She bit her lip. She said, “There’s another reason now. I don’t know what they’ve done to the Cassidys. They took me in. They helped me. It isn’t right. It isn’t fair. I can’t run out on them now.”
“I know.”
“But I’ve got so used to running that— Oh, Ben, help me go through with it. I’m so scared!”
“We’re safe here. Let them come to us. When they’re inside this station, we can tell everything to Captain Walther. We can trap them here, whoever they are.”
The typist came back in. Ben tried to read the magazines. He and Helen smoked too much. Time dragged...
It was a few minutes before noon when Ben heard the faint waspish buzzing of the light-plane engine. He went over to the window. The noise grew louder. A small cabin job, glinting silver in the sunlight, flashed overhead low, and the sound diminished and then became louder again. He heard the alteration in the sound and then for a time it remained at the same pitch, then coughed and was silent.
“They’ve landed,” he said. “Stay right here. Walther’ll bring them in.”
After a moment they heard footsteps in the hallway, heard Walther say, “That plane lands on a dime. Bumpy, wasn’t it?”
“Not too bad,” a voice said. Helen looked at Ben and her eyes grew wide. And then Walther came into the room with John Cassidy. One day had changed him. He didn’t move with his previous springy strength. He looked beaten and old.
“Are these your friends?” Walther asked.
“Yes, of course. Could I have a few words alone with them, Captain?”
“Certainly.”
The typist got up and left. Ben said, “Just exactly what in the world—”
Cassidy sat down heavily. He looked at the floor. “All the way I figured what situation I’d find here. I figured you’d have told them here who you are, Helen. I didn’t know animals like those men who came to the farm existed. I tried to order them off the place. I should have shot when I had the chance. I only had one chance, and that didn’t last long. They’ve got Mike and Katey, Helen. I can’t force you to go back with me. You know that. But if you don’t, it’s pretty clear to me what they intend to do. And it isn’t a bluff. I think they’d enjoy it. I think they’re the sort of animals that would enjoy every minute of it. They’ve been there ever since about twenty minutes after you left. I didn’t tell them for a long time where you were. But the first time Mike screamed I had to tell them. You understand, don’t you?”
Helen put her hands on his. “I’ll go back with you, John.”
He looked at her and then looked quickly away as though he were ashamed, his eyes filling with tears. “I know what I’m doing to you,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t.”
“But it might be meaningless. They might — do what they’ve promised anyway, Helen.”
“Ben doesn’t have to go back too, does he?”
“They want you, Helen.”
Ben felt a shameful relief, knowing he wouldn’t have to go up in the plane. His hands had begun to sweat when he had first heard the plane. Cassidy said, “Don’t say anything to the police, Ben. They might move too fast. They might force those men’s hands.”
Cassidy stood up. “I’ll find Walther and ask him if I can leave the car here for a few days.”
Helen turned to Ben. “Thank you for everything you tried to do.”
He looked into her eyes. “I’m coming along — for the ride.”
“Stay out of it, Ben. Please!”
“Just for the ride, honey. For kicks.”
“I won’t let you come.”
“Then listen to what I tell Walther.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Okay, so you haven’t any choice. I’m coming along.”
She looked at him for a moment and then smiled in a timid way and turned and followed Cassidy. He watched her go, head high and her shoulders back and her stride long and free. There was a gallantry to her that made him feel ashamed and envious. And then he remembered the little silver ship again, and felt as though his teeth would chatter.
Walther was shaking hands with John Cassidy when he and Helen came outside. The three of them left and walked across the wide lawn and through a gate in the pasture fence. A man sat on his heels near the small cabin plane. He wore a sport jacket and a shirt open at the throat.
Helen stopped abruptly and Ben caught up with her and took her hand. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s the one that held her — Denny. His name is Brath. Paul Brath.”
Brath stood up and flipped his cigarette away and said, “Hello, dearie.” He had lean hips, and the thick shoulders of a pug. “Nice going, dad,” he said to Cassidy. Then he studied Ben Morrow for a moment. “You the fly boy, eh? What’s with the white-horse routine?”
“He doesn’t have to go,” Helen said firmly.
“He didn’t, but now he does. I’m in it just as much as the boss, dearie. And I’m getting tired of being out in the boondocks. I heard you tell him my name, and now he’s seen me, so he comes along. Pile in, people.”
They climbed up into the plane, using the single folding step. The plane could carry five at a pinch, Ben saw. When the four of them had got in, Brath took the wheel. The engine kicked over and he gunned it, then wrenched it into a tight taxi circle. The craft lumbered across the uneven field and he hauled it around again, into the wind. He gunned it and it picked up speed rapidly. Ben shut his fists as tightly as he could. He felt the sweat on his face. The tail lifted and Brath jerked the ship into the air. It wavered, headed directly for the building they had just left, and then Brath made a careless, low-altitude bank across the highway. Ben’s hands did not loosen until they had better than a thousand feet of altitude. Brath had a plumber’s hands on the wheel, no respect for the aircraft. He bullied the ship. Ben started to get up. Brath said, “Put it back in the seat, fly boy.”
“Is this Eric Gorman’s ship?” Ben shouted over the engine sound.
Brath sat loose in the seat, smoking a cigarette. “It is — with some new numbers. We had it stashed in the shrubbery up near Malone, handy to the border. Lemon got the information on you and put in a call last night. So we come down. Got to Cassidy’s place about nine this morning. Lemon did a good job. He’s got a bonus coming — right in the back of the neck.” He laughed and said again, “Right in the back of his thick neck.”
“Where’s Gorman?”
“At Cassidy’s place, with Lemon and Cassidy’s old lady and the kid.”
Ben put his lips close to Helen’s ear. “I don’t want John to hear this,” he said. She nodded. “You heard what he said about my coming along. That means the same treatment for me as for you. Helen. Figure it out. And the same for Cassidy and his wife and the boy.”
She turned toward him and shook her head and formed the word, “No!” with her lips.
“Figure it out. The penalty for killing one person is the same as the penalty for six,” he said. “What difference does it make to them?”
Cassidy leaned over and said, “The one they call Davey came with two others in a car last night. The other two took the car and left Davey there, after they got us tied up. Davey made a phone call then. We were tied up all night. Mike kept crying in his sleep, and then he’d wake up and apologize.”
Helen put her mouth close to Ben’s ear. “We can’t let it happen to them, Ben,” she said.
“How do you mean?”
“There’re three of us. Tell him what’s going to happen. Tell John.”
“He won’t believe it.”
“Make him believe it.”