The new dawn was a pale band of light that etched the eastern rim of the world. The overcast layers that had filled the night sky were fast breaking up and dissolving into nothingness. It was a sure sign that the new day would be clear and bright. And as Dave Dawson stared up at the slowly changing sky, he tried to tell himself that that was a very good sign, and that everything would turn out swell.

Yes, he was trying to tell himself and convince himself, but he didn't even come close. The hand of invisible doom and disaster seemed to be pressing down hard on his heart. And countless demons of doubt and dread and misgiving were dancing around in his brain. He shifted his position on the floor and stared over at Freddy Farmer and Agent Jones, who sat back-propped and silent against the room wall.

Room wall? Well, it could hardly be called that. The place where the three of them were now was little more than a hundred year old cow-shed sunk half into the ground from changing weather, and just plain natural deterioration. It was a good half-mile from the spot where they had left the B-Twenty-Five bomber well camouflaged, covered by tree branches, bushes, and anything else that they could lay their hands on. To this tumbled down mess of rotted wood Senior Lieutenant Petrovski had led them as straight as though she were walking a piece of taut string. Then, she had left them here well over two hours ago!

Yes! Left them to cool their heels, and bite their fingernails if they wished, while she went out into the darkness to scout about the village of Urbakh, and find out just what the picture was. When she had told them of her intention, a whole batch of arguments had leaped to Dawson's lips, just as they had leaped to the lips of Freddy Farmer, and Agent Jones. However, the Russian girl was quick to read what was in their minds. And she asked them a question that put an end to all the arguments, and stopped them all cold.

"And who but I, who knows this area as a birthplace, should go out and find what should be done next?" she had asked.

And was there one of them better qualified to look over the lay of the land? There was not! However, Dawson had been tempted to insist that he go along with her, just as a matter of protection, so to speak. But before he spoke he thought of three hundred and six Nazis who wouldn't help Hitler any more. So he didn't even speak.

However, the girl officer of Russian Intelligence had said that she would return in a little over an hour. And it was now well over two hours since she had slipped away in the darkness like a greased shadow. That wasn't so good, and the demons of doubt and dread and misgiving were loudly clamoring for recognition in Dawson's brain.

"I fancy we're all thinking the same thoughts, what?" Freddy Farmer's low voice suddenly broke the silence. "And deucedly unpleasant thoughts, too."

"Check!" Dawson muttered grimly. "I'm afraid we were dopes to let her go out alone, even if she does know this neck of the woods, and how to take care of any Nazis she bumps into."

"Oh, she'll be back," Agent Jones spoke up confidently. "The Russian women are every bit as good at waging war as the Russian men, you know."

"Sure!" Dawson grunted. "But a lot of Russian men soldiers have been shot in this war. However—well, I guess the only thing we can do is wait some more."

"And if she doesn't show up at all?" Freddy Farmer put the obvious question. "Then what?"

"Then I haven't the faintest idea," Dawson replied with a heavy sigh. "We'll just have to think up something if and when that time arrives."

"We could go to the Nazi Commandant hereabouts, and ask him if he knows where we could find Nikolsk," Agent Jones offered with a chuckle.

"Thanks for the attempt at humor!" Dawson groaned. "But I don't feel like laughing. I feel like—Hold it! You hear that, fellows?"

There was no need to ask the question. Even a deaf man could have heard the thunderous roar of revving aircraft engines that suddenly blasted the silence of dawn to the four winds. As though controlled by invisible strings, the three of them leaped to their feet and crowded over to the glassless window on the side of the room nearest the location of the sound. It did them little good, however. They simply found themselves staring out at a wall of trees that blocked off even the growing light of dawn.

That didn't matter very much, though. And it certainly didn't cause their hearts to thump less violently. The three of them knew at once that the roaring was from German aircraft engines. And the three of them also realized at once that a Nazi flying field couldn't be more than a few hundred yards away!

