hands.

“Jack!” Pete piled out of the truck as it stopped moving, stumbled once, and ran the few paces to where Jack stood dusting himself off. “Leapin’ lizards, Jacky! You okay?” Genuine concern etched the young mechanic’s face.

“Peachy,” Jack said quietly.

That seemed to satisfy Pete, because he looked right past Jack at the wreckage, his face falling even more. He stared at the half-buried plane, then took two rangy steps toward it with a gait that could only have come out of Texas. “What’d you do?” he asked, his drawl heavier than normal.

Jack shrugged. “I, uh...” He shrugged again and brushed at his clothes once more. He hadn’t done anything. A few minutes ago, he’d been a thousand feet above the ramshackle buildings and packed-earth airstrip that he and Pete called home. But somehow the simple flight to check out Pete’s fine-tuning of the engine had turned to disaster when Jack had pushed the plane a little too hard, taking an inverted roll what turned out to be obviously too fast. The fifteen-year-old biplane just couldn’t take the stress and had nearly buckled in half before crash-landing in the dry Wyoming desert.

Pete moved toward the plane like a man in a dream, stumbled once, then stopped and stared. “What’d you do?” he repeated. “What’d you do to my plane?”

Jack took in a breath and blew it out. “We’ll fix her up, Pete.” He tried to sound encouraging, but he knew that fixing her up was probably going to be impossible.

“Fix her up?” Pete turned from the plane and stared at Jack in disbelief. “How’re we gonna fix her up? You tore her to pieces! There ain’t enough of her left to fix!” He threw his hands up in resignation, then turned and looked at the plane again, walking to the tail and laying a bare hand on it. “Aw, criminy,” he said softly.

Jack sighed and stuffed his gloves into the pocket of his leather jacket. “We’ll rebuild her.”

“With what?” Pete didn’t turn around.

Jack shrugged, though he knew the gesture was lost on his friend. “The engine’s probably good, we just need to do a few...”

“Engine’s pro’ly full of dirt,” Pete interrupted. He stepped back from the plane, then stooped and picked up a piece of splintered wood. It looked like it had once been part of the prop. He slapped it in his hands as he looked at the wreckage, his lanky frame taking on a more businesslike pose - one Jack had seen a hundred times. It meant he was already thinking about the rebuild.

“Think we can have her ready for Lincoln?”

Pete shook his head. “I doubt it,” he said. “Lincoln’s only four weeks away. Even if we had the parts and the money . . . ” His voice trailed off and he stopped slapping the prop in his hand.

Jack swore. They’d spent the last of their money on a new paint job, in preparation for the National Air Races in Lincoln, Nebraska. The Curtiss wasn’t a racer, but Jack’s daredevil flying was always a crowd-pleaser and they’d been promised a solid three hundred dollars for the show. “Maybe Potts will front us.”

Pete shrugged. “You go talk to him then. Every time I go over there he reminds me how far behind we are on hangar rental, and keeps threatenin’ to give us the boot.”

Jack didn’t say anything. That was pretty much the same treatment he got from the airfield owner as well. Fact was, if they didn’t get the three hundred clams in Lincoln, they would lose their hangar along with everything else. He looked toward the wreckage, trying to ignore the fact that everything else was in a hundred tiny pieces scattered across the Wyoming desert.

* * *

“We’re still losing oil.” Pete tossed the oil-soaked rag onto the cluttered desktop and leaned his lanky frame against it. They’d spent the day digging the Jenny out of her would-be grave and hauling her piece-by-piece back to the hangar. Pete had pulled the engine and managed to get it running, but ended up covered in oil that seeped out of nowhere every time the oil pressure climbed.

Jack looked down at Pete and the rest of the grubby hangar from his favorite perch. He sat on a rough wooden platform that topped the narrow stairs leading to the small second-story room that doubled as Jack’s office and sleeping quarters. He dangled his bare feet in the air, arms interlaced through the uprights and crossbeam of the stair railing. In one hand he held the small, carved piece of bone that normally hung around his neck, in the other was a Mason jar full of homemade liquor. He turned the bone over and over in his hand, the leather thong wrapped around his fingers, staring at it as his mechanic and friend droned on from the cement floor fifteen feet below.

