Dave Dawson with the Air Corps

by Robert Sidney Bowen

And that fake message the Colonel had sent to Washington as a means of baiting the trap for whoever had tapped the phone lines. Had it worried those listening in? He thought it had. And he was certain that Captain Karl von Stutgardt was still worried. That was one thing Colonel Welsh had figured wrong, however. Seven-Eleven had been in the States all that time. And how bitter to realize now that he had been the pilot of that Taylor Cub! If Freddy and he had only known! What a terrible menace to the civilized world they could have removed right then and there. But why think of that now, either?

And that supposedly Second Lieutenant Miller who had served as check-in officer at Albuquerque! He had fired at Freddy from that rifle range. He had that Sergeant take over his post and slipped over there. And it had been Miller, of course, who had hidden that pencil incendiary bomb aboard the Flying Fortress. Easy for him to have done that, for he had the run of the Base. Nobody would have wondered about the movements of a check-in officer. Second Lieutenant Miller? More likely it was Oberleutnant Meuller, of the Nazi Luftwaffe!

And now this place! A secret base of the most hated nation in the history of the world. A secret base within easy striking distance of the Panama Canal. How simple it all would be for von Stutgardt and his nine other vultures. Their planes would of course be taken for Ninety-Six aircraft returning from patrol. Then before anybody realized the truth of things, these devil men would strike. Their bombs and their aerial torpedoes would go hurtling down, and in one blinding flash every lock from Colon to Balboa would be destroyed, and the Canal put out of use for months and months to come—and maybe for all time!

Dave groaned in spite of himself and hitched up on one elbow. He stared at the two armed guards, and they stared back unwinkingly at him. Just looking at them made him see red, and caused a wild, completely insane recklessness to steal through his body. He forced himself to look the other way. He twisted around a bit and absently stared at the back of the hut. There were two windows, but only the frames. Neither glass nor netting had been put in as yet. Beyond the windows he could see the tangle of untouched tropical growth. It was bathed in weird light and grotesque shadows. He stared at it, and the reckless spirit within him grew stronger and started his heart to thumping against his ribs.

He glanced at Freddy, but the English youth sat with his arms folded on his knees, and his bent head resting on his folded arms. He might be asleep, but Dave knew that wasn’t so. Freddy was simply sitting there suffering the tortures of the doomed, too. Dave took a deep breath and then slowly got up onto his feet.

“Got to stretch my legs,” he said. “They feel ready to snap off any second.”

He spoke the words with a smile, but he was watching the two guards closely out of the corner of one eye. They stiffened to the alert as he stood up, and he could almost see their hands tighten on their sub-machine guns. But he paid them no visible attention, however. He stretched both hands above his head, and yawned loudly. His heart was well up in his throat by now. Were the guards going to do something, or weren’t they? He looked down at Freddy again, shrugged for the benefit of the ever watching guards, and then jammed his hands in his pockets and started to saunter about the limited amount of floor space. He walked with his head bent and his eyes fixed on the floor boards, as though he were fed up with everything, and just didn’t care a hoot what happened next.

As a matter of fact, though, he kept darting glances in all directions, particularly out the two rear windows. He saw then for sure that there was nothing but heavy jungle growth to the rear of the hut. And because of the heavy growth the shadows out there were deepening more and more by the minute. His heartbeat was hitting full speed when presently he sauntered back to Freddy and slumped down on the floor.

“You’re a lazy bum, pal!” he said with a laugh. “Why don’t you stretch your legs? Just sitting there moping won’t change a thing. The party’s all over as far as we’re concerned.”

Freddy lifted his head and shot him a hard glance. Dave slowly winked the eye that the watching guards couldn’t see. Then, leaning forward, he balanced both elbows on his knees and put his two hands up to his face with the fingers spread apart. He could look out between the spread fingers, but his two palms completely concealed his mouth. He stared vacantly off into space for a long time, until he saw the guards relax a bit, though they did not remove their steadfast, unwinking gaze.