In the foremost was Curt Newsom and Janet felt her blood chill as she saw the rifle in Curt’s hard hands.
Under the warning muzzle of the gun, the autogiro settled toward the floor of the valley and in less than three minutes the other planes were down around it while cars raced toward them, clouds of desert dust rising in their wake.
Bertie Jackson was in the first car and when she saw Janet her face blanched. Helen and her father were in the same machine.
“Are you all right?” asked Helen anxiously, for Janet was white-faced and deep hollows of fatigue were under her eyes.
“A little tired,” confessed Janet. “What happened? Was this something in the plot I wasn’t supposed to know about?”
“Tell us where you’ve been and why?” said Henry Thorne, and Janet briefly related the events. She didn’t like to do it, but there was nothing else she could do under the circumstances and her story implicated Bertie Jackson.
“She’s jealous, that’s all,” snapped Bertie. “The whole story is trumped up.”
Then Curt Newsom took a hand.
“Let’s look at this thing squarely. How much were you and these two flyers paid to slow up production on ‘Kings of the Air’?” He shot the question at Bertie.
“You’re impertinent,” she blazed.