The Case of the Mad Scientist

Chapter 11: Rehearsal

Chapter 11: Rehearsal

I accompanied Blaze Lane from our hotel to the Suntory Hall where Stella was going to put on her show in four days. The Hall had two auditoriums; she was getting the larger, one able to hold two thousand people. Right then, the seats were empty save for a few Japanese who I guess were management of the Hall. Stella and Tara were on the stage, supervising the assembly of what looked like a large aquarium. It was a steel framework with four glass walls. It stood on four legs with wheels almost a foot off the floor so that you could see there was nothing under it. The main part was around eight feet tall. Some guys were working on a hoist directly over the tank. Nôvel(D)rama.Org's content.

Blaze and I went down the aisle to take seats in the front row. As we watched, I got the impression that Stella and Tara had done this many times. They worked like a well-oiled machine, at times seeming to communicate without words. They were rising and lowering a steel cable from the hoist, and she was telling them that they had to move it over so it was directly over the tank at one end of the short distance it could travel sideways.

The trip to Japan had been relatively uneventful. We landed at Honolulu International but I didn’t have a chance to see any of the famous Hawaiian sights. We were driven by shuttle to the Hickham Air Force Base, which shares runways with Honolulu International, then loaded onto this humongous airplane. The crewman who helped us to our seats told us that it was a C5A Galaxy. Believe me, that thing was huge! He said the wingspan was two hundred and twenty-two feet and it was almost two hundred and fifty feet long. The cargo area was filled with boxes that he said were food and medical supplies for victims of the massive earthquake they had a couple months ago.

I had serious doubts about whether or not this thing could possibly fly. It was impossible to imagine that much metal could push itself into the sky. When I expressed doubts, the crewman laughed and told me it was one of these planes that put the Space Shuttle on its back and flew it around.

Where we were sitting, there were no windows. A few minutes after we were seat belted in, there came this whine/roar from one side, then the other as they fired up those big engines. For a long time we didn’t seem to be moving, and I had to wonder why they were just sitting there and not taking off. Eventually, the noise increased and I could feel the plane moving. The crewman who had helped us returned, took a seat and grinned. After some moving and turning, we stopped again. Then the whining noise really got loud. The whole plane seemed to shudder, like a wild beast eager to run. It seemed like minutes were passing and all we were doing was racing down the runway. Then the floor tilted and that huge beast was climbing for the clouds.

The kid in the green flight suit just grinned. I guess this was old hat to him, but I found it a little frightening. On commercial airliners, everything seems to go smoothly. On this thing, there was shaking, far too much noise and a feeling that it was really straining to keep in the air. Right then I was remembering something my old granddad used to tell me: “If man were meant to fly, God would have given him wings.” Maybe granddad had something there.

Maybe Stella and Tara do a lot of flying, ’cause they settled back and actually took a nap! Blaze was bright-eyed and as eager as a kid going on a roller coaster ride. I leaned back, tilted my hat over my eyes and pretended to sleep too, while I waited for the inevitable yelling and screaming and praying just before the crash.

We didn’t crash.

I muttered a little prayer of thanks when the hatch finally opened and we stepped out into a warm rain.

The airport was a damned busy place. Carts and shuttles racing all over the place, large trucks backing up to the plane, and a lot of people who were either running around or just standing in place. I watched in awe as the whole front of the plane began tilting up. Like a giant mouth, it opened wider and wider. A ramp was pulled out and men began unloading those crates. We were deposited in a shuttle and driven

to our hotel. I was glad to see my suitcase being loaded. I wanted to check and make sure that Wilma had made the trip okay.

Wilma was just fine and now resting comfortably under my trench coat, a reassuring weight there.

“Stella is a very good escape artist,” Blaze told me. “I’ve seen some of her shows and it is impossible to believe that she escapes from some of that stuff.” The young woman was bubbling over with enthusiasm for this performer. “There was this one time that I saw her all tied up, gagged and then stuffed into a sack and hung it up. They pulled a curtain around her and in just a few seconds pulled it back. When they opened the sack, there was Tara, tied exactly as Stella had been. Stella came down the aisle, waving at the audience and smiling.”

“The old switcher-roo, huh?”

“She taught me all I know about escaping,” Blaze continued. “We had quite a few private lessons. It was most informative.”

“You think you’re good at escaping?” I asked. If this dame thought highly of her skills, then I was willing to put them to the test. She did have a very nice body even if her head was only half filled.

“Oh, I’m good, but not nearly as good as Stella. I really don’t know how she got out of some of those ties.”

“I had a girlfriend once,” I began, “she was pretty good at escaping from ropes.” I paused as the image of Linda Goodbody flashed before my eyes. Linda was the best thing that ever happened to me. She was the housemother for Alpha Alpha Alpha sorority when I was called in to solve the Case of the Kidnapped Sorority Sister. And then, not long after that, more coeds began disappearing on the campus. When this really crazy doctor grabbed Linda, I just had to do something. She was ever so

grateful when I rescued her, and spent the better part of a long, long weekend showing me just how grateful she was.

“You did? Gosh, I’ll bet you had some fun times with her. My boyfriend, Mark, Mark Paulson, you met him at the briefing, well, he helps me practice escapes.” She actually giggled, then continued, “You never can tell when you might get tied up on an assignment. All us spies practice a lot.”

This was beginning to sound more and more like it would be a fun case.