"I hear you, Mrs. Nash," he said.
Jack was touched by her show of emotion. No doubt about it, she genuinely cared about Ba. Had real feeling for the guy. Maybe he'd misjudged her. Maybe she wasn't quite the hardcase she pretended to be.
"Either we both come back," he added, "or neither of us comes back. You've got my word on that."
"I'll hold you to it," she said, her eyes steely blue.
As Jack hurried back to the car he figured he'd damn well better get Ba back safe and sound.
The sign atop the hanger read TWIN AIRWAYS in bold red letters. Tension coiled around Bill's gut as they bumped toward it along a rutted dirt road. Where were they? Somewhere off the Jericho Turnpike was all Bill knew.
And the Ashe brothers. Who were they? He'd never heard of them and didn't know a thing about them and yet he was going to get into a jet and let one of them fly him across the Atlantic. And why? Because this fellow named Jack—who had about a dozen last names and had an immediate avoidance response to anything labeled Police, who carried two or three pistols and God knew how many other weapons at all times, who called his ancient Corvair Ralph and drove it like a maniac—had said the Ashe Brothers were "good guys."
Glaeken, old boy, he thought as Jack skidded to a halt beside the hanger, I hope this trip is worth it.
Two reed-thin, blue-eyed men in their mid-thirties with fair, shoulder-length hair came out to meet them. They might have been mirror images had not one of them sported a stubbly beard and the other a long, droopy mustache. Both wore beat-up jeans so low on their hips they looked ready to fall off; the bearded one wore a purple paisley shirt tucked in behind a Jack Daniels belt buckle. The one with the mustache had on a fringed buckskin jacket over a tee-shirt.
"They look like holdovers from the sixties, Jack," Bill said softly out of the corner of his mouth.
"It's okay. They sort of think they're the Allman Brothers. Not really, of course. I mean, Duane being dead and all. But soul-mates, so to speak. They are from Georgia and they do like the blues, but trust me: You're looking at two of the best damn pilots going. Not a place in the world with an airport they haven't been."
Bill wondered if he had that much trust left in him.
Jack introduced them as Frank and Joe. Joe had the beard and the JD buckle and he was going to be Bill's pilot. But Bill's flight seemed to be of secondary importance. The big concern seemed to be getting Jack and Ba into the air as soon as possible. After payment was made—a sack of gold coins transferred from the Corvair's front-end trunk to the Ashe brothers' office safe—Joe left Bill and Nick in the tiny office while he went out to help get his brother's Gulfstream air-borne. Twenty minutes later, Bill heard jet engines whine, then roar off into the western sky.
"Shouldn't we be hurrying too?" Bill said when Joe returned to the office.
"I reckon," he said with a heavy drawl. "But it's not as critical for us as for them. If Frank hustles his ass he's got a damn good chance of staying in daylight all the way to Hawaii. Not us. We're heading east—right into the dark. It's about 6:00 p.m. in Rumania now. Already past sunset."
His expression showed how little he relished the trip.
"How did you wind up with us?"
"We flipped a coin."
"And you lost."
Joe Ashe shrugged. "Six o' one, half a dozen of t' other. We're talking round trips here. Frank'll have to fly east on the way home while we're flying west." He frowned. "Maybe I should say it's four of one and half a dozen of the other. We'll have a shorter daylight window on the way back." He grunted. "Shit. I did get the short end of this stick. That Frank's always tricking me. That boy's my evil twin, he is."
Great, Bill thought. I've got the slow one.
"You want to back out?" Bill said, almost hoping he'd say yes.
Joe Ashe grinned. "Nah. Said I'd do it and so it's a done deal. Unless o' course you've changed your mind."
Bill shook his head. "I'm afraid we're stuck with each other."
"Guess so. But what about your friend there. He's lookin' right poorly, I'd say."
"He's…he hasn't been well lately."
"Bummer. Maybe you ought to leave him behind. Things could get a mite hairy on this little jaunt."
"I know. I wish I could leave him, but I need him along."
"You don't say." Joe studied Nick's blank face a moment, then turned to Bill. "What the hell for?"
"I don't know yet." But Glaeken assures me I will.
Joe let out a soft, low whistle through his teeth.
"Okay, pal. You're the boss. Let's roll. I've got the flight plan all worked out. We've got a ten- to eleven-hour trip ahead of us, and a seven-hour time difference between here and Ploiesti."
"Ploiesti? I thought we were going to Bucharest."
"Ploiesti's a little further north, closer to the Alps where this pass you're headed for is supposed to be. I couldn't find it on any of my maps."
Bill handed Joe the packet Glaeken had given him.
"You'll find it on these."
Joe took the packet. "Good. I'll check them out on the way. Get your friend there moving now. Time to rock 'n' roll."
The Movie Channel
Joe Bob Briggs' Drive-In Movie—A Special All-Day Edition.
Beginning Of The End (1957) Republic
The Last Days Of Man On Earth (1974) New World
The Monsters Are Loose (1965) Hollywood Star
Fear In The Night (1947) Paramount
Horror Of The Blood Monsters (1970) AIP
Destroy All Monsters (1968) Toho/AIP
I Drink Your Blood (1971) Cinemation
Jaws Of Death (1976) Selected
Night Of The Blood Beast (1958) AIP
The Day The Fish Came Out (1967) International Classics
Target Earth (1954) Allied Artists
The Blood Suckers (1971) Chevron
OVER THE ATLANTIC
Frying west, night came especially early. As darkness engulfed them, the sky cleared, became a crystal dome that revealed the foreign face of the moon set amid alien constellations.
Bill left Nick sleeping back in the passenger compartment and headed forward to take the co-pilot's seat next to Joe. As he gazed out at the night, he was glad for the lack of clouds and excellent visibility in the moonlight. He could find no sign of anything like the air leviathans he'd seen swooping from the Central Park hole Saturday night. No sign of anything in the air, but the water below seemed alive. It churned with shadows and swirled with phosphorescent flashes.
He turned back to the stars, studying them, trying to make sense of them, or find a familiar pattern.
"Where are we?" he said, wondering aloud.
"Over the Atlantic," Joe replied from his left.
"Thanks. I mean where in space? The sun's fading away, the moon's been turned around, and the stars have been shifted into new formations."
"Not just new formations," Joe said, stroking his beard as he craned his neck to see the stars. "Notice that there's fewer stars up there? And every night there's even less than the night before. I wonder if some night soon I'll take a peek and find there's no stars at all."
The stars do look kind of sparse up there, Bill thought.