“Are you awake?”
“I’m awake.”
“H.P. I know what Twenty-seven means. I know who he is, where he is and what he’s going to do.”
Dryman’s bleary eyes began to clear. He stared at Keegan.
“You been in the champagne.”
“You heard me right, pal. He’s on Jekyll Island, off the coast of Georgia. He calls himself John Ward Allenbee, the Third.
“Uh huh. And what’s he going to do?”
“He’s going to take the twenty-seven richest men in America hostage.”
“Aw Christ, Kee. That’s bullshit. It’s one-thirty in the damn morning and you want to pull practical jokes.”
“I couldn’t be more serious. You remember me telling you Vannie had been invited on a Thanksgiving trip with a bunch of rich boys?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, they’re not
“How did you come up with .
“Listen, Captain, I can’t get Smith. Everybody with any muscle is off for the holidays. The FBI would laugh me off the face of the earth if I told them this. If I call down there, they’ll hang up on me. We’ve got to fly down there.”
“Damn it, Kee, it’s all over. We’re out of it. You don’t even have any credentials. All you’ve got is this cockamamie story. I’m on furlough and I’ll be a civilian in another month. And we
“Drink your coffee. It’s not over until it’s over, pal. We got a plane ride ahead of us.”
“That’s a thousand miles down there.”
“About seven-fifty as the crow flies
“What’re we gonna do, jump off the roof and flap our arms?”
“We need an airplane.”
“Where are we gonna find an airplane on Thanksgiving Day? And anyway, who’s gonna loan us their plane. I don’t know anybody who even
“C’mon, think. You must know
The town of Farmingdale was little more than a crossroads on Long Island an hour’s drive out Jericho Turnpike. Dryman turned down a dirt road toward a hangar. It was a dilapidated arc of wood and corrugated metal patched with rusty signs and it stood in the middle of a sprawling farm. At rest for the winter, its fields boasted only dead cornstalks and dried-up tomato plants which added to the gloomy atmosphere of the place. The wind sock, a tattered cone of parachute silk, flopped lazily in the calm morning air.
A narrow alleyway had been cut through the fields and leveled off.
“That’s the strip,” Dryman said with scorn.
“How long have you known this guy?” Keegan asked.
“We flew together for a while. He took the roof off the Officers’ Club down in Panama City and they grounded him for life. When his tour was up, he retired.”
“Don’t they have any sane pilots in the Air Corps, H.P.?”
“I heard there was one up at Westover Field but it’s only a rumor.”
Barney Garrison was waiting inside the hangar office, huddled between an oil stove and the ruin of a desk. He flashed a winning smile when Dryman and Keegan entered the tiny room.
“Son-bitch, H.P., never thought I’d see you again.”
“How’s it goin’, Loop?” Dryman said, giving his lean, freckled, weather-beaten ex-wingman a bear hug and introducing him to Keegan.
“Can’t complain. Do a little farmin’, little crop dustin’. I’m doin’ okay. Better’n taking a lot of guff from some chicken shit ground officer. I’m surprised you’re still playin’ soldier boy.”
“I’m on separation furlough. Right after Christmas I’m off for China.”
“You gonna fly with Chennault?”
Dryman nodded. “You ought to think about it, Loop. Pay’s great. They got P-40’s. Gonna be a picnic.”
Garrison snorted and shook his head. “Hell, I thought maybe you’d gotten over being crazy by now. China, my ass! Bunch of noodle eaters. Well, come here, take a look at the old lady.”
He walked to a door leading to the main hangar and wiped a round spot in the greasy window with his sleeve.
“There she is,” he said proudly.
“The old lady” was a blue and yellow PT-17, a single- engine biplane with a homemade canopy built over its
