The Dark Design

The next day, in the middle of the afternoon, they were surprised by a thunderstorm. Farrington was pilot when the black clouds beneath suddenly welled upward. At one moment, the storm seemed to be safely below them. But tendrils reached upward like the tentacles of an octopus. The next moment, the body of the octopus seemed to shoot toward them, and they were enveloped in darkness laced with lightning. At the same time, they whirled like fleas on a spi

"We're dropping like a brick," Frisco said calmly. He ordered that some ballast be dropped", but the craft kept on falling. Lightning cracking nearby flooded the car with a light in which their faces looked green. Thunder bellowed in the echo chamber of the hull, and their ears hurt. Rain shot into the open ports and covered the deck, adding to the weight.

"Close the ports! Tom and Nur, throw out a Number Three ballast bag!"

They leaped to obey him. Their bodies felt light, as if the car was dropping so quickly it would leave them floating.

Another nearby bolt cast light and fear. All saw a black rock below, the flat top of a mountain rushing at them.

"Two Number One bags!"

Nur, looking out a port, said loudly but calmly, "The bags're not falling much faster than we are."

"Two more Number Ones!"

Another fiery streak wrenched the air nearby.

"We ain't going to make it!" Frisco cried. "Two more Number Ones! Stand by to get rid of all ballast!"

The edge of the hull struck the edge of the mountaintop. The car bounced, throwing the entire crew to the deck. As the momentarily loosened net ropes tautened again, the crew, which had half-gotten to a standing position, were hurled down again. Fortunately, the savage strain had not snapped the ropes.

Ignoring their injuries, they got up and stared through the deck port. Darkness except for a small interior lights. Another bolt. They were too near the side of the mountain, and the downdraft was still gripping the balloon. The pointed tops of giant irontrees were coming at them like hurled javelins.

It was too late to turn the burner on. Its effect would be negligible in the little time left before impact. Besides, the collision with the mountain top might have loosened the junctions of the pipes. If that were so, one spark would turn the interior of the hull into a furnace.

"All the ballast!" Frisco shouted.

Suddenly they were out of the clouds, but the blackness was now a dark grey. They could see well enough to discern the treetops spi

Frisco left his post to help the others throw the bags and the water containers out. Before anything could be cast overboard, before Nur could punch a button to release the ironshoi ballast, the car crashed into the upper branches of an irontree. Again, they were knocked down. Helpless, they heard crashing noises. But the branches bent, then straightened out, hurling the car upward and into the envelope.

The car fell back, was caught once more by the almost unbreak­able branches. Its occupants were rattled around as if they were dice shaken in a cup.

Frigate was battered, bruised, and stu

If ... oh, God, make it not so! ... if the pipes were torn loose from the bag ... if the points of the branches gutted the bag ... the car would fall to the ground... unless it was held among the branches or the net was tangled among them.

No. Now the car was rising.

But would the balloon go straight up? Outward toward The River? Or would it be hurled against the side of the mountain and the envelope ruptured against outcroppings?

66

While the rainstorm was at its height, the airship came over the mountain from the north. Lightning, the only illumination, tore the skies. The radar swept over the Valley, over the treetops, across the spires of rock, across the River, and zeroed in on the great boat. The passive radar detector indicated that the boat's own radars were not operating. After all, the boat was at anchor, and why use the radar when no enemy was expected?

The huge hatches in the belly of the ship opened. The helicopter, sitting on a platform, began rotating its vanes. Inside were thirty-one men, Boynton at the controls, de Bergerac by his side. Arms and boxes of plastic explosive were stacked in the rear.

As soon as the motors were warmed up, Boynton gave the high sign. Szentes, the C.P.O. in charge, listened to the phone on the bulkhead, getting the last-minute report on the wind. Then he whipped a little flag up and down. Go!

The copter lifted within the huge bay, moved sidewise off the platform, hovered over the opening, the bay lights glancing off its windshield and the tips of the whirling vanes. Then it dropped as a stone, and de Bergerac, looking up through the windshield, saw the colossal ship merge into the black clouds and disappear.

Cyrano knew that the two-man glider would be launched from it within a minute. Bob Winkelmeyer would be piloting it; James McParlan would be his passenger. Winkelmeyer was a West Point graduate, a flier who had been shot down by a Zero during a scouting flight over an island north of Australia. McParlan had been rather famous in the 1870's. A Pinkerton detective, he had infiltrated into the Mollie Maguires, a secret terrorist organization of Irish coalminers in Pe

Winkelmeyer and McParlan would land in The River and there sink their glider. Later, if they got a chance, they would enlist aboard the Rex. There would be vacancies, since it was doubtful that the raiding party could pull off a coup without killing some of the crew of the Rex.

As Sam Clemens had said to the two, "Rotten John doesn't have a monopoly on double agents. Suck up to him, boys, get him in your confidence. That is, if the raid fails, do it. Maybe you won't have to. But I know that slippery character. He's the greased pole the monkey couldn't climb.

"So, if he gets out of it, you'll join his crew. And then, when Armageddon comes, you'll blow up his boat. It'll be as if Gabriel had planted two angels in the guise of devils in Hell."

The helicopter plunged into the clouds. Lightning cracked open the world, slicing like a flaming sword between earth and heaven. Thunder roared. Rain pelted the windscreens, dimming vision. The craft's radar, however, saw the boat, and, within two minutes, the lights of their target shone weakly.

Boynton took the chopper at a forty-five degree slant toward the boat, then dropped it until it was close to The River. At full speed, while lightning tore the fabric of the night, it sped a meter above the surface. Now the lights from the wheelhouse and along the decks grew bigger and brighter.

Abruptly, the copter lifted, shot over the edge of the flight deck, stopped, poised, and sank. Its wheels struck the surface, and it bounced a little. But it settled down, the vanes chirruped as they slowed, and its hatches burst open.

By the time de Bergerac was on the deck, the motors had been turned off. Boynton was helping men out on his side; Cyrano was ordering a man in the craft to hand out the boxes of bombs.

Cyrano glanced at the top deck of the pilothouse. So far, no one was looking out of its stern window, no alarms had been raised. Their luck was even better than they had expected. Incredibly, there were no sentinels. Or, if there were, they had noticed nothing untoward. Perhaps they felt very safe in this area. A large part of the crew might even be on shore leave. And the sentinels might be goofing off, sleeping, drinking, or making love.