“The fuselage needs a complete rebuild,” Pete was saying, “and not just Beeman’s and bailing wire, we’re talking new parts this time. The block’s gotta be cracked somewhere, even if I can’t find it, which means a new engine, not just an overhaul.” He hitched his thumbs in the straps to his coveralls, looking very much like the country boy that he was. After a long pause, he let out a sigh of exasperation. “It’d be cheaper to buy another plane.”

Jack kept his gaze on his good luck charm as he continued to turn it over and over. He listened to Pete’s words, clenching his jaw in counterpoint to the rhythmic motion of the carved bone in his hand, stopping both and echoing the Texan’s sigh with one of his own. He stared at the small white charm, running his thumb along one edge. It wasn’t very big, about half the size of his thumb. It was smooth and polished, and a simple leather thong ran through the hole drilled in one end. Jack tried once again to make sense of the inscription carved along it, but he didn’t even know what language it was. Still, whether he could read it or not, it had saved his life more than once; of that he was certain.

“Jacky, are you listening to me?”

Jack flicked his gaze from the charm to his friend. “Yeah,” he said simply, sitting upright and disentangling his arms from the uprights of the railing. “We need a new plane.” He took a sip from the jar in his hand, wincing a little at the burn as the corn liquor trickled down his throat. Without another word, he looped the leather thong around his neck, dropping the charm into his shirt as he climbed to his feet. The alcohol he’d been sipping and the fatigue from the day brought on a short, but intense dizzy spell as he stood, forcing him to lay one hand on the railing to keep his balance before he turned and headed down the rickety stairs to the hangar floor.

“What about Hammond?” Pete asked as Jack reached the ground. “We could run into town, send a wire, see if he’ll lend use the dough to get us to the Nationals.”

Jack shook his head as he crossed the spacious hangar to his friend. “He blames me for that little accident in the Yucatan, remember?”

“Right,” Pete said, rolling his eyes.

“How was I supposed to know there’d be bats in that cave anyway?” Jack said, stopping near what was left of the Curtiss.

“What about Annie?” Pete asked.

Jack shook his head, eyeing the jumble of wood, canvas and metal, gripping the one good wing and lifting the plane a little, eliciting a series of creaks and groans from the fuselage. “Still owe her almost two hundred from last winter.” He’d borrowed the money from the young redhead to refurbish the plane once already; there was no way she’d do it a second time. Especially considering how things had turned out. “Besides,” Jack said, laying a hand on what remained of the fuselage, “her husband threatened to shoot me if I ever set foot in Cheyenne again.”

Pete shook his head and left his perch on the desk, crossing to the engine once again where he simply stood at looked at it, much as Jack was doing the rest of the plane. “Lockley?” Pete asked, his accent twisting the British name into something very Texan.

“No,” Jack answered, running his hand along the canvas-covered fuselage. “Found out about me and his daughter.”

“Harris and Montgomery?”

Jack shook his head. “Lost all their money in Egypt.”

“Steve Becker?”

“Killed in Madagascar if the rumors are true.” Jack set the Mason jar on the floor next to the plane and planted one bare foot on the wing, stepping up into the cockpit.

Pete sighed again, and turned to face the pilot. “How many years have you been doing this,” he asked, exasperation in his voice, “and you can’t come up with a single person that’s not broke, dead, or looking to kill you?”

Jack settled into the cockpit, looking over the familiar instruments and planting one bare foot halfway up the panel. “Hey, it’s not easy working with guys like that,” he said without looking up. “You try traipsing around the world for a few years and see how many friends you have when you’re through.”

“There’s gotta be someone,” Pete said, turning his back once again, his shoulders sagging.

