The Mystery of the Vanished Victim (15 page)

As the police car sped onto the landing field where the police department kept a few helicopters for special-duty work, Gully pulled back his sleeve to note the time. Two twenty-five. There were only thirty-five minutes left to stop the assassination. Why,
why
wasn’t Uncle Ellery here? How Gully longed to turn over the red notebook to his uncle now and all the fearful responsibility with it. He was suffering from more than a twinge of self-doubt as the car halted.

“Here are the choppers,” Velie announced as he opened the door. “Now what, Gully?”

“Let’s get airborne and over the motorcade route,” Gully replied with an assured manner that surprised even himself.

“Gully,” Prema called timidly, “perhaps we had better radio your grandfather?”

“The plane has a radio,” Gully replied. “If my theory is right, if I’ve added up the clues correctly, Grandfather’s men on the ground won’t be able to help.”

“Gully, I’m taking a big chance on you,” Sergeant Velie said sternly. “This could cost me my shield.”

“I know, Sergeant. Hurry!”

The sergeant ran into the small police house near the field and almost immediately returned with a lanky police officer in flying gear. At his signal, the youngsters sped toward a police helicopter sitting on the field.

“I don’t know about the girl,” the pilot-policeman started to say.

“But it’s
my
father’s life,” protested Prema, tears filling her dark eyes.

“It’s all right,” Sergeant Velie said to the pilot, and he glanced sideways at Gully with a look that said, “It had better be!” Gully gulped. If this didn’t work out …

The glass bubble surrounding them gave them a view of the overhead rotors starting to churn. The droning, low-pitched noise of the engine soon became a roaring racket. The helicopter’s rotors became a blur. Suddenly the small craft tilted its tail slightly upward and took off almost straight up from the ground. Dust billowed around them, kicking up in the prop wash as they gained altitude.

Gully glanced at Prema. Her face was drawn with anxiety. Balbir was looking all around as they climbed a hundred feet above the heliport. Gully felt a surge of excitement at the unusual sensation, for this was far different from taking off in a plane.

“Where to?” Velie roared above the noise.

“Make for the motorcade route!” Gully shouted back.

Velie leaned close to the pilot and called the instructions into his ear. The helicopter banked a bit, sending its passengers to one side. Then they rose over Manhattan’s jagged buildings and cut for the East River. A minute later, a glistening band of water lay below them. Small freighters and tugs carved white wakes in the water.

Prema’s hand suddenly pulled on Gully’s arm. With her free hand, she pointed ahead to the United Nations building. Now the wide ribbon of First Avenue was beneath them. People stood on the sidewalks and leaned out of windows, watching and waiting for the official motorcade. The pilot nosed the craft down.

“Do we search the rooftops, Gully?” Velie shouted.

“No! That’s not how they plan to do it,” Gully shouted back.

“If they’re not going to shoot from a rooftop, why’d you get us up in this glorified eggbeater?”

“Because they plan to shoot from another helicopter!”

Velie swung around in his seat and stared incredulously at Gully.

“What on earth,” Velie shouted, “makes you think
that?
”

“All the clues I wrote down. Listen to me!” Gully pleaded.

Velie told the pilot to hover just above First Avenue where they could see the Queensboro Bridge, across which the motorcade would soon pass.

Gully hurriedly pulled out his notebook. Flipping it open, he pointed to various entries “… telescopic sights … sunny day … convertible … method of firing also means of escape.”

Velie looked blankly at him. “Then why don’t we skim the rooftops? That’s the best place a man with a telescopic gunsight could fire from on a sunny day.

This is it, Gully thought. If it doesn’t make as much sense to the sergeant as it does to me, I’ve had it.

“Well?” the big detective-sergeant growled.

Gully took a deep breath. “These aren’t ordinary killers, Sergeant. They’ve got political power behind them, and unusual resources. I mean … they’ve thought this out. They know what measures they can expect the New York police to take. A rooftop would be the ideal place to shoot from, but it
wouldn’t
be the ideal place to escape from! Too much chance of being caught. And yet, they’ve got to fire from above. It seems to me they
must
have planned both the assassination and their escape …
by helicopter!
”

Velie turned the idea over in his mind. There was logic in Gully’s deduction that defied denial. With the racket of a helicopter’s engine, a rifle could be fired secretly and with deadly accuracy down on an open car slowly passing in review below. After the shot was fired, the ’copter could skim off before anyone suspected what it had been doing there or how the shot had been fired.

