The gra.s.s landing strip stretched ahead for a distance that seemed much shorter in the moonlight. Rick glued his eyes to the point where it ended and pushed forward on the throttle. He wouldn't need lights for the takeoff. The plane shuddered and he released the brakes. The tail came up and the Cub rolled, picking up speed rapidly, then lifted smoothly from the gra.s.s. Airborne!

The horizon was clearly defined and Rick breathed a sigh of relief. No trouble in flying level now. Their only bad moment would come in landing. He climbed to almost a thousand feet, then set a course for Whiteside. He wanted to get a look at the airport approaches by night.

In a short s.p.a.ce he saw the field beacon and then the red boundary lights. He throttled back and let the nose drop, crossing the field at less than two hundred feet. It looked easy. The tension left him and he flew easily, automatically. He had been flying the Cub for so long that it behaved like part of him, without conscious effort. He climbed steadily in a shallow turn until his altimeter read two thousand feet and he was heading out to sea. Far below, Spindrift Island was a dark extension of the land, almost completely framed by silvery, moonlit water.

"Pretty," Scotty said.

Rick nodded. He knew his mother and father were listening to the plane's drone down there. They wouldn't sleep much until he was back.

They had spent ten minutes making the long sweep over Whiteside. Rick glanced at his watch, then banked around on the predetermined course.

He put the Cub in a slow climb.

"We'll arrive a little north of the grounds," he said. "Watch for ship lights. We may see the supply ship before we see Brad Marbek."

"Maybe they've already met," Scotty remarked.

Rick shook his head. "They can't have met yet. Brad would have to go pretty far out. Otherwise, the trawlers going to fish would be able to see him and his supply ship on the horizon."

Scotty shivered. "It's getting cold."

They were climbing steadily. The altimeter read slightly less than four thousand feet. At that height, the men on the ships below wouldn't know what kind of plane was overhead. They flew in silence for several minutes, then Rick warned, "We're getting there."

"I'm watching." Scotty had taken the binoculars from behind the seat where they had been left. Suddenly he grabbed Rick's arm. "There. Dead ahead."

Rick banked the plane a little so he could see from the side window.

Far ahead and below, red lights and white lights twinkled against the sheen of the sea. Some distance separated the lights and he knew he was seeing both vessels. They had not yet met. His pulse began to pound a little. He pulled back slightly on the control wheel and let the Cub climb.

"We'll continue straight on," he told Scotty. "Then we'll turn and come back at a lower alt.i.tude."

"Okay." Scotty leaned out into the slip stream and put the binoculars on the lights. When the ships were behind, he pulled his head in again and rubbed his cold face. "That other ship is a freighter, but not very big. I'd say less than four thousand tons. It's probably a coaster."

Rick wondered, if it was a coastal vessel, why he hadn't found anything in the New York paper at the _Morning Record_. It was probable, he decided, that the ship was heading for some other port, maybe Boston.

"Funny," Scotty said. "The other ship is heading south."

"South? No wonder we didn't find anything in the shipping news.

Listen, Scotty, what if that's just an American coaster? You know what that would mean? That ship would have to rendezvous with some ocean-going freighter, or maybe several of them." His voice hushed.

"What if we've run into something that's only a small part of a really big smuggling ring?"

His ready imagination pictured the coastal vessel sailing regularly between Baltimore and Portland, Maine, meeting ocean-going smugglers and in turn supplying small contraband runners like Brad Marbek and the Kelsos all the way up and down the coast.

"I expected some big ocean freighter," Scotty remarked.

They had been flying steadily out to sea. Now Rick banked around so Scotty could look through the gla.s.ses once more.

"I can see them on the horizon," Scotty said, gla.s.ses to his eyes.

"They've met. The lights are almost together. Hey! The lights just went out!"

"Probably turned out so as not to attract the attention of any pa.s.sing ships," Rick guessed. "They can't see, as we can, that they're the only ships around. We'll stall for a while before going back. Give them time to get rigged for pa.s.sing cargo."