Jack bit back a reply, the comforting familiarity of the cockpit easing the nagging irritation at Pete’s prodding. He’d spent too many years hiring out to one expedition or another, acting as guide, outdoorsman – even occasionally as a pilot – to let a simple plane crash keep him from his dream. The Jenny was going to fly again even if he had to hire on as a mercenary in one of the brush wars that had sprung up in the last decade or so. He didn’t relishe the idea, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d taken on work as a means to an end.

He shifted his weight in the cockpit, causing the plane to creak again, an audible reminder of her current condition. Jack’s gaze flicked over the instruments, to the nose, the missing right wing, the tattered canvas on the left one, finally landing on the half-full Mason jar on the floor. He considered it for a moment, but it wasn’t worth the effort to climb back out of the plane just for one more sip. Instead he closed his eyes and leaned back in the cockpit with a sigh.

Whether it was ten seconds or ten minutes later, Jack wasn’t sure, but the distant hum of a powerful aircraft soon filtered through to his consciousness. He opened his eyes, frowning, then glanced to his right. Pete stood motionless, a wrench in his hands, his head cocked to one side, listening. As the sound of the approaching plane grew louder, he turns toward Jack and raised an eyebrow.

“Been a while since we had us some company,” he drawled. “Pratt and Whitneys?” he asked, referring to the pitch of the engines.

Jack shrugged. Pete had an ear for such things, Jack didn’t have a clue.

Both men were silent, until it became obvious that the plane wasn’t simply flying passed the tiny dirt airstrip. Pete tossed the wrench onto an already cluttered workbench, and Jack pulled himself from the cockpit, nearly kicking over the Mason jar in his hurry to catch up with his friend. As one, the two men stepped from the dark interior of the hangar into the slanting rays of the desert sun.

It only took Jack a moment to spot the gleaming silver plane in the distance. It was already on approach for the dirt landing strip, the late afternoon sun glinting a deep yellow against the silvery skin of the aircraft. It canted slightly to the left as the pilot compensated for the ever-present crosswind that blew from the Wyoming desert this time of day.

“He’s good,” Jack said, watching the pilot handle the large twin-engine plane. He squinted into the sun, judging the airspeed of the plane, its weight, the power in the engines. “But what in blazes is he doing trying to put down here?”

“Beats me,” Pete said, looking from the plane to the landing strip. “Must be some kind of delivery for Potts.”

Jack nodded absently, his attention on the silver plane as it closed the distance to the landing strip and the ground. The plane was dropping too fast for comfort, the wheels nearly scraping the tops of the Wyoming scrub much like Jack’s plane had done earlier in the day. Jack winced as the plane finally touched ground, expecting the wheels of the transport to sink into the soft Wyoming dirt or catch on an uncleared boulder at the far end of the runway. But the pilot timed his descent perfectly, and the large plane touched down precisely at the beginning of the hard-packed runway. Immediately the pitch of the engines slowed as a cloud of dust marked the heavy plane’s passage down the strip. Jack raised an eyebrow at the pilot’s precision landing, but his frown returned as the speed of the plane became apparent, it’s sleek silver body eating up the runway far too fast for comfort.

“He’s going to overshoot the end of the runway,” Pete said, panic creeping into his voice.

Jack remained silent as the storm of silver metal and red Wyoming dust roared past the hangars, losing speed as the pilot struggled to bring the heavy aircraft to a stop. As it passed and continued down the packed dirt strip, Jack turned to follow it with his gaze, shielding his eyes with his hand. Soon the cloud of dust obscured the plane, only the whine of its engines marking its continued passage toward the end of the runway. Jack’s frown deepened as he braced himself for the inevitable impact of the plane’s undercarriage on the boulders and scrub beyond the end of the strip when soft Wyoming desert gave way under the heavy weight of the silver plane.

But it never came.

Instead, from the cloud of dust that now obscured the far end of the runway, there was a moment of near silence. Only the sound of the engines drifted to the hangars, first winding down, then powering up again as the pilot applied throttle once more. It was only a low, half-hearted sound, and a moment later the nose of the plane appeared from the dust, the props on both engines running at enough speed to bring the plane coasting back toward the hangars.

“Well, I’ll be,” Pete said.

