A torrent of buckshot roared at him, and the tall detective knew that his tactic had worked. He had won the battle. Celere’s whirling propeller blocked the buckshot. The speeding lead shattered the eight-foot wooden airscrew into splinters. The yellow monoplane staggered in the air. Celere tried to volplane by gaining speed with a diving turn. The weight of the dynamite was too much for the suddenly powerless flying machine. Instead of turning, it began to spin. One wing brushed the parapet of the Inquirer Building and snapped off.

Momentum lost, the wrecked monoplane tumbled toward Market Street.

Isaac Bell held his breath. He could only pray that he had distracted Celere sufficiently to keep him from arming the dynamite. If he hadn’t—if Celere did close the electrical circuit—the falling aeroplane would explode on impact. In two seconds, which stretched like eternity, it hit but did not explode, harming only its murderous inventor and Preston Whiteway’s yellow Rolls-Royce on which it landed.

ISAAC BELL CIRCLED the Inquirer Building and exchanged joyous waves with Marion Morgan.

Then he skirted Nob Hill and steered across the city toward the Golden Gate.

Far behind him, he saw a red speck in the sky. Joe Mudd’s Liberator was approaching Oakland. Bell grinned with genuine pleasure. Mudd and his sturdy little tractor biplane had only ten miles to go to win the Whiteway Cup. The expression on Whiteway’s face would be priceless.

Ahead, a splash of green on the tip of the peninsula that sheltered San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean marked the Presidio. The grounds of the Army post appeared to be in motion, rippling like a wind-stirred field of grain. It was an illusion, Bell realized as he drew nearer, created by a horde of spectators who filled parade grounds, streets, and barracks roofs in the tens of thousands. Closer still, he even saw them clinging to the tops of trees.

The only place with room to alight was the sloping parade ground in front of Infantry Row, the red brick barracks on Montgomery Street, which was guarded by a company of soldiers holding back the crowd.

Bell steered into a salty Pacific wind, blipped his Gnome to slow it down, and landed his machine on the narrow stretch of ground that the Army had secured. The roar of the crowd drowned out his motor. He scanned their faces and felt his heart lift. There was Archie Abbott, standing on his own two feet, pale but smiling, with Lillian bracing one arm. It took Bell a moment to recognize the tall, stylishly dressed brunette with them as Danielle Di Vecchio, who was smiling proudly at her father’s machine. Next to her, considerably less stylish looking but grinning as proudly, was Andy Moser, and Bell surmised that the railroad had cleared the tracks for the Van Dorn Agency’s Eagle Special to speed to San Francisco.