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"He knows it and doesn't seem to care. Go back and calm the kids. Make them think we're playing a game. Urge them to sing. Do whatever it takes to occupy their minds and play down the danger." He turned his head slightly toward Mary and gave her a nod of encouragement. "Get on the radio and give a Mayday. To anyone who answers, report the situation."
"Can anyone help?"
"Not in time."
"What are you going to do?"
Pitt watched as the red Fokker triwing swept around for another pass at the trimotor. "Keep everyone alive if I can." Kelly and Mary both marveled at Pitt's unruffled calm, the grim determination that shone in his eyes. Mary began shouting a Mayday into the radio microphone while Kelly ran back into the main cabin.
He scanned the sky, searching for clouds to enter and lose the Fokker, but the few that floated in the sky were several miles away and a good twenty thousand feet above the ground, three thousand feet above the ceiling of the trimotor. No clouds to hide in, no place to escape. The old transport plane was as defenseless as a lamb in a pasture stalked by a wolf. Why was the pilot he'd met earlier doing this? Pitt's brain churned with questions, but there were no simple answers.
Pitt might have attempted to set the plane down in the East River. If he could make a water landing that didn't damage the airplane or injure the children, and if it floated long enough for them to escape: the thought quickly came and was rejected. With the trimotor's rigid landing gear, the potential for a watery crash was too high, and he couldn't be sure the blood-crazed pilot of the Fokker would not strafe the helpless passengers if they weren't injured in the landing. If he intended to shoot them out of the air, Pitt thought, the guy would have no qualms about killing them in the water.
Pitt made his decision and circled the trimotor back toward the Brooklyn Bridge.
The red Fokker stood on its wingtips and followed the trimotor on a reverse course down the river. Pitt eased back on the throtdes to his two remaining engines and allowed his attacker to close. Unlike modern jet fighters with missiles that could down an enemy plane from a mile away, the aces of World War I held their fire to less than a hundred yards away. Pitt was counting on the Fokker's pilot to wait until the last minute to fire at the trimotor.
Like the historic days on the Western Front, the warnings of Allied pilots held true. Pitt thought of the old adage: Watch for the Hun in the sun. It was just as relevant now as it had been then. The Fokker's pilot pulled his nose up in a steep climb, nearly hanging it on its propeller, before dipping downward in a shallow dive out of the sun. At a hundred yards, the pilot opened fire as he swooped on the trimotor, the bullets tearing into the corrugated aluminum sheets on the right wing behind the engine. But time was too short-the twin Spandaus were on target for less than two seconds before Pitt pushed the trimotor in a near-vertical dive.
The plane plunged down toward the water, the Fokker pilot right on its tail but not firing undl he could line up his sights again. Down Pitt went undl it looked to the people walking along both shores, those crowded on the upper deck of an excursion boat and firemen on a passing fireboat, as if the plane would surely smash into the water. But at the last instant, Pitt pulled back on the control column and sent the trimotor on a course that would take him direcdy under the Brooklyn Bridge.
The famous bridge loomed like a giant spiderweb with its maze of support cables. Completed in 1883, the bridge carried more than 150,000 cars a day, 2,000 bikers and 300 pedestrians. Traffic was stopping and people were gawking from their cars at the sight of the two old aircraft speeding toward the span. Pedestrians and bikers on the wooden walkway that was elevated over die traffic came to a halt and rushed to the railings. No one could believe the World War I fighter was actually pumping bullets into the old three-engine plane.
"Oh lord!" muttered Mary. "You're not going under the bridge."
"Watch me," Pitt said doggedly.
Pitt hardly took notice of the towers rising 271 feet in the air. He swiftly estimated the distance between the roadway and the water at 150 feet when it was actually 135. With smoke trailing from the center engine, the trimotor flashed under the bridge and broke out into the open, dodging a tugboat pushing a pair of barges.
Thrilled at seeing the bridge pass above, the children thought it was part of the ride. Kelly instructed them to sing. Blissfully unaware of the deadly seriousness of their plight, they broke into song:
This old man, he played one.
He played knick knack on my thumb.
With a knick knack paddy whack, give the dog a bone.
This old man came rolling home.
The air controllers at La Guardia, Kennedy and the surrounding smaller airports all picked up the Mayday message sent frantically by Mary, and the police radios were alive with reports of the aerial battle. The controller at Kennedy Airport called over his chief.
"I've got a Mayday from a woman in an old Ford trimotor from that air show today. She claims she's under attack by a World War I fighter plane."
The chief controller laughed. "Sure, and Martians are landing at the Statue of Liberty."
"There must be something to it. I'm receiving police calls saying a red triplane chased an old three-motored aircraft under the Brooklyn Bridge and smoked one of its engines."
The humor quickly faded. "Do you know if the transport is carrying passengers?"
"The police say it has fifteen disabled children on board." He paused and his voice hesitated. "I... I can hear them singing."
"Singing?"
The controller nodded silently.
The chief controller's face took on a pained expression. He stepped over to the radar array and put his hand on the controller monitoring incoming flights. "What do you read over Manhattan?"
"I had two aircraft over the East River, but the larger one just went offscreen."
