“Under the circumstances, not very pleased to meet you,” Duninger said.

Richards’s mouth quirked. “In the same spirit, let me add that I’m song to be here. Captain Holloway, you’re patched into communications with McCone, aren’t you?”

“We sure are. Through Kippy Friedman, our communications man.”

“Give me something to talk into.”

Holloway handed him a microphone with infinite carefulness.

“Get going on your preflight,” Richards said. “Five minutes.”

“Will you want the explosive bolts on the rear loading door armed?” Duninger said with great eagerness.

“Tend your knitting,” Richards said coldly. It was time to finish it off, make the final bet. His brain felt hot, overheated, on the verge of blowing a bearing. Call and raise, that was the game.

I’m going to sky’s the limit right now, McCone.

“Mr. Friedman?”

“Yes.”

“This is Richards. I want to talk to McCone.”

Dead air for half a minute. Holloway and Duninger weren’t watching him anymore; they were going through preflight, reading gauges and pressures, checking flaps, doors, switches. The rising and falling of the huge G-A turbines began again, but now much louder, strident. When McCone’s voice finally came, it was small against the brute noise.

“McCone here.”

“Come on, maggot. You and the woman are going for a ride. Show up at the loading door in three minutes or I pull the ring.”

Duninger stiffened in his bucket seat as if he had been shot. When he went back to his numbers his voice was shaken and terrified.

If he’s got guts, this is where he calls. Asking for the woman gives it away. If he’s got guts.

Richards waited.

A clock was ticking in his head.

MINUS 028 AND COUNTING

When McCone’s voice came, it contained a foreign, blustery note. Fear? Possibly. Richards’s heart lurched in his chest. Maybe it was all going to fall together. Maybe.

“You’re nuts, Richards. I’m not”

“You listen,” Richards said, punching through McCone’s voice. “And while you are, remember that this conversation is being party-lined by every ham operator within sixty miles. The word is going to get around. You’re not working in the dark, little man. You’re right out on the big stage. You’re coming because you’re too chicken-shit to pull a double cross when you know it will get you dead. The woman’s coming because I told her where I was going.”

Weak. Punch him harder. Don’t let him think.

“Even if you should live when I pull the ring, you won’t be able to get a job selling apples.” He was clutching the handbag in his pocket with frantic, maniacal tightness. “So that’s it. Three minutes. Signing off.”

“Richards, wait-”

He signed off, choking McCone’s voice. He handed the mike back to Holloway, and Holloway took it with fingers that trembled only slightly.

“You’ve got guts,” Holloway said slowly. “I’ll say that. I don’t think I ever saw so much guts.”

“There will be more guts than anyone ever saw if he pulls that ring,” Duninger said.

“Continue with your preflight, please,” Richards said. “I am going back to welcome our guests. We go in five minutes.”

He went back and pushed the chute over to the window seat, then sat down watching the door between first class and second class. He would know very soon. He would know very soon.

His hand worked with steady, helpless restlessness on Amelia Williams’s handbag.

Outside it was almost full dark.

MINUS 027 AND COUNTING

They came up the stairs with a full forty-five seconds to spare. Amelia was panting and frightened, her hair blown into a haphazard beehive by the steady wind that rolled this manmade flatland. McCone’s appearance was outwardly unchanged; he remained neat and unaffected, unruffled you might say, but his eyes were dark with a hate that was nearly psychotic.

“You haven’t won a thing, maggot,” he said quietly. “We haven’t even started to play our trump cards yet.”

“It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Williams,” Richards said mildly.

As if he had given her a signal, pulled an invisible string, she began to weep. It was not a hysterical weeping; it was an entirely hopeless sound that came from her belly like hunks of slag. The force of it made her stagger, then crumple to the plush carpet of this plush first-class section with her face cupped in her hands, as if to hold it on. Richards’s blood had dried to a tacky maroon smear on her blouse. Her full skirt, spread around her and hiding her legs, made her look like a wilted flower.

Richards felt sorry for her. It was a shallow emotion, feeling sorry, but the best he could manage.

“Mr. Richards?” It was Holloway’s voice over the cabin intercom.

“Yes.”

“Do we… are we green?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m giving the service crew the order to remove the stairs and seal us up. Don’t get nervous with that thing.”

“All right, Captain. Thank you.”

“You gave yourself away when you asked for the woman. You know that, don’t you?” McCone seemed to be smiling and scowling at the same time; the overall effect was frighteningly paranoid. His hands were clenching and unclenching.

“Ah, so?” Richards said mildly. “And since you’re never wrong, you’ll undoubtedly jump me before we take off. That way you’ll be out of jeopardy and come up smelling like a rose, right?”

McCone’s lips parted in a tiny snarl, and then pressed together until they went white. He made no move. The plane began to pick up a tiny vibration as the engines cycled higher and higher.

The noise was suddenly muted as the boarding door in second class was slammed shut. Leaning over slightly to peer out one of the circular windows on the port side, Richards could see the crew trundling away the stairs. Now we’re all on the scaffold, he thought.

MINUS 026 AND COUNTING

The FASTEN SEAT BELTS/ NO SMOKING sign to the right of the trundled-up movie screen flashed on. The airplane began a slow, ponderous turn beneath them. Richards had gained all his knowledge of jets from the Free-Vee and from reading, much of it lurid adventure fiction, but this was only the second time he had ever been on one; and it made the shuttle from Harding to New York look like a bathtub toy. He found the huge motion beneath his feet disturbing.

“Amelia?”

She looked up slowly, her face ravaged and tear streaked. “Uh?” Her voice was rusty, dazed, mucus clogged. As if she had forgotten where she was.

“Come forward. We’re taking off.” He looked at McCone. “You go wherever you please, little man. You have the run of the ship. Just don’t bother the crew.”

McCone said nothing and sat down near the curtained divider between first and second class. Then, apparently thinking better of it, he pushed through into the next section and was gone.

Richards walked to the woman, using the high backs of the seats for support. “I’d like the window seat,” he said. “I’ve only flown once before.” He tried to smile but she only looked at him dumbly.

He slid in, and she sat next to him. She buckled his belt for him so his hand did not have to come out of his pocket.

“You’re like a bad dream,” she said. “One that never ends.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t-” she began, and he clamped a hand over her mouth and shook his head. He mouthed the word No! at her eyes.

The plane swung around with slow, infinite care, turbines screaming, and began to trundle toward the runways like an ungainly duck about to enter the water. It was so big that Richards felt as if the plane were standing still and the earth itself was moving.

Maybe it’s all illusion, he thought wildly. Maybe they’ve rigged 3-D projectors outside all the windows and-