He lifted the camera to his lap, then trimmed the Cub so it would fly by itself. Scotty took the power pack on his own lap and checked again to see that the dynamo-driven spring was wound tight.

Rick had connected the infrared attachment so that a switch was handy under his thumb when his left hand held the camera in position. The camera itself, run by its own spring, was operated by his right hand.

He pressed the infrared switch and heard the dynamo whine softly.

Scotty immediately wound it another half turn to bring the spring up to full tension again.

"Wish I had enough hours to do the flying," he said regretfully. "Then you could photograph without worrying about the plane."

Scotty had his license, but he had not yet acc.u.mulated the experience that would fit him for an adventure like tonight's. Or rather this morning's.

Rick twisted the lens barrel, making sure it was full open, then he twisted the focusing ring until it stopped. Now the camera was focused on infinity. All he needed to do was aim and shoot. He looked at Scotty. His friend's face was a white blur in the dimness inside the plane. "Think we've given them enough time?"

"I think so. They wouldn't need much. The supply ship would have cargo booms all rigged and the first load in the cargo net. Better turn back."

Rick banked, letting the Cub slip as he did so. They lost alt.i.tude rapidly and he watched the silvery sheen of the ocean resolve itself into waves. There was not enough wind to make foam or whitecaps. The two ships would have no trouble coming alongside and moving cargo. He leveled off at five hundred feet on a course that would take them directly over the vessels.

Both boys strained to see ahead, and both saw the blurred outline on the horizon at the same time. Gradually the outline became clearer until finally they flashed directly over the two ships.

"Here we go," Rick said, and the calmness of his voice surprised him.

He rocked the Cub up in a tight bank that would take them in a narrow circle with the ships at the center. His hands made delicate adjustments in the plane's balance so that it would practically fly itself. His feet were light on the rudder pedals. He lifted his hand from the wheel and the Cub held course without a waver.

"Now," he said. He took the camera and pressed it to his cheek, gripping it firmly. His eye found the telescope and he pressed the infrared switch.

Scotty's hand was poised, ready to grab the control wheel if the plane started to slip. The power pack was held tightly between his knees, and his right hand was on the winding handle.

The scene lighted up for Rick. He saw four men on the trawler's deck, looking up at him. He saw the cargo net suspended almost over their heads, and he saw men on the deck of the freighter. His right index finger pressed and the camera started to roll.

The Cub held its tight circle and Rick kept his finger down. Then he felt the camera stop and knew it had to be wound. Swiftly he shifted balance and turned the winding handle until the spring was at full tension again. But his shifting of weight had disturbed the plane's delicate balance. He had to put the camera down and work the tab controls that trimmed the plane with his left hand while his right kept it steady.

It took a few moments. Meanwhile, Scotty had wound the dynamo tight once more. When Rick looked out, the cargo net was no longer in sight.

The men on the freighter's deck were bent over another cargo net, working at cases that evidently were heavy. Rick kept the camera on them, shooting steadily, rewinding when necessary. Then he shifted his view to the trawler. The men were standing over a gaping fish hatch.

Evidently they were stowing the first load while the men on the freighter prepared the second.

"I have enough," Rick said finally. There was nothing more to be seen, unless they wanted to wait for the second load to change ships.

"How much footage did you get?" Scotty asked.

"About fifty feet, maybe a little less."

"That ought to be enough. Let's go home."

Rick swung the Cub in a circle until they were facing the direction of the mainland according to compa.s.s reading, then he leveled off. "I wonder what they thought about the plane overhead," he said.

"It probably scared them stiff," Scotty replied. "Chances are Brad Marbek had a good idea who it was."

The one thing they had overlooked in their plan was Brad's possible reaction to seeing the plane, Rick realized suddenly. Great grinning goldfish! What if he really got scared? They might have defeated their own purpose by making him jettison his contraband!

Then he reasoned that Brad wouldn't dump his cargo if he could help it. Anything worth smuggling was too valuable to be dumped just because two kids saw it transferred. But still . . .

"If I were Brad," he said, "I'd get up a full head of steam for Creek House and unload that stuff. How about you?"