Just at that moment Joey rushed out of the interior of the warehouse.
“Miss Vicki,” he shouted excitedly, “I got Mr. Quayle!”
At the sound of Joey’s voice Van wheeled around. When he saw Vicki, his face contorted in a horrible expression of anger. He whipped a pistol from his coat pocket and stuck it in Roy Olsen’s ribs.
“All right,” he snarled, “I’m tired of all this stalling! Get in that airplane or I’ll blow you apart!”
Roy, shock at the sudden turn of events showing in his white face, opened the door and climbed into the ship. Van followed at his heels.
Vicki almost panicked. Van was getting away—and he had to be stopped! She looked in the direction of the terminal. There was no sign of Quayle and his men. She looked inside the warehouse. By the time she called any of the other workmen and explained the situation to them, Roy’s plane would be air-borne. And there would be nothing they could do, anyway, against a desperate man armed with a gun.
These thoughts flashed through her mind in a split second. Then she saw Steve Miller’s plane. She made a dash for it.
When she reached the Beechcraft, Vicki opened the door and scrambled in. By the time she had stumbled up the narrow aisle between the passenger seats and settled herself behind the wheel, she could hear the grinding noise of the Cessna’s starter and see its twin propellers slowly turning over. Quickly she flicked the ignition switch and jabbed at the starter buttons. As she did so, the engines of Roy’s plane caught with a tremendous roar and the propellers flashed in dazzling disks of reflected sunlight and a wild spray of falling rain.
At that moment the motors of the Beechcraft started, and Vicki spun the wheel to taxi the ship into Roy’s path.
With Van Lasher’s gun at his back, Roy had no choice but to try to get his plane into the air. He swerved just in time to miss the wing of the Beechcraft by inches and headed out crosswise over the landing field.