Raven's Run: A Cybertech Thriller

By John D. Trudel

"A covert CIA mission gone sideways, a harrowing post-WWI transatlantic flight, and a research facility with "remote viewing" capabilities: three seemingly separate stories woven across time and locations bring us to the brink of an attack that would annihilate North America in this entertaining and suspenseful novel titled Raven's Run.

John D. Trudel researched actual historical archives to tell the escapades of his uncle, George O. Noville, a Navy officer who made historical flights, explored Antarctica, became an oil executive, and eventually settled in Mexico to retire. It is through his voice that the reader 'hears' the story of forgotten U.S. history.

Josie is a gentle soul with an incredible psychic ability (as well as a penchant for marijuana and going braless). All she has to do is have physical contact with an item to see its history, location, and actions occurring around it. The government, needless to say, sees her as a valuable asset and has her working in secrecy. Her viewings have sometimes left her comatose – she is especially sensitive to violence, and sees her own future in a mental institution if she doesn't change the path she's on.

Wayne, who has been given the boot from the CIA, is given a second chance along with a new identity as Raven. He is tasked to protect Josie. While on his failed yet explosive mission in Iran, Raven had uncovered a diary belonging to Noville, with the title "Operation High Jump," a major Antarctic expedition that occurred right after World War II.

All evidence from the mission was destroyed, but the significance of the notebook is unclear. Josie is tasked with viewing the events surrounding the notebook, but the vastness of the great white ice continent makes finding any worthwhile data a huge challenge. While her talents are great, they are not unlimited.

Meanwhile, Islamic extremists are racing toward a mission of their own in Antarctica, allowing nothing to stop their quest to rid the world of the "Great Satan" and infidels. With ties to oil executives, high level U.S. government officials, and a nuclear-powered icebreaking vessel, not much can stop them, not even one of their own. The suspense builds at a breakneck pace.

Josie and Raven form an unlikely bond, breaking down the walls that he has had to build around himself out of necessity. Raven gains Josie's trust, and she his. They start envisioning their own future together, but first they must complete this last, dangerous mission: solving the mysteries surrounding Noville, his death, and his diary. Will their love give them the strength to survive the ordeal, or add to their vulnerability?

Mechanical techies will enjoy Raven's Run's detailing of weaponry and engine mechanics on airplanes and ships, in both military and private use. Trudel challenges some widely held positions on climate change, Islam, the JFK assassination, Vietnam, international incidents occurring between WWII and today."

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9780997805208

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Author

CHAPTER ONE

BUSTED

Present Day, CIA Headquarters, Langley Virginia

The man sat ramrod straight in the armless chair. He wore his black hair in a military style buzz cut, and there was an insolent look in his hard blue eyes. His face and forearms were deeply tanned and there were a few flecks of gray in his hair. He wore casual civilian clothes: A white dress shirt open at the neck and gray slacks.

None of his combat scars showed. With his muscular forearms he might have passed as an aging professional athlete, but only if you ignored his eyes and the way he held his hands.

Facing him across the table was Robert Cross, the CIAs assistant Deputy Director of Operations. He arranged the papers before him into neatly squared piles, carefully setting his gold pen alongside them on the massive mahogany table.

Cross liked order. You understand, Mr. Wayne, that this is an administrative hearing. You are not on trial.

The man shrugged his shoulders but said nothing.

No wonder they call him Cowboy, Cross thought. A hard case. Just what we need to cause more embarrassment for the Agency and bring Congress down on my ass.

He studied the man carefully. Those eyes had seen too many betrayals. Just another over-the-hill field agent with blood on his hands and a bad attitude. This is not a legal hearing, per se, but is there anyone you wish to have present?

The Director, Wayne said softly.

Cross shook his head.

That’s who I want.

Not a chance. The Director’s office need not be represented here, and it will not be.

Wayne shrugged. Walter Ott, my control.

"That’s not possible. Mr. Ott was directing you administratively, but he wasn’t there, was he?"

Are you going to punish him for what I did?

He is not being punished. Mr. Ott has been – reassigned.

