Colonel clipped out. "And that's where you're headed. Both of you!"
"Well, what do you know!" the pilot cried out, and turned around just
long enough to give the Colonel a horse laugh. "Maybe you ain't got it
yet, Colonel, who's holding the gun. Snap out of it. I know it's tough,
but there's nothing you can do about it. Don't be a sap and make us let
you have it. We just want to keep you on ice for a while. That's all."
The Colonel seemed to swallow his wrath, because when he spoke again
his voice was normal, and almost friendly.
"All right, we'll be smart," he said. "But where are we heading? And
why are you keeping us on ice, as you call it? What good is it going to
do you?"
"What good?" the redhead echoed with a laugh. "Well, about ten thousand
dollars' worth, for one thing. For another--well, I guess we just don't
like you."
A hard, glittering look leaped into the Colonel's eyes, and Dave could
tell that the man was employing every ounce of his will power to stop
from leaping from his seat and hurling himself at the redhead, gun or
no gun.
"A couple of bought and paid for American traitors, eh?" the chief of
U. S. Intelligence suddenly grated. "American by birth only. Actually
lower than the rats in Berlin and Tokio are--the ones who are paying
you your blood money. Well, paste this in your hats. You'll never live
to spend that money. And that's a promise!"
The redhead simply continued to grin. Then suddenly the gun in his hand
spat flame and sound, and Dave saw the Colonel's left shoulder strap
fly off as though cut by a knife. The bullet tore on out through the
side of the cabin. Colonel Welsh didn't so much as flinch, or even bat
an eye. He held the redhead with a steady agate-eyed stare.
"Put the next right between my eyes!" he grated. "You'll still not
be able to spend that blood money. You'll be run to earth like the
anti-American vermin you are. And you'll be wiped out, along with the
rest of your fifth column brood."
The redhead didn't say anything. Dave wasn't sure, but he thought he
saw a look of fear flash across the man's unshaven face. However, it
came and went in a flash. The pilot turned from his controls again, and
gave the Colonel a long look.
"Maybe!" he finally said harshly. "That's the chance we take. But let's
not kid each other, Colonel. The point is that the Carrier Indian won't
be sailing with these two little heroes of yours aboard. Yeah! So don't
look like you're going to faint. We know all about it. The boys we work
for are smart. And your whole country is going to find that out in
short order, too.
"You guys in Washington have got a New Deal. Well, another guy has a
_New Deal_, too. I like his better. So don't waste breath trying to
unsell me. It can't be done. I've been kicked around too much by your
cops and F.B.I.
"I'm looking out for my own good, see? I found out how my pal and me
can make dough easy, and we're making it. No more working my life away
for nothing. I'm sold on _my_ New Deal.
"Now shut up, and relax. My pal and me have dough to earn."
"Aw, let 'em talk!" the redhead said with a hoarse laugh. "Maybe
they'll try selling us some of them Defense Bonds."
"And you shut up, too!" the pilot snarled. "I don't feel like hearing
anybody talk, see?"
The redhead looked both surprised and angry.
"Okay, okay!" he said. "So nobody talks."
Silence once more settled over the interior of the cabin, but it was
the kind of a silence that feels charged with high voltage electricity,
and apt to strike all over the place at an instant's notice. Turning
his head, Dave snapped a quick glance out the window, but what he saw
didn't help his spirits any. The plane was grinding northward over wild
mountainous country that looked every bit as uninviting as that narrow
strip of ground where they had force landed. Whether or not they had
reached the Utah line, or were still in Arizona, Dave couldn't tell
with that one quick glance. And he didn't bother taking a second look.
Fact was, it didn't matter where they were. Through a crazy twist of
fate they were helpless prisoners in the hands of two men who would
shoot them dead at the slightest provocation. The single warning shot
that the redhead had snapped across Colonel Welsh's shoulder had been
proof enough that he wasn't afraid to use his gun.
Yes, they were helpless prisoners. And their captors knew all about
them: who they were, where they had been heading, and why. As those
three truths came home to Dave, again he swallowed hard and shivered
slightly. It was like a crazy nightmare, only it wasn't. It was stark
reality; nothing out of a story book. The pilot and his redheaded
companion had received orders to make sure that Freddy Farmer and he
did not sail on the Aircraft Carrier Indian. They had tried the first
time last night by attacking them with machine guns in a plane.
