from the wall
above his head and held it to his lips.

"Flight two-twenty calling," he said crisply. "Something's got a radar
on us. We saw it. Get a fix on us and come a-running. We're at eighteen
thousand and"--here the floor of the cabin tilted markedly--"now we're
climbing. Get a fix on us and come a-running. Over!"

He took the phone from his lips and said conversationally: "Radar's a
giveaway. This is no fly-way. You wouldn't think he'd take that much of
a chance, would you?"

Joe clenched his hands. The pilot did things to the levers on the column
between the two pilots' seats. He said curtly: "Arm the jatos."

The co-pilot did something mysterious and said: "Check."

All this took place in seconds. The pilot said, "I see something!" and
instantly there was swift, tense teamwork in action. A call by radio,
asking for help. The plane headed up for greater clearance between it
and the clouds. The jatos made ready for firing. They were the
jet-assisted take-off rockets which on a short or rough field would
double the motors' thrust for a matter of seconds. In straightaway
flight they should make the plane leap ahead like a scared rabbit. But
they wouldn't last long.

"I don't like this," said the co-pilot in a flat voice. "I don't see
what he could do----"

Then he stopped. Something zoomed out of a cloud. The action was
completely improbable. The thing that appeared looked absolutely
commonplace. It was a silver-winged private plane, the sort that cruises
at one hundred and seventy-five knots and can hit nearly two-fifty if
pushed. It was expensive, but not large. It came straight up out of the
cloud layer and went lazily over on its back and dived down into the
cloud layer again. It looked like somebody stunting for his own private
lunatic pleasure--the kind of crazy thing some people do, and for which
there is no possible explanation.

But there was an explanation for this.

At the very top of the loop, threads of white smoke appeared. They
should have been unnoticeable against the cloud. But for the fraction of
an instant they were silhouetted against the silver wings. And they were
not misty wisps of vapor. They were dense, sharply defined rocket
trails.

They shot upward, spreading out. They unreeled with incredible,
ever-increasing velocity.

The pilot hit something with the heel of his hand. There was a
heart-stopping delay. Then the transport leaped forward with a force to
stop one's breath.