The swarthy man at the end of the table cleared his throat. Both Cross and Wayne looked at him. Formal charges or not, Mr. Wayne is entitled to legal representation.

Not bloody likely, Wayne muttered under his breath.

Cross looked at him sharply. What did you say?

Wayne shook his head.

We should go on the record, the man said.

Not yet, Cross said. He looked at Wayne. Do you find these proceedings amusing?

Not in the least. Wayne’s voice was surprisingly deep, an actor’s voice. He said something in a foreign language.

I don’t speak Farsi, Cross said.

That was Arabic. ‘Hamas rules’ Do you know what it means?

I presume it’s something about how Hamas asserts power in Palestine.

You need to get out more.

That’s enough. We’re going on the record now. Cross gestured at the man. Mister Gomez is from the general counsel’s office, and will take notes. I will be asking some questions about your operation in Iran.

He’s entitled to legal representation, Gomez repeated. That would be me.

I was getting to that. Cross looked at Wayne. Do you waive your right to representation?

I have a question first, Wayne said. Who’s the professor?

He gestured at the bald man with the tweed jacket, rimless glasses, and goatee at the end of the table. In contrast, Gomez and Cross were wearing the dark suits that were de rigueur for executives from the seventh floor of Langley.

Strike that. Cross sounded irritated. Dr. Goldfarb is here ex-officio. He has no official role at this hearing. He will not appear in the record.

Wayne raised an eyebrow.

I invited myself, Mr. Wayne. Goldfarb chuckled, pulled a pipe out of the pocket of this tweed vest, looked at it, and then made a show of loading and tamping down the tobacco. Cross frowned, but the Doctor finally set it on the table in front of himself without lighting it.

I knew about Hamas Rules when you were still wearing diapers. There are no rules.

Wayne nodded.

Some things don’t change. It’s the same as the methods the ancient Romans and Persians used: Total annihilation of enemies. Ruthlessness is quite effective in some situations, actually, but it’s troubling to Western sensibilities and Christian compassion. Why I chose to attend is not your concern. Do you have any more questions?

No, Sir.

Cross said, We’re back on the record now. Do you request legal counsel?

Wayne shook his head.

I need you to speak aloud.

I waive my right to legal representation.

Good. That will expedite matters. Cross looked at Gomez. You can leave now.

I’ll stick around if you don’t mind. There are protocols….

Goldfarb was watching Cross, who finally said, As you wish.

Now do I get to know what this is about? Why am I here?

The allegation is torture.

Are you serious?

You are accused of torturing an Iranian engineer, Mr. Rajabalinejad.

That’s absurd.

How do you know that?

I’m probably the last person who saw him alive. I don’t recall that he complained about torture.

The Iranians say he’s dead, Cross said. What do you say?

As little as possible, Sir. I don’t plan to send flowers.

Mr. Mohammadreza Rajabalinejad was a civilian employee of the Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Company. Khatam is a well respected firm that does Civil Engineering projects such as roads, dams, and tunnels. Your unauthorized act has created an embarrassment to the United States. It’s resulted in protests being filed with the UN and the League of Arab States. An apology has been demanded and Congressional hearings are being discussed. What do you have to say for yourself?

It wasn’t my intention….. Wayne said.

Not your intention, Cross threw his arms up.

Wayne shrugged.

I need a response. What do you say?

I say your entire line of questioning seems off base, Mr. Cross.

Explain.

"First off, according to the Iranian Press, over 70% of Khatam’s work is military-related. Secondly, Raja was a Colonel in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In his college days he was a member of Basij, the zealots who prowl the streets looking for insufficiently veiled women and others who violate strict Islamic norms."

What’s your point? Cross said.

This guy wasn’t a social worker or choir boy; he was an Islamic thug.

So you tortured him because you didn’t approve of his religious practices….?

Negative.

In your own words, what happened over there?

Shit, Wayne said. Shit happens. In this case it was Natanz.

What are you talking about?

"Natanz is a hardened Fuel Enrichment Plant covering 100,000 square meters that is built 8 meters underground and protected by a concrete wall 2.5 meters thick, itself protected by another concrete wall. Raja was involved in the design of this facility, including its security systems. Israeli military intelligence refers to the Natanz site as ‘Kashan.’

