Air

into the hall. Under his arm, he carried a sheaf of papers. “Time to go,” he said.

Chapter Seventeen
In his room at the Monarch Building, Harris found the carpetbag he’d seen at the bottom of his closet. He loaded it with the clothes and toilet articles he’d accumulated, the two big pistols from the truck, and the ammu­nition for them.
His entire collection of possessions from the fair world. It didn’t seem like much.
He picked up Gaby’s jeans and took them down the hall to her door. She opened it before he knocked; she looked on the verge of tears. “Harris, I’m sorry,” she said.
“You should try them on before you say that.” He handed her the jeans.
“Stop making jokes, you idiot. Tonight, you wouldn’t have even gone if I hadn’t backed you into it, would you?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t lie. Not to me.”
“Okay.” He took a deep breath, a delaying tactic, and sorted his thoughts. “No, I wouldn’t. I would have stayed here.”
“And you wouldn’t have had to kill two men.” Her voice shrank to a whisper. “It’s my fault.”
“No.”
“Harris, you ought to go home to the grim world.”
He leaned in close. “Gaby, the thing is, you were right. When you said that about not just standing by while ­everybody else risked his life for you. I admire you for that, and it kills me, because I should have felt the same way and I didn’t. I’m the one who screwed up. As usual.”
“No, Harris—”
“We’re going to England. Pack warm.” He left her.

Jean-Pierre pulled open the rear doors of the slabside lorry and everyone piled out onto the tarmac of Gwaeddan Air Field.
Doc had parked outside a huge hangar set well away from the diminutive tower and commercial hangars. The hangar doors were closed; Doc led them through a side door and the small office beyond into the hangar proper.
There were five aircraft inside. One was a small, single-wing, single-engine propeller job that looked good for carrying popular musicians to their deaths. Two were two-seat biplanes, one gold, one blood-red, and Harris could see machine guns mounted on them. One was a larger black twin-engine job that looked as though it were raked for speed. These four planes were crowded