Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 12

approached. “Wake up,” he said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.” Then he saw the pistol on the floor, near the man’s dangling right hand, and he knew what else he was going to see.
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    THEY WERE GATHERED in the boathouse, looking at the dead body of Caleb Stone, a bullet through his right temple.
    â€œThey did a better job on Caleb’s suicide than with Dick’s,” Stone said. “At least, the angle is right.”
    â€œThe computer was on that table in the corner,” Holly said, “along with a little printer and a briefcase.”
    â€œThe twins think they have a million two in a Singapore bank,” Stone said, “and that had to be them in the boat that passed us when we were on the way in. I wonder where they’re headed.”
    Young spoke up. “Their mother said they flew into Rockland.”
    â€œWe’ll never catch them in the boat,” Stone said. “Come on, Ed. Drive me to the Islesboro airstrip, and maybe we can beat them to Rockland.”
    â€œI’ll call for backup,” Sergeant Young said, “but I don’t know where our cars are tonight, and I don’t know how long it will take them to get to Rockland Airport.”
    â€œWe don’t have time to wait for backup,” Stone said. “Once those boys are off the ground, it’s going to be hell to find them.” He ran for the stairs.

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    T HE RANGE ROVER skidded to a halt on the airstrip’s parking ramp, and Stone ran for the Malibu. There was no time for the usual preflight inspection. He got the door open and slid into the pilot’s seat, and felt the others boarding behind him. Sergeant Young squeezed his long frame into the copilot’s seat, and Stone looked behind him to find Lance, Rawls, Holly and Ham filling the other four seats. He flipped on the master switch and checked the fuel: Both tanks were less than a quarter full. Stone had not topped off the tanks at Teterboro, having four on board, and he was grateful for that because, with so much weight aboard, the airplane was going to eat up runway before it would fly. Rockland was no more than a fifteen-or twenty-minute flight, so the fuel on board would get them there.
    â€œEverybody buckle up,” Stone said, then began cranking the engine. It coughed to life, and he checked the windsock: light wind, favoring runway one. The other direction, runway one-nine, was slightly downhill, but there were tall trees not far off the end of the runway. He taxied downhill and did a one-eighty turn at the end, watching the engine temperatures come slowly up; he couldn’t afford any hesitation or an engine failure today. The temperatures were edging into the green. He jammed his feet onto the brakes and put in twenty degrees of flaps; that would lower his takeoff speed from eighty to seventy knots. He eased up on the power until the throttle was at its stop and let the engine run up to full power. Now or never. With a scared feeling in his stomach he let the airplane go.
    The Malibu began its roll all too slowly. Stone flicked his sight back and forth between the runway and the airspeed indicator, watching it inch up. Halfway down the runway, the needle began moving faster, but the end of the runway was rushing at them, where there were scrubby trees and a house. They were running out of pavement, and the ground beyond was rough.
    â€œI want to fly now,” Sergeant Young said, his voice sounding strangled.
    They were at sixty-nine knots when Stone eased the yoke back a fraction. The airplane left the ground in what seemed like the last yard of pavement, but it didn’t want to climb. Stone put the gear lever up and the flaps to zero, hoping for less drag, and held the airplane level, wanting to let it gain airspeed. At eighty knots, with the gear at about ten feet up and the house rushing at them, he tried for more altitude and cleared the roof by what seemed like inches.
    â€œSweet Jesus,” Young said. “Is this thing going to fly?”
    Stone leveled off at a hundred feet, watching the treetops flashing past a few feet below them, dodging the taller ones as the airplane struggled to gain airspeed. Then they were over water, inching their way up to five hundred feet. An overcast was, maybe, a couple of hundred feet above them.
    â€œI thought you were going to hit that boat’s mast,” Young said as they flew past a moored yacht.
    â€œWe’re going