Into Thin Air

  “Well, hello, stranger,” Hannah greeted her.

  Nancy gave her a quick hug and a kiss. “I know I’ve been out a lot lately. Sorry.”

  Hannah opened the door and gestured for Nancy to enter ahead of her. “I’m sure you’re keeping yourself busy. I hope you’re hungry. I just made some chicken salad and fresh iced tea.”

  Nancy got a plate while Hannah put out the food. “Your father has been concerned,” Hannah told her. “Where did you go in the middle of the night Monday?”

  “I was totally safe,” Nancy assured her, digging into the delicious chicken salad. “I was at the police station in Brewster.” She knew that Hannah had probably been even more worried than her father, but Hannah would never admit it.

  “Well, I’m happy to hear that,” Hannah said. “More salad?”

  “No thanks. Any calls?”

  “Yes—Ned called,” Hannah told her. “He said he would be in his room this afternoon, if you want to reach him.” She handed Nancy a napkin. “I guess he’s expecting you this weekend.”

  Oh, no, Nancy thought. She’d forgotten all about going to visit Ned at Emerson College that weekend. And with the pace of the investigation quickening, she knew she’d have to cancel. She felt terrible, even though she knew Ned would understand.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, Nancy went to her room and reached for her phone. Ned answered on the second ring.

  “I knew it was you,” he said. “I miss you. I can hardly wait to see you on the weekend.”

  “Ned, look,” Nancy said with a sigh. “I’m sorry but—”

  Ned listened as she filled him in on the case. When she was through, he let out a sigh.

  “I understand, Nancy. These sound like dangerous characters, though. Are you sure you’re not taking any unnecessary chances?”

  Nancy let out a frustrated sigh. “What’s going on? All of a sudden, everybody’s worried about me—and I’m not in any danger at all!”

  There was a beat of silence at the other end of the line. Then Ned asked, “Who else is worried about you? This guy Mark?”

  Nancy wasn’t sure, but she thought she detected a note of jealousy in his voice. “Not Mark,” she answered with a giggle. “He’s too involved in this case to worry about anybody, including himself.”

  “What’s he like, anyway?” Ned asked.

  “He’s very cute,” Nancy teased. “But I already have a boyfriend, remember?” She laughed. “Even though I can’t get to see him this weekend.”

  The reassurance seemed to work. “Well, the weekend afterward for sure,” he urged. “And I’ll call you before then. I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” she whispered, and hung up the phone with a wistful sigh.

  • • •

  Nancy passed the afternoon cleaning her room and writing a letter to her aunt Eloise. Finally it was time to pick up George, Bess, and Mark for the trip to the airport.

  The cousins were both on the Bradfords’ porch chatting with Frances and Marie. Nancy beeped the horn. As George got into the front seat next to Nancy, Bess stood beside the window.

  “Nan, I can’t come with you,” she said, guiltily. “This guy Scott that I have a total crush on asked me out for tonight. What could I say? That I couldn’t come because I had to go up in a helicopter and fly over a cornfield?”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it, Bess,” Nancy said with a grin. “Just have fun, and tell us all about it tomorrow.”

  Bess was obviously relieved. “You know I will. Have a good time, okay?” With a last wave, she took off for her house.

  Nancy grinned at George and shook her head. “Good old Bess, huh?”

  “I think Bess is secretly scared to go up in a helicopter,” George commented.

  Seconds later Mark burst out his front door and almost tripped down the porch steps. George leaned forward in her seat so he could crawl into the back of the Mustang.

  “Listen,” he said when he was settled. “I have something to say before we head off.”

  “What?” Nancy said, turning to face him.

  Mark leaned forward in his seat. “I’ve been thinking maybe I should do this helicopter ride myself, Nancy. It could be dangerous, and I don’t want you getting hurt because of me. I mean, it’s my case, after all.”

  Nancy rolled her eyes, “That’s very gallant of you,” she said with more than a hint of sarcasm. “But George and I can handle ourselves just fine.”

