The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World

It did not take them long to catch on. In fact, the first of the jeeps was after me even as I was stuffing the driver in back with the others. This barrier of bodies was a blessing because no more guns were going off. But they certainly were in hot pursuit. I did a sharp turn around a building and sent a platoon of boots jumping for cover, then took a fast look at the pursuers. My! Twenty, thirty vehicles of all kinds tore along after me. Cars, jeeps, trucks, even a motorcycle or two, passing one another, horns and sirens going, having a wonderful time. Jim diGriz, benefactor of mankind. Wherever I go, happiness follows. I turned into a large hangar and rushed between rows of parked helicopters. Mechanics dived aside in a cloud of flying tools as I skittered between the machines in a tight turn and back toward the open front of the hangar. As I emerged on one side, my followers were rushing in at the other. Very exciting.

Helicopters—why not? This was Bream Field, the self-proclaimed helicopter capital of the world. If they could fix the things, they could fly them. By now the entire naval station would be locked tight and surrounded. I had to find another way out. Off to one side the green glass form of the tower loomed up, and I headed in that direction. The flight line was before me, and a fat-bellied helicopter stood there, motor rumbling and blades swishing in slow circles. I squealed the jeep to a stop below the gaping door. When I stood up to throw my bags through it, a heavy boot kicked out at my head.

They had been alerted by radio, of course, as probably had everyone else in a hundred-mile radius. It was annoying. I had to duck under the blow, grab the boot, and wrestle with its owner while my horde of faithful followers roared up behind me. The boot owner knew entirely too much about this kind of fighting, so I cheated and shortened the match by shooting him in the leg with one of my needles. Then I threw the money in, buried some sleepgas grenades after it, and finally myself.

Not wanting to disturb the pilot, who was snoring at the controls, I slipped into the copilot's seat and bugged my eyes at the dials and knobs. There were certainly enough of them for such a primitive device. By trial and error I managed to find the ones that I wanted, but by this time I was surrounded by a solid ring of vehicles, and a crowd of white-hatted cluband gun-bearing SP's were fighting to be first into the copter. The sleepgas dropped them, even the ones wearing gas masks, and I waited until I had a full load, then pulled the throttle full on.

There have been better takeoffs, but as an instructor once told me, anything that gets you airborne is satisfactory. The machine shuddered and shimmied and wallowed about. I saw men diving for safety below and felt the crunch of the wheels against the top of a truck. Then we were up and sagging away in a slow turn. Toward the ocean and the south. It was not chance alone that had led me to this particular military establishment when my funds ran low. Bream Field is situated in the lower corner of California with the Pacific Ocean on one side and Mexico on the other. Which is as far south and as far west as you can go and stay in the United States. I no longer wished to stay in the United States. Not with what looked like all the Navy and Marine helicopters in the country rumbling up after me. I'm sure the fighter planes were on the way. But Mexico is a sovereign nation, a different country, and the pursuit could not follow me there. I hoped. At least it would pose some problems. And before the problems had been solved, I would be long gone.

As the white beaches and blue water flew by beneath me, I worked on a simple escape plan. And familiarized myself with the controls. After a bit of trial and error and a few sickening lurches, I found the automatic pilot. A nice device that could be set to hover or to follow a course. Just what I needed. The mere sight of it provided my plan, complete and clear. Below me the border rushed up, then the bullring and the pink, lavender, and yellow houses of the Mexican beach resort. They swept by quickly enough, and the grim coastline of Baja California instantly began. Black teeth of rocks in the foam, sand and sharp gorges cutting down to the sea gray mesquite, dusty cactus. An occasional house or campsite. Dead ahead a rocky peninsula jutted out into the ocean, and I pulled the machine up over it and down on the other side. The rest of the copters were only seconds behind me.

Seconds were all I needed. I set the controls to hover and climbed down among the sleeping defenders of the law. The ocean was about ten meters below, the great spinning rotors sending up clouds of spray from it. I threw both my bags out into the water and had turned to inject the pilot in the neck even before they had hit. He was stirring and blinking—the sleepgas antidote is almost instantaneous—as I set the robot pilot for forward flight and dived for the open door.