He looked at his watch. There was no time to waste; by speedboat, Lomas could be halfway to Nassau by now. Hoagie went to the office he rented in the darkest recesses of the hangar.

He unlocked the door, picked up his leather flight bag, and called the gas-shack to see if the Stearman had been gassed.

"Cedric? Hoagie here. Did you fill me up with petrol?"

There was a hesitation. "Nah, mon..."

Strange! He'd left the prop turned vertically, as a signal for refueling. Cedric seldom missed. He thought he heard a voice in the background, over the broadcast of a football game from the States. He wondered if Cedric was celebrating Junkanoo all by himself or had visitors in the shack.

"You mind getting on it, then?"

Another pause. "Yes, suh... jes' go on out."

He looked at his watch. Four-fifteen; not more than two hours of daylight left for searching. Lomas was getting farther from his reach with every moment. He picked up his flight bag.

He had the strange impression that someone had been in his office. He glanced around. Everything seemed okay: typewriter dusty but covered; sectional chart racks full of seldom used U.S. charts, in case anyone chartered for Miami; flight clothing hanging; the 'chutes he kept for sky divers sitting on their repacking table.

He heard quick, frantic footsteps echoing in the hangar. Mike and Jake appeared at the door.

"Hoagie," Mike burst out, "my mom flipped. She's after that shark with Neptune's Folly and she's headed out to sea!"

Hoagie stared at him. "Alone?"

"Alone."

So much for the hunt for Lomas.

"Well, then, let's go," he said.

***

Cedric Farthing, Supervisor of Fueling Operations at the Whiskey Cay Aerodrome, hung up the phone and stared into the muzzle of the gun.

Cedric was a tubby little black man who drove the gas truck and supervised only a black-and-white mouser named Ricardo, provided by Government House for rat control. Ricardo was regarding his employer and the intruder with equal disdain from the shack's windowsill.

The man—South American or Mexican from his accent—had invaded Cedric's private domain in the little shack, arriving like a paratrooper, strapped into a 'chute, almost an hour ago.

He had been sitting in Cedric's chair on Cedric's pillow, 'chute and all, next to the door ever since, listening to American football from Miami. He looked like the soldiers Cedric had seen on TV flying toward France on D-Day in Normandy.

Cedric had been sitting, pillowless, on a carton of aviation oil cans ever since. This angered him greatly. He needed his pillow; he had piles.

The whole thing was a nightmare, and Cedric still could not credit his eyes. "Mon, I done what you said. Now what you gwine do?"

Lomas regarded him sleepily. What he was going to do to the fat little black man would only panic him, and when men panicked, they sometimes were more trouble than when they had hope.