“What’s our current RPM?” Alex asked, tapping the dial. Congreve leaned forward and squinted at it.
“Two thousand?”
“Good. There’s the throttle. Keep it that way. There’s the compass. Our course, as you see, is one-two- thirteen. Try to stay on that heading. One final navigation tip: keep the Atlantic on your left and you can’t go wrong. Nighty-night. Wake me just before landing. I don’t think you’re quite ready for that bit yet.”
“You’re quite serious? Dozing off?”
“No need to worry. In the event of an emergency, the cheeks of your bum will act as a flotation device. G’night, all.”
Hawke leaned back and closed his eyes, a broad smile on his face. He should have given this flying lesson years ago. Congreve, despite appearances, had the bottle for just about anything he ultimately had to face head on and he always had. It was the secret of his rise to the very top ranks of Scotland Yard and—
At that moment, the airplane angled down slightly and began a righthand spiral.
“Alex!” Congreve shouted. “I didn’t touch a thing!”
Hawke sat bolt upright, grabbed the wheel and pushed hard left to correct the right-handed spin. The control felt far too loose in his hand. Too much give. Yes. Something definitely wrong with the ailerons, the hinged flaps on the trailing edges of the wings that controlled banking or rolling.
“Problem with the aileron cable,” Alex said, moving the yoke loosely left and right and leaning across Ambrose’s chest to check the starboard aileron. “Christ, barely responding.”
“What did I do?”
“Nothing. Mechanical problem.”
“A-ha. One of those. Beastly luck.”
“Hold on to your hat, Constable!” he shouted. “I’ll go see what the matter is.”
Alex quickly unbuckled his harness, climbed out of the left-hand seat, and headed aft. The aileron control cables were just under the metal floor panels stretching back to the tail. Just here was the connection to the ailerons—all he had to do was pry up the floor panel and see what the devil—
Good Christ, this section of cable had parted almost completely! Only a few strands remained intact. Bloody thing looked as if it had been cut, sawn through, leaving just enough intact to make the sabotage unnoticeable until after they were airborne. Thank God he’d caught it in time. Now, if he could figure a way to jury-rig something, they just might be able to limp home.
“Everything all right back there?” Ambrose shouted over his shoulder.
“Wish I could feather-bed you, old thing. But, no, everything’s not quite right back here. Just keep her flying.”
Someone was trying to kill him. Someone who had seen him with Patterson at Dark Harbor. Or, someone with prior knowledge that he would be there. If Patterson was right, this could just be the work of the Dog. But, God knows, there were plenty of suspects available on Congreve’s endless lists.
He kept tools and lengths of cable stowed in a nearby bin. He was reaching for them when the plane’s angle of descent increased noticeably. “Ambrose,” he shouted over the engine’s roar. Keep her nose up! Only fore and aft movement of the wheel. No ailerons at all until I can jury-rig something up back here!”
“Anything else I can do?” Ambrose shouted back over his shoulder. He’d pulled back on the wheel and they were climbing again.
“Best touch wood, old thing, and quickly.”
“I don’t see any.”
“Your forehead should do it.”
“Alex, please.”
“Remember the old Yank expression ‘a wing and a prayer’?” Alex said, grinning. “I’ll work on the wing bit and you work on the prayer!”
Hawke grabbed wire, cable, wrenches and pliers and turned his attention back to the ailerons. At that moment, he was shocked to see the last strands of wound cable part with a loud bang. The plane made a stomach- lurching bank to starboard.
“Bleeding hell, Alex!” he heard Congreve yell, the panic in his voice palpable, “Are we going down?” Congreve turned around in his seat, his face deathly white. As he twisted towards the rear of the plane, he pulled the wheel back with him, holding it in a death grip. Kittyhawke angled sharply upwards, sending Alex careening towards the tail.
The little plane shuddered and stalled. The sudden loss of airspeed now sent it rolling down into a violent right-hand spiral. The sickening rate of descent and the degree of spin meant the airplane was now only moments away from being completely out of control. Any second now, speed could rip the wings from the fuselage. With no time to even scramble forward and take over, Alex instantly realized that Congreve himself would have to do it.
“Ambrose!” he shouted, keeping his voice as level and calm as possible under the circumstances. “Shove the wheel full forward! We need a steep dive to regain airspeed! Get her nose down! All right, good! Now. Those two pedals in your footwell! The rudders! I want you to stamp on the left one just as hard as Billy-be-damned! Do it right bloody now!”
“Aye, aye!” Ambrose shouted, and Alex saw the man lurch forward and left as he shoved the wheel forward and stomped on the left rudder pedal.
Alex half ran and half tumbled forward towards the cockpit, the plane now nosed over into a screaming dive. Full left rudder was all that would save them now. He jumped into the seat, startled by how far and how fast they’d descended. The blue sea was rushing up towards them. At this speed, they had maybe thirty seconds to live.
“I’ve got the plane,” he said to Ambrose, his hand on the wheel and his left foot now nailed to his own left rudder pedal. The plane was responding to full left rudder, the spin had slowed, but they were running out of time and air and all he could see out the cockpit windows was spinning water.
“Good God, we’ve had it, man,” Congreve said, and closed his eyes.
“Not…quite…yet, we haven’t,” Hawke said. Playing the two rudder pedals like some master pianist of the air, he neutralized the spin, got his wings level, and, by Christ, he still had a good five hundred feet of air left before they would hit the water at a hundred knots and disintegrate.
“Upsy-daisy,” Congreve heard Hawke say cheerfully as he himself braced for his own imminent destruction.
Hawke now pulled back on the wheel in one easy fluid motion. The nose came up, the pontoons skimmed the wave tops of Nantucket Sound, and Kittyhawke was once again climbing into the blue.
“You can open your eyes now, Constable,” Alex Hawke said, smiling at his mortified friend. “Dodged the bullet yet again, it seems.”
Chapter Nineteen
Rome
FRANCESCA, STANDING IN THE DIM PINKISH LIGHT OF THE tiny lavatory, gripped the stainless steel basin and leaned into the mirror, studying the carmine gloss she’d just applied to her lips. There was a swaying motion and screeching sound as the train negotiated a curve. The Paris-Simplon Express was now rolling through Switzerland, high in the Alps, and a beautiful man was waiting for her in the lower berth of the moonlit compartment beyond the door.
She lifted her thin pale arms and ran her fingers through her thick blonde hair, inhaling the scent of Chanel 19 rising from the warmth of the cleft between her uplifted breasts. She was wearing a black negligee, Galliano, and it clung to her like a lover. She smiled at herself and closed her eyes for a moment, her lips parted, her long lashes brushing the swell of her cheeks as she composed herself for the scene she was about to play.
“Caro?” she said softly, pausing in the doorway so that he would see her body backlit by the pale pink light behind her.
“Come here,” he said simply, his hoarse whisper barely audible over the metallic chatter of the wheels on the rails.
