“I mean, later,” she explained. “After all, a wrecked car on a highway would...”

“Car? Beth, I didn’t crack up in a car. I crashed on a wooded mountain in a private plane.”

“Oh, darling, don’t be silly! You’ve never been in a plane in your life.”

In the darkness of the room, Nick could only stare in stunned amazement at the moonlit outline of his wife.

[p51]CHAPTER FIVE

[p51]

[p

]

Detective Lieutenant Nolan Brice stood in the brush near the wrecked aircraft, watching the men move about in the light of several spotlights that had been set up by the National Guardsmen who had roped off the area. The thick blackness of the surrounding forest, plus a glance at his watch, told him that dawn wasn’t too far away. FAA investigator Dickson, a thin, stringy ex-pilot stepped around the scrambled bits of wreckage and offered a light to the dead cigarette in Nolan’s mouth.

“Thanks,” Brice said and blew the smoke to the night. “What d’you make of it, Mister Dickson?”

Dickson shrugged and pushed his snap-brim hat back with a blunt forefinger. “Dunno. It’s pretty dark to see much, but it’s no private plane.”

“Why do you say that?”

“No wings, no tail assembly. Of course, it’s hard to tell in the dark. When it gets light enough, we’ll know the story; but I don’t know of any private plane that looks like that one. Then too, the Army is holding the news boys at bay. I think those two government fellows are playing this one close to their chests.”

Brice nodded and dragged on the cigarette, but he said nothing about the speed of the thing. “Any bodies?”

Dickson shook his head. “The thing is pretty well burned, and the bodies, if there are any to be found, could be all over the area. We did find a kind of flying suit, though, badly burned [p52]  and torn.”

[p52]  

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