The Rocketeer by Peter David Read Free Book Online Page B

shielding his face, punched the red button with the handle. Even as he did so he wondered, for one horrible moment, whether pushing the button a second time would, for example, push the flaming cylinder into high gear or something. He was fortunate, though, for the small jet engine promptly shut off. The only noise left in the office was the ragged breathing of Cliff and Peevy.
    Automatically Cliff started to reach for the rocket to pull it from its entrapment, and Peevy shouted, “Careful!” Wondering what he could have been thinking, reaching out with his bare skin to touch something that had been a flying inferno, Cliff immediately pulled his hands back. But then, very slowly, very gingerly, he brought his hands closer and closer to the housing, trying to sense for heat. There was none. He touched the metal lightly and then more firmly.
    His eyes widened. “The shell’s still cool!”
    Cautiously approaching the rocket, they each grabbed a side and, within moments, had pried it loose and gotten it back onto the work table. They set it down gingerly, as if afraid that they were handling a keg of dynamite that might blow up at the slightest wrong move.
    There was a long moment of silence as they circled the table, trying to get some sense of the object’s purpose.
    “Never seen nothin’ like this,” said Peevy. He leaned in closer, sniffing, and scented something familiar. “It burns alcohol!” He paused, shaking his head in wonderment. “What’s the damned thing for?”
    And slowly it began to dawn on Cliff. It was just a hunch . . . the size of the rocket pack itself, the arm’s length of the control cables . . . but maybe . . .
    Wordlessly he stepped up to the table and slipped his left arm through the first strap. Then his right arm through the second. He straightened up and the rocket pack now rested comfortably on his back. He slipped his hands through the curved, T-shaped metal bracelets, taking great care not to touch the red buttons on either side. The last thing he did was snap the buckle over his chest, securing the harness.
    Peevy and Cliff stared at each other for a moment, and then Cliff pointed wordlessly skyward.
    The sun was setting on what had been an extremely busy and hectic day. And watching the sun go down was Lucky Lindy.
    Not Charles Lindbergh himself, per se. Instead, it was a life-size wooden statue of Colonel Lindbergh, posed in his heroic best style, looking upward as if the statue expected to soar into the heavens at any given moment. It was the prime landmark that stood outside the Chaplin Field Flight School, which was called, naturally, “Lucky Lindy’s Flight School.”
    Lindbergh himself knew nothing of the school’s existence. The proprietor had not approached him on it for fear that he would say no. So they’d just gone on ahead and named it that. One of the first students had been, in real life, a sculptor, and in lieu of payment he had offered his services in creating a statue that would symbolize the bravery and nobility of the school’s theoretical sponsor. This offer had been eagerly accepted, which was how the statue of Lindbergh—a quite nice likeness, really—had come to sit on the front lawn of the Lucky Lindy Flight School.
    The proprietor lived in perpetual nervousness that sooner or later Lindbergh would learn of the school’s existence. He wasn’t sure just what the famed aviator’s response would be. With any luck—and considering that Lindbergh resided on Illiec, a French island off the coast of Brittany, and so probably wouldn’t be passing through Chaplin Field anytime soon—he would never know.
    It was reasonable to assume, however, that Lindbergh would definitely not have approved of what was being done to his likeness. Namely, it was shaking from side to side, accompanied by the steady sound of sawing. And, after long moments of sawing, the wooden statue tumbled over with a resounding crack.
    The perpetrators froze in place, the noise having