Jack’s frown faded as he raised both eyebrows in surprise, watching the transport emerge from the end of the runway unscathed. It moved steadily toward the hangars, a powdery film of red dust the only imperfection in the otherwise bright and shining exterior. The props began to spin down as the pilot killed both engines simultaneously and let the heavy plane roll to a stop a hundred feet from the aerodrome’s hangars and offices.

The two men stood in silence, the quiet pinging and popping of the now cooling twin engines a stark contrast to the whirlwind of sound and motion that had accompanied the plane’s landing.

Jack glanced along the row of empty clapboard and sheetmetal buildings that marked the aerodrome, his expression darkening at the stocky figure that stood just outside the main office, staring at the silver plane much like Jack and Pete.

“Gawker,” Jack said under his breath.

Pete followed Jack’s gaze to Harris Potts, the aerodrome’s owner. “Wonder what was so all-fired important to fly directly in,” he mused. “I didn’t think Potts had enough dough for anything this big.”

Jack shrugged, and started to reply, but the side door to the plane popped open just as he opened his mouth. “Guess we’re about to find out,” he said.

The door swung wide and a small set of three steps folded out and down from the interior of the aircraft. The doorway was a murky black hole compared to the shiny, sunlit exterior of the plane, and when a passenger emerged, it was as if from nowhere. Jack’s mouth fell open in surprise as a woman stepped from the plane. The first thing he noticed was her legs; bare from the top of her leather boots to the hem of her khaki shorts and every bit as lithesome and gorgeous as the rest of her. The short-sleeved white shirt she wore both concealed and accented her figure as she moved, and was a stark contrast to her black hair that was pulled back into a ponytail and disappeared down her back. She emerged from the plane, took two steps, and pulled on a pair of sunglasses as fashionable and gaudy as any Jack had seen in the pages of Life magazine.

“Look at those gams,” Pete said.

Jack closed his gaping mouth with an audible clack and cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he said, running a hand through his hair self-consciously. “Potts is moving up in the world.”

The woman surveyed the rickety buildings, then turned decisively toward Potts and began to cross the distance between them with an arrogant, ground-eating pace. She held her chin a little too high and walked a little too proudly, but her movements were fluid and graceful despite her obvious overconfidence.

“New York,” Pete said, the second word sounding more like Yawk than anything else. “She’s gotta be from New York City.”

“Could be,” Jack replied, his eyes still on the black-haired woman as she neared the strip’s owner. Potts made no move to meet her as she approached. Instead it seemed he was busy tucking in his shirttail and trying to comb what was left of his hair with the stubby fingers of his left hand. Jack smiled wryly. “It won’t do any good, Pottsy,” he muttered. “You’ll still be short, fat, and bald no matter how hard you try.”

Pete barked a laugh and hooked his thumbs in his coveralls. “What do you think she’s selling?”

“Beats me,” Jack said, folding his arms and watching as the woman reached the stubby man. He frowned once again. “Maybe she’s not selling. Maybe she’s buying.”

“Buying?” Pete asked.

Potts stuck out his hand as the woman neared. But she stopped short of handshake distance, leaving him with his stubby hand stuck out in the air with nothing to do. Instead of taking his hand, the woman apparently offered him a card.

“Buying,” Jack repeated. “What if Pottsy’s selling out?” He clenched his teeth at the thought of it. They’d locked in a cheap enough monthly rent to keep them here for the last two years. But even at that, there was no work, no money, and they were already so far behind that even Potts was ready to throw them out.

“You think some city slicker like that would wanna buy this dump?” Pete asked incredulously.

Jack shrugged. “Beats me,” he said, glancing back toward the motionless silver plane. “But I don’t see any cargo being unloaded.” He turned his attention back to the woman as she talked with Potts. It didn’t take more than a few seconds before she and Potts both turned their attention toward Jack and Pete, a look of surprise on Potts’ face, the woman’s expression hidden by the sunglasses.

“Uh oh,” Pete said quietly. “That doesn’t look good.”

