Dropping two hundred pounds of dynamite would prove its military value with a bang heard around the world. As to what he would drop his bomb on, the answer was obvious. A con man like Celere was essentially the same as a boomer like Preston Whiteway. Both had an instinct for how to get the most publicity. Few buildings in San Francisco were as tall, and none more famous, than the San Francisco Inquirer Building. A flying machine destroying it would be a shot heard by every army general in the world.

And if Whiteway were to die in his penthouse office atop the San Francisco Inquirer Building, so much the better: the wealthy Widow Josephine would be available, Celere would think. Bell knew she would never fall for him again, but Celere didn’t. By the Italian’s reckoning, he would kill two birds with one bomb, Bell thought grimly: demonstrate the power of his warplane and marry a wealthy widow.

It was good flying weather. The wind had dropped. The sky was clear, the air cool enough to cool the motor and rich enough to make it run at top power. The Gnome rotary would give him the speed to overtake Celere. But when he finally saw the break in the hills that the rail line followed toward Oakland and then the blue bays of Oakland and San Francisco, he still had not caught up. Celere might have smashed along the way, in water or woods, where Bell hadn’t seen him. It was possible. The machines were tired.

Then, abruptly and with a sinking heart, Isaac Bell saw the yellow speck that told him Celere was crossing the bay and closing in on the city. He was flying lower than Bell, perhaps dragged down by the weight of the explosives or perhaps descending to make it easier to hit his target. But it gave Bell a slim advantage, and he took it, pushing his control post forward and diving to increase speed.

Ahead, the Oakland Mole jutted far into San Francisco Bay. It was the pier that carried trains to the ocean freighters and city ferries, and, as he flew the length, he saw parked on it the famous dark green Southern Pacific special owned by the president of the line, Osgood Hennessy. Archie and Lillian had arrived with Danielle Di Vecchio.

He was catching up.

He was well over the water while Celere hadn’t yet crossed to the shore.

Bell pulled his rifle up from the nacelle and clipped it into the swivel. High-power Remington slugs crackling past Celere’s head ought to concentrate his mind more on escaping than dropping a bomb, which would be a cumbersome exercise with lead howling by.

But when Bell located the monoplane in his powerful field glasses, he got a shock.