The Nazi gave him a long, hard stare, and then smirked broadly.
"Good, then!" he rasped. "But see that your tongue does not make the same mistake as did that dead fool's. Now, what about this H-Sixty-Four? And what about something on its way to Aberdeen?"
Fear still had the man named Bixby by the throat, and the words he spoke sounded like small stones sliding down a tin roof.
"I know nothing about it but what he said," he finally choked out, with a gesture toward the dead man. "I don't know what it all means. Those two, there, can perhaps tell you. I do not know."
The Nazi scowled for a moment, as though he were debating whether to believe Bixby or not. Then he muttered something under his breath, and half swung around to Dawson and Freddy Farmer.
"Very well, then!" he rasped out. "You will tell me what it was all about, eh?"
Dave hesitated a moment to give Freddy Farmer a chance to say what he might have to say. But the English youth remained silent. Dave glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, and saw that Freddy seemed not to have heard the question. The English-born air ace sat half slumped in the chair, with his eyes fixed on the oil lamp of the table, and a completely uninterested and almost vacant look on his sun and wind-bronzed face.
"Can't you guess?" Dave snapped, switching his gaze to the Nazi's face. "Do you think United Nations Intelligence is as dumb as your Gestapo? Figure it out for yourself. It's simple!"
The Nazi didn't like that, and the savage, animal look that leaped into his eyes made Dave just a little bit sorry that he had been so flip with his reply. This Nazi was obviously the kind of snake who could take so much, and then would go off the deep end, regardless of the consequences of his hair trigger temper. However, the German held his boiling rage under control, and did no more than take a bead with his silencer fitted revolver on a point squarely between Dawson's eyes.
"Your tongue is begging for your death!" he said in a voice trembling with suppressed rage. "Speak again that way, and it will be granted! Now, take your choice!"