Flashpoint by Dan J. Marlowe Read Free Book Online

have gone alone. Erikson was an ex-Navy commander, a specialist in communications. He was also used to giving orders. I wasn't used to taking them. We'd hung up several limes on the Cuban caper-long before I had any idea who he really was-because of his insistence upon doing things his way. He was an odd mixture of practicality and chivalry. I had to keep pointing out to him in Cuba that we weren't in a chivalrous part of the world.
        So we landed at the Tucson Municipal Airport and Erikson hired a car. He drove north, after asking directions, clear across town, out past the Rillito Racetrack. He had to ask directions twice more before we found the Colonial Airport tucked away a mile down a dirt road leading off U.S. Highway 80-89.
        The field had a single, hard-packed, dirt landing strip, two slant-roofed sheds open to the elements on either end under which three small planes were staked down, and a rickety-looking administration building too small for a game of Ping-Pong. From under one of the sheds came the ringing sound of metal on metal as Erikson cut the engine and we sat there watching heat waves shimmering.
        "No rush to welcome visitors," I said. Erikson grunted. "If the hijackers were members of an Arab fedayeen group, that could be why they were so rough on the Jewish plane crew," I voiced a thought that had occurred to me previously.
        "And if they weren't, they just might have wanted to give that impression," Erikson said.
        "You have a devious mind," I complained. "Who are we going to talk to here?"
        "Anyone."
        He opened the car door and led the way across the sun-seared parking lot. The clang of metal on metal ceased, and a stocky figure in oil-stained work pants appeared from under one of the planes. His features were so dark I took a second look at him, but his was a young, frank, open face in contrast to the strong-featured mask of violence I had seen behind the machine gun.
        "I hope you don't want to fly, gents, because we don't have a pilot," the boy said as he walked toward us. I could see that he had Mexican blood in him. There was grease halfway up his powerful forearms.
        "What about Frank Dalrymple?" Erikson asked.
        "If you know Frank, brace yourself. He's dead."
        "That's what I'm here about."
        "Oh, you're one of those." The boy removed a rag from a hip pocket and wiped off his hands, wrists, and forearms. "Well, what about it?"
        "That charter flight," Erikson said. "How did Dalrymple happen to take it on?"
        "Five reasons." The Mexican boy swept an arm at the desolation around us. "Spelled M-O-N-E-Y. He needed it."
        "Badly enough to let a man carrying a machine gun aboard his plane?"
        "Who says he did?" The boy said it angrily. "Listen, Frank was no stupe. I wasn't here when they took off, but you can bet if there was a machine gun the guy didn't walk aboard with it on his shoulder. Who the hell are you, anyway?"
        Erikson ignored the question. "The man came here and arranged the charter?"
        "No. He made the arrangement by phone a week before."
        "I'd like to hear about it," Erikson said when the boy showed no sign of continuing.
        "How come you're coming at me in relays today?" the boy asked. "Don't you believe what I'm telling you?"
        "Relays?" Erikson said, picking out the operative word. "Someone else has been here talking to you about this?"
        "As if you didn't know," the boy said scornfully. "Listen, if I knew anything that would help catch Frank's killer, you wouldn't have to ask me about it. I told your partners that. Frank gave me a job when no one else would."
        "Oh, you must mean Carmody and Stevens," Erikson said. "A skinny redhead and a heavy-set blond?"
        The boy shook his head. "Don't you people talk to each other? It was two dark-looking men, and one of them had no earlobe on his left ear."
        Erikson