Final Turn: A story of adventure, intrigue and suspense. (17 page)

Trudy dropped her purse to the floor and ran across the study to comfort Jack's father and Sam came over to Roger. She stood in his arms; Roger could feel her shivering against him. Then Roger was glad that he had come to Lindquist's house when he had. Just inside Trudy's purse he could see that she had come with a gun.

Once he got near the base of the cloud he could feel the air suddenly cooling. He was wearing only a short-sleeved shirt with shorts and it was like stepping outside into the chilled air that came just before a rain. He was beneath a large cumulus cloud, dark and smooth along the bottom, heaped with boiling, white-mushroomed shapes at the top. The cloud was concave at the bottom like a shallow inverted bowl from the up draught that was being drawn into it. He was turning lazy circles near the center of the cloud and the rim was already below him, obscuring the horizon with its tufted darkness. The air felt as if the cloud was about to release its cargo of water. Roger had climbed up steadily in the even, smooth lift feeding into the cloud and now had enough altitude for a straight run back to the airfield. It was just over forty kilometers. He pushed the nose lower and trimmed the sailplane out to fly at 110 knots. With the wind at his back, he watched the shadow of the sailplane briskly sweep over the green fields below. To the left of his course he saw a bright green pasture holding the second growth of the summer's alfalfa crop. He could see just make out an ugly scar near the edge of the field. From several directions vehicle tracks converged towards the scar. The scar wasn't really ugly, it just gave Roger on ugly feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought of how the scar had been formed. The wreckage had been cleared away but he could still see where the severed wing had come down. It had flattened the young growth in a patch beside the shallow crater left by the fuselage and the other wing. From this height it seemed more clinical that it had from the ground. He had walked every square inch of the area around the crash site, scouring the ground for clues. It had been very lucky to find a portion of the load-bearing pin that had sheared off and allowed the wing to separate from the fuselage. Metallurgical tests had clearly shown that the pin was not made of the hardened carbon steel used for those purposes. It had been a substituted pin. He had found the pin himself and had taken it with him in a folder on his visit to Lindquist's home. Now the police had it. That information, together with evidence of Lindquist's transactions with Ming Sing Estates and his use of the gun during Roger's visit to his house, had convinced the police that there were some grounds for investigation. It had started them out on an enquiry that was converging daily but had not yet snared Lindquist. He was powerful, cunning and well connected. By following the events of the investigation as best he could, Roger quickly came to realize that the military was not the only haven from public scrutiny. Money and influence could bring that to anyone, anywhere. The pin was a crucial piece of evidence since the police had found a similar pin in Lindquist's garage. These were shorter and would not have been usable on the sailplane. He must have obtained the wrong length on a first attempt. Everyday the noose was tightening around Lindquist. The constant pressure by Trudy and Jack's father on the police kept things going.

Roger was flying Jack's sailplane. He had bought it with the insurance money that he had obtained following the crash of his own. It would serve as a constant reminder of his dead friend, of the way he was before he had been transformed into Lucifer's apprentice. The ugly scar in the field slid behind him and out of sight. The new growth in the field would not be long in healing itself. It would take longer for Roger to become satisfied that he had not been a factor in Jack's destruction. He longed to know where things would have led if he had just left it all alone. Sam and he had spent long hours talking with Trudy and Jack's father. They too were confused and lost. For a while, they had their anger to protect them from their grief, but the anger had passed, the realization had set in and grief had taken over. In time a new growth of fond memories and love for a great man would heal the grief.

As Roger descended to join the landing pattern to the airfield, he again saw a disturbing sight below. Some idiot driver was racing down the gravel road and trailing a plume of dust. This time he knew who was driving. It was late and there were no other airplanes flying. He decided to take some liberties in the circuit. He swooped down behind the car and rapidly picked up speed to overtake it from the rear. With plenty of speed he flashed over the car within feet of its roof and pulled up in front of it in a graceful chandelle that placed him at a good spot to begin his approach to land. He saw the car pull into the parking lot as the dust settled on the road behind it. Sam was standing beside the car waving a blanket at him just as he started his final turn.