Natanz is located between Isfahan and Kashan in central Iran. The facility is 100 miles north of Esfahan, located in old Kashan-Natanz, near a village called Deh-Zireh, itself located about 25 miles southeast of Kashan. It falls under the jurisdiction of the Governor’s Office of Kashan.

Cross looked at his notes. The State Department says the site you’re discussing is a project aimed at the eradication of deserts.

Right, Wayne said. Nuclear weapons eradicate things. That is why the Israelis have long been planning a first strike on the Natanz facility, and why the site is hardened.

Your mission had nothing to do with any facility. Nor did it involve torturing civilian workers. You were simply to meet a key asset and extract him, which you failed to do.

I met with the asset. He showed up on schedule.

Ali Rez Asgari.

Correct, Wayne said. The Governor of Kashan. He was a junior officer under the Shah and escaped the purge afterwards.

Mr. Asgari wasn’t with you when you were picked up, Cross said.

No, he was not.

What happened?

Like I said, Natanz happened. Ali didn’t make it.

Are you saying you violated your mission orders because of mitigating circumstances which you are now prepared to explain?

I’m saying Ali insisted on showing me the Natanz facility. He said it was urgent.

So you went off on a junket instead of following your orders, and in the process you lost the asset you were tasked with extracting? Mr. Asgari had extensive information about Iran’s military programs and policy. We wanted him brought to a safe place for debriefing.

He knew all about their weapons, Wayne said. Ali showed me six nuclear warheads, just out of final test and ready for deployment. Fifty more were in assembly. The uranium, incidentally, was Russian. The reports in the media about centrifuges were disinformation.

You saw these weapons with your own eyes?

Wayne nodded. Yes.

Do you have any photos or corroborating testimony to prove this?

No.

Why not?

Mohammadreza Rajabalinejad showed up unexpectedly at the facility. He was supposed to be in Tehran, and his appearance threw us off our schedule.

What schedule?

My schedule to get Ali out. His schedule to destroy the Natanz facility.

So you decided to abduct and torture Mr. Rajabalinejad?

I’m not sure if the definition of torture applies to this particular situation, but it might. In any case, Raja was alive when I last saw him.

After you’d interrogated him?

I didn’t interrogate him. Wayne shrugged. I wanted to, but we were in a bit of a hurry. I taped Raja’s mouth, tied him up, and left him handcuffed to one of the bomb caissons.

Are you saying he was unharmed when you left?

I may have bruised him a bit, Wayne said, but it’s of no consequence.

Cross rolled his eyes. I’ll be the judge of that. What happened next?

Ali activated the timers on three of the warheads. He said, A pair, and a spare,’ twice in Persian, pointing at the bombs. Apparently he and Raja were not the best of friends and he wanted to get that message across. I think he succeeded.

The door to the weapons vault was formidable. It was over six inches of armor-grade hardened steel but hung on massive counterbalanced hinges so it could be closed by one man. When we left, we welded it shut with thermite. I felt strong tremors just before the BlackHawk arrived to extract me, so I presume at least one of Ali’s warheads detonated.

The monitoring sites in Tel Aviv and Ankara confirmed two separate nuclear explosions eleven milliseconds apart totaling over a hundred kilotons, Dr. Goldfarb was smiling beatifically "and with no measurable radiation release. It was a relatively small event, actually, but the main thing is the Natanz facility no longer exists. We think there were quite a few casualties including some of their key scientists, but Iran isn’t saying. Al-Jazerra denies it was a nuclear test and is terming it a mining accident."

Cross was glaring at Wayne. Continue.

There’s not much more to report. We ran into opposition on the way out. Ali didn’t make it. The BlackHawk showed up exactly on schedule and extracted me without incident.

Let me see if I can briefly summarize this debacle, Cross said. You failed to complete your assignment. You were directly or indirectly responsible for the death of the most sensitive asset the Agency had in Iran. You attacked a nation with which we are not at war. On your own initiative and without any command approval, you employed weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons, against an Iranian industrial facility. Does that capture the essence?

