"Finish what you were going to say! You had the hunch that he was--"
Dawson hesitated a second and then took the plunge. "That he was a
German, sir!"
A moment of tingling silence settled over the made-over bomb
compartment. Then Colonel Welsh broke it with an order to Major Parker.
"Come with me and show me this dead man, Parker," he said. "Dawson, you
and Farmer wait right here for me."
Three seconds later the colonel and the major had climbed out of the
bomber, leaving Dawson and Farmer to twiddle their fingers.
"I am going stark, raving mad!" young Farmer suddenly exploded in a low,
vibrant voice. "If I don't find out something soon, I don't know what
I'll do!"
"I'll join you in a throat-cutting act, pal!" Dawson said, and sighed
heavily. "If this isn't the most mixed-up business we ever got into,
then I don't know what! The colonel's been here half an hour, and we
don't even know why he came down here in the first place. We can thank
the gods for one thing, anyway."
"What's that?"
"That Colonel Welsh was relieved and not burnt up when I told him we had
destroyed those envelopes," Dawson replied. "Envelopes! Phew! I'll be
seeing those darn things in my dreams for the rest of my life. Gosh! One
would think they contained the complete plans of Allied High Command for
the invasion of the European Continent, or something!"
"Maybe they did," Freddy Farmer said with a shrug and a sigh. "Maybe
they did."
With that the pair lapsed into brooding silence. Each was perfectly
content to remain silent, because words were just a waste of breath now.
They had talked themselves black and blue in the face as to the what and
the why of this crazy business. For all their talking, they were right
back where they had started in regard to anything concrete and definite.
Why talk about it any more? It was far, far better to go quietly nuts
waiting for Colonel Welsh to return and throw a little light on the
subject.
They sat and waited for a good fifteen minutes, mulling over their own
thoughts and listening absently to the even murmur of the idling
Wright-Cyclone engines that powered the North American B-25.
At the end of that fifteen minutes, however, the colonel returned. To
Dawson's relief and pleasure, he saw that a lot of the worry had left
the Intelligence officer's face. In fact, there was an almost happy look
in his eyes. He came straight into the bomb compartment, seated himself
at his little table, and took the inter-com phone mike off the wall hook
at his side.
"Take off, Captain," he spoke into it. "Fly north for twenty minutes and
then take up the course I gave you. Eh? Right!"
The colonel put the inter-com mike back on the hook, looked at Dawson,
and smiled faintly.
"Thank heaven for your hunch," he said. "You were absolutely right. He
was a German."
"A spy, sir?" Dave blurted out before he could check himself.
"Naturally," the colonel replied. "Just about the best in the Nazis'
gang. Colonel Baron Franz von Steuben is his name. Or was. Frankly,
we've been after him for a long time. The world is well rid of his kind.
What's the matter, Dawson?"
"Major Parker, sir," Dawson replied, and reddened slightly. "I hope he
didn't think that I--"
"Not a bit of it!" the colonel interrupted quickly. "The major admires
you for your hunch. He'd be the last one in the world who would want you
to keep it to yourself. As a matter of fact, he suspected that you might
feel embarrassed and asked me to give you his compliments and to say he
was sorry he couldn't go along with you."
"To where, sir?" Freddy Farmer fairly shouted. And then he blushed so
flamingly that both Dawson and the colonel had to laugh.
"That's all right, Farmer," the Intelligence officer said, still
chuckling. "Don't blame you at all. I can see it in both your faces that
you're practically ready to blow up with questions. Well, things have
happened that I didn't want to happen, so I guess it's time for me to do
a little explaining. Do you remember that technical sergeant in the
hangar at Bolling Field?"
The two air aces nodded.
"He's dead," Colonel Welsh stated grimly. "He, too, was a Nazi spy. And
working right under my very nose, which doesn't make _me_ feel very
proud. Shortly after your take-off, one of the mechanics who helped to
roll out your plane came to me with the information that the technical
sergeant had been standing right outside that office while I was giving
you your instructions. I can tell you that that was the closest I ever
came to having a case of heart failure. I got to work at once checking
up on that technical sergeant. I won't bother you with the details, but
we caught him cold. Complete with a powerful short-wave sending set, and
all the rest of it. That was _after_ he had had time to do his dirty
work, _if any_. I know, now, what that dirty work was, of course. Your
experiences, and Major Parker's, made the picture clear. He simply
flashed word to other agents to get you two by hook or by crook. He knew
your course, and he knew what you carried, though I'm still positive
that he didn't know the contents of those sealed envelopes.
