A lifetime of agony was his. He lived and died a thousand deaths. Then suddenly he felt the right wingtip shudder as something ticked it. His heart stood still and his whole body became bathed in cold sweat. Nothing happened, though. The wing stayed on and the Lockheed kept on whanging around.
"Just brushed us lightly!" Dave heard his own choking voice cry out. "Another inch and it would have been a sweet mess!"
"Great guns, they can't come any closer!" Air Marshal Manners gasped. "Blast him, anyway! I might have expected as much. Look, Dawson, get off the London course. Head east or west, but not toward London!"
Dave cut out of the turn, went into a shallow dive that took the plane down deeper into the cloud layer, then leveled off and banked due south. Once he was heading south he turned his head and gave the Air Marshal a questioning look.
"You expected something like this, sir?" he asked.
Manners shook his head.
"No," he said. "I meant that I should have. No way for us to find out, and we're not going to try, but I'm pretty sure Baron von Khole was in that Messerschmitt One-Ten."
At that moment Freddy appeared at the compartment door, and in time to hear the Air Marshal's words.
"Von Khole?" he echoed excitedly. "Good grief, sir, what makes you think so?"
"For one reason," Manners replied grimly, "because you can expect that blighter to turn up anywhere. For another reason, because I sighted that same One-Ten on the way down to Plymouth this noon. Spotted him soon enough to lose him before he could get close and give any kind of a chase. And for another reason, because now I happen to be the one man in all the world von Khole desires most to remove from it. Remember my saying Intelligence found code books and things at the flat of that poor devil, Sergeant Kinney?"