Pitt turned and gazed at Max. "So long for now, Max. You look stunning in that outfit."
"Thank you, Mr. Pitt. I like you. A pity our circuits can't integrate."
Pitt approached Max and extended his hand. It went through the image. "You never know, Max. Someday Hiram may be able to make you solid."
"I hope so, Mr. Pitt," said Max in a husky voice. "Oh, how I hope so."
The old aircraft hangar, built in the nineteen thirties for a long-since defunct airline, stood off in one corner of Ronald Reagan International Airport. The corrugated metal walls and roof were coated with orange/brown rust. Its few windows were boarded over, and the door to what once had been the office was weather-worn, with fading and peeling paint. The rounded roof structure sat at the end of an airport maintenance dirt road not far from a guard gate.
Pitt parked the NUMA jeep in the weeds outside the hangar and paused at the entrance door. He glanced at the security camera atop a wooden pole on the other side of the road to see that it had stopped its swivel and was aimed directly at him. Then he punched a sequence of numbers, waited for a series of clicks inside the hangar and turned the brass latch. The ancient door swung open noiselessly. The interior was dark except for a few skylights above an upstairs apartment. He switched on the lights.
The sudden effect was dazzling. Set off in their most elegant magnificence by the bright overhead lights, white walls and epoxy floor were three rows of beautifully restored classic automobiles. Sitting incongruously at the end of one row, but just as dazzling as the others, was a 1936 Ford hot rod. On one side of the hangar sat a World War II German jet fighter and a 1929 trimotor transport. Beyond was a turn-of-the-century railroad Pullman car, an odd-looking sailboat mounted on a rubber raft and a bathtub with an outboard motor attached on one end.
The collection of automotive mechanical masterpieces of art represented events in Pitt's life. They were relics of his personal history. They were cherished, maintained by him and seen by only his closest friends. No one driving the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway past Ronald Reagan Airport who glanced at the obsolete aircraft hangar across the end of the runways could have imagined the incredible array of breathtaking artifacts inside.
Pitt closed and locked the door. He took a brief tour, as he always did after returning home after an expedition. Several rainstorms in the past month had kept down the dust. Tomorrow, he told himself, he would run a soft cloth over the gleaming paint and remove the light coating of dust that had seeped inside the hangar while he was gone. Finishing his inspection, he climbed the antique iron circular staircase to his apartment that was perched above the main floor against the hangar's far wall.
The interior of his apartment was just as unique as the eclectic transportation collection below. Here there were all sorts of nautical antiques. No self-respecting interior decorator would have set foot in the place, certainly none who endorsed clutter. The 1,100 square feet of living space that included the living room, bathroom, kitchen and a bedroom were crowded with objects from old ships sunk or scrapped. There was a large wooden-spoked helm from an ancient clipper ship, a compass binnacle from an old Orient tramp steamer, ships' bells, brass and copper divers' helmets. The furniture was an assemblage of antique pieces that came from ships that had sailed the seas in the nineteenth century. Ship models in glass cases sat on low shelves, while marine paintings of ships crossing the seas by the respected artist Richard DeRosset hung on the walls.
After taking a shower and shaving, he made reservations at a small French restaurant that was only a mile from the hangar. He could have called Loren, but decided he wished to dine alone. Rel
ationships could come later, once he'd wound down. An enjoyable dinner alone and then a night in his large goosedown-mattress bed would serve to rejuvenate him to face the next day.
After dressing, he had twenty minutes to kill before leaving for the restaurant. He took the slip of paper with Kelly's phone number on it and called her. After five rings, he was about to hang up, wondering why her voice mail didn't come on, when she finally answered.
"Hello."
"Hello, Kelly Egan."
He could hear the intake of breath over the line. "Dirk! You're back."
"Just got in and thought I'd call."
"I'm so glad you did."
"I'm due for a few days' vacation. How busy are you?"
"Up to my ears in charity work," she answered. "I'm chairman for the local Handicapped Children's Organization. We're putting on our annual children's flying roundup, and I'm chairman of the event."
"I hate to sound stupid, but what is a flying roundup?"
Kelly laughed. "It's like an air show. People fly in old vintage airplanes and take the kids for rides in them."
"You have your work cut out for you."
"Tell me about it," she said, with a quaint laugh. "The man who owned a sixty-year-old Douglas DC-3 was scheduled to take the kids on flights over Manhattan, but he had a problem with the landing gear and can't make the show."
"Where is the roundup?"
"Just across the Hudson River in New Jersey, at a private field near a town called Englewood Cliffs. It's not far from Dad's farm and laboratory." The voice seemed to sadden.
Pitt walked out onto the balcony of his apartment with the portable phone and gazed at the classics below. His eyes fell on the big three-engine transport plane from 1929. "I think I can help you out on your aerial sightseeing project."
"You can?" Kelly asked, brightening up again. "You know where you can get an old transport plane?"
"When is the roundup?"
"Two days from now. But how can you arrange for one on such short notice?"