Free Relentless by Brian Garfield

by kicking the tires. “You got a key to it?”
    Baraclough supplied one and Walker climbed inside, unlocked the glove box on the inside door panel and had a look at the logbooks: three of them—one for the airframe, one for each engine. The plane had quite a few hours on it since its last overhaul. One explosion per cylinder for every two rpm’s—after 460 hours, how many explosions? The plane had something like fifteen thousand parts. Walker shook his head. “I’d like to take her up and try her out.”
    â€œTomorrow. We’ll get your documentation fixed up and you can tell the tower you’re a Los Angeles pilot we hired. Now what about the other plane? What’ll we need?”
    They discussed it and settled on a twin Beech. “If we can find one for rent.”
    â€œIf we can’t,” Baraclough said, “we’ll just have to steal one, won’t we.”
    8
    The Major and Baraclough obtained hand grenades and the Mace chemical spray cans from a Guard Armory near Sacramento. They drove over by way of Tahoe and pulled the Inspecting Officer bit. The National Guard sergeant on duty had been conditioned to demand identifications and passes from everyone who tried to get in but the Army had started earlier and spent longer conditioning him to salivate properly to the sound of a high-ranking officer’s voice, and Hargit’s bluff carried them through. He brought out three grenades and four cans of the chemical in a canvas AWOL bag and the sergeant gave him a smart salute as he left.
    There was a suitable Beech for rent in Salt Lake and Burt drove Walker up there to pick it up. Walker was nervous around airports—there were bound to be people around who would recognize him—but he kept his head down and let Burt take care of the paperwork. They brought the Beech back and set it down on a meadow near the rented cabin. Burt went into town, rented a tank truck and brought aviation fuel out to the meadow to fill up the Beech’s tanks.
    Wednesday afternoon—D-day minus two—Baraclough left Reno alone, driving the Lincoln. They were going to use it for their getaway car and abandon it afterward. Walker was surprised by that until Baraclough explained they had stolen it in the first place. They had cruised a rich El Paso residential neighborhood one evening until they’d found a house where there was a big party. People often left keys in their cars at parties because they didn’t want their carp to block the driveway. Hargit had picked out the big new Lincoln and they had driven it to Las Cruces, repainted it, and put a pair of Arizona plates on it that had come off a one hundred fifty dollar flivver Burt had bought in Willcox under a fake name. It seemed a lot of money to spend on a pair of plates but this way the license number wouldn’t be listed on any police blotter of stolen car numbers. They parked the flivver in a pay lot in Tucson and threw away the ticket.
    Ultimately the cops would trace the Lincoln and find out that it belonged to some rich doctor in El Paso. It seemed to amuse Baraclough.
    After Baraclough left Reno to drive to Arizona the rest of them had nothing to do but wait thirty-six hours. It wasn’t a good time for Walker. Up to now he hadn’t had much time for reflection. It had taken all his concentration to get the plan straight in his head and to account for the tedious details that were going to be his responsibility. He had his courses plotted on sectional air charts and it took a while to get the radio ranges worked out on Jeppesen charts; he had to figure fuel-consumption versus weight, possible wind directions and velocities, take-off and landing time schedules, and a low-altitude route that would keep them out of the Nellis radar picture and at the same time take them as far as possible from any highways and towns where people on the ground might notice the plane. There was no point giving the cops a