Jack’s frown deepened as the woman turned from Potts and began to walk directly toward the two men, leaving Potts staring after her in surprise and irritation. As she closed the distance, still moving decisively but gracefully, Jack suddenly became aware of his beat-up canvas pants, unkempt hair, two-day beard growth and the fact that he still hadn’t washed the dirt and grime from his face since flying his plane into the ground hours ago. He ran a hand through his hair once, twice, then cleared his throat, grimacing at the sour aftertaste of the corn mash he’d been sipping all afternoon.

“You look fine,” Pete said, the corners of his mouth turning up in a grin.

“Shut up,” Jack hissed, forcing a smile as the woman reached them.

“Afternoon,” Pete said as she approached. “Mighty fine plane you got there.”

She smiled briefly, then pulled a small white card from her shirt pocket. “Jack Brady?” she asked, the card held ready but un-offered.

“No ma’am,” Pete drawled, pointing a finger at Jack. “That’s the man you wanna talk to.” Jack thought he heard a note of disappointment in the mechanic’s voice, but ignored it as the tall woman turned her attention his way.

She paused for a moment, as if sizing him up. Jack’s awareness of his sorry appearance doubled as her lips quirked into something resembling a grimace that was obviously a failed attempt at a smile. “Jack Brady?” she repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“That would be me,” Jack replied. He nearly extended his hand, but remembered Potts’ failed attempt at a handshake, and instead simply folded his arms across his chest in silence.

“I see,” the woman said. She looked him up and down, making no attempt to conceal her inspection of him, nor her disapproval at what she found there. As her gaze returned to his face, she sighed again, then extended her hand, the small white card held expertly between her first two fingers. “My father would like to see you.”

Jack took the card reflexively, but didn’t look at it. The woman’s voice was clear, cultured. It carried a hint of some kind of accent, British or Australian Jack guessed. Either that or she was just another socialite trying to sound highbrow. “Your father?” he asked, glancing toward the silver plane sitting quietly in the sun.

“My father,” she repeated, offering no more explanation.

Jack looked down at the simple, but elegant card in his hands. A single name was emblazoned on its surface: “Dr. Alexander Benton.” Besides the name and a London address, the card was blank.

“This is your father’s card?” Jack asked.

She twisted her mouth sarcastically and planted her hands on her hips. “What do you think, Mister Brady?”

Jack frowned. “Hey, no need to get testy,” he said. “You drop in here out of nowhere and tell me somebody in England wants to see me and you don’t even offer me your name.”

“Alex Benton,” the woman said simply.

Jack looked at the card and back, still frowning. “And why does he want to see me?”

“He didn’t really say,” the woman said, hands still on her hips. “But your services are for hire, correct?”

Jack nodded, then glanced at the silver plane. “Why, someone want flying lessons?” He smiled briefly, but the nonplussed look on the woman’s face put an end to it almost immediately. She followed his gaze to the plane, then looked from one end of the runway to the other with a raised eyebrow.

“Do you think I need flying lessons?” she challenged.

Jack looked her up and down. “You...?”

She sighed and cocked her head to one side. “Mister Brady, my father has authorized me to give you a one hundred dollar retainer if you will visit him in New York next Friday. I do not need flying lessons, nor do I know what on God’s green planet he wants to see you for. Are you, or are you not available for such a trip?”

Definitely British, Jack decided, listening to her tirade. Made sense with her father’s British address on the card anyway. “Maybe,” Jack said, pushing the card into his shirt pocket and folding his arms again. “How soon are we leaving?”

“I am leaving as soon as I have your answer,” she said. “You may leave whenever and however you choose.”

Jack looked back at the plane. “What about your...” he paused, suddenly aware he had no clue what kind of aircraft the silver-bodied transport was. “What about your… plane?”

“It’s a modified Boeing 247,” she said, “custom built and rolled off the assembly line last month.” Her accent was stronger now, and the proud, arrogant tone fairly dripped from her lips. “As for ferrying you to New York, I came here to deliver my father’s invitation, not provide a taxi service.”

