Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb by D. R. Martin

continued. “We’ll give the troopers flashlights, if we can find enough. The lads will float above the water to mark your runway on both sides. As simple as that. A safe nighttime takeoff.”
    Danny shook his head emphatically. “I’m really sorry, but I’ve gotta say no. Taking the Gianelli out on black water, in the dark, in that drizzle? Even with the help of ghosts and flashlights? Not a good idea. And anyway, a few hours’ wait shouldn’t matter, should it?”
    In the next room a telephone rang. Mr. Cargill heaved himself up off the sofa and went out to answer it. When he came back he was scowling even more darkly than usual.
    “It was Miss Beale, my managing editor,” he said, looking at the two pilots. “The Department of Etheristics has the police out looking for us. They’ve been to Johnny and Mel’s house already. The ghost of some old lady walloped Santangelo pretty good, with a broom. Wish I coulda seen that. Gentlemen, they know your floatplane came in and refueled at South Bay Port.”
    “But they can’t find us, can they?” Johnny asked.
    “I’m afraid they know exactly where we are.”
    “But how could they?” Johnny was appalled.
    “Miss Beale tells me one of our pilots got too talkative.”
    It seemed unlikely that someone with Danny’s dusky complexion could turn pink, then red, but he did. “The dock manager at South Bay Port asked where we were headed,” the flier moaned. “I told him an estate up on the Treport River.”
    “Doesn’t take much to figure out who at the Clarion has a big, fancy cottage on the Treport,” Mr. Cargill observed.
    “So if we stay till dawn,” Johnny said, suddenly more concerned than he’d been all night, “we might not even get to go!”
    Mel drew herself up. “We have to try a night takeoff. The colonel won’t let us down. You have my word.”
    “I’m not sure it’s worth dyin’ for,” Jock drawled.
    Danny looked at his co-pilot, then at Mel and Johnny. “Listen, I’m really sorry about blabbing my mouth back there at South Bay. Really sorry. But if I make the wrong decision… I’m the captain of that Gianelli out there and I’m responsible for all our lives. If you could tell me what this is all about, Mel—why do you have government officials after you? What’s so darned important that you’d risk your necks for it?”
    “I know this may sound insane.” Mel shook her head. “But I think someone, somewhere is trying to create what I call an etheric bomb. If it exists, it would be the most powerful weapon in history—capable of utterly destroying a city the size of Zenith or Neuport. One single bomb!”
    Danny shook his head. “All due respect, Mel, but you’ve gotta be mistaken. How could such a thing even be possible?”
    Mel filled in Danny and Jock on the Gesellschaft murders, then explained her suspicions about the etheric bomb. She said that as far as she knew, the people in this room were all that stood between this horrible weapon and the lives of innocent millions.
    Mel suddenly looked as if she were carrying the weight of the world on her skinny shoulders. “I actually hope, Danny, that I’m wrong. But can we take that chance?”
    Danny looked grimly around at the others. “I don’t like it, not one bit. But I guess we’ve got to give it a try.”
    At that, Mel gave her orders to the colonel. “Survey the river. Quick as you can. We need a mile and a half of clean water.”
     

 
    Chapter 20
    Aided by the caretaker and his wife, Mr. Cargill and the adventurers combed the big bluestone cottage and guest cabins, hunting for flashlights. They found seventeen that worked—exactly as many as they needed.
    In less than an hour, the colonel and his troopers had finished surveying the water. Everyone gathered on the dock, the drizzle still coming down, as the colonel reported his findings to Mel and Johnny.
    “We can give your flying machine a mile and a quarter of deep, open water, going downriver,” the ghost