“Keep hovering!” Velie ordered the pilot.

Gully gave a sigh of relief. “Now, keep your eyes peeled for another ’copter!”

Prema and Balbir turned to look out of the transparent bubble, scanning the city’s ragged skyline. Gully turned and looked back to the bridge. On the far side, he could just see two motorcycles starting onto the Queens end of the bridge. Behind them the white convertible. Now the motorcade would cross the bridge, turn down First Avenue, and drive the seventeen blocks to the United Nations. If an attempt were going to be made, this was when it had to happen. He stopped looking at the tiny white car on the dark bridge, and searched the sky for a sign of the assassins’ helicopter. Except for a few gulls circling lazily on outstretched wings and a six-engined jet flying low toward the airport, nothing was in the Manhattan sky.

“There!” shrieked Prema, pointing south. Everyone in the helicopter turned. For a second they saw a flash of black as another ’copter ducked behind the narrow outline of the tall Chrysler Building.

“Saw it!” cried the pilot. The police helicopter seemed to rise by magic, its rotors turning with increased speed, as it zoomed toward the now hidden helicopter. Over the rooftops they raced. Suddenly, the black craft came into sight from behind the Chrysler Building.

“It’s heading for the motorcade route, all right!” Velie shouted, his face taut with determination. “Cut them off!”

The police pilot sent his craft speeding along the other craft’s line of flight to First Avenue. Larger and larger loomed the black ’copter. The two machines seemed on collision course.

“Hey, you’re wrong!” exclaimed the police pilot, suddenly raising his craft out of the other ’copter’s way.

“What are you doing?” roared Velie.

“That’s a local radio station’s ’copter. They must be covering the motorcade,” replied the pilot. “Pilot’s a friend of mine, ‘Skip’ Lane.”

Just then, the side of the black ’copter came into full view. Across it, Gully could clearly read the letters of one of New York City’s radio stations.

“Well?” Velie demanded with exasperation.

Gully bit his lip. It seemed so logical. There
had
to be another ’copter. He almost groaned at the expression on Sergeant Velie’s face …

Just then, Gully spotted it. He hadn’t been wrong after all! His hand darted forward, pointing ahead to a yellow helicopter cutting over the river. The ’copter darted across the United Nations Park, angling for First Avenue. Then it hovered menacingly over the motorcade’s route, poised like a deadly hawk waiting to strike.

“I
T MAY
be another false alarm,” Velie cautioned as they all stared at the yellow ’copter in the distance.

“Can we get close enough to see who’s in it?” Gully yelled.

As the police helicopter headed to intercept the yellow craft, the pilot dug into a big leather case with his left hand and brought out a pair of high-powered binoculars.

“Here! Use these,” he shouted, handing the binoculars to Sergeant Velie.

Quickly, Velie swung around and shoved the binoculars at Gully.

“Gully, you take a gander. You know Johnson, or Kolar, or whatever his name is, on sight.”

Gully took the binoculars from Velie. He steadied his arm and focused on the yellow ’copter. Through the other craft’s glass bubble he could see the pilot, a broad blond-haired man, sitting in profile to him. He had never seen that man before. The second man on board the suspected helicopter was hidden by the pilot.

“I can’t see the passenger,” shouted Gully. “Can you turn left a little?”

The ’copter tilted, cutting left with a sudden burst of speed. Gully raised the binoculars again, trying to steady his elbows on his knees. The ’copter bounced along, making it almost impossible to keep the other craft in focus. But for a split second he caught a sharp, clear look at the passenger. The mustache, the hunching of the shoulders … even the cut of his clothes … told Gully at once who he was. He was the half-hidden man in the park to whom Dhavata had spoken at the chess table He was the homicidal driver peering over the wheel of the onrushing car. He was the menacing man with the pistol, leaning out of the top-floor window. Kolar, Johnson, or whatever might be his true name, Gully knew him as the deadly conspirator.

“It’s him! The man with the mustache!” he yelled, lowering the binoculars. “And he’s holding a rifle on his lap!”

