Aces (48 page)

He had only a few more minutes left of running. He forced himself to increase his pace. He’d been at it for exactly an hour
when he reached the Hotel Venezia, where the Stoat-Black contingent was staying.

He went down to the waterline, kicked off his shoes, took off his sweater, and hurled himself into the sea to wash away the
sweat. He splashed about for a few minutes, then came out, gathered up his things, and trudged up the beach toward the hotel.

He was thinking about a hot shower, and a big breakfast, and the fact that he’d dreamt about his father last night. He hadn’t
dreamt about the old boy in years, but then, he also hadn’t talked about his father in years, until yesterday… with the girl.
She had been so very easy to talk to. He couldn’t remember the last time he had talked to someone,
really
talked, not just exchanged inanities.

But she was a child, he told himself, suddenly embarrassed about the way he had opened up to her. He wondered if he had revealed
too much about himself? If there was something unmanly in unburdening himself in such an unseemly manner?

He supposed that it didn’t matter, one way or the other. She’d probably forgotten everything he’d said. And anyway, Greene
didn’t expect to see her again.

At the hotel Greene showered and shaved, and had breakfast sent up to his room. He dressed in a pair of wheat-colored linen
slacks; woven, tan leather slip-ons; a light blue cotton shirt; and a loden-green corduroy sport jacket with tan leather patches
on the elbows. At nine-thirty he checked his onyx case to make sure that he had an ample supply of his custom-blended Dunhill
cigarettes, grabbed the battered leather valise that contained his flying gear, and went downstairs, where a water taxi was
waiting to take him to the launch ramps.

The Supershark was ready and waiting for Greene when he arrived. She was a nasty-looking beastie, Green thought, grinning.
Her gleaming, black and red striped aluminum fuselage was slender as a dagger, and tipped with a twin-blade prop that was
also striped black and red. Her bright red wings were stubby and elliptical. Beneath the fuselage were the floats, like twin
cigars, painted black, and almost as long as the airplane itself. The open cockpit was positioned well behind the humped cowling,
which hid the big, in-line V-12 engine.

But for all her sleek beauty the Supershark was a tortoise among the hares, Greene knew as he went inside the tent hangar
to change into his flying gear. Her top speed of four hundred miles per hour was at least fifty miles per hour slower than
the fastest of the purebred racers entered in the race. Greene knew that she wasn’t destined to win the Moden Cup. As a matter
of fact, he suspected that the Supershark would be eliminated during tomorrow’s competition. But that was tomorrow. She should
make it through today.

He pulled on his cover-alls and his leather jacket, grabbed his leather helmet, gloves, and goggles, and went out to the launch
ramp, where the race team was throwing buckets of water onto the planking in order to grease the Supershark’s slide into the
sea. Greene used a stepladder to get into the seaplane’s snug cockpit. As always, the fact that the Super-shark was raised
up on floats made him feel as if the airplane were on stilts. He strapped himself in, performed a preflight check, and started
the engine. The mechanics released the straps holding the Supershark’s pontoons to the ramp, and rocked her tail up and down
to get her sliding. As she began to move, Greene throttled back, to control the descent. The Supershark’s churning prop seemed
destined for a dunking as the seaplane dipped nose-first toward the sea, but, as always, she bobbed level as the pontoons
entered the water.

While the Supershark’s engine warmed up, Greene gauged the wind direction by watching the flags flapping on shore. He cranked
the handle under the instrument panel, lowering the water rudders hinged into his pontoons, and felt his rudder pedals come
to life. He opened up the throttle and taxied out into open water, heading north, toward the start/finish pylon on the barge
anchored offshore, parallel to the grandstand. The other seaplanes were taxiing along with him, rising and falling on the
waves.

By now the grandstand was filled, and the beach was crowded with spectators. Out on the water the air was filled with the
combined dronings of idling aircraft engines. Greene wiped the sea spray from his goggles and waited for the signal to take
off. He happened to glance to his right, looked away, and then did a double-take. About thirty feet away was one of the German
entries, looking vaguely insectile, thanks to its narrow fuselage; bulbous, enclosed canopy; spindly undercarriage; and olive
green paint job, highlighted with yellow stripes. Perhaps it was his imagination, but Greene had the oddest feeling that the
pilot was fixedly staring at him…

At ten-fifteen the signal for takeoff was given. At once the combined dronings rose to an urgent whine, splitting the sky
as a baker’s dozen of racing throttles were opened.