I suggest there’s perhaps a better version for the official record, Sir.

Which is?

I failed to make the planned extraction because the asset I was tasked with recovering was killed in an unfortunate accident at the Natanz facility. The United States has no idea what happened, but we suspect the rumors that Natanz was a weapons facility may have substance and we demand a full investigation by the UN.

Are you joking? Cross said.

No, Sir, Wayne said. Reporting it that way would seem to solve a number of troublesome problems.

Do you have anything else to say?

Wayne shook his head.

I take it from your silence that you have nothing to say in your defense.

No, Sir. Wayne’s gaze was steady.

Cross coughed nervously and looked away. Hastily he went on, If you have nothing further, we’re adjourned for one hour.

Gomez and the professor stood up. The hearing was over.

An hour later Wayne was called back to the hearing room. This time it was just him, Cross, and Goldfarb.

My recommendation was that you be charged with treason for the damage you’ve done to this country and our allies. That offense is punishable by death. But apparently someone up there likes you, though I can’t imagine why. You should consider yourself fortunate.

Cross frowned as he pulled a single piece of paper from his jacket pocket. Please stand. We are back on the record.

Wayne stood up.

A. C. Wayne, by order of the Director of Central Intelligence, you are hereby released from employment by the Central Intelligence Agency, and permanently enjoined from rehire.

CHAPTER TWO

TOM TOMS OF HADES

June 1927, 3,000 feet, somewhere past Greenland, East of Newfoundland

Friends call me Rex, but my real name is George. I’m the only one on board who isn’t a famous pilot. Lieutenant George O. Noville, USN.

Never mind what the O stands for. The sailors used to rag on me about it until I took up boxing and got pretty good.

Sports made me into an officer. I was all-Navy at broad jump, and did well at crew and football. I’d even won medals in international competition. I had a silver cup with my name on it from the American and Argentinean games. I was proud of that one: July 12, 1913.

I joined the Navy at 16 and saw my first combat at Vera Cruz in 1914. Afterwards, they put me in the back of a DeHavilland with a Vickers gun. I learned to fly and during the big war and was posted to Esquadrille Cardina on the Italian front.

I did all right but always thought it was because I was a good shot who took fewer chances than some of my mates. We lost many more men to crashes than to enemy fire. Of course the fact that we didn’t have to fly against Fokker’s D-VIIs and Richthofen’s Circus helped. France, the Western Front, was a slaughterhouse for both sides.

Tony Fokker is an aeronautical genius. He’s in America now. Things are bad in Germany and we’ve been trying to get the Navy to buy some airplanes to help him out.

So far that hasn’t worked out, but we’re flying Tony’s new C-2 design for this trip. The press calls it The Giant Fokker. Over ten years later, it still uses the same basic wing design as his D-VII fighter.

These are hard times for aviation. Pilots are a dime a dozen after the war and even designers like Tony are having it tough. Dick and I talked about it. He wants us to set a few more records to advance science, but hasn’t told me what comes next. He’s got a plan though, and part of it is to move me into industry at the right time. We’ve been talking about oil companies. Dick says energy is the future and so is aviation.

I can still fly in a pinch, but not in weather like this. Dick is rusty too, and we’re all glad he mostly stays back here with me. He moved into aviation after he’d busted his foot up falling down a hatch on a battleship. It was the only way they’d put him on active duty. They finally did, but only because of the war.

Dick doesn’t talk about his middle name either. Richard E. Byrd. Even before he made rank and became a famous explorer, no one dared call him Evelyn. I was one of the few allowed to call him Dick, and never in public. He used to go by Richard, but today most people call him by his last name, carefully noting his Navy rank now that he’s a celebrity.

Doing this hero business, Dick calls it. He realized right off it wasn’t about him; he was representing ambition realized, carrying the banner of American progress, responsible for doing it with honor and making people proud.

The North Pole flight made Dick famous. We used a Fokker for that one too, a single engine, the Josephine Ford. I was logged as the flight engineer, but it got down to either me or carrying extra fuel at six pounds per gallon.

