Uncrashable Dakota (18 page)

Thoughts of gift shops and company trinkets ushered in a sudden memory of their most recent family trip, to the private sky-dock in the Statue of Liberty’s crown. Hollis had acted like a sullen five-year-old, answering Rob’s father with one-word grunts and silent shrugs. That afternoon Rob had wanted to give his stepbrother the Betzengraf special: an open-handed slap on the back of the head. To think that all this time, Hollis had been
right
. But right about what, exactly?

Under different circumstances, he would have given anything to be here on the bridge, with its magnificent view and otherworldly stabilization gauge, which was like something from a delicate planet of glass. Instead, he wished he could turn back time to the launch so he could fake a terrible illness on the Newark Sky-dock and be taken down to a hospital. His father would have had to go with him, and none of this would be happening. Hollis would still deserve that slap.

“So find someone who knows how to fix it!” his father exclaimed before dumping all three telephones into the hands of an attendant. Rob and his father were both pale and dusted with freckles, but right now Jefferson looked positively ghostly. Rob watched him struggle to relax the tense, pinched muscles in his face.

“I’m sorry you had to see all this,” he said gently.

Rob’s mind raced through several of the biting retorts he’d prepared while his father had been barking into telephones. And yet all he could manage was the most basic of questions.

“What are you doing, Dad?”

Outside the window, clouds seemed to whirl and spin. It was as if the propeller were whipping the air into a froth. Rob had always imagined the bridge as a place of brilliant sunshine glinting off polished steel machines. To see it for the first time cast in such an eerie pall seemed wrong. Behind him, the man scrubbing the stain pounded the floor in frustration.

“It’s not what you think,” his father said.

“I don’t know what I think it is,” Rob said, which was true. His mind was like a kaleidoscope: just as he latched on to a single thought, the image shifted and the thought became something else.

“Jefferson!” The librarian was trying to get his father’s attention. Rob noticed that she was the only person on the bridge who didn’t address his father as “sir.”

Rob’s father motioned to a mercenary jotting something on a clipboard.

“Go see what she wants. Tell her I’m trying to have a conversation with my son.”

“Yessir.”

Rob didn’t know what was expected of him. There was no
Brice Blank and the Parent Who Turned Out to Be an Airship Hijacker.
His father seemed like he was waiting for him to say something.

“Why?”

Jefferson Castor wasn’t used to explaining his decisions, so it was interesting for Rob to watch his father gather himself up for a big talk. His lips appeared bloodless, almost blue. Rob wondered if they had always been like that and he’d never noticed.

“You mean more to me than every person on this airship combined. I’ve never lied to you about anything, and I’m not going to start now. But these are hard truths, Rob, and I want you to promise me you’ll try as best you can to really understand the things I’m going to tell you.”

“I promise,” Rob said. The words came out squeakier than he’d hoped. His heart was pounding.

“The most important thing you have to understand is that I’m not some common criminal. The Dakotas owe me.” An argument broke out between the navigators and their captors. His father ignored it. “They owe us both. And I’ve waited a lifetime to make them pay up.”

“But you’re chief operating officer. Can’t you just give yourself a raise?”

His father sighed. “The Castors and the Dakotas go back a long way, Rob. Their debt to us is about far more than just money.”

“So why are all these other people here?”

“They’re here because airships don’t hijack themselves.”

Rob found it hard to believe that his father had so many secret friends willing to risk their lives for him. “I mean what are they getting out of this, if it’s not about money? Pride in a job well done?”

A sudden thunderclap rattled the bridge like one of the California earthquakes Miss Betzengraf had told them about. Rob’s father pulled him close. He was soaked in sweat.

“Listen to me very carefully. In order to get what you want in this world, you have to be willing to buy loyalty. And that doesn’t come cheap. There are passengers aboard this ship with more money than they know what to do with. Their families on the ground will buy their release, and they’ll all troop merrily back to their summer cottages and coastal estates without even having to sell a single diamond from their ballroom chandeliers to finance their safe return. Their wonderful lives will be completely unchanged, except they’ll have a fascinating new story for this season’s banquets and parties. They can compare notes over cocktails. And we’ll be able to pay our hardworking employees, with plenty of capital left over. Everybody wins.”

