“That’s what I’m trying to do, lady.”
“I take it your aircraft actually flies?”
“Sure it flies.” He reached up and pushed the throttles gently forward. They were overhead because the Albatross was a high-wing aircraft, which made the engines overhead too.
“Just how old is this heap?” Selena asked, looking down her nose at the chipped paint on the instrument panel. As she spoke she heard the voices of the ATC tower talking through the static. They were pulling into the middle of Kowloon Bay now, and getting further away from the men on the dock.
“Sixty-eight years old this year,” Decker said with pride. “She was born in 1949, and lovingly restored by me over the last five years.”
The Englishwoman ran a finger around a large tear in the co-pilot’s leather seat.
Decker caught her eye and grinned. “It’s an on-going project.”
“I had no idea they had aircraft in the Jurassic era.”
“Funny.”
Decker made a tweak to improve the tuning to the tower’s frequency and tried to remove some of the static. “Tower, this is Albatross niner-seven-four, ready on the water and requesting a departure to the west.”
More static and buzzing. “You’re cleared for take off to the west, Albatross niner-seven-four.”
With more gunshots tearing into the fuselage, Decker turned to his new passengers. “You buckled up?”
“Ready to go, mate!”
Selena rolled her eyes. “Of course. I’m not an idiot.”
“Good,” Decker said. “I’d hate for something to happen to you.”
He began to power up and Selena peered outside through the cockpit window at the enormous engines hanging off the cantilever wings. Compared with the smooth sound of the high-bypass turbofans of modern jets, there was something unsettlingly raw about the idea of three eleven-foot propeller blades being flung around so fast by such an old, noisy radial engine. “Are you sure it’s safe?”
“She’ll cruise at one-twenty-five at twenty thousand feet and has a range of nearly three thousand miles. She’ll get you wherever you want to go. And yes… she’s safe.”
“Because no offense, mate,” Riley said from the jump seat. “But it kind of looks like a pile of crap.”
“She just saved your ass, mate,” Decker said through the earpiece. “So how about showing a little respect?”
He lined the Albatross up in the center of the bay and after clearance to take off from the tower he opened the throttles and increased to full power.
Selena gasped. “Oh goodness, that’s noisy!”
“And you’re certain this thing flies?” Riley asked.
“Absolutely — unless your men have hit the ailerons, or the rudder, or the stabilizer, or the flaps, spoilers, or balance tabs. Then we’ll go up and come down again real hard and fast.”
“Is that likely?” Selena asked.
“We’re about to find out, lady.”
2
With the mighty twin radial engines up to full power, Decker pulled back on the yoke and the Albatross’s smooth, deep-V hull lifted up out of the water. For a second the plane seemed to be skimming over the surface of Kowloon Bay like a speed boat but then it roared up into the sky above the city. The gunmen were left on the dockside, firing pointlessly as the boat plane slipped out of the range of their pistols.
Glancing below, Decker saw a town full of memories — bars, clubs, restaurants… and he was starting to wonder if they’d ever let him back in the place after what just happened.
“I can’t believe we got away,” Selena said, visibly relieved.
“Live to fight another day,” Riley said. “But I bet their boss is already sharpening his brisket slicer for us.”
Selena shot him an anxious glance. “Oh, don’t say that.”
At ten thousand feet, Decker levelled the Avalon and decreased power to settle down into a cruise. The old plane rumbled uneasily through a stretch of turbulence as they crossed the tail end of a typhoon that was building to the east, but at least they were safe now. The American pilot glanced at his watch and made some adjustments to the GPS. “You still haven’t told me where we’re flying.”
“Bangkok.”
“Why Bangkok?”
Selena and Riley shared a quick glance. Riley said, “Because that’s where this told us to go.” He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and held it up for the American pilot to see.
Decker sighed. “You’d better tell me what’s going on or we’re turning around and flying back to Hong Kong.” It was a bluff, because the last thing he wanted to do was fly back into the chaos they had left behind in Kowloon Bay.
“As I think we mentioned, this phone belongs to one of the men who tried to kill us back in Hong Kong,” Selena said. “This morning we were at a house in Jardine’s Lookout viewing a private collection of antiquities. It was pre-arranged and I was there to view an old journal. I viewed it and bought it.”
“And then what happened?”
“When we got outside we were jumped by those men. There was an altercation and they took the journal from us.”
Decker nodded his head. “Now I’m starting to understand.”
“We objected to the robbery and things got ugly.”
“Ugly?”
“She’s talking about flying lead,” Riley said. “Lots of it. We decided to get out and live to fight another day. Outnumbered ten to one, and on the way out one of the goons surprised us. I had a chat with him and persuaded him to let us get out with our lives.”
“A chat?”
“I knocked him out cold, mate.”
Decker was unsure how to respond to Riley’s words. “So that’s his phone?”
“It is,” Selena said. “And on it is an address of a well-known Thai gangster named Kunchai — a private address.”
“And you think he’s the guy behind the robbery?”
Riley shrugged. “Guess so.”
“It’s our only lead,” Selena said. “That’s why we’re asking you to fly us to Bangkok. The man who owned the phone was taking orders from this Kunchai fellow. He owns a nightclub in Bangkok. According to the texts on the phone that’s where they’re delivering the journal.”
Decker was silent for a while and then he made the necessary adjustments to the autopilot. The mighty Albatross banked gently to starboard for a few moments before levelling up once again and starting on its new course.
“Thank you, Mr Decker,” Selena said quietly.
“Don’t thank me till we land.”
“And when will that be?”
“Just under seven hours.”
“Seven hours?” Riley said, running his hand through his hair. “Geez, I could paddle home to Sydney in that time.”
Decker turned in the pilot’s seat. “The aircraft’s not pressurized, Mr Carr. If you want to jump out and start paddling I’m not going to stop you.”
Riley looked sheepishly from Selena to Decker. “No, I’m all right, mate. I was only yanking your chain.”
As the flying boat flew southwest they hugged the coast of southern China, passing Macau and Zhanjiang before cutting over the north coast of Hainan Island. This was home to a major Chinese strategic nuclear submarine base and buzzing with military activity, from aircraft carriers below to spy satellites above. Decker was always apprehensive when flying near it, but it was the quickest way to get to Bangkok, and that was where his twenty-five thousand dollars was waiting.
He turned to face the Englishwoman. “So now you’re going to tell me about this old journal and why it nearly cost me my life.”
Selena and Riley shared another silent glance until she broke eye contact and started to rummage around in her canvas bag. “This is what we’re talking about.”