Jack opened his mouth, a biting reply on his lips until he saw the look on Pete’s face. The young mechanic was fairly pleading with him to keep his mouth shut and take the hundred dollars. He didn’t say a word, but his expression spoke volumes. With more than a little effort, Jack swallowed his sarcastic words and took a deep breath instead. After a silent count to five, he sighed and forced a smile.

“Listen, Miss...?”

“Benton,” the woman said. “Alex Benton.”

Jack blinked and reached for the card in his pocket. “You’re Alexander Benton?” he asked. Jack didn’t know if it was the plane crash, the corn liquor, or the disarmingly beautiful woman in front of him, but he was having a hard time keeping up.

The woman pulled the gaudy sunglasses from her face, pinning Jack with a hard stare from a icy pair of blue eyes. “Is it really so hard to understand, Mister Brady?” she asked, an edge to her voice. “What kind of name would Alexander be for a woman?”

Jack worked his jaw, but no words came out. The irritation at her high-and-mighty attitude was growing more than he could bear, and yet Pete still stared at him with a “don’t even think about it” look. He took another breath and blew it out, rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

“My father is Doctor Alexander Benton, Professor of Archaeology, emeritus, at the University of London,” the woman said condescendingly. “He will be arriving in New York this week to attend the opening of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Archaeology and would like you there.” She paused, as if allowing Jack time to catch up. “My name, as I have told you twice, is Alex - short for Alexandra - Benton. I am his daughter. I’m en route from San Francisco to New York to attend that same museum opening, and Daddy asked if I would please stop in the middle of nowhere to extend an invitation to the legendary globe-hopping, grave-robbing, tomb-raiding, sometimes pilot, Jack Brady.” She paused, then gracefully leveled a finger at his chest. “That would be you.”

Jack clenched his jaw and locked his gaze on hers, trying desperately to focus on the hundred dollars, and not the anger building in him. “I knew that part, Miss Benton,” he said. “I was only trying to figure out who you were.”

“Alex Benton,” she repeated again. She tilted her head back, and folded her arms across her chest defensively. “Daddy always wanted a boy.”

Jack looked from her long legs to the curves hidden under her cotton shirt. “He must have been sorely disappointed.”

For the first time since her arrival, Alex quirked her lips into a half-smile. “Not at all,” she said cryptically, reaching into her shirt pocket and pulling out a folded piece of paper. “Here is your retainer,” she said, handing it to Jack as he stood there struggling to come up with a retort. She slipped the sunglasses back on her face and turned toward the custom-built Boeing, striding arrogantly toward it as she called out over her shoulder. “I’ll wire you the museum address,” she said, her back still to him. “If you decide to go, try and wear something less...” She paused, glanced over her shoulder, then shrugged and continued her trek toward the plane. “At least shave,” she said.

Jack took a step as if to follow her, the anger in him now boiling over.

“Jack,” Pete said, grabbing his arm, slowing his movement. “It’s a hundred simoleans, Jacky.”

He paused, watching the beautiful but annoying woman continue to the silver plane. “You’d have to pay me double to put up with her very long,” he said through clenched teeth. “Cripes, what an uppity dame.”

Pete nodded, but smiled. “Yeah, but where there’s a hundred bucks, there’s more. She might be just the ticket we need to get back in the air.”

Jack sighed, the tension draining from him almost instantly. “I guess,” he conceded.

Alex stepped into the plane, folded up the steps and closed the door. A minute later, first one engine then the other fired up and the plane began to roll toward the end of the runway in preparation for take-off.

“They’ll never get a plane that big back in the air on this strip,” Jack said. “They’ll overshoot and dump the thing on its belly at the end of the runway.”

Pete was quiet, looking at the long-bodied transport as it rolled into position. “I wouldn’t bet on it,” he said quietly.

Jack snorted a derisively, but didn’t say any more. He simply stood in silence, trying not to let his jaw drop as the custom-built Boeing lifted off the floor of the Wyoming desert less than three minutes later and disappeared into the distance without incident.