They were at sixty-nine knots when Stone eased the yoke back a fraction. The airplane left the ground in what seemed like the last yard of pavement, but it didn’t want to climb. Stone put the gear lever up and the flaps to zero, hoping for less drag, and held the airplane level, wanting to let it gain airspeed. At eighty knots, with the gear at about ten feet up and the house rushing at them, he tried for more altitude and cleared the roof by what seemed like inches.

“Sweet Jesus,” Young said. “Is this thing going to fly?”

Stone leveled off at a hundred feet, watching the treetops flashing past a few feet below them, dodging the taller ones as the airplane struggled to gain airspeed. Then they were over water, inching their way up to five hundred feet. An overcast was, maybe, a couple of hundred feet above them.

“I thought you were going to hit that boat’s mast,” Young said as they flew past a moored yacht.

“We’re going to do the rest of the flight at this altitude,” Stone said. “It’ll keep us out of clouds and get us down faster.” He leveled off at five hundred feet and eased the throttle back to keep the airspeed in the green. They were using a lot of fuel at this altitude and speed, but the distance was short.

Stone reached down between the seats and handed Young the airport directory. “Look up Rockland and give me the unicom frequency,” he said. “There’s no tower on the field.”

Young took a painfully long time to do so, but finally he said, “One hundred twenty-three point zero five.”

Stone dialed in the frequency. “Rockland unicom, November one, two, three, tango, foxtrot. Anybody in the pattern?” No reply.

“Says here their hours are eight A.M. to eight P.M.” Young said. Stone looked at his watch: It was a little after five.

“Rockland traffic,” Stone said, “anyone in the pattern?” No reply. The sun was up but low in the sky, casting a beautiful glow over the sea. Stone entered the airport identifier, RKD, into the GPS, and pressed the direct button. The arrow on the horizontal situation indicator swung to his left, pointing the way, and he adjusted his heading.

The sun rose into the overcast, and the light became dull and dusklike. “Twelve miles,” Stone said aloud, reading the distance off the GPS.

“I think I see the airport,” Young said, “dead ahead.”

The airplane’s speed was right at redline, and now Stone could see the runway. He switched on his strobe and landing lights, the better to be seen by other aircraft. He grabbed the airport directory from Young and checked the runways: 13-31 was 5,007 feet, the longest. Stone squinted into the distance. He thought he had it in sight.