"Anyway, word was flashed along the network of Nazi spies on this side
of the Atlantic and to that U-boat lurking in the Caribbean. Heavens!
That was a daring stunt those devils tried."
"I'm still shaking at how close it came to being successful!" Dawson
spoke up in a strained voice as the colonel paused.
"Amen, and let's not think of that any more," the Intelligence officer
added almost fervently. "As soon as I learned the truth, I flashed you
a message to halt the flight and wait for me. I was too late at Puerto
Rico. I also took off in this plane at once to get down here and contact
you. I stopped at Puerto Rico, and Miami, too, and collected the two
sealed envelopes you had already delivered. Then I came on here and
found out that you two had used your heads. Just in time, too, thank
goodness. That you beat Colonel Baron Franz von Steuben to the punch is
something you can congratulate yourselves on for the rest of your lives.
If I had even dreamed that devil was down here, I would have had
nineteen different kinds of cat fits. But all's well that ends well.
And, although we've got to change our plans, we're still a couple of
jumps up on the Nazis."
Colonel Welsh paused for breath and to take out his handkerchief and
wipe imaginary beads of sweat from his forehead. Both Dawson and Farmer
sat on the edges of their seats waiting for him to continue, but after a
moment or two of silence Dawson couldn't stand it any longer.
"Can't you tell us a little about all this, Colonel? Just a little that
might help us--well, in case we got into another jam? Or are we on our
way back to Washington now? Is the job finished as far as Freddy and I
are concerned?"
"No, we are not heading back to Washington," Colonel Welsh answered
quietly. "As for you and Farmer, the job is just beginning. Well, you've
earned the right to know. Since I was going to explain at Natal anyway,
I might as well explain now. You recall all that F.B.I. business in New
York? Remember my telling you of that list of names turned over to the
F.B.I. for checking?"
"Could we forget, sir?" Dawson chuckled. "Freddy and I have been going
nuts trying to add two and two. We got a zero every time, and I don't
mean a Jap Zero, either."
"Well, all that was simply a check and double-check, you might say,"
Colonel Welsh said as his face became grave. "Every name on that
approved list was to be connected in some way with--"
The colonel paused and ran his tongue across his lower lip.
"Every man on that list," he began again, "is to have something to do
with a proposed trip by President Roosevelt to a war conference with
Prime Minister Winston Churchill at Casablanca in Morocco, North
Africa!"
A moment of silence hung over the trio as the colonel finished speaking.
Then Dawson gave a little laugh and looked at Freddy Farmer. "Pick up
the marbles, Master Mind!" he said. "Pick them all up. You win!"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
_Midnight Raider_
"What?" Colonel Welsh exploded as he looked from Dawson to Farmer, and
back again. "What's this?"
"Farmer, sir," Dave explained. "We made about six million guesses apiece
as to what this was all about. One of his was that the President was
going to North Africa, or beyond, for a conference with Prime Minister
Churchill and Stalin."
"Nobody heard you make that guess, did they?" the colonel asked,
tight-lipped, as he fixed his eyes on young Farmer.
"No, sir!" the English youth replied. "Nobody."
"He's right, sir," Dawson spoke up quickly. "I remember when he made
that guess he spoke so low I could hardly hear him, and I was lying
right next to him. In case you're wondering, Colonel, it wasn't until we
were on our way back to the base that Colonel Baron von Steuben slugged
us. So it's certain he didn't hear Freddy."
"Yes, of course you're right," the colonel said, and smiled at Farmer.
"So don't feel bad. It just gave me a start that you had hit the nail on
the head. You were partly wrong, though. Joseph Stalin will not be among
those present this time."
"And those envelopes, sir?" Dawson asked when the colonel fell silent
and stared out the compartment window at the darkness of night sweeping
by. "They are still very hush-hush stuff, as far as we're concerned?
Could I ask if they contained information about the President's trip?"
The senior officer turned from the window and looked straight at him.