Greene blasted his own engine, and the Supershark surged forward. He retracted his water rudders, allowing his vertical fin
tail rudder to take over now that the Supershark was creating a slipstream. The spray on the windscreen glistened like diamonds
as the Supershark skimmed along. Greene could hear and feel the waves coursing against the raven-black floats. The controls
abruptly felt light as the floats lifted out of the water, and the Supershark began planing like a speedboat. The water seemed
to cling, but then slipped away with a final gentle caress, like a lover reluctant to part, as the Supershark rose up into
the clear blue sky.

Greene, feeling warm in the sunshine, despite the brisk wind tugging at his cheeks, banked around to take his place at the
end of the ragtag pack of seaplanes circling the start/finish pylon. The airplanes continued circling until everyone was aloft.
A red smoke bomb was set off on the start/finish pylon barge. Then the tentative formation streaked past the pylon. The race—seven
32-mile laps of the triangular course—had begun.

The pack was fairly bunched together on the first leg of the course, from the start/finish pylon to the turning point on the
breakwater at the Porto Di Malamocco. From here it was roughly eight miles to the second turning point, an offshore pylon
at the southern tip of Chioggia. The pack next began a sixteen-mile straightaway returning the way they’d come, but well offshore.
The straight allowed the purebred racers to surge ahead to the third turn, at the checkered pylon erected on the breakwater
guarding the entrance to the Port of Venice. From there it was a seven-mile straightaway back along the Lido, past the grandstand,
and again past the start/finish pylon.

Greene completed the first lap in under six minutes, averaging three hundred and fifty miles per hour. The furious roar of
his engine deafened him, and the sea was a blur beyond his pontoons. By the end of the second lap, the entrants had all pretty
much found their places. The Super-shark was positioned in the bottom third of the pack. She’d been steadfastly in the middle
the day before, but the slower planes flying yesterday had been eliminated for today’s race.

From his position, Greene was more confident than ever that the Supershark would survive today’s elimination to fly another
day—one more day, to be exact, he guessed. Nevertheless, the Supershark had more than proven herself a reliable and relatively
fast airplane. Once she was back in England, her floats would be replaced by conventional landing gear. Work would then proceed
on transforming her into a fighter.

Greene glanced behind him and was surprised to see that the olive and yellow German plane was pacing him, flying on his tail.
That was very odd, Greene thought. From the race the previous day he was sure that the German plane was somewhat faster than
the Supershark. The German had to be purposely hanging back to remain on the Supershark’s tail.

As Greene streaked low over the grandstand at the end of his third lap he wondered if Suzy was down there watching. That he
found himself hoping she was amused him. He abruptly remembered that he’d also dreamt about Suze last night. He wondered why
he’d blocked that out. He tried hard to remember the dream’s details, but they continued to elude him. How very odd; he always
remembered his dreams…

The fifth and sixth laps passed uneventfully, but then Greene had expected as much, considering his modest but safe position
in the pack. The true struggles took place among the front-runners for first place, and those bringing up the rear, battling
to squeak past elimination. By now he’d gotten used to the German on his tail.

Greene rounded the pylon at the Port of Venice breakwater. He was over the beach, approaching the grandstand, anticipating
the final lap of the race, when the German put on a burst of speed, leapfrogging over the Supershark. Greene involuntarily
hunched into his cockpit as the German’s pontoons passed less than a yard over his head. The German dropped like a stone directly
in front of him, forcing Greene to throttle back, so abruptly that the Supershark was put into a stall.

The German flew on, beginning his final lap, as the Supershark fell toward the beach. Greene, struggling with his controls,
kept her from going into a spin, but he was already too low to go into a dive to break out of the stall.

