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"So much for my cover as a bush pilot," Stokes muttered as he pulled back on the control column.
Pitt slid open the side window, stuck his head into the prop blast and looked back. The security guards appeared to be wildly scurrying about like ants. Then he saw something else that caused a small knot in his stomach. "I think I made them mad."
"Could it be something you said?"
Pitt pulled the side window closed. "Actually, I beat up a guard and stole the chief of security's side arm."
"That would do it."
"They're coming after us in one of those armed helicopters."
I know the type," Stokes said uneasily. "They're a good forty knots faster than this old bus. They'll overhaul us long before we can make it back to Shearwater."
"They can't shoot us down in front of witnesses," said Pitt. "How far to the nearest inhabited community on Moresby Island?"
Mason Broadmoor's village. It sits on Black Water Inlet, about sixty kilometers north of here. If we get there first, I can make a water landing in the middle of the village fishing fleet."
His adrenaline pumping, Pitt gazed at Stokes through eyes flashing with fire. "Then go for it."
Pitt and Stokes quickly became aware they were in a no win situation from the very start. They had little choice but to take off toward the south before banking on a 180-degree turn for Moresby Island to the north. The McDonnell Douglas Defender helicopter, manned by Dorsett's security men, had merely to lift vertically off the ground in front of the hangar, turn northward and cut in behind the slower floatplane even before the chase shifted into first gear. The de Havilland Beaver's airspeed indicator read 160 knots, but Stokes felt as if he were flying a glider as they crossed the narrow channel separating the two islands.
"Where are they?" he asked without taking his eyes from a low range of cedarand pine-covered hills directly ahead and the water only a hundred meters below.
"Half a kilometer back of our tail and closing fast," Pitt answered.
"Just one?"
"They probably decided knocking us down was a piece of cake and left the other chopper home."
"But for the extra weight and air drag of our floats, we might be on equal footing."
"Do you carry any weapons in this antique?" asked Pitt.
"Against regulations."
"A pity you didn't hide a shotgun in the floats."
"Unlike your American peace officers, who think nothing of packing an arsenal, we're not keen to wave guns around unless there is a life-threatening situation."
Pitt glanced at him incredulously. "What do you call this mess?"
"An unforeseen difficulty," Stokes answered stoically.
"Then all we have is the nine-millimeter automatic I stole, against two heavy machine guns," said Pitt resignedly. "You know, I downed a chopper by throwing a life raft into its rotor blades a couple of years ago."
Stokes turned and stared at Pitt, unable to believe the incredible calm. "Sorry. Except for a pair of life vests, the cargo bay is bare."
"They're swinging around on our starboard side for a clear shot. When I give the word, drop the flaps and pull back the throttle."
"I'll never pull out if I stall her at this altitude."
"Coming down in treetops beats a bullet in the brain and crashing in flames."
"I never thought of it quite like that," Stokes said grimly.
Pitt watched intently as the blue-black helicopter pulled parallel to the floatplane and seemed to hang there, like a hovering falcon eyeing a pigeon. They were so close that Pitt could discern the expressions on the faces of the pilot and copilot. They were both smiling. Pitt opened his side window and held the automatic out of sight under the frame.
"No warning over the radio?" said Stokes disbelievingly. "No demand we return to the mine?"
