She was convulsed with laughter. Swept up in the rush of emotion, she grabbed Indy's waist to hug him fiercely.
Their eyes caught and held. For the instant they might have been alone on a mountaintop. Impulsively Gale's hands swept up, grasped Indy's head, and kissed him fiercely.
He was astonished. He still held her tightly, wideeyed. 'This is marvelous!' she shouted. 'Let's go forward and see how Tarkiz did!'
Holding onto one another they pushed into the cockpit deck. Foulois pointed to the center building. 'He is a superb marksman,' Foulois remarked, as calmly as if drinking tea on some quiet veranda. 'In America, I suppose you would call him DeadEye Dick. He is really very good.'
'Rene, I'm going to sling those tanks into the buildings,' Cromwell announced to the Frenchman in the right seat. 'As soon as I do that, you've got the controls. Bring her around in a climbing turn and then see if you can put those rockets where they'll do the most good!'
'Righto, cheerio, and wot for, eh?' Foulois mimicked his friend. 'Have at it.'
The Ford came around with diminishing speed; control and accuracy were everything now. Cromwell held the trimotor straight and true as Foulois held his hand on the emergency release cable handle. 'On my mark!' shouted Cromwell. A moment later he sang out, 'Three! Two! One! Mark!'
They felt a jolt as the tanks were ejected by powerful coiled springs.
Cromwell brought the Ford up in a high swinging chandelle, close to stalling speed at the top of the curving climb with the left wing down so they could all see the two tanks tumbling as they crashed into the buildings. A white mist leaped into being as the tanks ruptured.
'Bingo!' Indy shouted his congratulations.
'You've got her,' Cromwell called to Foulois. The Englishman held aloft both hands and clapped them together in the traditional handingover of control.
There wasn't a nudge to the airplane as Foulois took the controls. He brought down the nose, swept about in a wide turn, and eased into a shallow dive. 'I'm going for onethirty,' he announced to Cromwell. 'Call out the speeds.'
'Oneforty, coming down, onethirtyfive, and, that's it, onethirty on the nose.' Foulois nudged the throttles as if stroking a woman's hand, and the airspeed needle pegged on 130.
Foulois's voice was calm and cool as if he might be talking about a soccer game or ordering a drink at a Paris club. 'Confirm rocket release doors open.'
Cromwell looked up at the wings; the covering panels had slid away.
'Doors open, electrical primers armed.' 'Very good. Thank you.' Indy nudged Gale. 'I think he's got ice water in his veins.
Gale was too excited to talk. She clung to Indy's arm, eyes wide, immersed in the moment.
'Just about time, and . . . fire,' Foulois said calmly, pressing the button. Two rockets from their rails ejected flame and smoke behind them, racing earthward toward the buildings, squiggling like tadpoles as they arrowed ahead of the trimotor. They struck with spouts of flame, and then the gasoline vapors ignited with a huge fireball leaping upward, a boiling mass of flames and smoke.
Foulois already had gone to full power and wracked the trimotor about on its right wing, climbing away from the rising fireball. Safely out of range he swung back again to the left.
'You're hired,' Indy told him, slapping him on the shoulder. The buildings were flattened, burning fiercely. 'That's it,' Indy added.
Cromwell glanced at Foulois. 'Take her up to four thousand. It's time for the school bell to ring.'
Foulois leveled off at four thousand feet and set the power to cruise. Behind them Tarkiz had lowered the gun mount and closed the hatch, reducing the howl of wind and engine roar from outside. Cromwell climbed from the left seat. 'Who's first?' he asked Indy and Gale.
'Ladies first,' Indy said. 'I'll watch her, and then I'll give it a try.'
Gale climbed into the left seat, fastened the seat belt, and let her fingers run lightly over the yoke. 'Now, all I want you to do is hold our present course,' Rene said soothingly. 'You can follow that road ahead of us. If you pick a point on the horizon, just aim for it. Make all your control inputs gently. And don't worry about a thing. I'll be riding the controls with you. I'm sure you'll do fine.'
Gale hadn't said a word. Foulois held up both hands in the timehonored signal. 'You've got it,' he told Gale.
They all expected wandering, the nose rising and falling, swinging a bit to left or right. It didn't happen. Indy stared with growing disbelief as the Ford flew on as though it was on steel rails. Cromwell and Foulois exchanged glances. 'I'll be hanged,' Cromwell said finally. 'She knows how!'
Indy leaned forward, watching everything Gale did. His face mirrored disbelief and no small awe at the woman, her red hair flying in the wind from the open side window. Finally he tapped her shoulder. 'You really can fly,' he said with masterful understatement. 'Why in thunder didn't you tell me?'
She glanced back at Indy, her eyes gleaming, loving his surprise. 'No one ever asked me,' she said.
Cromwell pushed next to Indy so he could talk to Gale. 'Miss Parker, you're no novice.'
'Thank you,' she said, exasperating the three men all the more.
'When?' Cromwell barked. 'I mean, when did you learn?'
'When I was twelve, I spent a summer in Germany with some cousins. They were all mad about gliding, and I joined them. I had three months of flying gliders almost every day.'
'Did you solo?' Foulois asked.
'Second week,' she said with a straight face.
'And after that?' Cromwell pressed.
