The tank held five gallons of fuel, enough for about two hours of cruise. The prevailing winds were from the southeast, and that would help his speed and extend his range a bit. The GPS told him he was making forty-one knots over the ground, or the sea, whichever he was over. He did a damage assessment.
As far as he could tell only two rounds had had any effect. One had struck the wing, and the tear was getting worse. He slowed the airplane, bringing the ground speed down to thirty-five knots. He sure as hell didn’t want to stall the thing at a low airspeed, but the fabric of the wing had now stopped tearing, and that was good.
He pulled up his trouser leg and looked at his right calf. He could see an entry wound and an exit wound, and the exit wound was bleeding profusely; his shoe had begun to fill with blood.
He took off his belt and made a tourniquet just below the knee, and the blood stopped flowing. That would hold him until Nevis airport, he reckoned, and he had a first-aid kit in the Cessna, which was secured in its hangar. He stopped thinking about the pain and concentrated on keeping the ultralight level and on the GPS line to St. Martin.
60
Holly grabbed a map from the glove compartment of Thomas’s car and turned it over, for a display of the Caribbean, then she got out the satphone and called Lance.
“Lance Cabot.”
“It’s Holly; Teddy’s gone.”
“Gone? You mean he’s dead?”
“No, though I think I hit him.”
“He’s on an island; how can he be gone? Does he have a boat?”
“No, he had an ultralight airplane.”
“You mean one of those spit-and-baling-wire contraptions?”
“More like aluminum and nylon, but you get the picture.”
“I don’t understand; how far could he get in one of those things?”
“I’m looking at the map now.”
Stone spoke up from the back seat. “It’s probably good for a couple of hours of flying at forty or fifty knots.”
“Stone’s a pilot, and he says it can fly for a couple of hours. From my map, I’d say that Barbuda, Antigua, St. Kitts and Nevis are all within his range. Guadeloupe is a lot farther.”
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Holly gave him a nutshell explanation. “Most of those islands have airline connections,” she said. “You should check those first.”
“No, he would avoid the airlines; he has to have an airplane stashed somewhere.”
“I guess that’s possible.”
“Are you at the St. Marks airport now?”
“We’re on the way; half an hour out.”
“Don’t let anything keep you from getting out of there.”
“Thomas Hardy is with us; he’ll help.”
“I’ll meet you at Manassas,” Lance said.
“I don’t know what time we’ll get there.”
“I’ll know.” Lance hung up.
Holly turned to look at Stone. “Lance thinks Teddy’s got an airplane stashed on another island.”