"Sweet tripe!" Dawson gasped when he could catch his breath. "Did we pick a nice secluded out of the way spot, I don't think! That's a Nazi flying field. And those engines sound like Messerschmitt One-Nines and One-Tens to me!"

"Quite!" Agent Jones grunted, tight-lipped. "Certainly isn't a tank base. A Jerry airdrome, without a doubt. And here come some of the blighters off on the early patrol!"

The last statement was quite true. Hardly had the words left Agent Jones' lips when six Messerschmitt One-Tens went tearing by no more than three hundred feet over the spot where the three youths crouched hidden. A moment later a second flight of Nazi planes roared by toward the front. And then a third flight, and a fourth. Dawson squinted up at each flight, and saw that his guess had been correct. Half of the planes were single-seater Messerschmitt One-Nine fighters. And the other half were Messerschmitt One-Tens. And when the last flight had passed over he sat down on the floor again, scowled darkly, and scratched his head.

"Just ducky, just dandy!" he groaned. "We hide our ship just a hop skip and a jump from a mess of high speed Nazi jobs. What a sweet hope we'd have trying to take off. Or is there some way of getting a B-Twenty-Five into the air without using the engines?"

"Lots of ways!" Freddy Farmer grunted unhappily. "But I can't seem to think of one, right now."

"Well, keep thinking, pal!" Dawson told him. "Because I guess we're going to have to do just that. Darn it! Where is that Senior Lieutenant, anyway? She's one bright girl, and always has the right answer. Maybe she'll have the right answer to this one."

"I hope!" Agent Jones echoed fervently.

"I fancy that makes two of us who hope, old thing," Freddy Farmer sighed. "A bit strange, though, there was no sign of the airfield on that mosaic map of Major Saratov's," he went on after a split second pause. "Or could all of us have been so blind as to have missed it?"

"Hardly," Agent Jones said with a grim laugh. "If you ask me, we didn't spot it because you wouldn't even spot it from the air. The Jerries, as you well know, are absolutely top-hole in the art of camouflaging. I think that's the answer, frankly. A very cleverly camouflaged air base that Soviet pilots haven't discovered yet."

"And we have—too late!" Dawson grunted. "Say, listen, you two. What say we give the Senior Lieutenant twenty minutes more, and if she hasn't returned by then we go take a look-see at that airfield, huh? To my way of thinking, we can't count too much on the B-Twenty-Five, with a nest of Messerschmitts this close. Better have a look-see, anyway. Am I right, or wrong?"

"Perfectly right!" Freddy Farmer said.

"The same for me," Agent Jones echoed. "Twenty minutes more for the lady to show up, and then we start snooping around on our own."

Whether the war gods planned it that way or not will of course never be known. But exactly nineteen minutes had ticked by on Dave Dawson's wrist watch when suddenly a shadow fell across the dawn light on the floor, and Senior Lieutenant Nasha Petrovski came gliding into the room. Instantly the three men were on their feet, and it was Dawson who found his tongue first.

"Boy! Am I glad to see you, lady!" he gulped out impulsively. "I mean, Senior Lieutenant, it's sure nice to see you back. We were getting mighty worried."

The Russian girl smiled her thanks, but her smile was far from her usual flashing one. She sat down on the floor and pulled off her tattered peasant cap to show her close cropped jet black hair. Dawson, staring at her for a moment, could not help but admit to himself that Nasha Petrovski in a Senior Lieutenant's snappy uniform, or Nasha Petrovski in the tattered garments of a Ukrainian peasant woman, was still one mighty pretty girl. He brushed the flash thought from his brain, however, and squatted down on his heels in front of her.

"Bad news, eh, Senior Lieutenant?" he asked quietly. "I think I can see it in your face."

She didn't answer him for a moment. She seemed content to wait until Freddy Farmer and Agent Jones had also squatted down on the floor. Then she nodded her head, and her eyes flashed with some inner rage.

"Yes, bad news, my gallant comrades," she said evenly. "It would seem the Nazis here at Urbakh are far more clever than we expected."

