With its twin engines thundering out a mighty song of power, the R.A.F. Lockheed Hudson bomber cut a straight and true path westward at some eight thousand feet above the long rolling grey-green swells of the North Atlantic. Higher up, a billion twinkling stars looked down on a crazy world at war out of a cloudless night sky, and served as a billion guiding beacons to that lone aircraft pointed dead on for the Newfoundland coast.
Stretched out comfortably in the empty bomb compartment of the Lockheed, Dave Dawson absently lifted a hand and pressed it against the upper left part of his tunic. Underneath the cloth he could feel the sealed envelope tucked safely away in the inside pocket. A moment later he let his hand drop down into his lap and sat scowling faintly at the rack of signal flares on the port side of the compartment. Then, suddenly, as though he could actually feel it, he turned his head to meet Freddy Farmer's curious stare. The English-born air ace nodded and grinned.
"I've been combing my brains, too, old thing," Freddy said, "wondering what in the world that envelope contains. Blasted odd that it should be turned over to us for delivery. And to your Secretary of State, no less."
"Yeah, screwy, all right," Dawson grunted. "Funny thing, though. The way it was handed to us, it makes me feel as though I were smuggling something into the States. You haven't got enough fingers on your two hands to count the number of aircraft that are flying back and forth across the Atlantic these days. And not a few of them are strictly courier planes, too. So why wasn't this sent by one of the usual courier planes, I ask you?"
Freddy Farmer sighed and shook his head.
"You can ask me," he grunted, "but I haven't the faintest idea what's the correct answer."
"And you can say that again for me!" Dawson muttered. "Unless it's because—Oh nuts! I'm just letting the old brain go for a stroll."
"Unless what, Dave?" the English youth prompted. "I know, I know! It's probably another one of those crazy hunches of yours. But some of them have come pretty close to the real thing in the past. So what's this one about?"
"Come close, huh?" Dawson snorted, and gave Freddy a hard look. "Plenty of them have smacked the nail right on the head. And you know it, pal. But anyway, the only reason I can see why they handed this to us is because they didn't want it to go by the usual method."
"Obvious!" Freddy Farmer snapped. "A ten year old child could reason that out, silly! I thought you had a hunch on why they didn't want it to go the usual way. And while you're on the subject, just who do you mean by they?"