Bell lurched to his feet, shaking his head to clear it. He staggered back toward the site of the explosion but quickly saw there was nothing to be gained. Around him was nothing but utter devastation. He was about to head off again when he spotted Talbot’s hat lying on the ground next to a burning shrub. It felt heavy when he picked it up. When he turned it over, he saw why and dropped it immediately. It still contained the top of Courtney Talbot’s skull.
With no need for stealth, Bell jogged back to the canoe and launched it onto the lake as soon as he’d crammed his legs in around the two cans of gasoline. The oar he’d chosen had a blade at both ends, like a kayak paddle, so he could stroke with an efficient rhythm that had him gliding along the lake’s calm surface at a good pace. Occasionally, he saw the eyes of some creature on the shore, reflected in the moonlight, and heard others splashing in the water, but nothing paid him any heed.
No matter how fast he dug his oar in the water, he felt the Essenwerks airship was getting farther and farther away. Even though the airship had left the camp by flying northwest, Bell was certain that their support ship lay to the east, past the busy Port of Colón. With so many ships coming into Panama from the Caribbean and America, the waters west of Colón saw a tremendous amount of seaborne traffic, while, to the east, there was virtually no shipping at all. He was certain their base was there. He figured the dirigible would make a beeline to open waters, from its inland rendezvous, and then curve around Colón at roughly twenty miles from shore.
Bell reached the hidden seaplane much faster than his outbound journey, and would have passed it, had he not jammed some sticks in the water as markers before locating Talbot’s jungle camp. He eased under the overhanging branches that had shielded the plane and bumped gently against the central float. He retrieved the two cans and, hunched over, crawled out on his knees and set them on the float. He also dragged the lightweight canoe up and lashed it back where it belonged.
He hadn’t remembered to bring a funnel, so he spilled almost as much gas as he managed to pour into the aircraft’s tank. The smell made his head spin, until the wind blew the fumes away. He had secured the plane to a tree on shore with a length of cord he’d tied inside the cockpit as a brace. He didn’t want to repeat Jack Scully’s ignoble scramble away from the prop once it started to spin.
Using the oar, Bell paddled the seaplane from its hiding spot and turned it so that the nose was facing the lake and its tether was fully stretched. He primed the engine with fuel and set the ignition before climbing out onto the pontoon so he could spin the propeller. It was difficult to get much leverage standing right in front of the wooden prop, and it took five attempts to fire the motor.
It died by the time he had jumped in the water and swam under the wing to climb up into the cockpit. So he altered the throttle’s setting to run at a higher rpm and climbed back around the engine to stand on the pontoon once again. This time, it took only three hard pulls to crank the motor to life. It ran louder and faster, thanks to his adjustment, and he had enough time to return to the cockpit and sit, in his sodden clothes, while the engine warmed.
After a few minutes idle, Bell untied the tether and began to taxi the seaplane away from shore. Bell used the foot bar to swing the nose until it was pointed down the valley and toward the open lake. He eased the throttle to its stop and felt the familiar sense of exhilaration as the aircraft gathered speed.
Because he was ready for it, Bell didn’t think his second water takeoff was as rough as the first. The plane shook as it neared rotation speed, yet not so much that he considered ditching the attempt. The vibrations ceased the moment the pontoon rose out of the water and he was airborne once again. As soon as he had enough altitude, he turned northeast and continued to climb. There were so many variables to factor in his attempt to find the airship, but he really knew it would come down to luck. And altitude. The higher he went, the farther he could see.
He was at five thousand feet when he crossed over the lights of Colón. He could easily see the massive locks, lit for work to continue around the clock. President Roosevelt was due in a couple of days and they needed the locks functioning for his inaugural trip up from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Gatun.
Bell was frozen to the core. It had been eighty degrees when he’d taken off and at least a quarter of that temperature reading had been lost by climbing so high. And his wet clothes leached heat from his body, so that he was shivering in the cockpit.
He flew on. He had no choice. Marion was in danger, and there was no force on earth that could stop him.
He guided the plane out to sea and kept scanning the water below for moonlight reflecting on the dirigible’s skin. Bell knew enough about airships to know her topside hadn’t been doped black. It
