"You really want wine?" Gale asked, as Henshaw headed for the cockpit.
Foulois rummaged through his bag, bracing himself between the cabin floor and a seat. He held up a bottle in triumph. "Coffee never won wars, my dear," he said, taking a long swig from the bottle. "But if you drink enough wine, you don't even care who wins. A very civilized attitude, I might add."
The next moment he was hanging in midair as the Ford dropped like a stone dumped from a cliff. He slammed into the cabin floor as the downdraft reversed.
"A true Frenchman," Indy laughed. "Never spilled a drop!"
Two hours later, strapped in, hanging grimly to his seat, Indy was ready to swear off flying for the rest of his life.
The promise of "a bit bumpy" had become a madhouse of slamming about, yawing and wheeling, and pounding up and down, rivulets of water running into the cabin from the cockpit.
"This is so invigorating!" Gale shouted above the din and boom of engines and thunder and wind.
Indy struggled to keep his stomach where it belonged. Bright spots danced before his eyes. He no longer knew what was right or left or up or down. Then, as abruptly as it started, the uproar and violence ceased, and the sky brightened.
Indy's stomach began a slow slide back to where it belonged, and through the cockpit windshield, even from well back in the cabin, he saw the volcanic humps of Iceland waiting for them.
17
A day and a half later they landed in Quebec, boneweary, musclestiff, groggy from lack of proper rest or sleep, and hating sandwiches. Henshaw went to the Canadian authorities, and arranged for American Customs and Immigration to
"forget" the usual procedures for entering the United States on the basis that this was an official government aircraft, crew, and flight. Tired as they were and desperate for showers and clean clothes, there was no rest for any of them. Cromwell put everybody to work on the Ford except Henshaw, who was "attending to" the tasks he'd received from Indy. They had flown the aircraft hard and long, and the years of experience told Cromwell and Foulois to pay strict attention to the small complaints they could sense and feel from the aircraft and the engines.
Two hours later they were refueled, oil tanks filled, hydraulics and other requirements met. Henshaw returned to the aircraft. "Will," he asked Cromwell, "are we okay for a straight shot to Dayton? When we get there we'll have to take a break, and I can have our top maintenance people go over the bird stem to stern."
"After the flying we've just done, m'boy, from here to Dayton will be a walk in the park."
"Okay," Indy told his team, "saddle up and let's move on out."
Cromwell nudged Foulois with his elbow. "Saddle up, eh? What does he think this bird is? A bleedin' 'orse?"
Indy and Gale strapped into seats near the rear of the cabin. Exhausted, Gale was asleep almost at once. Indy leaned back with his eyes closed, but far from sleep.
He was moving himself into the immediate future when the chasing and longdistance flying would be behind them.
Now they'd be in a position to flush out their quarry.
And the quarry, Indy had come to learn so well, might just be ready and waiting for them.
Colonel Harry Henshaw spread out flight charts, road maps, and highaltitude photographs of longstrip areas within Texas and New Mexico. Indy stood to his left, Gale to his right, and at the huge planning table with them were several military intelligence officers. Along the opposite side of the table, waiting to be questioned, were several civilians: drivers of tanker trucks and, almost as if he were an intruder in working clothes, a high member of the Council of the Acoma Indians. While they remained within the inner security building inside the aircraft hangar at Wright Field, Cromwell and Foulois were ministering to the Ford Trimotor.
"These are the latest aerial photos taken by our pilots," Henshaw said to Indy, but speaking as well to the entire group. "Let's review with Mineral Wells as a starter." He moved the maps to place aerial photographs in position so that they could be compared. "The main source of helium, as you know, is here." He tapped the map with a pointer.
"The wells are just to the west of the area of Fort Worth. Usually helium is transferred in railway tank cars because of ease of transport, storage, and the bulk involved. However, using tanker trucks is also common.
"Now, what emerges from our surveys is that the road traffic has increased enormously in the past few weeks.
These photos were taken above three main highways in the past week. The planes flew high enough not to attract too much attention from the ground, and we used transports, mainly, with camera mounts in belly hatches. Our people have circled positive identification of tanker trucks along these roads, and the circles are along lines heading in two main directions. One group works towards Lubbock, which is a main transport center, and the second main group takes the highway down to Midland and Odessa, and then starts to work their way generally northwest into New Mexico."
"How many go into Albuquerque?" Indy asked.
Henshaw motioned to a truck driver. "Indy, this is Mike Hightower. Mike, you want to field that question?"
The burly man leaned forward. "Sure, Colonel." He looked to Indy. "We hardly ever carry helium to Albuquerque.
Not much call for it there. Our biggest customers are the navy, for blimps and those new dirigibles they got, and also some manufacturing outfits. Some of them, they ain't got any rail facilities, so we need the trucks."
Hightower moved a map into a position so he and Indy could share the same area. "Bunch of our trucks, they were dispatched to Santa Fe. That's right here." He stabbed the map with a thick forefinger. "But that's pretty crazy to me.
There ain't a thing up there in Santa Fe needs that much helium. Unless, of course," he glanced at Henshaw, "the military got some kind of secret project in the works. The colonel tells me no. Even the delivery is kind of screwy. I mean, we drive the trucks to where the drivers are told to go, and then they're told to leave the shipment there. Trucks and all. I raised hell about that, but then I got told by my boss that some big company bought us out and they're using new drivers in shifts. Our boys come back to Mineral Wells by chartered bus. They ain't complaining none, you understand. They get bonuses for what they're doing, and that kind of lettuce keeps everybody happy."
"Any deliveries into Albuquerque itself?" Indy asked.
Hightower rolled a short cigar stub in his teeth. "Uhuh. Some other trucks, they go direct from Mineral Wells to Roswell, here," again he tapped the map, "and they drop off the trucks there. A few of our guys, they were told to drive to Las Cruces, that's way south."
Henshaw drew a finger northward on the map. "From Las Cruces it's almost a straight shot north toward Albuquerque. That's pretty desolate country. You go through Truth or Consequences, the road parallels the Rio Grande River, then the trucks keep going through the lava fields by Elephant Butte and on up to Socorro.
When they reach Belen, they take a cutoff toward Acoma."
"It's a dumb way to go," Hightower offered. "Lousy roads, I mean. Not too many of them paved. Beats hell out of the trucks. But like I said, whoever's bossing this operation, they're throwing dough around like there's no tomorrow, so our guys ain't kicking none."