Indy laughed. 'Try a facelifting instead.' Indy turned to Henshaw.
'Let's go over the equipment list again, if you don't mind?'
Henshaw picked up immediately on Indy's unspoken request. Meet together, just the two of them. 'Got it. I'll get the papers and meet you back here in ten minutes.'
'Did it hit you about the same time?' Henshaw asked Indy.
'It sure seems like it. I'm still not certain of the connection, but when you started talking about the edges of the disc seeming to waver, well, my first reaction was heat distortion.'
'You're picking it up quickly,' Henshaw told him. 'You're smack on target.
Heat distortion; why didn't we put two and two together before!'
'Harry, you came up with the clue,' Indy said quickly.
'You said this Coanda fellow was describing a blowtorch effect with an engine, right?'
'Exactly. We've got to speak with Coanda directly, Indy. Face to face. You learn more that way than you ever will from any paperwork. So either one of us, or the both of us, must go to France, and keep that trip absolutely quiet.
Otherwise we make targets of ourselves.'
Indy nodded. 'Agreed. We'll work out the details later. Anything else?'
'Yes, and I got the news only this morning. This time it's the paperwork that provides what may be a critical lead for us.' Henshaw smiled with satisfaction. 'The paperwork was buried in old archives in France. I've had a team there with a cover story about exchanging planes and equipment between our museums and theirs.
Know what they found?
Sorry. Of course you couldn't. An entry in the patent office back in 1914 in Paris. Someone had applied for a patent that year.' Henshaw paused. 'For a jet engine.'
Indy smiled. 'A buck gets you ten the man's name was Coanda.'
'You win,' Henshaw said.
13
At five o'clock the next morning the team gathered by the Ford and pushed the airplane onto the dew-wet grass.
Henshaw and Castilano were there for brief final conversations. 'Everything you need for your crossing will be waiting for you at Bangor,' he told Indy. 'And you're in luck. I've been getting the weather reports from Canada and the oceancrossing navigation ships at sea. There's a terrific high that will keep the skies clear most of the way and give you a dickens of a tailwind.'
'Great. Thanks, Harry.' They shook hands, and the rest of the team boarded the airplane.
Indy wondered if this whole idea of his was really as crazy as it sounded.
Crossing the North Atlantic in an airplane that could cruise steadily at only 115 miles an hour sounded like lunacy when you envisioned the huge ocean area before them.
'It's a duck walk, really,' Cromwell had convinced him. 'With our extra fuel—and we could even shut down the nose engine and fly on only two to stretch time and fuel— the trip will be a piece of cake. The longest stretch over water is only about eight hundred and fifty miles. Just one thing I don't fathom, Indy.'
'Which is?'
'Why are you making a public spectacle of us? From what I've been hearing of this lot that's after you, I'd have thought you'd rather be out of sight as much as possible.'
Indy patted Will Cromwell on the back. 'Got to flush them out. This is the best way. Doesn't it seem just a bit strange to you? If these people really are gathering so much military might, why has no one come after us with all that firepower?'
'I hadn't thought about it, I confess.'
'Confession's good for the soul, Will. You and Rene fly, I'll take care of the fun and games.'
'As you say, Guv.'
They climbed out into the sun breaking the horizon. Indy slipped on his headset and mike intercom to talk to the cockpit. 'Frenchy, before we reach the Connecticut coast, hold an easterly heading until I call you back. You'll feel the upper hatch open for a few moments. I'll call you when it's closed.'
'Right.'
Indy felt the gentle bank and saw they were headed directly into the fiery disc clearing the horizon. He walked back to a storage locker, withdrew a mahogany box, and returned to the upper hatch where the machine- gun mount could be raised. He pushed open the hatch, picked up the box, and then stood on the gun mount so that his head and shoulders extended into the airstream. For a moment he struggled with the mahogany box.
Gale started from her seat to assist Indy, but Jocko placed his hand on her arm to restrain her. 'This is for him alone,' he said. The look on his face more than his words brought Gale back into her seat.
Standing in the airblast, facing backwards, Indy brought the box above the gun mount coaming, opened the lid, and began to scatter the ashes of Tarkiz Belem over the waters of Long Island Sound. In the wild turbulence, the ashes flew about in a swirling cloud against his face and into his nostrils; most of the ash cloud hurtled backward and flashed out of sight. Several banging sounds drifted to them.
'Those are small pieces of bone striking the tail,' Jocko told Gale. 'Not even cremation turns it all to ashes.'
Gale shuddered, remembering the big, crude man who had twice saved her life. She remained silent as Indy completed his task and then hurled the mahogany box from the plane. He slid back into the cabin, closed the hatch,
