The American Intelligence officer cut his sentence off in the middle, and his face went white under his heavy tan. Dawson, watching him closely, saw the major's hand holding the papers shake a little. And he also saw that it was Herr Baron's picture on the top paper that made the officer pale.
"Colonel Frank Bowers?" the officer suddenly bit off. "Why, the low-down, dirty skunk! Posing as old Frank Bowers! Poor old Frank. I wonder just what did happen? We never heard a single word. And I personally asked Swiss Red Cross to check and double check."
"Obviously you knew him, eh, sir?" Freddy Farmer murmured politely, when the other made no effort to explain, but simply stared fixedly at the picture.
"What's that?" he suddenly said, raising his eyes. "Knew Frank Bowers? Of course I knew him. Like a brother. He was one of the best friends I, or any other man, ever had. He's been gone now almost a year."
"Do you mind telling us about it, Major?" Colonel Fraser asked quietly.
"Not at all, sir, though there's not much to tell," the Yank Intelligence officer replied quickly. "Frank Bowers was the C.O. of a Flying Fortress Group. And the right kind of a C.O., too. I mean that he flew on just as many raids as anybody else, and did his paper work as C.O. to boot. I knew him back home in Detroit, where we both hail from. Always crazy about flying, and when the big chance came he soon showed his worth, and went up the promotion ladder fast. Well, it was May of last year to be exact. I believe the date was the seventeenth. He led a Fortress raid on Lorient, in Occupied France. Flak and enemy fighter opposition that day were extra heavy. We lost several planes, Frank's among them. Pilots who got back reported that his ship suffered a direct flak hit. The thing went down in pieces. One pilot said that he saw some parachutes float down from Frank's plane, but he wasn't positive, as there were a lot of our boys going down by parachute that day. Well, we received no word at all about the fate of Frank and his crew. I gave their names to Swiss Red Cross, but they reported that they could locate none of the fellows in any of the German prison camps. That was that. A man who was as fine a leader as he was a pilot was gone forever, with all the members of his Fortress crew. But—"
Major Crandall stopped, tapped the picture with a finger, and looked questioningly at Colonel Fraser. The British Intelligence chief nodded slowly.
"Quite, Major," he said quietly. "Perhaps your friend was killed, but the Nazis were able to get hold of his papers. But tell me, Major? Would you say that those papers were the property of the real Colonel Bowers?"
"Definitely," Major Crandall said, and held one up. "All but this one. This one stating that he was of recent date attached to Air Forces Intelligence is faked. Frank wouldn't have served with Intelligence, unless by Presidential order. He wanted to get out into the open and fight. He was that kind of a man."
"And to think I let that stinking, no-faced Nazi slip through my fingers!" Dave Dawson groaned. "I should be sent to the rear rank for that blunder!"