He deliberately leaned over the cockpit’s side and fired his automatic at the automobile. He saw the big machine swerve wildly, fall behind and topple over.
“Tit for tat.” Bill lifted his plane prettily off the ground. “That’s one for you, Charlie. I caught ’em in the near tire.”
“Two to one, you mean. And their cars are in a lot worse shape than mine.”
The engine was beating a steady tatoo. Bill opened her up wide and pulled back on the stick. Almost immediately they were in fog. But he was no novice at the gentle art of piloting an airplane. He had his air sense, flying sense, and two instruments on the lighted dial-board to guide him. The level glasses helped a lot. His eyes went to the angle-of-climb indicator, the bank indicator. He held the amphibian in a steady climb for altitude.
The air was rough. White clouds of fog obscured the wing lights at times. At other times it was thinner. The engine was roaring steadily, but Bill knew the danger of taking off and climbing directly into a change of temperature. He sat tight.
For about four minutes they climbed, in a wide circle. And then there came a break in the fog. A slice of the moon showed to the southward. It was smothered by another layer of fog almost instantly. The altimeter showed eighteen hundred feet. Charlie’s voice sounded through the receivers of the phone-set.
“Are you lost, Bill?” His voice sounded scared.
“Not yet,” reassured his friend. “I’m looking for something—had to gain altitude to put those guys off our track, if they happened to have an airbus handy.”
Bill dropped the plane into the heavier fog below. Still flying in wide spirals, he came out of it with the altimeter needle pointing to four hundred feet.
“There she is!”