"What?" Colonel Welsh exploded as he looked from Dawson to Farmer, and back again. "What's this?"

"Farmer, sir," Dave explained. "We made about six million guesses apiece as to what this was all about. One of his was that the President was going to North Africa, or beyond, for a conference with Prime Minister Churchill and Stalin."

"Nobody heard you make that guess, did they?" the colonel asked, tight-lipped, as he fixed his eyes on young Farmer.

"No, sir!" the English youth replied. "Nobody."

"He's right, sir," Dawson spoke up quickly. "I remember when he made that guess he spoke so low I could hardly hear him, and I was lying right next to him. In case you're wondering, Colonel, it wasn't until we were on our way back to the base that Colonel Baron von Steuben slugged us. So it's certain he didn't hear Freddy."

"Yes, of course you're right," the colonel said, and smiled at Farmer. "So don't feel bad. It just gave me a start that you had hit the nail on the head. You were partly wrong, though. Joseph Stalin will not be among those present this time."

"And those envelopes, sir?" Dawson asked when the colonel fell silent and stared out the compartment window at the darkness of night sweeping by. "They are still very hush-hush stuff, as far as we're concerned? Could I ask if they contained information about the President's trip?"

The senior officer turned from the window and looked straight at him.

"You can, and I'll tell you," he said. "Each envelope contained the route the President's plane is to fly, the exact time schedule, and the codes to be used in case the aircraft runs into trouble, or danger, and all that sort of thing. In short, as I told you in Washington, the Nazis would give almost anything to get hold of one of those sealed envelopes. With that information in their possession, they could have delivered a terrible blow to the United Nations. Think of it! The death of the President and members of the American High Command! It would be like setting our war effort back to the day of Pearl Harbor!"

The horrible thought made Dawson shiver in spite of himself, and he thanked God that Freddy and he had destroyed their letters before von Steuben had smashed them both to the ground. The President's death would have been loss enough, but to have added the loss of the great leaders of our military, naval, and air forces would have been world shaking indeed.

"And now, sir?" Dawson asked after several moments of silence. "Now another plan is to be carried out?"

Colonel Welsh didn't answer for a moment. He stared down at his two hands folded on the edge of the little table, and the expression on his thin face seemed to show a reluctance to answer that question. Presently, though, he lifted his head and looked straight at the two youthful air aces.

"We are now headed for Casablanca," he began quietly. "With the extra tanks of fuel we have aboard, we can make it easily. If we reach Casablanca without any trouble, I will be as sure as a man can be that the enemy has not learned anything of the President's plan to fly there himself. If we don't—"

The Chief of all U. S. Intelligence let the rest trail off into thin air and made a little gesture with one hand. Dawson frowned and looked at him earnestly.

"I don't think I get what you mean, sir," he said slowly.

"And neither do I, sir," Freddy Farmer spoke up.

For a moment the colonel held his lips pressed together in a thin, grim line, and a hard light glittered in his eyes.

"In a thing like this," he said presently, "you can't afford to take any chances. You've got to be dead sure; as dead sure of everything as it is humanly possible to be, from start to finish. I had utmost confidence in your making the complete flight to Natal. And the way you two did handle yourselves, when the odds were actually all against you, proves that the confidence I had in you was justified. But in everything there is ever present the little item of fate. A tiny little something that is beyond man's power to see in advance, or even to counteract when it happens. For example, that technical sergeant at Bolling Field. I would have staked my life on that man. But, as things turned out, I was completely mistaken. And so with you two, or with each of my agents at the stops you were to make. Because of something you couldn't guard against, or prevent before death came to you, the contents of one of those sealed envelopes might have fallen into enemy hands. What I mean is, one of the envelopes might have been opened, the contents read, and then the envelopes resealed."

"But, Colonel," Dawson protested, "one of us would—"

"I know, I know," the colonel said, stopping him with a gesture of his hand. "But look at it this way. Suppose von Steuben had knocked you both out while you still had the envelopes? Suppose he had opened one, read its contents, and resealed it so that you'd never have guessed? What then? When you came to and found you still had the envelopes, you'd never dream that they had been touched.""But I'd be plenty suspicious, sir!" Dawson interrupted. "I'd—"

"Would you?" the colonel's quiet but firm voice stopped him again. "But von Steuben was no fool! What if he stole your money and Farmer's money, too? What then?"

"I see what you mean, sir," Dawson said, and grinned sheepishly. "We would have thought we'd been victims of some holdup."

"Exactly," the colonel agreed. "A crazy little twist of fate over which you had no control whatever. Yet the damage would have been done. So I had to do what I could to find out if there had been any crazy twist of fate. In other words, each of those sealed envelopes contained the information, in code of course, that the next bombing plane to pass through would carry the President, and members of his party."

Dawson blinked, and suddenly the truth hit him between the eyes.

