Jane picked up a movie magazine from the pile aboard the ship. On the fifth page was a large picture of Jackie Condon. Jane looked at it sharply and then at the boy passenger. There was no mistake. Sue was right.
She looked ahead at the passengers who had arrived just before their departure. Mellotti was heavy set, with black hair and beetling brows. Bardo was taller, lithe and quick of action. His eyes, so dark a brown they were almost black, shone with animation and when he looked at Jane she felt a queer chill creep along her spine. There was something sinister in his manner.
The trip westward was uneventful and they left Omaha on time. It was near Kearney when Jane, who had been reading an Omaha paper, looked up to see one of the passengers standing in the aisle. She started ahead to tell him that it was against orders when she saw something glinting dully in his right hand. Other passengers were raising their hands.
It was Mellotti, gun in hand. Bardo, also carrying a weapon, was hurrying toward the pilot’s cockpit and Jane knew that the suspicion which had gripped her in Chicago was a reality. They were abducting the young film star.
On Desperate Wings
That night was timeless for Jane. Always she would remember the stark horror of it as the plane roared through the darkness with the gunmen in control.
Mellotti remained in the cabin, guarding the passengers. Up ahead Bardo forced Charlie Fischer to swing the plane off the transcontinental airway. They were flying north. That was all Jane knew.
The hours slipped away with aching slowness. Jackie Condon and his mother remained calm and the traveling men started a card game. When the sky finally lightened, they were over a great, flat expanse of country with a chain of mountains barely visible in the west. Jane guessed they must be somewhere in Canada, just east of the Rockies.