The first order of business was to get the hell away from the crowded beach. He banked out over the water. The maneuver cost
him further precious altitude, but Greene knew that he was going down one way or another, and he didn’t want to kill anyone.
The frothing blue sea was reaching at him as he managed to get the Supershark’s nose up, an instant before his pontoons touched
the waves. What he did next was the result of training and instinct rather than thought. He kept the Supershark skipping across
the surface in a series of hops, controlling the pitch angle of the floats to avert a capsizing. He opened up the throttle,
hauled back on the stick, and somehow, miraculously, regained the sky.

He’d survived, but he was out of the race. Saving his own and the Supershark’s skin had cost time. The rest of the pack was
already rounding the Chioggia pylon. The Supershark didn’t have the speed to catch up and regain its prior position. What
was worse, Greene was keenly aware that the German had made him look like a fool in front of everyone.

The German was a distant speck to the south, but he still had not reached the Chioggia turning point. To hell with the race,
Greene thought, as he poured on the power. He no longer cared about the race; he wanted the German.

Greene had no inkling why the German had done this to him, but that didn’t matter. Greene took pride in conducting himself
like a gentleman, but the German had inexplicably chosen to rob him of his professional honor in front of his employer, and
thousands of others. Greene would have his satisfaction.

The German seaplane was faster than the Supershark, but the latter had a smaller turning radius. Greene drew a bit closer
to his quarry after each pylon. Both airplanes had reached the tail end of the pack as they approached the pylon at the breakwater
marking the Port of Venice. Coming up was the final straightaway, to the grandstands and the start/finish pylon. The Supershark
did not have the speed to take advantage of the straightaway and survive the eliminations. Greene knew that the German did
have the speed, but Greene was not about to allow the German to use it.

Greene banked steeply, veering inland, taking an illegal, diagonal shortcut across the triangular course in order to come
around the Port of Venice pylon the wrong way, head-on toward the rear of the pack just rounding the turn. He imagined that
he’d scared the hell out of the other pilots from the way that they scattered like a flock of frightened pigeons. Greene knew
that what he had just done had been visible to all those in the grandstand who had binoculars, and that he had just disqualified
himself. He didn’t care, since he knew that he was going to be eliminated in any event. Far more troubling was the realization
that Stoat-Black, likely embarrassed and outraged at his unsportsmanlike conduct, would probably dismiss him.

It was all spilled milk, so Greene put it out of his mind. He concentrated on flying his head-on collision course toward the
German, who, to his credit, was showing commendable courage by holding to his own flight course. Greene intended to force
the German into an evasive maneuver that would cost him speed and time, and keep him from finishing the race.

Within seconds the two planes had closed to within a hundred yards of each other. The olive and yellow seaplane loomed, its
whirling prop looking like a buzz saw through Greene’s windscreen—

Greene gritted his teeth and held to his course. Sooner or later the German would lose his nerve, he grimly thought, or else
there was going to be a pretty explosion in the sky. Either way, Greene would have his satisfaction—

The German abruptly fell over on his wings, banking steeply. “Got you!” Greene laughed. He could almost count the rivets in
the olive and yellow fuselage as it slid sideways beneath his floats. Greene was tempted to try an Immelman loop in order
to pursue, but rejected the idea as too risky for a seaplane. The stress force on the spars might tear off his floats.

Anyway, there was no hurry
, he thought as he banked hard and came around, diving on the German’s tail. He had the German where he wanted him.

They were approaching the grandstand as the German—evidently and sensibly frightened—tried to shake Greene, who stayed with
his quarry. The German’s evasive maneuvers cost him speed, allowing the Supershark to catch up. Greene pulled back on his
stick, bringing the Supershark up and over the German, and then gently dropped down, so that his floats were bracketing the
German’s canopy.

The German dived. Greene, riding piggyback, stayed with him, letting the Supershark’s pontoons almost but never quite touch
the German seaplane. The German tried to get away, circling the start/finish pylon barge several times. Greene didn’t let
him, but kept forcing the German toward the sea in a leisurely spiral. He let up only at the last instant, allowing the olive
and yellow seaplane an ignominious, but safe, belly flop of a splashdown, well away from the rest of the pack, which had since
landed.