Last minute instructions followed, a checking of weather maps, acceptance of the secret papers which would put him in touch with the American headquarters of the Gerka and the last words from Reikoff.
“Learn the secrets of the Goliath; then destroy that air monster.”
With those words ringing in his ears. Serge climbed into the cockpit of the dull-gray low-winged monoplane, opened the throttle, shot his squat looking craft down the field and into the air. He circled the field once while gaining altitude. Then the young lieutenant of the Rubania air force headed his ship westward. He had started his 6,000 mile flight to America, a mission of destruction which was to involve the Goliath, its builders and especially Andy High, young assistant pilot.
CHAPTER II
The Air Monster
Before Andy High and the construction experts of the National Airways had arrived to supervise the building of the Goliath, Uncle Sam’s newest bid for supremacy in the skies, Bellevue had been a sleepy little village in the heart of the bluegrass section of Kentucky. It had been selected as the construction site for several reasons. One of the most important was its location between two long rows of hills which insured it of protection from high winds. Another was its comparative isolation. There were no main highways leading into the bluegrass town and only one branch line railroad, which, however, was sufficient to handle the shipments of supplies.
The secrecy which shrouded the building of the Goliath was another factor in the selection of Bellevue, for the isolated little village was hard to get to without being seen and it was a comparatively easy thing to guard all entrances to the valley.
Construction headquarters had been set up almost two years before the spring in which the Goliath was scheduled for trial tests. First had come freight trains heavily laden with building materials. A little village of construction houses had gone up alongside the railroad to shelter the workmen whose task it was to build the great hangar which was to house the Goliath.
As mighty as the hangar of the Akron was, that of the Goliath was even larger. It measured 1,400 feet from one of its “orange peel” doors to the other and was broad enough for the Goliath, when completed, to nest comfortably alongside the Los Angeles, when that dirigible hopped over from Lakehurst for a friendly call.
Andy High, son of the vice president of operations of National Airways, had arrived with the first of the construction crews and had hardly left the village during the two intervening years. His father, Charles High, and Capt. John Harkins, who was to be in command of the new sky king, had shuttled back and forth between the assembly plant at Bellevue and the various factories in other cities which were supplying materials which went into the construction. It had been Andy’s duty to stay on the job at Bellevue and see that every part of the carefully organized construction machine kept to its schedule for every day represented thousands of dollars to the National Airways and they made each working minute count.
The hangar had been completed and parts of the dirigible, much of which had been fabricated at the Zeppelin plant at Akron, arrived by the train-load to be assembled in the big dome-shaped shed just outside Bellevue.