TCB Part 18: Thursday Evening (cont.)

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When last we knew, Phineas and Anabelle had executed their plan to steal the Spartan airship. The plan was not without a few bumps, but now we find our team assembling at the Airport for some last preparations before the big day. Use the links above to skip back if you need a refresher.

Thursday Evening (cont.)

By the time the Spartan was visible from the airport, twilight was in its waning minutes. Phineas piloted it to a rocky, but safe landing in the middle of the tarmac. Phineas hopped the short distance to the ground and helped Anabelle make the jump as well. The team was assembled with the gear for the remainder of the heist. Kostas and Dr. Montebanque began to load gear into the cabin while Higgs gave Phineas and Anabelle a quick debrief.

“Everything go off without a hitch?” Higgs asked urgently.

“More or less.” Phineas winked at Anabelle.

“Good. Did anybody see you?”

Anabelle responded quickly. “A guard. He’s been detained on the roof.”

“Can he identify you?”

“Probably.” Phineas replied, “Belle made quite an impression. But I suspect he’ll embellish. It’s a bit embarrassing to have been bamboozled by a beautiful woman.”

“Ok.” Higgs replied nervously. “If you assure me that it’ll be ok. They won’t find him until morning, and by then we’ll be well on our way. Let’s just hope it doesn’t complicate things.”

“No worries, Higgs. Trust me.” Phineas smiled

“I was afraid you might ask me to do that.”

Back on the airship, Phineas took the opportunity to change out of his mechanic’s disguise. He was much more comfortable in his usual three piece suit. Anabelle changed into something more evening appropriate, and they were all ready to head to the track.

During the flight, Higgs couldn’t help but be nervous. What if someone noticed that the Spartan was missing? It was only the most sensational airship ever manufactured. What if they were seen tomorrow morning? He was still reserving the option to call the whole thing off if it didn’t smell right. He wasn’t there yet, but he wasn’t far.

When they arrived at the track, Dr. Montebanque landed the ship expertly in the infield. Anabelle swore that he was, far and away, a better pilot than Phineas. The comment seemed at least somewhat intended to irritate Phineas, who wasn’t biting.

Charlotte led the way to the hydrogen storage building. It was at the far end of the facility, as far from the track as possible. The track’s owners couldn’t take any chance that something could cause the hydrogen to ignite. Higgs made a mental note for himself. Phineas, Dr. Montebanque, and Anabelle stayed back at the airship where they would oversee the deflation of the balloon, while the others went after the hydrogen.

The door was locked when they got there, but that had been expected. Kostas went to work on it right away. He moved quickly, like some kind of machine. He opened his lock picking set, and selected a couple of small tools. Inserting them in the lock, it seemed like only seconds and the lock turned. The door swung open.

“Too Easy.” Kostas said and walked into the room.

Higgs and Charlotte followed. The building was huge. It was a converted warehouse that now held dozens of tanks of helium, hydrogen and kerosene. Near a far wall, there was a stack of single-use rockets.

“Thee Moy!” Kostas said in awe, “Is a beautiful sight.” He pulled out his kerosene light and was about to click the piezo when Higgs grabbed his hand.

“Don’t. This place is more flammable than your apartment. You’ll get us all killed.”

“Is okay. Ok?” Kostas smiled in the moonlight. “Is sealed lamp, sealed explosives. No worry.” He clicked his light on, and laughed as Higgs winced in anticipation of his death. Nothing happened and Kostas let out a loud laugh.

“Alright, keep your voice down; we don’t know if there are people nearby.”

“Okay boss.” Kostas said and walked off toward the tank labeled Hydrogen.

“There should be enough hose to get to the infield. They fill airbike balloons with this tank, but you’d never get the bike near this building.” Charlotte started unraveling a hose and pulling it out of the building.

“Hey, Charlie.” Higgs had an idea “Do people ever paint their airbikes?”

“No.” Charlotte shook her head. “Paint’s too hard to work with. Some people dye their balloons though. Why?”

“Is there dye somewhere at the track?”

“Sure, down in the pits I’d guess.” Charlotte responded. “I think I know what you have in mind.”

Satisfied, Higgs and Charlotte began to leave the building. They had to pull Kostas away from a stack of rockets that he was caressing lovingly. Together they dragged the long hose to the infield where the deflating airship was waiting. Hose in place, Higgs followed charlotte to the pits to find some dye. He picked out a pale blue color and they returned to the infield.

“Is it really time for a paint job?” Phineas joked

“Camouflage.” Higgs replied. “It’ll be sunny tomorrow, this blue dye will keep us hidden in plain sight.”

“Clever. I’ll give you a hand with that.” Anabelle laughed.

Together, she and Higgs applied the quick-drying dye on the fabric of the balloon. After a couple of hours’ time, they had finished coloring the balloon and filled it with hydrogen. The balloon tugged at the mooring like a puppy on a leash.  

“We need ballast” Dr. Montebanque pointed out. “The ship has water tanks that are currently full, but it is not nearly enough to counteract the increased buoyancy of the hydrogen. This ship was never made to fly with hydrogen.”

“Right. We need heavy stuff.” Charlotte simplified. “Well, there are a bunch of bars and cables and things in the pits, but those are built to be light.”

“What about sand? There are a few hundred sandbags making a crash wall near the pits over there.” Anabelle pointed out a six foot wall of sand bags at the edge of the infield.

“Good. Perfect.” Dr. Montebanque replied.

The team worked together to load the bags onto the dozen ballast hooks around the outside of the cabin. When those were full, they loaded the bags directly into the cabin itself. By the time they were finished, all were sore and sweating. The ship was now much more under control with the added weight. They would be able to offload the sand once they began loading the loot tomorrow.

They all climbed aboard the ship and took off to the south.

***

Higgs sat across from Phineas at one of the small tables near the airship’s bar. Phineas sipped a glass of Scotch whiskey. Higgs could see how relaxed Phineas was and marveled at it.

“How do you do it?” Higgs asked

“What’s that?” Phineas said as he lifted the glass to his mouth.

“Look so calm all the time.”

Phineas laughed quietly. “Practiced deception.”

“Aren’t you worried about this? Ok, so everything has gone well so far, but we haven’t gotten to the toughest part yet.”

“I don’t worry, Higgs. But of course I see that our odds aren’t high. If there weren’t a risk, everybody would do this kind of thing.”

“Yeah. No matter how much I plan, no matter how many times I calculate the odds, it doesn’t help. I still feel like there’s something we didn’t think of.”

“Like what?” Phineas sat forward in his seat, spinning his glass on the table.

“Like should we have had someone on the train from the start? Wouldn’t that work best? We could have gotten Kostas on the train, he could have picked the lock to the car.”

Phineas laughed, “Have you seen Kostas? The guy stands out like a Vickie in the slums. Heck, I feel nervous having him on this airship, and I KNOW he’s on my team.”

“Maybe you then. We could have had you on the train. You could have gone in disguise, make sure things go off without a hitch.”

“It’s not too late, Higgs. Do you want me on the train?”

“Do you think we can drop you off at the station and still get ourselves into position in time?”

“It’ll be tight.”

Higgs grabbed the bottle of whiskey and poured himself a glass. “Yeah. Too tight. It’ll be fine. I just worry too much.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Phineas raised his glass and tapped it against Higgs’s. The two drained their glasses. Phineas stood, “Well if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get a few hours of sleep while we’re enroute. Don’t drive yourself crazy, Higgs. It’ll either work or it won’t, but I’m not sure you can do anything about it at this point anyway.”


Part 19 >