He kept the Beechcraft as high as he could. He was flying without lights, but with what they already had against him, that minor infraction wasn't important. He kept looking back, expecting every minute to see the red-and-green winglights of Border Patrol planes coming up on his tail.
If he was lucky, if he slipped them long enough, if he crossed north without being sighted by the passenger planes that shuttled between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, he might just make it to Bill Willerman's and get the Beechcraft under cover. If—if—if—
There was another if, Price thought bitterly. If he'd had any brains, he wouldn't be in this spot at all.
He turned on the radio. He flipped the dial around, getting loud music from a Vegas hotel, then a political speech, then more music—and then a news broadcast. As he'd expected, he was at the top of the news.
"—so that even while Arnolfo Ruiz, firebrand revolutionary exile, is under arrest by Mexican police, United States authorities are conducting an intensive air-dragnet search for the American pilot who smuggled Ruiz across the border. That unknown pilot is known to have returned across the border an hour ago, and police of three states have been alerted.
"The AEC announces that its next test will be that of an experimental small new H-bomb whose effects will be studied for—"
Price savagely cut the radio. He damned the announcer, and Ruiz, and himself. Most of all, himself.
He'd acted like a halfwit. Because a smooth talker had given him a phony story about a secret business trip, he had smuggled the most dangerous trouble-maker in the hemisphere down into a friendly republic. Who would believe he hadn't known? He had done it, and pressure from Washington would make sure that he got full pay for his folly.
He might as well look the truth in the face. If it hadn't been this, it would have been something else. He'd been playing the fool for years, ever since Korea. Other fliers had come home from there and taken up their jobs again, but a job had been too dull for him; he'd drifted along with the fast-buck fly-boys out for fun and excitement, hauling hunting and fishing parties, spending the profits in bordertown bars, going broke and starting over again—and now finally this. His roller-coaster ride was about over.
It would be over for good if he didn't reach Willerman's ranch before daylight. Bill would hide the plane for him. He'd saved Bill's neck a couple of times in the old days, and he could depend on him. But he had to reach him, first.