They had failed, yet in a way they had succeeded. They had drilled the
Lockheed's engines and forced Dave to sit down on that narrow strip
of smooth ground deep in a valley. Not knowing the exact results of
their efforts, the two men had cruised about over the area as soon as
it became light, and--by another crazy twist of fate--they had seen
the smoke signal that had been sent up to attract _help_. Seeing that
the plane had not crashed, the two men had done the logical thing,
from their point of view. They had landed and picked up their prey.
Kidnapped them, yes, but for a very good reason. Some other plane
passing over might have landed and given them a quick lift to their
destination. So the redhead and the pilot had picked them up to make
sure somebody else wouldn't do it.
And the reason they hadn't been killed on the spot was simple to
figure. Death in the dark during that air attack last night would
have been different. The plane would have crashed and burned up, and
when its charred ruins were found no one would ever had dreamed that
bullets had sent it hurtling down to its doom. But three dead men lying
beside a force landed plane was something else again. A scene like
that naturally screamed murder all over the place. And so the redhead
and his pilot had kidnapped them so that if another plane landed to
investigate, it would look as though the occupants of the Lockheed had
tried to find their way back to civilization on foot, and had become
hopelessly lost in the mountains.
"But they know all about us! How?"
Dave didn't speak the words aloud. He spoke them only in his brain,
but as he glanced at Colonel Welsh and met the man's eyes he knew that
the senior officer understood what was in his mind, just as though he
had heard the words spoken. Even as Dave met his eyes, Colonel Welsh
bit his lower lip and gave a sharp little puzzled shake of his head. A
hundred and one answers to the question leaped into Dave's brain, but
every one of them seemed too fantastic even to bother considering.
However, fantastic or not, one thought kept hammering away until he was
forced to admit that it at least must be true. It was that somebody
close to Colonel Welsh--very close--was unquestionably in the pay of
Berlin, or Tokio. Somebody in the drab, unpretentious building where
Colonel Welsh maintained his real head-quarters was a traitor to the
American flag, a paid rat of the lowest form who gnawed at the very
heart of America.
But who? Dave thought of Captain Lamb, and Captain Stacey, and
Lieutenant Caldwell--and shook his head vigorously. He thought of the
man who had taken them up in the elevator--and wondered. He thought
of the man reading the book in that room with the mops and pails--and
wondered some more. In fact, he wondered until his head ached and his
brain rang. It just didn't seem possible that any spy could get close
enough to learn all that somebody had learned. That, however, was one
of the many cockeyed things about war. The impossible was constantly
popping up to prove to be a cinch. There were over two years of proof
of that. Poland for one. The Maginot Line for another. And Crete, and
Malaya, and Singapore--and Pearl Harbor, too, for that matter. All that
had happened at those various places just couldn't happen. Only it
_had_!
"So maybe Lamb, or Stacey, or--"
Dave cut short the unspoken thought. The pilot up forward had throttled
his engine and was nosing the Stinson downward. Leaning over close
to the window, Dave peered down and ahead. He saw a stretch of wild
wasteland that seemed to extend to the four horizons. Scrub growth,
a few patches of towering trees, and all the rocks in the world, it
seemed, met his scrutiny. The plane seemed to be nosing down toward an
area of tableland. And as Dave squinted his eyes he suddenly was able
to make out a couple of weatherbeaten shacks built close to a patch of
woods. He thought he saw something glistening just under the branches
of the trees, but he was too high and too far away to tell what it was.
"Okay!" the redhead suddenly called out. "We're getting near the end
of the line. Remember what I told you, you three. Be nice and nothing
will happen. Get funny and I'll drill you and think nothing of it, so
help me. I ain't a killer often, but when I am, I'm good. So watch your
step."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
_A Little Bit Of England!_
Dave didn't bother looking at the redhead as the man pushed words off
the tip of his tongue. He kept his nose pressed against the cabin
window and watched with beating heart as the area of tableland came
sweeping up closer and closer to the plane. The nearer the plane got to
the ground, the more weatherbeaten and deserted the two shacks looked.
In fact, Dave knew that if he should be flying over them at even a
thousand feet or so, he would instantly take them for a couple of
prospectors' shacks abandoned to the wind and the rain years and years
before.
