"Just say that again, lug," he grated. "Go on! Just say it again!"
The redhead seemed to wilt like a flower tossed into a blast furnace. He gulped and swallowed hard, and backed away a couple of steps.
"Okay, okay!" he got out hastily. "I was only kidding. But I only thought—"
"Nobody wants you to think!" the pilot snarled, and took a step forward. "Get it? Cut out the thinking. Now, get on that key and contact Frisco. Tell them we've got them on ice, and what do we do now? Tell them this place is cooked, if either of these three should get away. Find out where he wants them delivered, or what. He was nuts to have us go hunting them, and bring them back here. They'd have been stuck there a week, anyway. And that's more time than we need to fly these guns and stuff to the other places. But skip that last. Don't tell them that, understand. The big boy wouldn't like it."
"I'll say he wouldn't!" the redhead said with a tight laugh, and went through the motions of slitting his throat from ear to ear. "Okay. I'll find out what we do now. Fun, I hope."
The redhead flung the trio of prisoners a leering look, then went to the back of the room and sat down at the radio equipment. A moment or so later the crackling of the spark gap of a wireless set filled the room. Dave closed his eyes and strained his ears. He caught the signal being sent out. It was S-T. It was repeated a dozen times or more. Then the man stopped sending, and there was silence as he listened to whatever was coming through his earphones. After twenty seconds or so he started sending again. Dave caught all the signals, but that's all the good it did him. He glanced at Freddy Farmer and Colonel Welsh, and knew that they were catching the signals, too, and that the code going out over the air was just as meaningless to them as it was to him.
For five minutes the redhead "talked" with the man at the other end of the wave length. Then he switched off his set, got up and turned around with a grin on his face that stretched from ear to ear.
"He thinks we're great guys," he said to his partner. "He thinks we're the nuts."
"Horses to what he thinks!" the pilot growled, and ran a nervous tongue tip along his lower lip. "What do we do now? What are his orders?"
"To sit tight," the redhead said. Then, after flashing Colonel Welsh a smirking look, he went on, "He's coming up here sometime tonight. He didn't say, but I've got a hunch he wants to work on our three friends here. But he's tickled silly about it all. What a break for us we were bum shots last night. This little job puts us in good, I'm telling you. Boy! You can't top the big boss, can you? He knows his onions right down the line. Yeah! Old blabber mouth, there, is going to have plenty of chance to work his yap. And I mean, but plenty! Maybe he won't want to, but I've seen the big boss's way of getting guys to talk. He's got a technique, he has!"