we can beat them to Rockland.”
“I’ll call for backup,” Sergeant Young said, “but I don’t know where our cars are tonight, and I don’t know how long it will take them to get to Rockland Airport.”
“We don’t have time to wait for backup,” Stone said. “Once those boys are off the ground, it’s going to be hell to find them.” He ran for the stairs.
Chapter 60
THE RANGE ROVER skidded to a halt on the airstrip’s parking ramp, and Stone ran for the Malibu. There was no time for the usual preflight inspection. He got the door open and slid into the pilot’s seat, and felt the others boarding behind him. Sergeant Young squeezed his long frame into the copilot’s seat, and Stone looked behind him to find Lance, Rawls, Holly and Ham filling the other four seats. He flipped on the master switch and checked the fuel: Both tanks were less than a quarter full. Stone had not topped off the tanks at Teterboro, having four on board, and he was grateful for that because, with so much weight aboard, the airplane was going to eat up runway before it would fly. Rockland was no more than a fifteen- or twenty-minute flight, so the fuel on board would get them there.
“Everybody buckle up,” Stone said, then began cranking the engine. It coughed to life, and he checked the windsock: light wind, favoring runway one. The other direction, runway one-nine, was slightly downhill, but there were tall trees not far off the end of the runway. He taxied downhill and did a one-eighty turn at the end, watching the engine temperatures come slowly up; he couldn’t afford any hesitation or an engine failure today. The temperatures were edging into the green. He jammed his feet onto the brakes and put in twenty degrees of flaps; that would lower his takeoff speed from eighty to seventy knots. He eased up on the power until the throttle was at its stop and let the engine run up to full power. Now or never. With a scared feeling in his stomach he let the airplane go.
The Malibu began its roll all too slowly. Stone flicked his sight back and forth between the runway and the airspeed indicator, watching it inch up. Halfway down the runway, the needle began moving faster, but the end of the runway was rushing at them, where there were scrubby trees and a house. They were running out of pavement, and the ground beyond was rough.
“I want to fly now,” Sergeant Young said, his voice sounding strangled.
They were at sixty-nine knots when Stone eased the yoke back a fraction. The airplane left the ground in what seemed like the last yard of pavement, but it didn’t want to climb. Stone put the gear lever up and the flaps to zero, hoping for less drag, and held the airplane level, wanting to let it gain airspeed. At eighty knots, with the gear at about ten feet upand the house rushing at them, he tried for more altitude and cleared the roof by what seemed like inches.
“Sweet Jesus,” Young said. “Is this thing going to fly?”
Stone leveled off at a hundred feet, watching the treetops flashing past a few feet below them, dodging the taller ones as the airplane struggled to gain airspeed. Then they were over water, inching their way up to five hundred feet. An overcast was, maybe, a couple of hundred feet above them.
“I thought you were going to hit that boat’s mast,” Young said as they flew past a moored yacht.
“We’re going to do the rest of the flight at this altitude,” Stone said. “It’ll keep us out of clouds and get us down faster.” He leveled off at five hundred feet and eased the throttle back to keep the airspeed in the green. They were using a lot of fuel at this altitude and speed, but the distance was short.
Stone reached down between the seats and handed Young the airport directory. “Look up Rockland and give me the unicorn frequency,” he said. “There’s no tower on the field.”
Young took a painfully long time to do so, but finally he said, “One hundred twenty-three point zero five.”
Stone dialed in the frequency. “Rockland unicorn, November one, two, three, tango, foxtrot. Anybody in the pattern?” No reply.
“Says here their hours are eight a.m. to eight p.m.” Young said. Stone looked at his watch: It was a little after five.
“Rockland traffic,” Stone said, “anyone in the pattern?” No reply. The sun was up but low in the sky, casting a beautiful glow over the sea. Stone entered the airport identifier, RKD, into the GPS, and pressed the direct button. The arrow on the horizontal situation indicator swung to his left, pointing the way, and he adjusted his heading.
The sun rose into the overcast, and the light became dull and dusklike. “Twelve miles,” Stone said aloud, reading the distance off the GPS.
“I think I see the airport,” Young said, “dead ahead.”
The airplane’s speed was right at redline, and now Stone could see the runway. He switched on his strobe and landing lights, the better to be seen by other aircraft. He grabbed the airport directory from Young and checked the runways: 13-31 was 5,007 feet, the longest. Stone squinted into the distance. He thought he had it in sight.
Then he saw strobe lights on the ground; an airplane was taxiing to runway 31. Stone adjusted his course to put him on a base leg for the opposite runway, 13. He dialed the automatic weather frequency into his second radio. The wind was 310 at ten knots, straight down runway 31. He was about to change direction for that runway when the radio came alive.
“Rockland traffic, Cessna taxiing onto runway 31 for takeoff,” a voice said.
“That’s got to be the twins,” Young said. He began speaking into his handheld radio and putting it to his ear to listen. “Two patrol cars are ten minutes out,” he said.
Stone could see the Cessna, its strobes flashing, only a few yards from the runway. At that moment, his engine began to cough. Jesus, he thought, he had forgotten to switch fuel tanks. He flipped the lever to the other tank, switched on the auxiliary fuel pump and prayed. The engine roared back to life. He reduced power and turned from the base leg to the final approach for runway 13.
“You can’t land this way,” Young said. “They’re taking off in the opposite direction!”
The Cessna was starting its roll on 13. Stone put the landing gear down and put in two notches of flaps. “Mayday, mayday, mayday!” he yelled into the radio. “Malibu is declaring a fuel emergency, landing on runway thirteen!”
“Negative, Malibu!” a voice came back. “We’re rolling on 13!”
“I don’t have a choice!” Stone replied. He pulled the throttle back to idle. “No power, no fuel! Stop your roll now!” Stone was hot and high, and he put in the last notch of flaps and flipped up the speed-brakes. Still, he was doing ninety knots when he touched down and stood on the brakes.
The Cessna had stopped rolling halfway down the runway. Stone had thought the other airplane would turn off onto the grass, but the pilot seemed frozen. Now the Malibu was rushing toward the Cessna, and Stone could smell his brakes. He braced against the seat back, straightened his legs and pushed on the brake pedals as hard as he could. “Help me with the brakes,” he yelled at Young. “Use your toes!” Young started to help. Stone had already decided not to turn off the runway; if he did that, they’d get away, and it was awfully hard to spot a low-flying aircraft from another airplane. Anyway, he didn’t have enough fuel to follow them. They’d be gone.
The Malibu came to a final halt less than three feet from the Cessna, with both propellers still turning. If Stone had run head-on into the other airplane, there would have been a real mess, he thought. Normally, he would run the engine for five minutes on the ground before stopping it, to cool the turbochargers, but he yanked back on the mixture control and cut his engine. The prop wound down and came to a halt. The Cessna prop was still turning, but the twins weren’t going anywhere; there is no reverse on a piston airplane.
“Cut your engine, Cessna,” Stone said into the radio. The twins sat, staring at him, no more than twelve feet away. “Listen to me, boys,” he said. “There’s still a way out of this.”
“Sure,” a voice said back. “Just get out of our way.”
“The money is gone. It’s not in the account.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There is no million two in the Singapore bank; we transferred it back to the original account. The only money you have is what’s in your pocket.”
There was a long silence.