"You can, and I'll tell you," he said. "Each envelope contained the
route the President's plane is to fly, the exact time schedule, and the
codes to be used in case the aircraft runs into trouble, or danger, and
all that sort of thing. In short, as I told you in Washington, the Nazis
would give almost anything to get hold of one of those sealed envelopes.
With that information in their possession, they could have delivered a
terrible blow to the United Nations. Think of it! The death of the
President and members of the American High Command! It would be like
setting our war effort back to the day of Pearl Harbor!"
The horrible thought made Dawson shiver in spite of himself, and he
thanked God that Freddy and he had destroyed their letters before von
Steuben had smashed them both to the ground. The President's death would
have been loss enough, but to have added the loss of the great leaders
of our military, naval, and air forces would have been world shaking
indeed.
"And now, sir?" Dawson asked after several moments of silence. "Now
another plan is to be carried out?"
Colonel Welsh didn't answer for a moment. He stared down at his two
hands folded on the edge of the little table, and the expression on his
thin face seemed to show a reluctance to answer that question.
Presently, though, he lifted his head and looked straight at the two
youthful air aces.
"We are now headed for Casablanca," he began quietly. "With the extra
tanks of fuel we have aboard, we can make it easily. If we reach
Casablanca without any trouble, I will be as sure as a man can be that
the enemy has not learned anything of the President's plan to fly there
himself. If we don't--"
The Chief of all U. S. Intelligence let the rest trail off into thin air
and made a little gesture with one hand. Dawson frowned and looked at
him earnestly.
"I don't think I get what you mean, sir," he said slowly.
"And neither do I, sir," Freddy Farmer spoke up.
For a moment the colonel held his lips pressed together in a thin, grim
line, and a hard light glittered in his eyes.
"In a thing like this," he said presently, "you can't afford to take
_any_ chances. You've got to be dead sure; as dead sure of everything as
it is humanly possible to be, from start to finish. I had utmost
confidence in your making the complete flight to Natal. And the way you
two did handle yourselves, when the odds were actually all against you,
proves that the confidence I had in you was justified. But in everything
there is ever present the little item of fate. A tiny little something
that is beyond man's power to see in advance, or even to counteract when
it happens. For example, that technical sergeant at Bolling Field. I
would have staked my life on that man. But, as things turned out, I was
completely mistaken. And so with you two, or with each of my agents at
the stops you were to make. Because of something you couldn't guard
against, or prevent before death came to you, the contents of one of
those sealed envelopes might have fallen into enemy hands. What I mean
is, one of the envelopes might have been opened, the contents read, and
then the envelopes resealed."
"But, Colonel," Dawson protested, "one of us would--"
"I know, I know," the colonel said, stopping him with a gesture of his
hand. "But look at it this way. Suppose von Steuben had knocked you both
out while you still had the envelopes? Suppose he had opened one, read
its contents, and resealed it so that you'd never have guessed? What
then? When you came to and found you still had the envelopes, you'd
never dream that they had been touched."
"But I'd be plenty suspicious, sir!" Dawson interrupted. "I'd--"
"Would you?" the colonel's quiet but firm voice stopped him again. "But
von Steuben was no fool! What if he stole your money and Farmer's money,
too? What then?"
"I see what you mean, sir," Dawson said, and grinned sheepishly. "We
would have thought we'd been victims of some holdup."
"Exactly," the colonel agreed. "A crazy little twist of fate over which
you had no control whatever. Yet the damage would have been done. So I
had to do what I could to find out if there had been any crazy twist of
fate. In other words, each of those sealed envelopes contained the
information, in code of course, that the _next_ bombing plane to pass
through would carry the President, and members of his party."
Dawson blinked, and suddenly the truth hit him between the eyes.
"What, sir?" he gasped. "You--you mean this B-25 is _supposed_ to be
carrying the President?"
"I mean just that!" the colonel confirmed grimly. "_If_ enemy agents
have learned what was in those envelopes, they will believe that this
bomber is carrying the President as a passenger. The President has
already left Washington in secret, and it wouldn't take much checking
by enemy agents to find out that he isn't at the White House. Naturally
they'd believe he was aboard this plane."
"Anything funny happen on your flight down, sir?" Freddy Farmer asked,
as the senior officer paused for breath.
"Nothing that I noticed," Colonel Welsh replied with a shake of his
head. "But just because things don't happen doesn't mean that they
_won't_, in time. So, as I said, we won't know for sure until we arrive
at Casablanca."
