twice before had he flown at night; his lapsed license forbade it-and
slippage, or drift, was an instrument or pilotage problem corrected by
dials, sightings, or radio.
But the slight drift had been there. And it had come from aft
starboard. Jesus, he was better in a sailboat! He leveled the aircraft
and gently banked to the right, back into the path of the rain squall.
The windshield was useless now; he reached across the seat and pulled
down the right window panel. The burst of noise from the cross-drafted
openings crashed abruptly through the small cabin. The wind roared at
high velocity; the rain swept in streaking sheets, covering the seats
and the floor and the instrument panel. The blackboard was soaked, its
surface glistening, the chalk marks seemingly magnified by the rushing
water sloshing within the borders.
And then he saw it … them. The plateau of grasslands Through the
starboard-goddammit, right window. A stretch of less-black in the
middle of the total blackness. A dull gray relief in the center of the
dark wood.
He had overshot the fields to the left, no more than a mile, s two.
But he had reached them. Nothing else mattered at the moment. He
descended rapidly, entering a left bank above the trees-the top of a
figure eight for landing. He made a 280-degree approach and pushed the
half wheel forward for touch down.
He was at the fifty-foot reading when behind him, in the west, was a
flash of heat lightning. He was grateful for it; it was an additional,
brief illumination in the night darkness.
He trusted the instruments and could distinguish the approaching grass
in the beam of the forelamps, but the dull, quick fullness of dim light
gave him extra confidence.
And it gave him the visibility to detect the outlines of another plane.
It was on the ground, stationary, parked on the north border of the
field.
In the area of the slope that led to the campsite two miles away.
Oh, God! He had not made it at all. He was too late!
He touched earth, revved the engine, and taxied toward the immobile
aircraft, removing his pistol from his belt as he manipulated the
controls.
A man waved in the beam of the front lights. No weapon was drawn; there
was no attempt to run or seek concealment. Alex was bewildered. It did
not make sense; the Dunstone men were killers, he knew that. The man in
the beam of light, however, gave no indication of hostility. Instead,
he did a peculiar thing. He stretched out his arms at his sides,
lowering the right and raising the left simultaneously. He repeated the
gesture several times as McAuliff’s aircraft approached.
Alex remembered the instructions at the field at Drax Hall. If you
sight other planes, dip your fight wing. Lower your fight wing … arm.
The man in the beam of light was a ganja pilot!
McAuliff pulled to a stop and switched off the ignition, his hand
gripped firmly around the handle of his weapon, his finger poised in the
trigger guarne.
The man came up behind the wind and shouted through the rain to Alex in
the open window. He was a white man, his face framed in the canvas of a
poncho hood. His speech was American … Deep South. Delta origins.
“Gawddamn! This is one busy fuckin’ place! Good to see your white
skin, man! I’ll fly ’em an’ I’ll fuck ’em, but I don’t lak ’em!” The
pilot’s voice was high-pitched and strident, easily carried over the
sound of the rain. He was medium height, and, if his face was any
indication, he was slender but flabby; a thin man unable to cope with
the middle years. He was past forty.
“When did you get in?” asked Alex loudly, trying not to show his
anxiety.
“Flew in these six blacks ’bout ten minutes ago. Mebbe a little more,
not much. You with ’em, I sup’oze? You nmin’
things?”
“Yes.”
“They don’t get so uppity when there’s trouble, huh?
Nothin’ but trouble in these mountain fields. They sure need whitey,
then, you betcha balls!”
McAuliff put his pistol back in his belt beneath the panel.
He had to move fast now. He had to get past the ganja pilot.
“They said there was trouble?” Alex asked the question casually as he
opened the cabin door, stepped on the wing into the rain, and jumped to
the wet ground.
“Gawddamn! The way they tell it, they got stole blind by a bunch of
fuckin’ bucks out there. Resold a bundle after takin’ their cash. Let
me tell you, those niggers are loaded with hardware!”
“That’s a mistake,” said McAuliff with conviction.
“Jesus … goddammed idiots!”
“They’re looking’ for black blood, man! Those brothers gonna lay out a
lotta other brothers! Eeeaww!”
“They do and New Orleans will go up in smoke! …
Christ!” Alexander knew the Louisiana city was the major port of entry
for narcotics throughout the Southern and Southwestern states. This
particular ganja pilot would know that. “Did they head down the slope?”
McAuliff purposely d a hundred yards to the right, away from the
vicinity path he remembered.
“Damned if they was too fuckin’ sure, man! They got one a them Geigers
like an air-radar hone, but not so good. They took off more like down
there.” The pilot pointed to the left of the hidden jungle path.
Alex calculated rapidly. The scanner used by the Dunstone men was
definitive only in terms of a thousand-yard radius. The signals would
register, but there were no hot or cold levels that would be more
specific. It was the weakness of miniaturized long-distance radio arcs,
operating on vertical principals.
One thousand yards was three thousand feet–over a half a mile within
the dense, almost impenetrable jungle of the Cock Pit. If the Dunstone
team had a ten-minute advantage, it was not necessarily fatal. They did
not know the path-he didn’t know it either, but he had traveled it.
Twice. Their advantage had to be reduced. And if their angle of entry
was indirect-according to the ganja pilot, it was-and presuming they
kept to a relatively straight line, anticipating a sweep… the
advantage conceivably might be removed.
If… if he could find the path and keep to it.
He pulled up the lapels of his field jacket to ward off the rain and
turned toward the cabin door above the wind of the plane. He opened it,
raised himself with one knee to the right of the strut, and reached into
the small luggage compartment behind the seat. He pulled out a
short-barreled, high-powered automatic rifle–one of the two that had
been strapped below the front seat of the Halidon car. The clip was
inserted, the safety on. In his pockets were four additional clips;
each clip held twenty cartridges.
One hundred shells.
His arsenal.
“I’ve got to reach them,” he yelled through the downpour at the ganja
pilot. “I sure as hell don’t want to answer to New Orleans!”
“Them New Orleens boys is a tense bunch. I don’t fly for em if I got
other work. They don’ lak nobody!”
Without replying, McAuliff raced toward the edge of the grassland slope.
The path was to the right of a huge cluster of nettled fern-he
remembered that; his face had been scratched because his hand had not
been quick enough when he had entered the area with the Halidon runner.
Goddammit! Where was it?
He began feeling the soaked foliage, gripping every leaf, every branch,
hoping to find his hand scratched, scraped by nettles. He had to find
it; he had to start his entry at precisely the right point. The wrong
spot would be fatal. Dunstone’s advantage would be too great; he could
not overcome it.
“What are you looking’ for?”
“What? ” Alex whipped around into a harsh glare of light.
His concentration was such that he found himself unlatching the safety
on the rifle. He had been about to fire in shock.
The ganja pilot had walked over. “Gawddamn. Ain’t you got a
flashlight, man? You expect to find your way in that mess without no
flashlight?”
Jesus! He had left the flashlight in the Halidon plane.
Daniel had said something about being careful … with the flashlight.
So he had left it behind! “I forgot. There’s one in the plane.”
“I hope to fuck there is,” said the pilot.
“You take mine. Let me use yours, okay?”
“You promise to shoot me a couple a bucks, you got it man.” The pilot
handed him the light. “This rain’s too fuckin’ wet, I’m going back
inside. Good hunting’, hear!”
McAuliff watched the pilot run toward his aircraft and then quickly
turned back to the jungle’s edge. He was no more than five feet from
the cluster of fern; he could see the matted grass at the entry point of
the concealed path.
He plunged in.
He ran as fast as he could, his feet ensnared by the underbrush, his