I lost and wasn’t on the record flight. That was the right decision, so I helped fill the tanks, saluted, and off he went into history, him and Bennett. Good for them. They got a ticker tape parade.

And Dick got us funding for a new plane and an Atlantic crossing. They wanted him to have one specially designed, but he said Tony’s designs were proven.

Dick’s a full Commander now. Our flight is run like a Navy mission even though it’s privately funded, but we didn’t wear our uniforms for the trip. Not with a department store mogul paying for it instead of the government.

So far it wasn’t going well. The take off was a near disaster, and we haven’t seen land or sea since before Halifax, not since three o’clock yesterday afternoon. The night is black as pitch. We’re still pounding along in the clouds, but the temperature is above freezing and at least the ice is gone.

What worries me is bad things come in threes and we still have one to go.

First there was the crash. Tony himself was at the controls when we flipped over on the test flight.

The crash cost us both our pilots. Tony was uninjured, but he was done with the trip. He’d had enough. Floyd Bennett had been our best pilot, but no more. Floyd was lucky to be alive. He’d wound up pinned under one of the engines. Doctor Sullivan told him he’d get his full vision back. Said the hot oil in his eyes hadn’t done permanent damage.

Disastrous Test Flight, May 16, 1927

Me, I wondered. You never knew about doctors. In any case, Floyd was badly broken up, had head injuries, and wouldn’t be able to fly again for months. Next to Tony, Dick came off best, with two broken bones in his wrist from where I was tossed into him.

We were lucky there hadn’t been a fire. That was how Rene Fronk had died last year. Overloaded with fuel, he never had a chance.

Fire was the worst way to go. That was why we put in the dump valve and the kill switch which had saved our lives. It was also why we extended the runway and put the big ramp at the end to get us rolling.

Someone managed to hit the switch and shutdown all three engines before we flipped over, but no one could remember doing it. I remembered the crash and rolling around on the ground in agony, but had no recollection of how I’d gotten there. The main thing was it didn’t burn. We didn’t burn. The switch Floyd rigged up had worked.

By the time America was repaired, Lindy was in Paris. We’d helped him as much as we could, wished him well, and he wouldn’t have made it without us. We loaned him Doc Kinkaid to tend his engine. Dick also let him use our special runway with the ramp. Even with that and a perfectly-tuned engine, Lindy had only cleared the electric wires at the end by inches.

Kinkaid was a bit eccentric, but the best mechanic with aircraft engines I’d ever seen. He’d been with us on the polar flight. He was more like a wizard than a doctor, but we called him Doc as a way of showing respect. Like Dick said, Who’d you rather have mad at you, your wife or your mechanic? Most of the guys didn’t have wives, but they got the idea.

I kept thinking about Lindy’s takeoff and our own crash. It would have been easier if we were first off like we’d planned, instead of stuck here on the ground making repairs, trying to heal, and watching the weather deteriorate. We spent the time scrambling around trying to find qualified pilots to replace those we’d lost.

Dick finally found us pilots. They were total opposites: a flamboyantly emotional Italian named Burt Acosta, and a stolid, methodical Norwegian kid named Bernt Balchen. We really didn’t know either of them, and our lives were in their hands. What we did know was neither had ever flown an airplane as large as our Giant Fokker; not under any conditions, much less with the massive overload we were carrying in fuel. Our most experienced pilots had crashed on a much easier flight. It seemed to me like a Hell of a time to be learning to fly an airplane.

Unlike our pilots, Lindy knew his aircraft intimately. He’d supervised every detail while it was being constructed. He test flew it all the way across the country.

Even so, when Lindy took off for Paris it took every bit of skill he had to nurse it into the air. I’d thought for sure he was going to hit the wires at the end of the runway, it was that close. In the end, you go with what you have and hope it’s enough.

My ribs and stomach still hurt like blazes if I moved wrong. I said I was okay because I didn’t want to let Dick down. I hadn’t exactly lied. It was some better, but there wasn’t any position that I could say was truly comfortable. I didn’t dare eat real meals. If I got sick and started throwing up, I’d tear my insides loose. For this trip I avoided solid food and stuck with my jug of coffee.