  “We’ve probably been in a lot more tight fixes than you have, Mark,” George pointed out. “Besides, going up in the helicopter was Nancy’s idea, not yours.”

  Mark glanced from George to Nancy. “You’re right.” He nodded. “But I was thinking, if we really want to reconstruct Johnson’s escape, we should probably do a real chase. We could ask the police to fire a couple of shots to—”

  “Planet Earth to Mark Rubin!” Nancy broke in. “Do you read us?” Mark blinked.

  Nancy grinned at him. “Just trying to bring you down to earth again.”

  Mark nodded and sat back. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I got a little carried away.

  “Okay, so forget I even said it and listen to my big breakthrough,” Mark went on. He looked from Nancy to George with a self-satisfied grin, deliberately keeping them in suspense.

  “No fair, Mark,” Nancy cried. “Out with it!”

  Mark reached into his pocket and took out the pair of mangled glasses Nancy had found at the railroad tracks. He dangled them in front of the two girls. “One lens was completely smashed, but there was enough glass left in the left lens for an optometrist to tell me its strength.”

  “So?” George prodded.

  “So then I took the day off from work and spent all afternoon calling every eye doctor in Brewster until I found Johnson’s. I sweet-talked the receptionist into telling me his prescription.”

  Nancy’s eyes lit up. “Was it—”

  Mark nodded slowly and deliberately. “It matched. Exactly. These are Johnson’s glasses. They have to be.”

  “So that proves it!” George exclaimed. “You did see him and he is still alive!”

  Mark pretended to be insulted. “Did you ever doubt me?”

  Nancy and George couldn’t help laughing. “Let’s just say we had to look at all the angles first,” Nancy said.

  “That still doesn’t explain how he survived a helicopter explosion,” George pointed out.

  Nancy started the car. “That, my friends, is what we’ll find out before the day is over.”

  “Well, drive on, Jeeves—to the airport!” Mark waved his arms to signal Nancy to go forward.

  When they arrived at the airport, a helicopter sat on the landing pad. Nancy and her friends got out of the car and hurried over. Mac waved and called, “You’re right on time!”

  He threw an adjustable wrench back into a toolbox, closed the lid, and hoisted it into the fuselage. He motioned Nancy, George, and Mark to climb aboard, while he circled the aircraft and got into the pilot’s seat. Nancy, George, and Mark climbed into the passenger seats.

  “Mac, I’d like you to take the exact route Johnson took the night he stole your helicopter,” Nancy said. “When we get to the cornfield, can you just hover so we can get a good look?”

  “No sweat,” Mac said, his hands moving quickly among the chopper’s controls. The engine caught, and the rotor began to turn, slowly at first. It speeded up until it was a blur. The airstream pounded into the ground and filled the cabin, fluttering the passengers’ hair and clothing. Mac adjusted the controls. The next thing Nancy knew, the pad fell away beneath them.

  She gazed out the open side door. Below them, she saw fields of fresh green corn, mixed with others of yellow hay.

  “The chopper crashed near Hoffner’s farmhouse, about a half mile that way,” Mac shouted over the sound of the motor, pointing left to a group of farm buildings in the distance.

  Nancy saw a patch of black in a cornfield not far away. “I think I see the place it went do
wn, out to the left.”

  “That’s it,” Mac answered, veering in the direction Nancy was looking. As he steered, the chopper descended, passing barely twenty feet above some haystacks next to a dirt road.

  “How high was Johnson flying?” Nancy asked.

  “About as high as we are now,” Mac told her. The airstream from the helicopter’s rotor blew the rows of corn almost flat to the ground.

  “I see it now, too,” George said, pointing to where the corn had been burned away in a large circle.

  “Where?” Mark asked anxiously. He stood shakily and moved toward the doorway to peer out.

  “Over there,” George pointed.

  Mark braced himself in the doorway and stuck his head out of the chopper. “Where?”

  “Don’t lean out like that,” Nancy warned.

  “I’m okay,” Mark shouted, his head still half out the open door. His hand closed tightly around a grip on the wall of the fuselage.

