The Face

decade of the new millennium, a blimp was both out of place and out of time.
        In addition to being a survivalist, a conspiracy-theory fanatic, and a nut case of several dangerous varieties, Jack Trotter was also a hot-air balloon enthusiast. He found inner peace only in the air, traveling with the wind. As long as he remained aloft, the agents of evil could not seize him and cast him down into a dank cell with no light other than the red glow of rats’ eyes.
        He owned a traditional rig-the colorfully striped envelope, the [523] inflation fan, the propane-fueled burner, the basket for pilot and passengers-which he sometimes took up alone, the sole balloonist on a sweet spring morning or on a golden summer evening. He also joined rallies of celestial navigators, when twenty or thirty or more bright balloons launched in rough synchronization and drifted in a school through the heavens.
        A hot-air balloon was all but entirely at the mercy of the wind. The pilot could neither plan a pinpoint destination nor provide an estimated time of arrival to the minute or even to the quarter hour.
        The assault on Palazzo Rospo required a highly maneuverable craft that could travel at cross purposes to at least a light wind. As well, it must be able to ascend without the ungodly roar of a propane burner, which always set dogs barking within a quarter-mile radius. Furthermore, it must be able to descend as smoothly as a dove glides from cloud to bower, if more slowly than a dove, and must also be able to hover like a hummingbird.
        Trotter enjoyed the astonishment and excitement with which fellow sky sailors regarded his custom-made craft on those occasions when he left his hot-air balloon at home and brought the little blimp instead. Not garrulous by nature, lacking many social graces, Trotter nonetheless could expect to be the hit of the rally in his miniature airship.
        Corky suspected that in his perpetually fevered mind, Trotter also regarded the blimp as a last-ditch escape vehicle in the event that an abruptly declared dictatorship tried for any reason to seal off highway traffic in and out of major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles and surrounding communities. He probably envisioned himself foiling the totalitarians on a night of a crescent moon, with enough light to navigate but not enough to be easily seen, sailing high above roadblocks and concentration camps, north into farm country and toward the Sierra foothills, where he could eventually set down and proceed on foot, overland, to one of his well-prepared bolt-holes.
        After drawing Corky away from the ruins of the chateau, Trotter said, “We’ll be out of here in less than five minutes.”
        [524] The two-man prep crew was conducting final checks of the airship systems and gear.
        They were rent-a-thugs involved in Ecstasy distribution with Trotter. After he delivered Corky to Palazzo Rospo and returned to the chateau in the blimp, when these men had snared the nose line and anchored him by three tethers, Trotter would kill them.
        “I haven’t heard you charging the batteries,” Corky said.
        “They were fully charged before we came here.”
        “Airborne, we can’t use the engine, not for a minute.”
        “I know, I know. Man, haven’t you busted my ass about it enough already? We won’t need the engine for this short a trip, with the air this calm.”
        The blimp’s twin can-mounted propeller fans, slung from the back of the gondola, were usually driven by a riding-lawnmower engine. The turning blades produced an acceptably soft sound, but the engine racket made stealthy travel impossible.
        “With little or no headwind,” Trotter said, “I can run two hours on batteries, maybe longer. But I hate this rain.”
        “It’s just a light drizzle now.”
        “Lightning,” Trotter said. “The thought of lightning makes my bowels loose, and it ought to do the same to yours.”
        “It’s inflated with helium, isn’t it?” Corky asked, indicating three discarded cylinders of compressed gas, each the size of a hospital oxygen tank. “The Hindenburg was hydrogen. I thought helium didn’t explode.”
        “I’m not worried about an explosion. I’m worried about being struck by lightning! Even if lightning doesn’t rupture the bag and set it afire, it could fry us in the gondola.”
        “The storm’s winding down. No lightning,” Corky