“Who goes there!” called one of the guards as we approached. And then he guffawed. The fix was in. Leon handed over a bonus sheaf of bills. And Stan gave the guards the keys to his Duesenberg. That little gesture, more than the weightier ones, made me realize we were fully into the venture now, and would either return rich and famous and covered in glory, or not at all.
Beefy, heartfelt song from the inebriates. And now we were inside the long shed, with the waters lapping at the shore. Stan and Vivi played the beams of their electric torches over the all-metal plane.
It was a wonder, the largest plane I’d ever seen, with a single high wing above the fuselage, and a row of three massive engines set into the wing.
“It’s a prototype from Dornier in Holland,” Stan told me. “Seventy feet lo