  “I’ll swing us around so you’ll get a better look,” Mac told them, steadying his gaze as he began to turn the helicopter. “Move back in for a minute, son.”

  “I still don’t see it!” Mark was yelling. He leaned out even farther. Suddenly the helicopter bucked in a gust of heavy wind.

  “I said, get back in here!” Mac yelled.

  Nancy gasped as Mark’s left hand suddenly slipped from its hold on the wall.

  “Mark!” she cried. Moving together, she and George grabbed at Mark’s trousers and pulled him back into the craft just before he slipped out.

  “Yikes!” Mark yelled. He fell back into the copter and crashed against the back of Mac’s seat. The helicopter veered on an angle to the left and Mac’s tool kit slid out from under the seat.

  “Thanks, Nancy,” Mark said, scrambling to retrieve the tool kit and put it back. “Hey, what’s this?” A small black case had drifted out from under the seat where the toolbox had been.

  Mac glanced over his shoulder at the case. “I never saw that before,” he called.

  Mark scrutinized the case. He flicked the metal latch open with his thumb. Then his eyes widened and his face went white.

  Nancy craned her neck and looked inside the case. A small, digital timer was connected by wire and tape to a bundle of round sticks.

  “It’s a bomb!” Mark shouted with horror.

  Nancy’s mouth went dry. It was a bomb! The square red numbers were quickly counting down to zero—and there were only twenty-four seconds left before it exploded!

  Chapter

  Twelve

  NANCY MADE a split-second decision. “Give it to me, Mark,” she ordered. Taking the case in both hands and holding it as far from her body as she could, she inched to the door.

  “Mac, be ready to get us out of here,” she called to the pilot.

  “You say the word, kid,” Mac replied through tightly clenched teeth.

  “Hold on to me,” Nancy told Mark when she was standing in the open doorway. “Tight. Grab on to my waist and don’t let me go. Hurry!”

  Mark slid a strong arm around Nancy’s slender body and held her fast. With his other hand, he clutched the metal handle on the wall of the fuselage.

  “Now, Mac!” Nancy shouted, letting the bomb fly out into space.

  Instantly, the veteran pilot let out the throttle and pulled the chopper in the opposite direction.

  Ka-boom! The bomb hit the cornfield twenty feet below and exploded like thunder, sending a powerful shock wave through the helicopter. Nancy, George, and Mark were hurled to the floor.

  The chopper began veering crazily. Looking up at the cockpit, Nancy saw to her horror that MacIlvaney was slumped sideways in his seat. He was out cold! Nobody was at the controls!

  The helicopter swerved back and forth, vibrating horribly. Nancy clawed her way slowly to the front and sat in the copilot’s seat. There were identical controls to the ones Mac had been using. Although Nancy had a pilot’s license for small aircraft, she knew that flying a helicopter was quite different from flying an airplane.

  She grabbed a control lever that she had seen Mac using earlier and imitated the movements she remembered him making. But instead of lifting the chopper higher, it plunged toward the ground.

  Keeping her cool, Nancy jammed the lever away from her. The helicopter righted itself.

  “Wake up, Mac!” Nancy screamed. “I need you.”

  Mac must have heard her because he opened his eyes just then. For a brief second he looked stunned. Then the realization of what was happening flooded into his face. He leaped forward in his seat and grabbed the controls. Almost instantly the helicopter rose and leveled off. Her hands shaking, Nancy released her grip on the lever she’d been working.

  “Where’s Mark?” George shouted from the cabin behind them. “He’s gone! He must have fallen out.”

  Nancy stood up in the copilot’s seat to search behind her. Just as George had said, Mark was nowhere to be seen. A feeling of dread rose in the pit of her stomach.

  “Hold on,” Mac shouted, yanking one of the controls toward him.

  The helicopter turned almost sideways and veered around in a tight circle. Mac slowed it down and flew low over the cornfield. A small fire was burning where the bomb had exploded, and smoke swirled into the sky. Just as they passed over a haystack, George shouted.

  “I think I see him!”

  Nancy peered through the windscreen. She saw something moving on top of the haystack. A moment later, Mark’s head popped up through the straw. “There he is!” she yelled.

