Read Chapter 19: THE UNARMED SPAD

The stolen two-seater had a minute's lead.

Vautrin's SPAD was faster.

Luc stood beside the runway watching both climb west. The absurdity of the situation struck him: a supposedly dead ace pursuing a corrupt clerk in an unarmed test aircraft above a factory whose director had tried to manufacture heroes.

War, he decided, had exceeded satire.

He returned to the burning office.

If Roche escaped, the documents still mattered.

Workers helped him carry cabinets outside. One engineer, a grey-haired man named Auguste Lebrun, watched Luc rescue the red-marked test report.

"Where did you get that?"

"Savarin's office."

Lebrun looked toward the road, then lowered his voice.

"We wrote six reports. Five disappeared."

"Will you testify?"

The engineer's face tightened.

"Gervais was my friend."

"Will you testify?"

"Yes."

One honest answer changed the shape of the case again.

Above them, the aircraft became distant insects.

Vautrin caught the two-seater over open farmland.

Without ammunition, he could not shoot it down. Instead he flew alongside, close enough for Roche to see his face.

Later, Vautrin would tell Luc that the clerk's expression was almost worth the entire chase.

Roche fired at him with an observer's machine gun.

Vautrin dived beneath the stream, climbed under the two-seater's tail and forced the pilot to turn repeatedly. Each turn took them away from Paris and toward a military airfield near Meaux.

The pilot understood before Roche did.

He rocked his wings.

Then descended.

Roche aimed his gun at his own pilot.

Vautrin rammed the SPAD close to the two-seater's left wing, so close the wingtips nearly touched. The pilot flinched and pushed the nose down.

They landed at Meaux with Roche still shouting.

Military police arrested both men before Vautrin's propeller stopped.

Luc learned this two hours later by telephone.

"Did he damage the test aircraft?" was his first question.

The operator paused. "Lieutenant Vautrin says to tell you the landing was gentle."

"He is lying."

By evening Inspector General Barrès arrived at Savarin's factory with a staff car, two legal officers and the expression of a man who had been interrupted during a better dinner.

He read the recovered documents. He questioned Lebrun. He ordered the factory records sealed.

Savarin had fled toward Paris but was arrested at a railway station outside Château-Thierry.

For the first time, the conspiracy could no longer be contained within the squadron.

Luc expected triumph.

Instead he felt tired.

Workers stood outside the sealed factory gates asking whether they would still be paid. Most had known nothing. Their sons and brothers were at the front. Their wages fed families.

A scandal that punished Savarin might also close the factory.

"There is always a larger machine," Perrin said when Luc mentioned it.

They had driven west to collect him.

"And mechanics are expected to fix that too?"

"No. Politicians pretend to."

Vautrin returned after dark.

He handed Luc the keys to the test SPAD.

"Not a scratch."

Luc walked around the machine.

The left wingtip had a fresh scrape.

He looked at Vautrin.

Vautrin looked at the sky.

"A bird," he said.