His words were as calm and precise as though he were discussing the weather. He replaced the cigar in his mouth and puffed it slowly.
“Somehow or other I can’t believe they would go that far on suspicion,” said Hinkley. “They⸺”
“Are playing for big stakes, lieutenant,” Graves cut in. “And you cannot figure them as normal. Somers has killed men—he was in jail ten years. Hayden would sanction anything necessary for the success of his project. What are our three lives to them, compared to the prizes they are playing for, or the results of their being run down?”
“Lots of people will have seen our ship passing over,” suggested Broughton. “They may figure that the army will just say another wreck and let it go, but an investigation might be embarrassing.”
“They could kill us in such a way that it would look like a wreck,” said Graves. Burn our bodies with the plane, or something like that;”
Both airmen nodded.
“Well, what are you going to do about it?” Hinkley inquired.
“If you’ll pardon me, Mr. Graves, I have a scheme that might work,” announced Broughton. “It’s no better than a fifty-fifty shot, but I believe that you’re right, the more I think of it, and in that case I believe our chances of ever getting Hayden and getting out of here are about as good as the old snowball in ⸺. I’ve got a crazy idea we could take off here.”
Hinkley was not greatly surprized, but Graves was.
“You really think so?” he inquired with the nearest approach to eagerness that the flyers had ever seen him show.