Chapter 20 #2
By the time Pancho reached the plane, Claire had already unbuckled and hopped over the side of her aircraft. She moved with quick, sharp motions as she grasped something behind her wings and inspected it.
“They sabotaged my plane!” Claire announced angrily. “Those . . . those . . .”
“Bastards!” Pancho supplied, her own anger rising. How many of them were going to have to come perilously close to dying before the race officials organized proper security for the planes? Enough was enough.
Claire spit out, “Smelly . . . rotten . . . no-good . . . guttersnipes. Ooh, I could just strangle whoever did this!” She ripped her flight cap off, revealing matted hair, but sweat wasn’t pouring down her face like it should have been.
Pancho recognized the onset of heatstroke. “Water! Get some water over here for the lady!”
One of the Boy Scouts ran over, offering up his canteen to Claire. “Water, ma’am!”
“Thank you.” Claire said gratefully. She tipped the canteen and gulped down most of its contents.
“Golly, lady! I never saw no one drink like that before!” the scout declared.
“Here’s something else you likely haven’t seen before either,” Claire commented as she dumped the rest of the water right on top of her head. She let out a little sigh of relief and swept the water out of her eyes.
“What happened?” Pancho asked. “Why did you skip getting timed and come in against the traffic flow?”
“My wing wires snapped,” she hissed under her breath. “One on each side. Someone must have messed with them.”
“Excuse me. Pardon me. Let me through. I’m her husband,” a worried male voice called behind them.
Pancho looked up to see Herbert Fahy emerging from the crowd.
Claire made a beeline for her tall, handsome husband, and they embraced each other tightly. But soon enough, Claire stepped back and started talking in low, angry tones. Herbert’s smile disappeared, replaced by cold fury.
The pair headed over to where Pancho stood.
Claire told her husband, “Look at that. The wires snapped at the exact same place, about two feet above the bottom wing, within sixty seconds of each other. Tell me how that’s possible!”
Herbert leaned in close, peering intently at the broken ends of the cables.
He shifted his attention to the wires that were still attached.
Pancho joined him, running a keen eye over the wires as well.
On each of the surviving wing wires, she spotted an area of discoloration about two feet above the bottom wing.
Tiny bubbles were forming at the spots on the wires even now.
“Looks like someone’s put something on the steel to eat through it,” Pancho muttered, horrified.
“Acid,” Herbert bit out.
“Are you certain?” Pullman asked from right behind them.
“I’m positive,” Herbert answered. He was one of the top test pilots in the country and knew more about airplanes than just about anyone in America.
“I installed these new wing wires about six weeks ago myself. The steel’s finish is still shiny, so these spots, here and here”—he pointed at the tips of the destroyed wires—“are extremely obvious.” He then pointed at the spots on the surviving wires where the acid was still bubbling as it ate through the wires.
Pullman growled under his breath.
“She’s damned lucky to be alive,” Herbert said furiously.
Claire added, “I think my knees are going to shake for the next week.”
“You’ve got your hard evidence now,” Pancho told Pullman. “The bag of trash from Thea’s carburetor and now these wires eaten through with acid.”
The BOI man looked over at Herbert. “Can you remove these wires and give them to me? I need to keep them as evidence.”
“I’ll have them off the wings in two minutes after I fetch my tools.”
Pullman nodded slowly. “You’re right, Pancho. It appears I finally have hard evidence to show my director. I’ll call him as soon as you hand over the wires.”
“You’ve got to drop out of this race, Claire,” Herbert declared, staring at the wires in his hands. “It’s not worth the risk.”
“Drop out?” Claire gasped.
Herbert dropped the wires and faced his wife. “Yes. Withdraw.”
“Now you just hold up,” Pancho interrupted. “Don’t go telling Claire what to do on account of her being your wife.”
Herbert glanced at her and then back at Claire.
“Fine. I won’t tell you to quit, Claire.
I’m asking you to quit. Begging you to quit.
” He raked his fingers through his hair, his face twisted in fear.
“Please, Claire. Whoever’s doing this is going to spill blood.
I can’t stand the thought of it being yours. ”
Claire’s eyes widened, filling with tears.
“He’s right.” Amelia shouldered her way to the front of the aviators gathering around. “Whoever’s behind this is trying to kill one of us. Maybe several of us.”
A chill went through Pancho. Amelia was more upset than Pancho had ever seen her. Too upset, given that Claire had landed safely. Shoot. Something else had to have happened. She drew Amelia aside. “Talk to me. What’s got you so upset?”
Amelia’s anguished gaze met hers. “My regular mechanic—and dear, dear friend of many years—flew to Santa Monica with me. I thought he might still be there, maybe fly a new propeller to me, so I sent him a telegram . . . and got a telegram back immediately . . .” Her voice trailed off.
She looked down at the yellow paper in her hands.
“And?” Pancho asked quietly.
“He’s dead,” Amelia blurted out. “Crashed after taking off from Santa Monica. His flight-control wires were found to be badly bent and fouled less than a foot from the control stick . . . exactly the same way mine were.”
“When did that happen to your plane?” Pancho squawked.
Amelia filled her in quickly on her emergency situation at Clover Field, ending with, “My mechanic and I both saw the marks on my flight-control cables when I landed. They were, without question, made by a wrench or a pair of pliers. Someone tampered with the flight controls on both planes the exact same way.”
“Why didn’t you tell anybody?” Pancho blurted out.
“Because Pullman didn’t believe us when we showed him Thea’s telegram.
Nobody would’ve believed me if I whined about sabotage just because there were pliers-shaped scratches on my control cables.
Besides, I need to finish this race strong.
Impress my investors. Without them, I’m just another pretty face. ”
“Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”
Amelia looked back at the telegram’s message and said bitterly, “The board of inquiry called the bent and twisted cables that brought his plane down a manufacturing defect. I was lucky enough to have the problem only a few miles from the airport and managed to get back down on the ground. My mechanic was not.”
Pancho’s gut twisted in warning intuition. She said soberly, “There’s more, isn’t there?”
“He and I each flew identical Vegas to Santa Monica. We weren’t sure which one I was going to fly in the race until the very last second on Sunday morning.
He flew the other one out the evening after we flew out of Clover Field.
” She added in anguish, “It never occurred to me that someone might sabotage both Vegas to get at me. I should’ve thought of it—”