The Canadian Bomber Contract by Philip Atlee

Author:Philip Atlee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2020-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

The next morning I dispatched two of the agents to the Niagara Falls area. They were to re-cover the ground I had gone over in trailing The Mohawk and try to turn up something new. While one of them worked the Canadian side, the other would be in New York’s Niagara Falls and would rent a car to check with Rappold, the corps’ engineer in Buffalo.

When they had left for Dorval Airport, I tried to contact the agent already in Buffalo, my liaison with the two huge Chinook helicopters standing by there. I phoned the Buffalo airport, including the hangars, but couldn’t contact my man. His name was Willis Bradshaw, and I had worked with him once before in Ceylon. Even back then, he had a reputation as a drunk and therefore was not dependable.

Angered, I called Neal in Washington and requested that he get Bradshaw immediately available or send someone else to Buffalo. Less than an hour later, Bradshaw called me from Buffalo. He was contrite; his car’s generator had gone out; he had been having it replaced—

“How much are you drinking these days?” I interrupted.

“Nothing at all,” he said quickly. “I’ve been dry three years and several months.”

“Good. What’s with the Chinooks?”

“Ready, around-the-clock alert. Except for my goof this morning, neither the crews nor I have left the airport. Major service pulled on both craft before they left Washington.”

“Right. Have you flown with both of them?”

“Yes.”

“Which one has the best captain? For flying, I mean. There may be some tricky work involved.” Bradshaw had been a Navy pilot in his service days before joining the agency.

“Oh, hell, Joe. They’re both well trained. I’d say Crockett, the Tennessee stud. Not hard to overcontrol these whirlybirds, but he’s smooth …”

“Send his Chinook to Dorval tomorrow, the international airport outside Montreal. Have Neal’s office set up the flight clearance and arrange for the crew members to be quartered near the field. Have Crockett come to see me, apartment 1702 in the Cantlie House, as soon as he gets squared away at the airport. He’s to wear civilian clothes.”

“Right,” said Bradshaw and hung up.

At noon I walked the three blocks to Dominion Square in the heart of Montreal and bought a New York Times, the Los Angeles Free Press, and some magazines at the busy newsstand. Waiting for the traffic light at Peel and Maisonneuve to change, I glanced at the busy intersection and saw another of those unexpected battles between brute power and independent man.

A fellow in a turban, riding a bicycle, was pumping it madly and straight at me. He had misjudged the traffic light, had entered the intersection just as it turned against him. Belching toxic fumes and roaring like the image of bedlam, a river of cars was bearing down on the frantic peddler.

Maisonneuve is a wide, one-way boulevard, and Quebecois drivers are the noisiest and most reckless in the world. They bore down on the cyclist like Nemesis in all her fury. The crowd around me scattered.

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