Gale couldn't remain out of the exchange. 'Which is?'
Indy leaned back in his seat, bracing himself against a sudden lurch from turbulence.
'A disc. A scimitar, or whatever shape those things are. In short, a flying saucer. Call it what you like, but it most likely will be flying and it won't have any engines.' He almost added the words 'that you can see,' but kept that to himself.
Besides, both Gale and Jocko were staring at him in open disbelief.
'But, Indy!' Gale exclaimed. 'Everything you've said at the meetings, the way you ridiculed . . . I mean, you've made it clear you don't believe in these things!'
He corrected them. 'I believe in them, all right. I just don't believe they're from any other planet than good old Earth. They're real. In fact, I'm counting on them to come after us.'
Foulois was walking back from the cockpit to talk to them. 'I don't think you want to miss this. We've got visual on Greenland. You can take turns up front.'
Gale stared out the cabin windows. 'I didn't even notice it was daylight!'
'That Canadian, he was right about the weather. We've had a tailwind of better than sixty miles an hour out of Goose Bay. We're way ahead of schedule. And with the light so low on the horizon, the sight before us is— well —'
He smiled. 'Ladies first, Gale.'
She eased into the right seat. 'I . . . I never imagined it could be so beautiful!' she said to Cromwell. She stared in wonder at the gleaming white icebergs drifting off the coast and the huge glaciers gripping the coastline. It was a fairyland of white, peaks and slopes and massive ice walls. 'Will, how far out are we?' 'What do you think?'
'Ten, fifteen miles, I guess.'
'Well, then, this is likely the clearest and cleanest air you've ever been in.
That shoreline is seventy miles away.'
She remained there several minutes, then left so Indy and Jocko could share the incredible sight before them.
Foulois returned to the cockpit. 'Sorry, Indy. I'll need to be up here for this approach. The airport we're looking for, a bare strip, really, isn't on the coastline.'
'Bloody well it isn't,' Cromwell chimed in. 'It's a killer. It lies up one of those fjords,' he pointed ahead of them,
'about fifty miles inland. We're going to be weaving our way in between mountains five thousand feet high and we don't dare make any wrong turns, because then there's no way out. We must have the proper fjord, and then we thread the needle.' He chuckled. 'It's really simple. You've got only one way to get in and when we leave we have only the same way out. And we must make a proper approach the first time.'
'What if we don't?' Indy asked.
'Well, then, we go smashing into the mountain that's at the far end of the runway.'
'Piece of cake, right?' Indy smiled.
'Certainly. If you do it right, that is.'
The approach was a dazzling, exhilarating, terrifying, and enginethundering series of turns and twists through the narrowing walls of the fjord. Then, abruptly, the airstrip appeared before them, and Cromwell brought the trimotor down as if descending on a slope of glass. He taxied to
the small operations building. They were expected, and a small tractor towing a trailer with fuel drums moved immediately to the airplane. Both pilots worked with the ramp workers to fill their tanks as quickly as possible. They filled the oil tanks to capacity, and then Cromwell and Foulois went over the airplane from nose to tail, checking everything they could touch. By the time all work had been completed, it was early afternoon.
Cromwell went to talk to Indy. 'We can stay overnight and leave in the morning before first light. Or we can take off right away, take turns sleeping, and go in to Iceland while it's still dark. If this wind keeps up, however, we'll have more than enough fuel to overfly Iceland and the Faeroes and make Scotland by sunrise.
Then we can pick wherever you want to set down.'
'You're the pilot, Will. What do you say?'
'Press on, mate.'
'Do it,' Indy said. Twenty minutes later they were flying down the fjord toward the open sea.
Two hours later Gale grasped Indy's arm and shook him madly. 'Wake up!'
she shouted, her mouth close against his ear. If he didn't come out of his sleep fog she swore she'd clamp teeth down on that ear.
Indy fairly shot up from his slouched position. 'What's wrong?' he asked immediately. He glanced about him; everything seemed normal.
'The ship!' Gale exclaimed. 'You've got to see this ship!'
She half dragged Indy to the opposite side of the cabin. They were at four thousand feet, a mixture of clouds another thousand feet beneath them, partially obscuring the view of the ocean surface. Then there was a break. Indy pressed his face to the window, eyes wide, and turned with a snarl. 'The camera! Use that camera now!'
In a moment he had his own camera working. Nearly a mile beneath them, plowing the sea with a huge Vwake behind its passage, was the largest oceangoing ship he had ever seen. And he had never seen anything like this incredible tanker.
It was at least a thousand to twelve hundred feet in length. Instead of the booms and deck equipment of the average tanker, the entire vessel from stem to stern was a huge flat deck. On each side of the ship, long crossbraced beams extended outward. Thick smoke plumed from the huge stack that curved across the right side of