Another couple of minutes and the Stinson went up on wing, cut around
in a dime turn, and then leveled off and settled to earth between two
rows of sun-bleached rocks. Hardly had the plane braked to a halt than
the redhead was at the cabin door, pushing it open with one hand behind
him, and backing out. Every second of the time, though, he kept his
blue green eyes fastened on his prisoners.
"I'll take them inside while you put the job away," he said to the
pilot. "Stick her way under the trees with that Waco, just in case some
nosy guys come flying over. Nuts to take chances, you know. We'll--"
"Can it!" the pilot snarled. "Who are you, giving orders? Take them
inside. I'll be along in a minute, and help tie them up. But keep that
gun ready, and use it if you have to. We can't risk anything, see?"
"I see, sure I see!" the redhead snarled back. "What's eating you,
anyway?"
"Nothing, and shut up!" the pilot said in a brittle voice.
The redhead nodded, and motioned with his gun to Dave and the other two.
"Out!" he snapped. "And watch it. And keep your hands in sight, too."
Dave obeyed to the letter, but his heart was thumping against his ribs.
He had a sneaky feeling that Colonel Welsh's words had had a profound
effect on the pilot. Sure, he had snarled, and boasted, and cursed the
United States, the land of his birth. But like all rats of his ilk,
deep down in his black heart he was scared stiff of the Old Man With
the Whiskers. Deep down in his heart he knew that he might get by with
this back stabbing for a little while--just like the Japs--but not for
long. In the end he would be caught in the wheels of right and justice
and be ground to a pulp.
With the pilot feeling as he obviously did, snapping and snarling at
his own partner in this dirty work, perhaps something could be made of
it. Perhaps--
Dave didn't finish the rest. Without realizing it he had sort of
stopped to mull things over as he climbed down from the plane. He had
unconsciously started to push one hand into his tunic pocket. He didn't
even realize he was making the movement, but the redhead saw it, took
it for the wrong thing, and moved with the speed of light. The barrel
of the automatic was slapped against the left side of Dave's jaw just
hard enough for him to see stars and stumble. He ended up by falling
the rest of the way out of the cabin doorway and landing flat on his
face on hard dirt.
"And stay there!" he heard the redhead growl. "I'll take that gun just
as soon as your two pals are down. Okay, you two. Out, and keep your
hands where I can see them. Okay! Now, flat on your bellies and hands
outstretched. Either of you move, and you get it."
A moment later Dave felt the muzzle of the automatic pressed against
the back of his head, and felt the redhead's other hand going through
his pockets. He didn't move a muscle, and presently an angry curse told
him that the redhead realized he was wrong. Then the gun tapped him
lightly on the head.
"Stay put, with your hands out!" the redhead said. "I'll just make sure
about your pals."
Dave kept his throbbing face buried in the dirt until he heard the
redhead's voice again.
"Okay, on your feet, and inside! And no more kidding moves like that
last one, Dawson. My trigger finger's getting plenty itchy. Okay, move!"
Dave got slowly to his feet, blinked from his eyes water caused by
smacking the ground with his face, and walked stiff-legged in through
the door of the nearest shack. He expected to step into a room heavy
with age, and dust, and dirt, and all the countless smells of the
years. But he didn't. He stepped into a large sized room that was
comfortably furnished and fitted out like a hunting lodge. No, not
exactly a hunting lodge. Rather, it looked more like an arsenal.
There were guns all over the place, of all types: pistols, automatics,
rifles, and machine guns. Along the entire right wall were heavy wood
boxes that obviously contained thousands and thousands of rounds of
ammunition.
But what caught Dave's eyes and held them was the powerful gas engine
operated short-wave radio receiving set and transmitter that took up
most of the space at the rear of the room. One glance told him that
every part of it was of the finest equipment, and that its operator
could contact points thousands and thousands of miles away. One look at
the set and he guessed instantly that one of its chief uses was to send
weather data to listening Axis ears. This was probably one of several
such stations hidden in the vastness of the United States. In time they
would be smoked out and destroyed. Meantime, though, they were serving
the Axis powers well, and, unquestionably, in a dozen different ways.
"Not bad, huh?" he heard the redhead's voice with its taunting note.
"We have lots of fun here, Mike and Ike. See what I mean, Colonel? We
got it all doped out. You Army and Navy guys are suckers. You don't
stand a chance, what I mean. When the time's right, we'll move in.
And that's all there'll be to it, see? Steady, Colonel! Steady, pal.