"And maybe not even then," Dawson mumbled to himself.
Colonel Welsh gave the Yank air ace a sharp look, and then nodded his
head.
"That's right," he agreed. "And maybe not even then. Just another reason
why an Intelligence man gets gray hair so early in life. You never can
tell about a job until it's all finished and you're working on another.
Then it's the same thing all over again."
The trio lapsed into silence, but not for long, because the question
that had been plaguing Dawson just had to come out.
"Supposing we make it to Casablanca okay," he said, "and you feel sure
that the enemy hasn't learned a thing about the President's trip, what
then? The sealed orders Farmer and I were to have delivered at the rest
of the stops are destroyed, and you say you collected the envelopes we
left at Miami and Puerto Rico. How will they know about the President's
plane when it does come through?"
"A good question, but I've got the answer, Dawson." The colonel smiled
and pointed to a brief-case on his little table. "In there are
duplicates of the orders, _without_ the part about the next bomber
through being the President's plane. If we reach Casablanca safely,
we'll turn around and head south for Liberia, cross the South Atlantic
to Natal, and deliver one of those sealed envelopes to each of the stops
as we fly north to Washington. I've allowed sufficient time for us to do
that, in case that's the way it works out."
"Well," Dawson remarked, and shifted to a more comfortable position on
his chair, "there's nothing like a two-way hop across--"
But he never finished his sentence, because at that moment the pilot of
the B-25 came back into the made-over bomb compartment and spoke to
Colonel Welsh.
"A surface ship just ahead, sir, sending up distress flares," he
reported. "Probably a merchantman with a torpedo in her plates. We're
about three hundred and fifty out, due east of Barbados. Do you want me
to radio the ship's position? You gave orders, you know, to maintain
radio silence."
"Sending up distress flares?" Colonel Welsh queried with a frown. "What
good does she think flares will do? The captain of any other ship near
by would be a fool to come close to her. The U-boat might still be
lurking around."
"I know, sir," the pilot said. "Maybe she hears us and wants us to send
out her position because her radio shack is gone. Maybe she thinks we're
a flying boat on patrol."
For some unknown reason a sudden eerie chill rippled across the back of
Dawson's neck. He looked at Colonel Welsh and tried to convince himself
that this was none of his business, but that eerie chill forced him to
blurt out, "And it could be something _else_, sir! I mean, if we send
out the ship's position, our radio will reveal _our own_ position."
The pilot of the bomber glared quickly at Dawson, and the corners of his
mouth stiffened. "It isn't fun to be torpedoed at night," he said
quietly. "I lost a brother that way."
Dawson flushed slightly, but he didn't drop his eyes before the other's
stare. Before he could say anything, though, Colonel Welsh addressed the
pilot.
"Circle her and continue to maintain radio silence, Captain," he said.
"Just before you pass her to port, drop a flare so that we can get a
good look at her. If she seems in trouble, then maybe we'll do something
for her. Meantime, though, I want all members of the crew to go to
battle stations."
The bomber pilot's eyes widened in surprise, but he had sense enough not
to ask any questions. He nodded, glanced at Dawson, turned and went
forward to his compartment. Dawson waited until he was out of earshot,
and then gave Colonel Welsh an apologetic smile.
"I'm sorry, speaking out of turn like that, sir," he said. "I guess the
captain must think I'm a little cracked."
"Let him think so," the colonel remarked quietly. "All he knows is that
he's flying me to Casablanca for a meeting with my agents, and that it's
up to him and his crew to get me there. If he'd been through what you
have, he'd be the first to agree with you. Maybe the flare will tell us
something. If it is a torpedoed ship, I think I will take a chance and
have her position radioed. Poor dev--"
That was as far as the colonel got. The savage yammer of aerial
machine-gun fire interrupted him. An instant later they all heard a yell
of pain from the pilot's compartment. Even before the echo had died
away, the North American B-25 heeled over on one wing and started to
slide off and down with both engines wide open.
"The pilot's hit!" Dawson yelled, and lurched to his feet. "Pilot hit
and his co-pilot, too, I guess. By what? How the heck--"
Dawson didn't finish, either. At that instant the night outside was
lighted with a brilliance like that of high noon. A terrific roar seemed
to slam into the B-25 from all sides and spin her around until she was
as helpless as a dried leaf in a gale.
