Tom looked down at the two figures, who lay still for a moment. Then the men made a dash for their plane, dragging the crate.
Again the Sky Queen hurtled earthward. This
A JET RESCUE 111
time the ship came so close to Dansitt’s plane that its wings rocked in the backwash. As Tom zoomed upward again, the men dropped the crate and streaked for the plane. Much as he hated to let the men take off, Tom had no alternative at the present time. His chief concern was Bud’s safety.
He eased the giant aircraft to the field alongside the truck, climbed down, and ran to the truck. Bud lay on the floor of the cab, trussed up and gagged. Tom released him and asked what had happened.
“Wow!” Bud said. “I sure fell for that trick!”
Then he told how he had run into a bank of fog, which he now suspected had been artificially made.
“I had to slow down to a crawl,” he said, “and that’s when they jumped me.
Did they get our escape suits?”
When Tom explained how he had driven the thieves off, Bud remarked with a grin, “You certainly singed Dansitt’s tail feathers.”
“Not for long, probably,” Tom replied. “That guy’s hard to keep out of circulation.”
Tom got into the Sky Queen and escorted the copilot, driving the truck below, to Stillman’s Wharf. There they unloaded the escape suits and put them aboard the jetmarine. Then Tom telephoned the local township police chief, George Slater. Pledging the man to secrecy, he told him briefly of his mission at Stillman’s Wharf and of the attack on Bud Barclay.
“I understand,” Slater replied. “We’ll get on the job right away.”