Rushing me will just get you a bullet in that belly of yours. Take it
easy, and relax. Back up, and sit down on that case. You two kids, too."
As the redhead grinned and made motions with the gun, Dave, Freddy,
and the Colonel slowly backed up until they were sitting on a couple
of gun cases. Once they were settled, with their hands carefully kept
in sight, the redhead hooked one leg over a nearby table and absently
stroked the palm of his other hand with the barrel of his automatic.
Dave heard Colonel Welsh's tight, rasping breathing beside him, but he
didn't look at the man. Nor did he glance at Freddy Farmer, who hadn't
spoken a word since they had entered the Stinson. Instead, Dave kept
his eyes fixed on the redhead--and waited, and hoped, and prayed.
"Yeah, we have us some fun here," the redhead went on, and looked
straight at Colonel Welsh. "But soon we're going to have some real fun.
See all these guns, Colonel? Lots of people are going to hear them pop
off, soon. People east in Washington, too. The boys running this show
have it all doped out. It'll be a cinch."
"Do you know what you are?" the Colonel suddenly asked with an effort.
"No, you tell me, Colonel," the redhead said with a chuckle. Then,
before Colonel Welsh could get a word in edgewise: "You know, I'd
never tab you for head of the Intelligence, Colonel. You don't look
the part to me at all. But maybe that's what's made you the great man
of mystery, eh? Well, the mystery is over as far as I'm concerned. And
to tell you the truth, I'm kind of disappointed. When we got the radio
flash that you were aboard a plane heading west with these two kids,
I got kind of all excited. I got kind of sorry, too, that I'd have to
shoot you down without having a look at you. But--well, I did get that
look after all. And I'm disappointed."
"And you are a complete and utter fool!" Colonel Welsh said,
tight-lipped. "I told you once, and I tell you again! You'll never get
away with this. You'll be caught and either strung up, or shot. You'll
get--"
"Didn't I tell you to shut up? Well, do it. We can't be bothered
listening to your junk. Shut up! _Do you hear me!_"
It was the voice of the pilot, who had suddenly appeared in the
doorway. He stood glaring at Colonel Welsh out of eyes that held a
wild, glassy glitter. Two white spots appeared on either cheek, and as
the last left his lips they came together to form a thin cruel line.
Then before Colonel Welsh, or Dave, or Freddy Farmer could so much as
move a muscle, the man leaped forward and slammed his upholstered gun
against the Colonel's left temple. The chief of U. S. Intelligence
slumped over, but caught himself and straightened up slowly. A trickle
of blood ran down from the cut on his temple, but he made no effort to
raise his hand to it. He looked at the pilot and smiled grimly. Dave
marveled silently at the man's courage and ability to take it. The blow
he had received was enough to knock over a horse.
"Swing again, you rat traitor!" the Colonel got out evenly. "You know
in your heart that you're sunk. And it's making you lose your grip."
For an instant Dave thought the pilot was going to go stark raving
mad with rage and hurl himself at the Colonel. But he didn't. With a
visibly tremendous effort he regained control of himself and forced a
harsh laugh off his lips.
"That's what you think!" he snapped. Then out of the corner of his
mouth to his partner: "Get that rope, and we'll tie them up. We'll gag
this big slob. I'm sick of hearing his yapping."
Less than five minutes later Dave and Freddy were bound hand and foot.
Colonel Welsh was bound hand and foot, too, but he was also gagged. The
pilot made sure that the ropes were tied right, then turned his back
on them and walked over to a table on the other side of the room. He
picked up a whiskey bottle there, took a long drink and choked on it.
He coughed so hard he almost dropped the bottle. He would have if the
redhead hadn't jumped quickly forward and grabbed it.
"Hey, what's the matter with you?" the redhead demanded angrily. "You
getting the jim-jams? This is no time to fall apart. Snap out of it.
Get hold of yourself. Boy! Wouldn't the big boss like to see you, now.
I knew he should have put me in charge of this station."
The pilot suddenly went white about the corners of his mouth, and there
was cold murder in the eyes he fixed on the redhead. He reached out and
tapped the redhead on the chest with the barrel of his automatic.
"Just say that again, lug," he grated. "Go on! Just say it again!"
The redhead seemed to wilt like a flower tossed into a blast furnace.
He gulped and swallowed hard, and backed away a couple of steps.