  Mac saw the young man and slowed the chopper more. He descended gradually and brought the aircraft to hover a few feet over the haystack. Nancy crawled back to the cabin and helped George pull Mark aboard.

  His face was white and he was barely able to speak.

  “Mark, you are one lucky guy,” George scolded when he was back inside.

  He nodded in agreement. “If it hadn’t been for that haystack, I’d have broken every bone in my body.”

  “You can say that again,” Nancy commented. “But congratulations, anyway.”

  “Congratulations?” Mark and George exclaimed together, staring at Nancy as if she were crazy.

  Nancy nodded. “You just gave us a demonstration of how Johnson got away.”

  When George and Mark both began to speak at once, Nancy raised a hand. “Wait until we get back to the airport,” she told them.

  Mac soon had the helicopter on the landing pad at the airport.

  “Whew,” George said when they had landed. “That was not fun.”

  As she stepped out onto the runway, Nancy felt a huge wave of relief roll over her. “Good old solid ground. I don’t know when I’ve appreciated you so much.” She hugged George tightly. “We almost bought the farm, George.”

  “I guess our number just wasn’t up yet, huh?” George said with a forced grin.

  “Is anybody else’s stomach a little jumpy?” Mark asked. He was still gray.

  “Come on,” Nancy suggested, taking Mark gently by the elbow and pulling him forward “Let’s find a place to sit down.”

  “You can use the lounge next to my office, Nancy,” Mac told them. “I’m going to call the police.”

  As they approached the hangar, they watched two police cars and two fire engines sail into the parking lot, their lights blinking madly and their sirens wailing. Someone had obviously alerted them already.

  Mark took a deep breath when they entered the hangar. “I’m starting to feel better,” he said softly:

  Half a dozen police officers and four fire fighters entered the hangar from the side door. The fire fighters spoke with George and Mark, and Nancy talked with the police. She was surprised to see that Chief McGinnis was one of them.

  “Chief! What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Your housekeeper told me I’d find you here,” he told her. He turned to Mac. “I saw the explosion across the fields as we were driving out here and radioed for backup. Is everyone all right
?”

  Mac nodded and turned to Nancy. “This young lady did a fine job out there, Chief. She saved our lives, in fact. Now, would someone mind telling me what’s going on?”

  The police chief turned his attention on Nancy. “I thought it was about time you and I had a little talk about the Anderson Industries case.”

  “My friends and I may be able to help you with it,” she told the chief. “We’ve been working on it for several days, and we’re starting to make some breakthroughs.”

  The chief let out a sigh. “Do these so-called breakthroughs have anything to do with the explosion that just about killed all of you a few minutes ago?”

  Nancy nodded. “How did you know?”

  The chief sighed. “First you called me up and asked about the helicopter explosion. The next day you want to know all about a convicted forger named Arthur Wilson. And you tell me you think Christopher Johnson could still be alive. Now, I’ve known you long enough to know when you’re involved in a case.” McGinnis looked at Nancy. “Why don’t you fill me in?”

  Nancy swallowed. She introduced Mark, who had finished with the fire chief, to McGinnis and told him about Mark’s experience at Crabtree. “I got involved because Mark was sure he’d spotted Johnson—even though he was supposed to be dead.”

  Quickly Nancy filled Chief McGinnis in on the details of her case. He listened attentively, occasionally nodding.

  When she was finished he said, “I’ll have a man get a search warrant for Artie Wilson’s apartment to look for Johnson. Now, what exactly were you up to out here?”

  “We made this helicopter run to see how Johnson might have survived,” Nancy told him. “Of course, we didn’t expect it to be so realistic.”

  McGinnis narrowed his eyes. “And did you figure it out?”

  Nancy looked at Mark and George, then back at the chief. She nodded. “Can I ask you one question first, Chief?”

  McGinnis nodded.

  “It’s about the bloodied clothing you found in the wreckage after the helicopter blew up.”

  “Sheep’s blood,” the chief said. “I had the crime lab test it this morning, after talking to you.”