Rob noticed that his father had started using
we
, as if they’d planned the hijacking together. “Except for Chief Owens.”

His father was silent.

“And Hollis.”

“Have you seen your stepbrother?”

“Not since I punched him for making up lies about my dad.”

“Pay attention, Rob. I am not in the business of hurting anyone. I am in the business of planning and carrying out operations for a large aeronautics firm. Think of this as just another task for me, and part of my job is to see everyone through safely. And to do that, I need you to be a man and keep your priorities straight, because I require your help. It’s always been just us two, and I want to keep it that way after this stage is over with.”

The alien was gone. Rob felt a surge of love. At the same time, his mind screamed at him:
Chief Owens!
He tried to ignore the persistent image of the outstretched hand with the beetle-shaped ring. Maybe Chief Owens had pointed a gun at his father. Maybe the whole thing was self-defense.

“What do you mean,
this stage
? What comes after this?”

His father’s eyes went to the librarian and her comrades. “Castor Aeronautics.”

“What are you talking about? Who are those people?”

“I’m talking about finally setting things right.”

A grim-faced hijacker manning the switchboard turned in his chair to face Rob and his father. “I think you need to see this, sir.”

Rob’s father swore under his breath. “You have five seconds to convince me you’ve got a serious problem that requires my personal attention.”

The hijacker pounded a telephone receiver on the desk in front of him, then put it to his ear. He shook his head.

“There’s nothing, sir.”

“What do you mean, nothing?” Jefferson Castor reached for the telephone in disbelief.

“Nobody’s home.”

“Try another one.”

“It’s the same with all of ’em, sir. Looks like some damn fool cut the lines.”

19

CHESTER HAD LICE.

At least, that’s what Hollis surmised. He’d spotted the frizzy red mess of Maggie’s hair from the half-light of the unfinished tunnel at the edge of the hold. She was leaning against a stack of crates, sharing a cigarette with Chester, who was seated in front of her so that she could slide her hand along the top of his head. When Hollis had crept through the crowd to the other side of the crates, he realized she was shaving off his curls. The dry scrape of the razor against Chester’s scalp made Hollis feel slightly ill.

“Question is,” Maggie was saying, “what’re we gonna do with Delia’s little zapper?”

“I say we sneak up amidships,” Chester suggested. “Find us an easy mark stumbling out of a tavern.”

“On their way
out
they ain’t got no money,” Maggie said. “Hold still. Don’t you know how much a head cut bleeds?”

Hollis took a deep breath and stepped up to them, not at all sure of what he was going to say.

“Hello,” he began. He accompanied his greeting with a timid little wave, which he immediately regretted. The flare of confidence he’d experienced in the cent comm room had evaporated. “Airship to Paradise” was playing in his head on a never-ending loop. He’d been so sure of his ability to recruit Maggie and Chester, it hadn’t even occurred to him that they had no reason to trust him, especially without Delia by his side. Chester stared at him, slack-jawed and speechless. The razor glinted in Maggie’s hand. Hollis figured he should cut to the chase.

“The ship’s been hijacked.”

Chester picked at his teeth with a splinter of wood. Maggie blew a huge puff of smoke before crushing out the cigarette beneath her shoe. Then, to his relief, she set the razor down on a box. A hearty laugh resounded from somewhere behind him, and as it caught on, the dull murmur of the hold seemed to swell hysterically for a moment. Hollis felt like it must be aimed at him and pictured a hundred fingers pointed at the back of his head. Warmth crept into his cheeks and forehead.

Hollis continued in a rush, “The leader of the hijackers is my stepfather, Jefferson Castor. He’s holding passengers for ransom. He also kidnapped my mother, and I’m on my way to pay a visit to somebody who knows where she is. But I think it’ll be the type of visit that requires a certain kind of … persuasion.”

He paused, making a point of glancing down at Chester, who was imposing even when seated. No reaction, except for a smirk that curled the edges of Maggie’s mouth. He tried a new tactic.

“Castor’s changed course. We’re heading south, instead of across the Atlantic.”

Maggie chuckled. “Already got that weather report.”

He thought quickly. “We can stop at a first-class infirmary. I can get you some ointment for your…” He waved his hand vaguely in Chester’s direction.

