Read Online Operation Breakthrough by Dan J. Marlowe - Free Book Online
Authors: Dan J. Marlowe
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dark attract much attention to himself, sair,” he suggested delicately.
This district of fine homes was undoubtedly a well-policed area. I could understand it, but I had to buck it. I slid down from the surrey seat and stood by the side of the road. Even Ermintrude turned her head to regard me inquiringly. “I’ll be fine,” I announced cheerfully. I took hold of Ermintrude’s bridle and turned her around in the roadway until she was headed back toward Nassau. “See you in the morning at the hotel,” I said and whacked the mare an open-hander across her wide beam. Her eyes rolled at the indignity, and her hooves did a skittish little time step in the road before she got the surrey rolling again.
I stood and watched its bobbing tail light disappear around a corner. I hoped the bonus would keep the driver quiet tonight. Nothing was going to keep him quiet when he tried to deliver the packages to the Anchorage in the morning.
But by that time I wouldn’t care.
I hoped.
FOUR
I KNEW approximately where the field was because Erikson and I had hitched a ride to town with the same flying club employee who had agreed to close his eyes to our unauthorized use of it. I walked along the edge of the road in the deepening twilight. The stars were out although the western sky was still pale. The first onset of the night breeze blew gently, and a dog barked occasionally. There was enough scrub brush and foliage just off the roadside that I wasn’t concerned about getting myself out of sight in a hurry in case headlights appeared from either direction.
I almost passed Oakes Field without seeing it in the gathering darkness. Only the fact that one asphalt runway extended almost to the road enabled me to spot the darker strip against the green grass. Then I could make out the dim outline of a wire fence. I couldn’t see any sign of an adminstration building.
I tried to estimate the direction of a plane’s approach in the prevailing wind, then moved in from the road along the fence in a direction that would place me near the touchdown point. A hundred yards off the road I saw the deeper shadow of another runway angling off the first one, shattering my hope that I could predict accurately where the plane would land.
I burrowed down into the waist-deep grass alongside the fence at a point near the junction of the runways and prepared to try for a little sleep before sweating out the final hours before dawn. I didn’t get any real sleep, but I dozed off from time to time. Once I woke myself by rolling over in the grass and striking my hand against the chain link fence. I couldn’t see my watch, but there was no feel of dawn in the air.
I tried to shift to a more comfortable position, and the papers inside the canvas sack still suspended from my neck crackled noisily, reminding me why I was there. I thought of Karl Erikson trying to sleep in whatever cell the Bahamas police force had lodged him in.
I became aware that my gaze had fixed itself upon a pair of headlights slowly circling the perimeter road outside the fence bordering the airport. A night watchman? The police? The cruising car didn’t come near enough to where I lay next to the fence for me to make an identification, and I wasn’t about to leave my comparatively safe haven to satisfy my curiosity.
When I saw the headlights a second time twenty minutes later in the same deliberate pattern through the area, I was sure it was the police. If a manhunt were actually underway, it would be poor police tactics if one of the prime escape areas on the island — even if an unlikely one in their estimation — went unpatrolled.
It changed my thinking about my own tactics. I had planned on remaining outside the fence until Erikson’s pickup plane actually arrived. Now I couldn’t afford that luxury if the police remained as active as they gave every indication of being.
During an interval when the cruising headlights were absent, I knelt in the grass and made a shield
This district of fine homes was undoubtedly a well-policed area. I could understand it, but I had to buck it. I slid down from the surrey seat and stood by the side of the road. Even Ermintrude turned her head to regard me inquiringly. “I’ll be fine,” I announced cheerfully. I took hold of Ermintrude’s bridle and turned her around in the roadway until she was headed back toward Nassau. “See you in the morning at the hotel,” I said and whacked the mare an open-hander across her wide beam. Her eyes rolled at the indignity, and her hooves did a skittish little time step in the road before she got the surrey rolling again.
I stood and watched its bobbing tail light disappear around a corner. I hoped the bonus would keep the driver quiet tonight. Nothing was going to keep him quiet when he tried to deliver the packages to the Anchorage in the morning.
But by that time I wouldn’t care.
I hoped.
FOUR
I KNEW approximately where the field was because Erikson and I had hitched a ride to town with the same flying club employee who had agreed to close his eyes to our unauthorized use of it. I walked along the edge of the road in the deepening twilight. The stars were out although the western sky was still pale. The first onset of the night breeze blew gently, and a dog barked occasionally. There was enough scrub brush and foliage just off the roadside that I wasn’t concerned about getting myself out of sight in a hurry in case headlights appeared from either direction.
I almost passed Oakes Field without seeing it in the gathering darkness. Only the fact that one asphalt runway extended almost to the road enabled me to spot the darker strip against the green grass. Then I could make out the dim outline of a wire fence. I couldn’t see any sign of an adminstration building.
I tried to estimate the direction of a plane’s approach in the prevailing wind, then moved in from the road along the fence in a direction that would place me near the touchdown point. A hundred yards off the road I saw the deeper shadow of another runway angling off the first one, shattering my hope that I could predict accurately where the plane would land.
I burrowed down into the waist-deep grass alongside the fence at a point near the junction of the runways and prepared to try for a little sleep before sweating out the final hours before dawn. I didn’t get any real sleep, but I dozed off from time to time. Once I woke myself by rolling over in the grass and striking my hand against the chain link fence. I couldn’t see my watch, but there was no feel of dawn in the air.
I tried to shift to a more comfortable position, and the papers inside the canvas sack still suspended from my neck crackled noisily, reminding me why I was there. I thought of Karl Erikson trying to sleep in whatever cell the Bahamas police force had lodged him in.
I became aware that my gaze had fixed itself upon a pair of headlights slowly circling the perimeter road outside the fence bordering the airport. A night watchman? The police? The cruising car didn’t come near enough to where I lay next to the fence for me to make an identification, and I wasn’t about to leave my comparatively safe haven to satisfy my curiosity.
When I saw the headlights a second time twenty minutes later in the same deliberate pattern through the area, I was sure it was the police. If a manhunt were actually underway, it would be poor police tactics if one of the prime escape areas on the island — even if an unlikely one in their estimation — went unpatrolled.
It changed my thinking about my own tactics. I had planned on remaining outside the fence until Erikson’s pickup plane actually arrived. Now I couldn’t afford that luxury if the police remained as active as they gave every indication of being.
During an interval when the cruising headlights were absent, I knelt in the grass and made a shield
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