Commander Bob Curtis was in the co-pilot's seat, as the big PBY flying boat, one of the navy's latest-type patrol bombers, spanked out into the choppy water, lifted, went roaring off. The miles slipped away astern under the pull of its mighty propellers as they raced on their journey.
Every once in a while, Curtis turned his eyes away from the restless gray Atlantic to glance toward the cabin, where the navigator and wireless operator sat at his little table. There was, he knew, a machine gunner at his post in the tail of the plane, and a bombardier lying flat in the nose of the fuselage.
At short intervals, Curtis got the relayed radio reports, through his headphones, from the Lexington. The seaplane's wireless was keeping in constant touch with the big aircraft carrier, which evidently was still outside the limits of Zukor Androka's zone of silence.
The Lexington held the key to Curtis' secret plan. This flight was the first leg of his journey to recapture the Comerford.
At the controls, the pilot, Lieutenant Delton, sat relaxed, smiling confidently, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He offered one to Curtis, who took it with a nod of thanks, lighted it and inhaled deeply. It tasted good, eased the strain on his nerves.
The voice of the navigator came through his phones. "Lexington hasn't answered for the past half hour. I've been calling her every five minutes!"
Curtis' heart leaped at the news. The Lexington had come into the silence area!
That might mean the Comerford was close at hand; or it might be five hundred miles away. For that, Curtis figured, was the maximum radius over which Androka's zone could extend its influence. And the device for killing all electrical apparatus with a ray would necessarily operate at a much shorter distance—unless Androka's invention bordered on the miraculous.
The Lexington hove in sight. Curtis thrilled at the sight of her top deck, with its rows upon rows of planes, their propellers agleam in the sunlight that had recently broken through the Atlantic fog.
For a moment, his lips tightened as he thought of the destruction which Androka's deadly ray could wreak on this splendid array of aircraft, and the resolution in him gained renewed confidence, as his eyes swept the Lexington's powerful hull.