“We’ll wait ’til we see what sort of ‘it’ it is.”

“You can get a flying machine soon as it’s in school. By then flying will be even less dangerous than it is now.”

Another machine was approaching the grass.

“Who’s driving that blue Farman?”

The Farman, another French-built airship, was a single-propeller pusher biplane. It looked extremely stable, descending as steadily as if it were gliding down a track.

“Sir Eddison-Sydney-Martin.”

“He could be a winner. He’s won all of England’s cross-country races, flying the best machines.”

“Poor as a church mouse,” Archie noted, “but married well.”

The socially prominent Archibald Angel Abbott IV, whose ancestors included the earliest rulers of New Amsterdam, could gossip as knowledgeably about Germans, Frenchmen, and Britons as about New York blue bloods, thanks to a long honeymoon in Europe—sanctioned by Joe Van Dorn in exchange for scouting overseas branches for the agency.

“The baronet’s wife’s father is a wealthy Connecticut physician. She buys the machines and looks after him. He’s extremely shy. Look there, speaking of having a wealthy benefactor, here comes Uncle Sam’s—U.S. Army Lieutenant Chet Bass.”

“That’s the Signal Corps Wright he’s driving.”

“I knew Chet at school. When he starts in on the future of aerial bombs and torpedoes, you’ll have to shoot him to shut him up. Though he has a point. With the constant war talk in Europe, Army officers haunt the aviation meets.”

“Is that red one another Wright?” Bell asked, puzzled by an odd mix of similarities and differences. “No, it can’t be,” he said as it drew nearer. “The propeller’s in front. It’s a tractor biplane.”

“That’s the ‘workingman’s’ entry, Joe Mudd driving. It started out as a Wright, ’til it collided with an oak tree. Some labor unionists trying to improve their reputation bought the wreck and cobbled it together out of spare parts. They call it the ‘American Liberator.’”

“Which unions?”

“Bricklayers, Masons and Plasterers teamed up with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. It’s a good little machine, considering that they’re operating on a shoestring. Whiteway’s trying to bar them.”

“On what grounds?” Bell asked.

“‘If workingmen find themselves with excess funds,’” Archie mimicked Whiteway’s pompous delivery, “‘they should contribute them to the Anti-Saloon League.’”

“Temperance? I’ve seen Preston Whiteway drunk as a lord.”

“On champagne, not beer. Drink is a privilege, to his way of thinking, which should be reserved for those who can afford it. Needless to say, when he had Josephine’s flying machine painted ‘Whiteway Yellow,’ Joe Mudd and the boys varnished theirs ‘Revolution Red.’”

Bell searched the sky for her. “Where is our girl?”

“She’ll be back,” Archie assured him, peering anxiously. “She’ll run out of gas soon. She’ll have to come back.”

A scream at a high pitch suddenly pierced the air like a pneumatic siren.