The Race (Isaac Bell 4)

The stolen electric detonators, the flashlight, and the electric cable were the clues that told Bell exactly what Marco Celere intended to do. He had stolen the ingredients to make an aerial bomb with an electric detonator. Fulminate of mercury detonators that exploded on contact would be deadly on a flying machine that bounced as it took off from the ground and was battered sharply by air currents in the sky. Any sudden motion would make them detonate the dynamite and the flying machine with it.

But an electric detonator could be controlled by a simple switch between the flashlight batteries and the detonators. As long as the switch was off, the dynamite was safe. Switch it on, and the dynamite would explode.

Celere would have fashioned it to be moved into the on position after it was dropped – then only when it fell on its target. He would have installed two switches, one to make the bomb ready at the moment he was ready to drop, the second that would cause the explosion on impact.

Bell could not imagine why Celere had taken ice tongs.

But the rest was clear. Whiteway had refused to let him demonstrate that his machine could win the race, even without Josephine, leaving Celere with no way to prove to the Italian Army that his aeroplane could be a war machine.

Dropping two hundred pounds of dynamite would prove its military value with a bang heard around the world. As to what he would drop his bomb on, the answer was obvious. A con man like Celere was essentially the same as a boomer like Preston Whiteway. Both had an instinct for how to get the most publicity. Few buildings in San Francisco were as tall, and none more famous, than the San Francisco Inquirer Building. A flying machine destroying it would be a shot heard by every army general in the world.

And if Whiteway were to die in his penthouse office atop the San Francisco Inquirer Building, so much the better: the wealthy Widow Josephine would be available, Celere would think. Bell knew she would never fall for him again, but Celere didn’t. By the Italian’s reckoning, he would kill two birds with one bomb, Bell thought grimly: demonstrate the power of his warplane and marry a wealthy widow.

It was good flying weather. The wind had dropped. The sky was clear, the air cool enough to cool the motor and rich enough to make it run at top power. The Gnome rotary would give him the speed to overtake Celere. But when he finally saw the break in the hills that the rail line followed toward Oakland and then the blue bays of Oakland and San Francisco, he still had not caught up. Celere might have smashed along the way, in water or woods, where Bell hadn’t seen him. It was possible. The machines were tired.

Then, abruptly and with a sinking heart, Isaac Bell saw the yellow speck that told him Celere was crossing the bay and closing in on the city. He was flying lower than Bell, perhaps dragged down by the weight of the explosives or perhaps descending to make it easier to hit his target. But it gave Bell a slim advantage, and he took it, pushing his control post forward and diving to increase speed.

Ahead, the Oakland Mole jutted far into San Francisco Bay. It was the pier that carried trains to the ocean freighters and city ferries, and, as he flew the length, he saw parked on it the famous dark green Southern Pacific special owned by the president of the line, Osgood Hennessy. Archie and Lillian had arrived with Danielle Di Vecchio.

He was catching up.

He was well over the water while Celere hadn’t yet crossed to the shore.

Bell pulled his rifle up from the nacelle and clipped it into the swivel. High-power Remington slugs crackling past Celere’s head ought to concentrate his mind more on escaping than dropping a bomb, which would be a cumbersome exercise with lead howling by.

But when Bell located the monoplane in his powerful field glasses, he got a shock.

Now he knew why Celere had stolen the ice tongs. He had forgotten that whatever his failings, Celere was a darned clever machinist. There would be nothing cumbersome about dropping the dynamite, no clumsy hoi

sting it over the side of the machine.

All four boxes of dynamite were dangling below the monoplane, directly under Celere, where the two hundred pounds would be well balanced, and they were hanging from the ice tongs. Bell saw a rope running from the ice-tong handle up the side of the aeroplane into the steering nacelle where Celere sat.

To drop the dynamite, all he had to do was arm the electric detonator switch and tug the rope.

Bell dropped his glasses and took aim with the Remington auto rifle. The range was still too great. But now Celere was crossing the forest of sailing masts that marked the waterfront. He was mere minutes from Whiteway’s Market Street headquarters. Bell steepened his dive and picked up a little more speed. It made the difference: now he, too, was crossing the waterfront, and Celere was in rifle range. But he was flying above Bell now because the dive had taken him so low, he was nearly scraping building tops.

Ahead was the Inquirer Building, taller than all around it, with the yellow race banner on top. Bell tweaked his elevator, rose slightly, and found Celere’s machine in his rifle sight. Just as Bell was about to pull the trigger, he saw something glitter on the outdoor terrace of Whiteway’s penthouse office. Bell whipped his field glasses to his eyes.

Immediately ahead of Celere’s dynamite-laden monoplane, smack in his line of fire, operators where cranking moving-picture cameras. Directing them was a tall blond woman in a white shirtwaist with her hair swept up so she could inspect what they saw through their lenses. Marion had chosen to shoot the finish from the dramatic setting of the roof where the aviators would circle before landing at the Presidio.

Bell banked hard right to change his field of fire. Celere was flying straight at the building. He was less than one hundred feet higher, and closing fast, when Bell saw him reach for the rope.

Bell had no clear shot at Celere without endangering Marion.

But if he didn’t shoot, Celere would drop his bomb.

Bell whipped his machine hard left. The wings rattled, and the stays groaned. The motor screamed as the propeller hacked the shifting air. He soared away from Celere’s course to shift the angle so he could fire. The range increased radically. He had one second to fire. The gun kicked. Marco Celere ducked his head and looked around wildly, eyes locking in astonishment on Bell’s Eagle racing back at him.

He grabbed the bomb-release rope. But he was too late. His flying machine had flown past the Inquirer Building. He banked to swing back and make another run.

“Not on my watch,” said Isaac Bell.

With the people on the penthouse terrace safely behind them, Bell pegged another shot at Celere. This one came closer, he guessed by the violent motion of Celere’s head, followed by a steep climbing turn away from Bell. Bell followed. The trick, he realized, was to stay behind and stay inside Celere’s turn so that he could keep firing to drive Celere farther and farther from his target.

Celere went up, Bell followed. Celere went down, Bell followed again, drawing so close that he could see Celere’s face as if they were about to commence a boxing match. Celere ducked down, reaching for something inside the nacelle, and brought up a stubby weapon that Bell recognized as his sawed-off lupa shotgun. Buckshot screeched and pinged through his wing stays.

“You have teeth? So do I.”