“My what?” asked Chester.

“Your, um, lice. Your head lice.”

This time Maggie glared at him while Chester burst out laughing.

“He don’t have lice,” she said coldly. “He just likes my haircuts.”

Hollis forced himself to stand his ground.

“Fine. Look, I know you have every reason to hate me, but—”

The
Wendell Dakota
interrupted him by lurching starboard. Maggie’s makeshift haircut station collapsed. The razor spun away, and Hollis fully expected it to wind up buried in his flesh. His loafers skidded awkwardly. Trunks and boxes crashed to the floor of the hold. Chester’s shoulder sent Hollis spinning into Maggie’s arms. Together they tripped over a laundry basket and went down in a tangled heap. As they struggled to free themselves—Maggie shrieking, “
Get off me
,” in Hollis’s ear—the bow of the ship began to creep skyward. All around them, helpless passengers lost their grip on the uneven floorboards and tumbled backward to join the growing mess of linens and food and dishes crushed against the newly sloped wall. Pained wailing harmonized eerily with high-pitched screams. A knit scarf snaked out of nowhere to cover Hollis’s nose and mouth. All over the hold, people convinced this was their last chance made sure to squeeze in a final
I love you.
Chester lunged to wedge his fingers into a gap between the boards. Even with Hollis and Maggie clinging to him, he managed to keep steady. A woman nearby was gasping her way through a rushed Hail Mary. Possessions rained down from the tent city. A sharp pain in Hollis’s rib cage made him wonder again about the whereabouts of that razor.
I love you
, he thought. He didn’t have anyone to say it to right then, and yet his brain was forcing it on him.

But these weren’t anyone’s last moments. The ship leveled off, leaving passengers free to right themselves. Stirred-up dust thickened the air.

Delia must have finished cutting the lines.

Without careful instructions from the bridge, the beetle keepers were suddenly flying blind. And if Big Benny Owens’s team had been replaced by Mr. Castor’s amateurs, the voyage of the
Wendell Dakota
was about to get a lot more turbulent.

Hollis untangled his legs and scrambled to his feet. All around him, the chaos of the hold had taken on a frantic edge as parents searched for their children. Dozens of men and women covered in sludge from the food vats wandered like ghosts, while others pawed at the steaming mess with blankets. Maggie ignored Hollis’s outstretched hand and pushed herself up. She joined Chester in helping an old woman gather her spilled possessions, placing them inside a wicker basket. Hollis looked around, wondering what to do, desperate to help someone with something. Here they were in the midst of a crisis, and he was just standing around like the selfish rich boy they all thought he was. He went down on one knee and began picking up scattered playing cards. When he couldn’t find their box, he placed the cards neatly inside an empty tobacco tin, then arranged the tin on a small crate next to an ashtray, as if he were straightening up an end table.

Then he wondered what the hell he was doing.

Maggie stared at him curiously, giving him the disturbing impression that she was reading his thoughts. “Do these hijackers of yours know how to fly this thing?”

“It’s not that.” He wondered if Maggie still had that switchblade on her. “Delia and I cut the telephone lines.”

“Which ones?” Maggie asked.

“All of them.”

Chester had somehow managed to keep his toothpick, and he pulled the tiny wooden spike from his mouth to point it at Hollis. “So what you’re saying is…” He turned to Maggie. “What’s he saying?”

“That he’s a few dozen clams short of a bake.” She narrowed her eyes at Hollis.

“It was the first step in a plan,” he said. “A real plan. I swear. This ship has my father’s name on it, and I’m going to take it back with or without you, but I’d be honored if you’d help me.”

Suddenly the steerage hold shook violently a second time and listed to port, sending Hollis sprawling across a frazzled young mother’s blanket. A baby shrieked. After a few seconds, the ship righted itself. Hollis leaped to his feet.

“Okay,” Maggie said.

“So you’re with me?”

“For now,” she said. “And it don’t mean we’re a team, or that I like you, or that I won’t accidentally kill you and not lose sleep over it. It just means I don’t wanna die today.” She tucked the Cosgrove Immobilizer into her belt. Hollis and Maggie turned to Chester, who was watching them skeptically.