"What, sir?" he gasped. "You—you mean this B-25 is supposed to be carrying the President?"

"I mean just that!" the colonel confirmed grimly. "If enemy agents have learned what was in those envelopes, they will believe that this bomber is carrying the President as a passenger. The President has already left Washington in secret, and it wouldn't take much checking by enemy agents to find out that he isn't at the White House. Naturally they'd believe he was aboard this plane."

"Anything funny happen on your flight down, sir?" Freddy Farmer asked, as the senior officer paused for breath.

"Nothing that I noticed," Colonel Welsh replied with a shake of his head. "But just because things don't happen doesn't mean that they won't, in time. So, as I said, we won't know for sure until we arrive at Casablanca."

"And maybe not even then," Dawson mumbled to himself.

Colonel Welsh gave the Yank air ace a sharp look, and then nodded his head.

"That's right," he agreed. "And maybe not even then. Just another reason why an Intelligence man gets gray hair so early in life. You never can tell about a job until it's all finished and you're working on another. Then it's the same thing all over again."

The trio lapsed into silence, but not for long, because the question that had been plaguing Dawson just had to come out.

"Supposing we make it to Casablanca okay," he said, "and you feel sure that the enemy hasn't learned a thing about the President's trip, what then? The sealed orders Farmer and I were to have delivered at the rest of the stops are destroyed, and you say you collected the envelopes we left at Miami and Puerto Rico. How will they know about the President's plane when it does come through?"

"A good question, but I've got the answer, Dawson." The colonel smiled and pointed to a brief-case on his little table. "In there are duplicates of the orders, without the part about the next bomber through being the President's plane. If we reach Casablanca safely, we'll turn around and head south for Liberia, cross the South Atlantic to Natal, and deliver one of those sealed envelopes to each of the stops as we fly north to Washington. I've allowed sufficient time for us to do that, in case that's the way it works out."

"Well," Dawson remarked, and shifted to a more comfortable position on his chair, "there's nothing like a two-way hop across—"

But he never finished his sentence, because at that moment the pilot of the B-25 came back into the made-over bomb compartment and spoke to Colonel Welsh.

"A surface ship just ahead, sir, sending up distress flares," he reported. "Probably a merchantman with a torpedo in her plates. We're about three hundred and fifty out, due east of Barbados. Do you want me to radio the ship's position? You gave orders, you know, to maintain radio silence."

"Sending up distress flares?" Colonel Welsh queried with a frown. "What good does she think flares will do? The captain of any other ship near by would be a fool to come close to her. The U-boat might still be lurking around."

"I know, sir," the pilot said. "Maybe she hears us and wants us to send out her position because her radio shack is gone. Maybe she thinks we're a flying boat on patrol."

For some unknown reason a sudden eerie chill rippled across the back of Dawson's neck. He looked at Colonel Welsh and tried to convince himself that this was none of his business, but that eerie chill forced him to blurt out, "And it could be something else, sir! I mean, if we send out the ship's position, our radio will reveal our own position."

The pilot of the bomber glared quickly at Dawson, and the corners of his mouth stiffened. "It isn't fun to be torpedoed at night," he said quietly. "I lost a brother that way."Dawson flushed slightly, but he didn't drop his eyes before the other's stare. Before he could say anything, though, Colonel Welsh addressed the pilot.

"Circle her and continue to maintain radio silence, Captain," he said. "Just before you pass her to port, drop a flare so that we can get a good look at her. If she seems in trouble, then maybe we'll do something for her. Meantime, though, I want all members of the crew to go to battle stations."

The bomber pilot's eyes widened in surprise, but he had sense enough not to ask any questions. He nodded, glanced at Dawson, turned and went forward to his compartment. Dawson waited until he was out of earshot, and then gave Colonel Welsh an apologetic smile.

"I'm sorry, speaking out of turn like that, sir," he said. "I guess the captain must think I'm a little cracked."

"Let him think so," the colonel remarked quietly. "All he knows is that he's flying me to Casablanca for a meeting with my agents, and that it's up to him and his crew to get me there. If he'd been through what you have, he'd be the first to agree with you. Maybe the flare will tell us something. If it is a torpedoed ship, I think I will take a chance and have her position radioed. Poor dev—"

That was as far as the colonel got. The savage yammer of aerial machine-gun fire interrupted him. An instant later they all heard a yell of pain from the pilot's compartment. Even before the echo had died away, the North American B-25 heeled over on one wing and started to slide off and down with both engines wide open.

"The pilot's hit!" Dawson yelled, and lurched to his feet. "Pilot hit and his co-pilot, too, I guess. By what? How the heck—"

Dawson didn't finish, either. At that instant the night outside was lighted with a brilliance like that of high noon. A terrific roar seemed to slam into the B-25 from all sides and spin her around until she was as helpless as a dried leaf in a gale.