Colton kept his cool, hit his airspeed number, and pulled back on the yoke. After a breathless moment, the plane’s rumbling wheels suddenly went silent. The runway disappeared beneath him, replaced with an epic rush of euphoria.

The white plane rose to the sunrise like a phoenix, an image and reference not lost on its pilot despite his failure at formal education. Colton’s flight from the ashes of a wretched childhood, though, had taken a crooked path. He was a wanted outlaw, a wily one-kid crime wave that had swept across two tranquil islands, damaging their small communities’ sense of security. His illegal deeds had been escalating for years as he studied crime with the same intensity he brought to teaching himself how to fly. Colton had graduated from stealing food to identities, from skipping school to escaping a prison home, from assaulting a soda machine to macing a cop. He often carried a gun, and he was determined not to go back to jail.

Colton Harris-Moore had also just pulled off one of the most audacious thefts in American history—and he was only getting started.

Chapter 2

With the sky brightening behind snow-capped Mount Baker on the Washington State mainland, the stolen Cessna turned south, its pilot gaining confidence as the plane gained altitude. After just a few minutes, Colton crossed the border from San Juan County to Island County, and his home, Camano Island, came into view. A small airport lies at the north end of Camano, but that wasn’t an option. He already had a price on his head there and his face adorned wanted posters all over the island. Colton continued on, flying unchallenged past Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Boeing Field, and the region’s largest commercial airport, Seattle-Tacoma.