"Okay, okay!" he got out hastily. "I was only kidding. But I only
thought--"
"Nobody wants you to think!" the pilot snarled, and took a step
forward. "Get it? Cut out the thinking. Now, get on that key and
contact Frisco. Tell them we've got them on ice, and what do we do now?
Tell them this place is cooked, if either of these three should get
away. Find out where he wants them delivered, or what. He was nuts to
have us go hunting them, and bring them back here. They'd have been
stuck there a week, anyway. And that's more time than we need to fly
these guns and stuff to the other places. But skip that last. Don't
tell them that, understand. The big boy wouldn't like it."
"I'll say he wouldn't!" the redhead said with a tight laugh, and went
through the motions of slitting his throat from ear to ear. "Okay. I'll
find out what we do now. Fun, I hope."
The redhead flung the trio of prisoners a leering look, then went to
the back of the room and sat down at the radio equipment. A moment or
so later the crackling of the spark gap of a wireless set filled the
room. Dave closed his eyes and strained his ears. He caught the signal
being sent out. It was S-T. It was repeated a dozen times or more.
Then the man stopped sending, and there was silence as he listened to
whatever was coming through his earphones. After twenty seconds or so
he started sending again. Dave caught all the signals, but that's all
the good it did him. He glanced at Freddy Farmer and Colonel Welsh, and
knew that they were catching the signals, too, and that the code going
out over the air was just as meaningless to them as it was to him.
For five minutes the redhead "talked" with the man at the other end of
the wave length. Then he switched off his set, got up and turned around
with a grin on his face that stretched from ear to ear.
"He thinks we're great guys," he said to his partner. "He thinks we're
the nuts."
"Horses to what he thinks!" the pilot growled, and ran a nervous tongue
tip along his lower lip. "What do we do now? What are his orders?"
"To sit tight," the redhead said. Then, after flashing Colonel Welsh a
smirking look, he went on, "He's coming up here sometime tonight. He
didn't say, but I've got a hunch he wants to work on our three friends
here. But he's tickled silly about it all. What a break for us we were
bum shots last night. This little job puts us in good, I'm telling you.
Boy! You can't top the big boss, can you? He knows his onions right
down the line. Yeah! Old blabber mouth, there, is going to have plenty
of chance to work his yap. And I mean, but plenty! Maybe he won't want
to, but I've seen the big boss's way of getting guys to talk. He's got
a technique, he has!"
"Coming up tonight, huh?" the pilot echoed with a happy smile. "Swell!
That means you and me will be shifted to some other station. And
that'll suit me okay. This neck of the woods is giving me the creeps.
Thirty days here. It's been like thirty years. Let's have a drink on
getting out of here soon."
"Yeah!" the redhead said, and licked his lips. "Let's have a couple of
them. I'm dry as a bone."
With that moment began an hour and a half that was just about the
toughest ninety minutes Dave Dawson had ever spent in his life. The
two unshaven men went over to the table and dropped into chairs and
proceeded to ignore their prisoners. That didn't bother Dave in the
slightest, though. He was quite content to have the two ignore him,
for he was too busy with his thoughts--thoughts that tumbled and
spilled around in his brain like little red hot stones. A hundred times
at least he strained at the ropes that held his wrists bound behind
his back. And a hundred times circles of white pain about his wrists
convinced him that he didn't stand a chance in the world of freeing his
hands, to say nothing of his ankles. A hundred times he cursed himself
bitterly for not getting away from that attacker last night--and
without damage to the Lockheed's engines. A hundred times he thought of
the Aircraft Carrier Indian and the unknown doom that hovered over her;
the unknown doom that was aboard her in the form of some rat Axis spy
who had killed and obtained vital information that could easily spell
disaster for many of Uncle Sam's fighting men of the sea if it reached
Japanese hands soon enough.
A hundred times he thought of many things, and each time his utter
helplessness to do anything about them was like a hot knife twisting
in his heart. But the most torturing thing of all was the realization
that he and Freddy had been stopped cold before they had even been able
to get started. The Carrier Indian was over three hundred miles away,
riding at anchor in San Diego harbor. Who knew when they would see it?
Who knew if they would _ever_ see it? Caught cold before they had even
got started on the very first of the special assignments they were to
carry out for Uncle Sam. What a sweet beginning! Yes! What a sweet
beginning that could well be the end, too. And that end might come when
the man referred to as the big boss arrived.