Read Online The Dive Bomber by L. Ron Hubbard - Free Book Online Page B

unnecessarily, smoked a pipe as well, shuffled along the furrows, looked intently at the bomber and finally, after spitting a couple quarts of brown juice, remarked, “It’s an airplane.”
    â€œRight. Where’s the nearest machine shop?” demanded Lucky.
    â€œWell, now, let me see. If yuh go to Jackson, it’ll take a long time, but if you goes to Beauregard, you’ll find it closer.”
    â€œIs there a machinist in Beauregard?”
    â€œNo, can’t say as there is.”
    â€œDamn it man, I’ve got to get this repaired right away!” Lucky, recalling the rest of Flynn intelligence about the scheme, knew that an hour’s delay might prove fatal to Dixie.
    â€œLooks like you hit somethin’ with it, suh.”
    â€œI ran into an air bump. I’ve got to get to a machine shop. Is there one in Jackson?”
    â€œNo, don’t think so. Roanoke is over there about sixty miles, and Richmond is up that way, but you couldn’t get it done today. Be dark before you got there.”
    The gentleman loafed along the fuselage and took hold of the broken fin and shook it leisurely, as though shaking hands with the plane.
    â€œI’ve got to get it fixed!” wailed Lucky.
    â€œWell, now, a piece of tin might patch it all right, if a feller had a piece of tin. I reckon—”
    â€œSure it would!” cried Lucky. “I’ve got to get out of here. Isn’t there a machinist close by?”
    â€œWell, I reckon there is.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œWell, I’m a pretty good machinist. I got a shop on the farm, over there a piece. If you could run this thing…”
    Lucky was already in the pit, taxiing the ship. He got as close to the sheds as the fences would allow, and the machinist went to work with thoroughness if not speed.
    Fuming and consuming whole smoke screens of cigarettes, Lucky watched the work go slowly forward. At last, satisfied that the task would not be done before dark and that he could not depart before the first grayness of dawn, he walked up a road and found a telephone line and pursued it to a connection in a general store.
    Remembering that Smith had probably been the pilot of the gray ship, and that the gray ship was somewhere near at hand, and supposing that Smith would find it before night, he started to call Washington.
    But with the number already given, he stepped back and hung up.
    He could not do this until he was certain that Dixie was safe. Any hint of official interference—and he could not trust to governmental speed—would immediately seal Dixie’s fate. Chances were that she would not be near the plant, but at her home, with Two-Finger close at hand. And he could not even guarantee that he would find her at her house.
    Dolefully he trudged back down the road to the toiling farmer.
    â€œBe done about noon tomorrow,” said the machinist-elect.
    â€œWhat’s the delay now?”
    â€œWhy, there ain’t a bolt the right size on the place, and I’ll have to run them down from Jackson first thing in the morning.”
    Lucky sank weakly down on a rail and stared dismally at the empty, twilight sky.

CHAPTER TEN
    The Takeoff
for Trouble!
    I T was one o’clock before Lucky could take off. It was two-twenty-five when he flashed down out of the sky upon the O’Neal plant.
    He spent a very few seconds looking down at the doll-size buildings because they were obviously deserted. Neither smoke nor dust stirred in the listless breeze.
    The dive bomber yawed to a stop before the tarmac and Lucky lit running. The outer door was locked but his shoulder remedied that. Catapulted into the gloom, he came to a startled stand before the blasted safe.
    No money in there or anything else. No plans, no papers.
    He heard footsteps outside and spun about to face the door. Flynn limped through the opening.
    Flynn’s face was bruised and bloody. He was covered with mud and his clothing