CHAPTER TWELVE
_Fighting Hearts_
The crazy motion of the bomber knocked Dawson off balance and sent him
lurching heavily against the flare rack as he reached the navigator's
nook just aft of the pilot's compartment. The air whistled out of his
lungs, and balls of colored fire danced before his eyes. Fortunately,
though, his outflung hands caught hold of something, and he was able to
prevent himself from pitching headlong on his face.
The B-25 was still flooded by brilliant light, and above the screaming
roar of the over-revving Wright-Cyclones, Dawson could hear the chatter
of aerial machine guns. He gave no thought to the thing that was
happening. He had but one idea in his head, and that was to fight his
way forward to the pilot's compartment. As he dived past the navigator's
nook, a hand grabbed him by the arm, and he heard voices, but he could
not understand the words above the din of other noises. With a savage
wrench of his arm he freed himself, and piled forward into the pilot's
compartment.
One glance gave him a complete picture, and his racing heart seemed to
stand still. The glass of the pilot's compartment was shattered to bits.
The pilot was slumped over against the Dep wheel, and the weight of his
limp body was pushing the control forward so that the bomber remained in
its mad dive. Beside the limp pilot was the co-pilot, flopped over
against the side of the compartment and looking for all the world like a
man dead tired who had simply leaned over to brace himself and catch a
couple of minutes of sleep. That is, he looked like such a man except
for the crimson blood that gushed from a gaping wound in his neck just
below the left ear.
After one look at the hideous sight Dawson flew into action. Bracing
himself behind the pilot's seat, he grabbed the limp figure by the
shoulders and pulled him back on the seat. Holding him upright with one
hand, he reached around and opened the catch of the pilot's safety
harness. That done, he braced himself again and eased the man to the
floor boards. The pilot's eyes fluttered open, and his lips sprayed
drops of blood as he tried to speak. Dawson didn't have time to listen.
He leaped into the pilot's seat, grabbed the control wheel with one
hand, hauled back on it steadily, and eased off the throttles with his
other hand.
Little by little the crazy downward plunge of the B-25 eased off. The
plane began to climb back into the sky. There was still brilliant white
light all about. It had a silverish tint to it, and Dawson had the
impression that he was flying straight through a phosphorescent ocean.
In an abstract way be realized the white light was caused by flares that
had been dropped from high above the bomber and were bringing it out in
clear relief for a mysterious aerial night raider.
"Where is it, and what?" Dawson gasped as he squinted his eyes in the
brilliant glare. "It's just one ship. I can tell it from the guns. But
what--"
He cut the rest off short and heeled the B-25 way over on its wing and
brought it around and up in a climbing turn with the engines wide open.
He did so because he had caught a glimpse of a shadow boring in and up
at him from the left. Just a shadow, but he knew instinctively that it
was another plane. At the top of its climb, he whipped the bomber over
and around in the opposite direction. The bomber was neither a P-40 nor
a Lockheed Lightning, and his heart seemed to stand still in his throat
as he waited for the big craft to come around. With each passing second,
he expected to hear the savage yammer of guns blazing away at him.
As a matter of fact, a moment later he did hear guns, but they came from
the B-25, not from the other plane. They came from the port side, and
impulsively he jerked his head around in that direction. As he did so,
he saw a sight that brought a wild cry of joy from his lips. Silhouetted
against the brilliant background of light was a Nazi-marked Arada AR-95
twin-pontoon seaplane. He could see the silverish disc described by the
spinning propeller, but the aircraft seemed to be standing still.
Rather, it seemed to be held motionless in the air by twin streams of
tracer smoke that reached out to it from the B-25.
It was motionless for only a moment, and then suddenly a sheet of flame
spewed out from under its engine cowling. Fire mushroomed out in all
directions, and in the wink of an eye, the Arada completely disappeared,
and there was just a great cloud of fire hanging in the flare-lighted
heavens. To Dawson the cloud seemed to hang not for seconds, but for
minutes. And then, as though an invisible cable had been cut, the cloud
of fire dropped straight downward.
"Sweet shooting! Pretty!" Dawson heard his own voice yell. "And I've got
a hunch that it was good old Freddy who nailed her! If it--"