Chapter 9 #3
She leaned her elbows on the floor and twisted her head to look up awkwardly under the instrument panel.
A half dozen wires hung down, their ends neatly severed in the distinctive V-crimp made by wire cutters.
The copper visible inside the black rubber insulation was bright and shiny, meaning the wires had been cut recently. Her jaw tightened.
She backed out of her awkward position until she could stand on the step up into the cockpit. She told the mechanic quietly, “There are several broken wires under the instrument panel as well. How fast can you straighten out the flight cables and splice together the wires?”
“I mean, neither takes more than a few minutes. But don’t you want to install new cables and replace the wiring?”
“I don’t have time. I’m in the race of my life. You can replace them tonight in San Bernardino. For now, I just need the plane made safe enough to fly to the next stop in the race.”
“Okay. I’ll come around and crawl into the cockpit. I’ll have you all patched up in no time.”
Beware of sabotage, indeed. The words on the yellow telegram rolled through her head over and over as she passed the mechanic tools.
As she handed him the canvas stick housing and its metal fastener ring and gave him screws one by one, Agent Pullman’s words from Friday night came back to her as well.
“You’re bound to attract the attention of some folks who don’t want you to succeed.” Agent Pullman had hit the nail on the head. Her eyes narrowed. She would show whoever’d done this that they couldn’t stop her from racing . . . and winning, darn it.
“That should do it,” the mechanic announced, backing out of the cockpit.
Amelia pushed up her sleeve to check her watch.
Twelve minutes since she’d shut down her engine.
Not bad. “Pull my chocks and clear the prop!” she called after him as he exited the plane and closed the hatch.
She crawled back into the cockpit and fastened her seat belt.
Fueled by fury at her plane being tampered with and her life endangered—and by her determination to win the race anyway—her hands flew over the instrument panel.
Fuel selector valve on “Both.” Throttle open a quarter inch.
Fuel mixture set to “Idle Cutoff.” She yelled out the open window, “Contact!”
The mechanic shot her a thumbs-up to indicate everyone in the vicinity was clear of her propeller. She pushed the electric starter button. The engine pop-pop-popped to life, and the starter’s booster coil engaged, spinning up the engine to the required rpm to complete the start.
As the engine spun up, so did the propeller, becoming a blur and then disappearing altogether. After a last quick check outside to be sure the spectators were still clear of the runway, she released her brakes, did a quick U-turn, and taxied as fast as she dared to the departure end of the runway.
She turned the Vega to face into the wind, pushed up the throttle, and accelerated down the runway. No coward of a saboteur was going to scare her off or stop her from finishing this race. Let the press report that to the whole wide world.
Pullman reached up to keep his hat on his head while Amelia took off again. He crossed the white starting line painted on the field before she’d even cleared the end of the runway, and headed after the mechanic who had worked on the red Vega and was now walking back toward the main hangar.
“Excuse me,” he said to the guy’s back.
“Yes?” The mechanic’s expression promised he wasn’t the chatty sort.
“What was the problem with her plane?” Pullman asked bluntly.
The mechanic shrugged. “Couple of busted wires. No big deal.”
“Then why did she come back here and not continue on to San Bernardino?”
The mechanic tilted his head to one side, obviously thinking about how to respond.
He shrugged again. “Airplanes are complicated machines. No way to predict what will happen when something breaks. Hard to tell if a problem’s simple or serious until you take a look at it on the ground.
Good pilots are cautious. Something goes wrong, they check it out. ” He turned and walked away.
Pullman looked up at where the cherry-red Lockheed Vega was making a steep one-eighty turn to the right.
Sunlight glinted off its shiny paint. He had to admit it was hypnotic watching airplanes fly and knowing that humankind had figured out how to break free of the earth.
Curiosity filled him as he watched Amelia Earhart defy gravity and soar off into the distance.
What drove pilots to take to the air? Why would anyone risk their life doing something as dangerous and unnatural as flying?
It was possible he’d just witnessed the last smile Lady Lindy would ever flash at a crowd. She was no coward, that was for sure. He admired her grit.
The telegram in his pocket intruded on his thoughts.
He withdrew it, rereading the warning with distaste.
Sabotage was a tool wielded by cowards who lacked even the most basic element of integrity.
Pullman was devoted to the badge in his pocket and everything it stood for.
He firmly believed that all evil needed to flourish was for good men to do nothing.
While the airplane mechanic might believe the broken wires were no big deal, the telegram in Pullman’s hands offered another plausible explanation. One he wasn’t comfortable ignoring.
He walked thoughtfully across the airfield along with the thousands of spectators now filing out of Clover Field.
His gut told him that despite the mechanic’s assurances to the contrary, Amelia Earhart’s plane might have been intentionally damaged, which begged the question: Who would sabotage her plane?
Someone who viewed her as a threat, perhaps?
Plenty of men viewed female pilots as competition for good-paying jobs.
The economy might have been booming for the past decade, but cracks were starting to show around its edges.
The job market had got tight, and various factories and big companies were starting to lay off workers and cut work hours.
Had a male pilot who thought these upstart women pilots were taking work away from him cut the plane’s wires?
Money often proved to be the root of foul deeds—a truth he had considerable experience with.