We either went with a crew who’d never served together, officers who were injured, and pilots who’d never flown the plane, or we canceled. Dick was determined to not cancel.

No more test flights, we were going to load up and go to Paris. It either worked, or it didn’t.

Our takeoff was a near thing, and we all knew it. We were loaded so heavy that Dick left his thermos of hot tea behind. We were taking off from the same spot in the same direction that Fronk had last year, and no three-engine plane had made the attempt fully-loaded since.

Acosta was our most experienced pilot, so we put Balchen in the back and had me up front next to him with my hand on the dump valve. Tony said it would fly, and Balchen trusted Tony’s calculations. Acosta just shrugged and told me to be ready to dump fuel.

We pulled the plane up the ramp backwards and lashed it down. The plan was we’d run the engines up to full power, give a signal, and Tom Mulroy our chief engineer, would chop the rope holding the tail with his big knife. I never gave the signal. The damned rope broke before we got the throttles halfway, and off we went.

Burt turned pale as a ghost. He raised his hand for me to dump, but hesitated. Then we were flying, and it was too late. If any of the engines had faltered before we got to 400 feet, the dump valve would have been of no value and we would have crashed.

Off to Paris, June 29, 1927

It took us ten long minutes to gain that precious altitude.

After that, the hours passed slowly. Acosta and Balchen were sharing the flying. Balchen was young, but he’d been Tony’s test pilot. The kid was good, maybe even better than Floyd.

Just before dark, Dick ordered Balchen to get us up out of the clouds. He finally made it on top by running the engines at full power, but it took several hours and didn’t help much. At two miles high, it was cold. Ice would form on the wings and the fronts of the engine nacelles every time we touched a cloud. I’ve seen a lot of airplanes covered in ice and snow, but never watched ice form in flight before. I should have expected it.

It stopped forming when we got out of the clouds, but the ice we were already carrying stayed, oddly white, rough, and grainy looking. America struggled under the weight and drag of it, and we had to keep the engines at full power. We were burning a lot of fuel, and our airspeed was so low the plane was wallowing. It felt like her nose was at an unusually high angle, but we never saw a horizon, so I wasn’t sure.

It went on like that for a long time. The hours passed and we staggered on through the night with engines wide open as America struggled to stay in the air. It was dark inside, and cold, but, except for checking the ice, we wanted to save the batteries for our flashlights. Finally the solid Norwegian turned it over to the crazy Italian and tried to get some sleep. The result was near disaster.

Acosta made some mistake. We pitched over sideways and then dropped. It was just what I’d feared. The tailspin was sudden, violent, and unexpected. We must have been falling at a terrific rate, judging from the roaring of the engines, but Balchen woke up and took over. He somehow regained control and steadied the ship on course, but we’d lost the altitude we’d laboriously gained and weren’t about to try climbing again.

It was warmer down here and the ice was gone, but we didn’t have the fuel to struggle back up out of the clouds even if our engines could take the strain. Dawn was coming; the black shifting to gray, but the fog was so intense I couldn’t see the wing tips.

The 30,000 flashes of fire per minute from our faithful engines were reassuring, but my ears were numb and my head was pounding. Our engines were round, with nine air-cooled cylinders each. They vibrated and shook like nothing I’d ever experienced.

Don’t get me wrong. They didn’t miss or falter; they just shook. Dick said it was their nature, and Doc Kinkaid backed him up. They both trusted the engines, and I trusted Dick. He was pretty careful about such things.

Dick assured us they were the most reliable aircraft engines ever built. They’d been designed by a friend of his, Charles Lawrance, helped along by Navy funding.

Lindy had one. So did Chamberlin. The Spirit of St. Louis and Columbia both made it across, but our crossing was in a tri-motor, which was harder, not easier. We needed all three engines to run all the way without shaking themselves to pieces. We had a catwalk to go out and repair a bad engine and even tools to cut one loose and drop it into the sea, but we privately hoped not to be the first to try such desperate measures.

