“Like going down to the post office to find out if the all important letter you hope is there is there,” he said after a moment or two. “I mean, if the southern Albuquerque Cays turn out to be just a bust, then where are we? Right behind the old eight ball, and a complete wash-out to Colonel Welsh. Darn it, Freddy, I can take a licking with the best of them, and come up grinning—I hope. But if I fall down on this job I think I’ll just walk into the ocean and keep going.”
“I know just how you feel, Dave,” Freddy said, and sighed heavily. “The fact that we haven’t made any headway to speak of in this blasted mess makes it all the more important to us. But, good grief! We had so blasted little to start with in the first place. Of course I’m not complaining, nor trying to make excuses. Just the same, I think this is the first Intelligence job we’ve tackled where we absolutely bumped head on into a brick wall.”
“You’ve got something there, pal!” Dave grunted. “It’s been like shadow boxing, and trying to knock your shadow cold. You start a haymaker up from the floor, and suddenly your shadow isn’t there any more. Oh well, we’re not going to find out a thing just standing around here gabbing. That’s a cinch. Put on your bib and tucker, Freddy. We’re going to do a little sky cruising, and see what there is to see. And you know what I’m hoping, I guess?”
“Quite,” Freddy breathed softly, and tightened the chin strap of his helmet. “Right-o. Let’s get on with the blasted business. If we don’t find a thing, we can at least dive straight into the water, and make an end of our troubles.”
“And that’s an idea, if!” Dave grunted, and climbed up into the forward cockpit of the Vultee attack plane. “All aboard!”
A few moments later Dave took the Vultee off, got himself a bit of altitude, then started circling the field to create the impression to any watching eyes below that he and Freddy were just taking a breather hop, and checking their plane. Eventually he let the plane slide away from the Air Base, and guided it out over the reaches of the Caribbean Sea. Presently he spotted the dawn patrol ahead and a little to the south of his position. He climbed the Vultee to high altitude and brought it around and put it on a course that led toward the Albuquerque Cays. They were some two hundred and thirty miles away, and so it was lacking a few minutes of an hour when he finally sighted them ahead and low down on the horizon.
Sight of them made little shivers start rippling up and down his spine. His heart began to hammer, and his mouth and lips went slightly dry. For a moment he was filled with the insane and utterly ridiculous desire to bank around and fly away in the opposite direction. Fear that this last hope would fall through took charge of his nerves, and tiny beads of sweat began to break out on his forehead. He shook his head in an angry gesture and took a tighter hold on the control stick, as though in so doing he could prevent that other half of him from turning the plane away.
“Come on, stop being a silly dope!” he grated at himself. “You’re worse than a fellow with his first date with the beautiful girl who just recently moved into the neighborhood. Snap out of it, kid! What is to be, will be. And if it isn’t—then, so help me, it’ll be up to you to do something about it!”
“Do something about what, Dave?” he heard Freddy Farmer call to him.
He turned around and grinned at his English born pal.