Vicki opened the throttle wide. The Beech was a more powerful ship than the Cessna and it answered the throttle like a race horse hurtling out of a starting gate. Vicki pushed the wheel forward hard to keep the ship from taking off into the air.
Again she intercepted Roy, and again he swerved in time to avoid a collision. Vicki said a silent prayer that no passenger plane was coming in for a landing, with all this crazy taxiing going on. Certainly by now the tower would have seen the two planes racing madly across the field and warned off any ships that might already be in the landing pattern.
Roy had straightened out now, and again was heading up the field. Van must indeed be desperate, for he apparently was ordering Roy at gun point to make a downwind take-off.
Vicki took a last-ditch chance and cut in front of the Cessna again. A collision at seventy miles an hour might kill everyone in both ships. But Vicki had only one thought—to keep the other plane from getting into the air. Again, Roy swerved just in time, almost scraping his left wing against the high steel-mesh fence that edged the field.
Out of the corner of her eye, Vicki saw two airport jeeps dashing across the field in their direction. That would be Quayle and the police getting into the chase. Just then there was a smacking sound in front of her and a small round hole appeared in the glass window only inches from her head. Van was using his pistol to scare her away!
Once more, Roy tried to straighten out for a take-off. And once more Vicki managed to intercept him and make him swerve away. At the same time, the two jeeps cut in ahead of him. Roy tried to swerve out of the way of this new menace, and in doing so the tip of one wing caught the wire of the fence. The Cessna pivoted in a sort of exaggerated ground loop, fell over onto its injured wing, and came to a shuddering stop. Roy cut the engines, and the whirring propellers slowed down and came to a standstill.
At the same time, Vicki cut the motors of the Beech and slammed on the wheel brakes.
Instantly a swarm of uniformed policemen surrounded the Cessna. As Vicki watched, her heart pounding wildly after the excitement of the chase, Van Lasher came out of the plane’s door and stepped onto the ground, his hands high in the air. In a moment Roy Olsen followed him and walked around to survey his wrecked plane. Vicki saw Mr. Quayle walk up to Lasher, say a few words, and wave him off in the custody of the police.
She got up from the pilot’s seat, walked slowly back down the aisle, all the energy drained from her in these past few harrowing minutes, and climbed down the step to the ground.