The engines’ tone was a deep rhythmic thrum, thrum, thrum so loud it drowned out the exhaust sound and wind noise. They sounded like tomtoms from Hades, but the steady shaking and pounding was a reassuring song of life.

Hour-after-hour they hadn’t missed a beat, but the stridency of their prolonged toil was making us all deaf. After the first hour, we resorted to passing notes to communicate. I stuffed cotton in my ears.

It didn’t help much, but I needed to keep my hearing somehow. The radio was a last minute addition, and it was my job. I’d never even considered not being able to copy Morse code after a dozen hours behind those engines.

The radio was one of the experiments Dick insisted on bringing along. No one had ever tried to communicate from an airplane out in the middle of the ocean before.

I sure wasn’t going to mess with it in the dark, unless I had to.

Dick nudged me, pointing outside. He put his lips to my ear, but I couldn’t hear a word he said. He pulled out his ledger, jotted something, and passed it to me.

I flicked my small light on, the one with the red lens that wouldn’t destroy my night vision. The page had several notations, Unable to navigate. He’d written it over and over again. The last note was in large letters, had an exclamation point after it, and was underlined.

I nodded agreement. Dick was an excellent navigator, but without star sights or drift readings it was hopeless. We had no idea where we were.

Next to a fiery crash at the end of the runway, that’s what I’d been most worried about.

That was the second thing that had gone wrong: The weather. Even after our plane was ready, we’d still waited as the weather deteriorated.

Our sponsor was still willing to back us, but he now wanted us to delay. He thought our trip, and his department store, would get bad publicity if we showed poor manners by intruding on Lindy’s celebrity. The Navy thought that way as well, and some in Washington even suggested we should cancel since we couldn’t be first.

Dick finally agreed it didn’t seem right to leave until Lindy got back from France and had his ticker tape parade in New York, but that courtesy caused us a bundle of other problems. Hundreds of letters poured in cursing Commander Byrd for not having backbone and accusing him of cowardice. People are crazy sometimes.

All this put us under enormous pressure to get going now that Lindy was back, so here we were. Even though the weather was bad, our Weather Service meteorologist, Doctor Kimball, insisted it was about as good as we could expect. Dick finally rationalized we’d gain more scientific and practical knowledge if we met some adverse weather.

He was right, of course, but only if we actually made it to Paris. This summer the Atlantic had already claimed over a dozen planes. The world had been looking for Nungesser and Coli since they left Le Bourget on May 11, hoping the famous French aviators were still alive. It wasn’t likely, and we all knew it, not after over six weeks, but we’d been asked to keep an eye out for them on our crossing.

Look for The White Bird, they said. You might see it. We’d looked at each other, nodded, and said we would. It was an excuse to get going. The notion was silly, as if airplanes moved along roads in the sky over the ocean where they could pass each other and wave, but that’s what we said. We’d look.

Unless we got lucky, they’d be looking for us too. We were lost, unable to navigate, and my calculations showed that we didn’t have enough fuel to make Europe unless we’d somehow picked up a tailwind. We’d burned too much fuel and the big 1,200 gallon tank in the fuselage had developed a persistent leak I was unable to stop with putty.

Now we had to worry about fumes and a spark setting us on fire, in addition to everything else. It wasn’t leaking badly, but I cut a small hole in the flooring under the tank so gas could run out and left my window cracked to keep my head clear.

At least we’d brought life rafts and supplies. Apparently that was more than Nungesser and Coli bothered to do. It surprised me, but that’s what France’s Vice Counsel Mory told us the day we’d christened the America. Mory was a bit miffed that we’d used water from the Delaware where George Washington had crossed instead of French champagne, but Dick smoothed it over by calling to mind Lafayette and assuring him we honored France’s flyers.

Mory’s naïve words and attitude bothered me. It isn’t good that so many people are attempting spectacular flights without proper preparation. There are already protests against the useless expenditure of lives.

The French must have expected their White Bird – L’Oiseau Blanc – to float like a cork if it went down. Didn’t they know how hard water was when you hit it at speed? Or realize that modern steamships were still being lost in the Atlantic