“My father!” exclaimed Prema. “Please …
please!
Save him!”

Velie nodded. Their pilot reached for the microphone of his radio. “We’ll contact headquarters, Miss Jind. They’ll radio the motorcade and get your father under cover in time!”

Prema gave a sigh of relief that could be heard even above the clamor of the rotors. As the police ’copter churned nearer to the yellow craft, still hovering over First Avenue just above the entrance to the United Nations, the pilot flicked on the microphone.

“Police ’copter 108 calling Headquarters! Come in, Headquarters!”

“We hear you 108. Over.”

Gully turned from watching the pilot to study the yellow ’copter. They had narrowed the distance considerably. Now he could make out the figures huddled under its glass bubble. Then he gasped! Johnson was raising his rifle, pointing it straight at their ’copter!

“’copter 108,” continued the police pilot. “There will be an attempt made on—”

Cutting off the pilot’s word was a shattering crack. A bullet slammed through the glass bubble and into the instrument panel. A second shot ricocheted off the helicopter’s undercarriage with a loud whang!

“Come in, 108! Over! Over!” Headquarters kept repeating in the pilot’s earphones. He pulled the useless earphones from his head, dropping them onto the cabin floor.

“We can’t contact them now,” he shouted to Velie.

“Can’t we land and warn them?” Prema asked shrilly.

“By the time we landed,” the pilot calculated, “the motorcade would have reached the United Nations and given them their chance to shoot.”

All eyes turned toward the tall bridge. At its Manhattan end, two police motorcycles could be seen making a left turn, swinging onto First Avenue. A short distance behind them came the white convertible surrounded by other motorcycles. Gully scooped up the binoculars and focused them on the open car. In the back seat, he saw a man who must be Prince Behar, dressed in a resplendent uniform, his military cap in hand, waving to the first of the onlookers who lined the avenue. Next to him, smiling and enjoying the ride, was Dr. Jind. In the front seat sat Dhavata and Srigar, driving the two unsuspecting men behind them into a death trap.

“Maybe we can force their ’copter out of position to fire,” Velie said tensely. Gully realized suddenly the strain the sergeant was under. The lives of four people had been thrust into his hands and, below, a deadly plot was unfolding—a plot that must be stopped.

“I’ll try,” the pilot said in a steady voice. “But we have to be careful. If he hits our rotors we’ll go right down on the crowd.”

The police ’copter surged forward toward the yellow craft that still held its menacing position. As they swept nearer, Johnson raised his rifle.

Crack! A second hole blossomed in the bubble above Gully’s head.

“Back!” yelled Velie.

As the gap widened between their helicopter and the assassins’, Gully realized that the next time Johnson raised his rifle might be for the fatal shot. And no one down there—not Dr. Jind, not Prince Behar, not the police escort or the men on the roofs or his own grandfather—not one of them had the slightest suspicion of what was going on above their heads …

“Your purse! Let me have your purse,” Gully demanded, shaking the fright-frozen Prema.

“I don’t have my purse,” Prema said. “What good is a purse?” She was crying.

“I want a mirror!”

“A mirror?”

Quickly, she unhooked a thin gold chain that held a long, oval locket around her neck. She broke open the locket. One half contained a picture of her father, the other half was a two-inch-long mirror.

“Here! Take it!” Prema shouted, thrusting the locket at Gully. “But how can it help my father?”

Gully didn’t waste time replying. Grabbing the locket, he angled the mirror to catch the reflection of the bright sun.

“Atta boy!” yelled Balbir, using the first American slang Gully had ever heard him utter. “That is the way to throw that murderer’s aim off, Gully!”

Gully wiggled and jiggled the mirror, trying to focus the reflected beam at the hovering yellow ’copter. Suddenly, the glass bubble of the yellow ’copter flashed with reflected brilliance.

“On target!” exclaimed Balbir delightedly.

In the yellow helicopter, Johnson was raising the telescopic sight to his eye when the blinding beam caught him. He blinked and lowered the rifle. The pilot switched his hand on the controls, changing the yellow craft’s position, trying to dodge the reflecting beam. But Gully steadied his hand and kept the mirror flashing on the yellow craft. The patch of reflected light suddenly swept across the face of the pilot. He shook his head angrily. The ’copter swung and zigzagged.