Read Chapter 18: THE CHASE WEST

The obvious response was to telephone ahead.

The line to Savarin's test field had been cut.

The second response was to send a motor patrol.

The roads were jammed with artillery and supply columns.

Vautrin looked at Luc.

"No."

"I have not said anything."

"Your face has."

The only immediately available aircraft with enough fuel was an obsolete Caudron G.4 used for liaison work after its reconnaissance days had ended. Twin engines, two seats, slow, stable by combat standards, and awkward enough that Luc distrusted it on sight.

The assigned pilot had been wounded during the raid.

Vautrin could fly it.

The front seat normally held an observer.

"Absolutely not," Luc said when Vautrin pointed at him.

"You can identify Roche, Fournier's field, and whatever machinery they may be trying to destroy."

"I am a mechanic."

"Exactly."

"I do not fly."

"You sat in a cockpit yesterday."

"On the ground. France remained beneath me."

Perrin approached carrying a flying coat.

"Put this on."

Luc stared at him. "Traitor."

"If you vomit, do it over the side."

Ten minutes later Luc sat in the forward nacelle with his knees against a map case and the world moving beneath him.

The first sensation was not fear but disbelief.

The aerodrome shrank into rectangles. Roads became pale threads. Shell craters blended into patterns invisible from the ground. Villages he knew as broken walls became names on a map again.

Then the Caudron hit turbulence and Luc remembered fear.

Vautrin leaned forward from behind. "Still alive?"

"Regrettably."

They followed the Marne west.

After twenty minutes they saw the stolen two-seater ahead, lower and faster.

Vautrin increased power.

"We cannot catch it," Luc shouted over the engines.

"We don't need to. We need to know where it lands."

The aircraft turned toward a private test strip beside a cluster of factory buildings.

Savarin's field.

Smoke rose from one hangar.

"They are burning records," Luc shouted.

Vautrin descended.

The Caudron landed hard enough that Luc bit his tongue.

"Emphasis," Vautrin called.

"I hate you."

They ran toward the buildings.

Workers scattered around the burning hangar. Nobody knew who had started the fire. A guard claimed Savarin had left by automobile ten minutes earlier.

Roche was nowhere visible.

Luc entered the smoke-filled hangar with a wet cloth over his mouth.

Test engines stood on benches. Crates of components lined the wall. In an office, papers burned in a metal bin.

He kicked it over and stamped out the flames.

Among the charred pages was a test report for Savarin's new engine.

Repeated crankshaft failures.

Oil pressure collapse at sustained high speed.

Recommendation: suspend military demonstration.

Across the top, in red ink: DO NOT CIRCULATE.

There was more. A memo referred to a fatal prototype crash in February. The dead test pilot was named Louis Gervais.

Luc knew the name.

Gervais had been officially listed as killed in combat testing near the front.

Savarin had hidden a defective engine behind the fog of war.

That explained the urgency. The fraudulent ace program was not only advertising. A decorated pilot flying Savarin's prototype at the ministry demonstration would give political cover to an engine the company's own engineers considered unsafe.

A gunshot sounded outside.

Luc ran from the office.

Vautrin stood behind a fuel cart, exchanging fire with someone near the administrative building.

Roche.

The clerk ran for the stolen aircraft.

Luc saw him climb into the observer's cockpit. The pilot started the engine.

Vautrin fired but was too far away.

The two-seater began rolling.

Luc looked at the Caudron.

Then at the test machines.

Beside the hangar stood a compact SPAD S.VII with no squadron markings, apparently used to evaluate propellers.

"Henri!"

Vautrin followed his gaze.

"Can it fly?"

Luc ran to it.

Fuel half full. Oil adequate. Control surfaces free. Engine cold but serviceable. One Vickers gun, no ammunition belt.

"Yes."

"Good."

"No gun."

Vautrin climbed in anyway.

"Then I shall be persuasive."