"Quite," Agent Jones murmured politely. "The camouflaged airfield. We have just been watching some of their planes fly over."

"Yes, a secret airfield!" the Russian girl said in a low voice, and clenched her two hands into fists. "It is not a quarter of a mile from where we now sit. I have seen it, and though I will hate all Nazis to my death, I must speak praise of that secret field. It is all underground, under a large flat-topped hill. You almost stumble into it before you see the screens of branches that hang down over the entrance. When planes are to take off, the screens are lifted by wire cables and the valley at the base of the hill becomes a smooth take-off runway. It is clever. Yes, it is ingenious. It is also most unlucky for us that Nazis are so close."

"Well, they haven't spotted us yet!" Dawson said, to cheer her up a little. "And we'll just make sure that they don't."

"Yes, of course," the Russian girl replied in a dull voice, and shrugged sort of hopelessly. "But it is blame that I must put on my own shoulders. I am ashamed to—"

"Now look, Senior Lieutenant!" Dave spoke up quickly. "We—"

But that's as far as he could get. She silenced him with her eyes, and an upraised hand.

"Let me finish, please, Captain Dawson," she said. "Then you will realize why I am so ashamed. It is my sad duty to report to you three gallant ones that the Nazis have already discovered our airplane. There is a strong guard about it this very minute. And, of course, they realize that we must be somewhere in this area."

Had Hitler himself stepped through the cockeyed slanting doorway at that exact moment, the three youths wouldn't have been much more stunned. To Dawson it was like something exploding inside his head. And quick as a flash he thought of the incident aboard the Flying Scotsman, and of the air battle just before the Wellington's arrival in Moscow. Was it true? Was it true that the Gestapo had been here all the time waiting for them? Had they seen or heard the B-Twenty-Five sliding down for the night landing, and just waited for daylight to capture it? Was that the truth? Dawson wondered. He wondered hard, and little by little he began to get the feeling that the Nazis didn't know who, or how many, had arrived in their midst. If so, why had they not swooped down on the landed plane instantly, and shot or captured everybody right then and there? Was it because they had not been able to reach the bomber before its crew had slipped away in the darkness? Or was it because they, themselves, hoped to be led to the hiding place of one Ivan Nikolsk, who was such an important link in the revealing of their war plans?

Dawson wondered and pondered in silence, and then suddenly he was conscious of Freddy Farmer speaking.

"Let them have the blasted aircraft, and welcome to it!" the English-born air ace was saying. "It makes matters a bit more difficult, but far from impossible. I fancy that there isn't one of us who hasn't been stranded behind Nazi lines before this. We'll get away from the beggars, somehow. The main thing is to locate this bloke, Ivan Nikolsk, and let Agent Jones, here, do his share in this balmy show we're to pull off."

"But that will not be so easy, either, I am most sad to report," Senior Lieutenant Petrovski said bitterly. "A little luck has been mine since I last saw you. I found Ivan Nikolsk, and it was easier than I had dared hope. There was a certain house I went to, on the east side of the village. An old woman, too old to interest the Nazis. Nina, her name is. She used to rock me in my cradle. She made for me my first doll, out of thin air and a bit of string, almost. She was there at the house. Half blind, but she knew me at once. She swore that she knew in her heart that I was coming. Perhaps yes. Who is there to say no? And what is planned for us on this earth, and what is not planned for us? Who is there to prove this or that to be wrong, or a miracle?"

The Russian girl suddenly caught herself up and made a little apologetic gesture with her hands.

"But such mysteries of life are not for us to speak of at the moment," she continued. "It is just that Ivan Nikolsk went to Nina for hiding. He is there. He is there now. I saw him."

"Oh, splendid!" Freddy Farmer burst out excitedly. "Did you speak to him, Senior Lieutenant? And what did he say to you? By Jove!"

"No." She turned to the English youth with a sad smile. "I have made you happy only to make you unhappy. I spoke to Ivan Nikolsk, but he did not speak to me. He is unconscious. He has been so for four days. He has illness, and a terrible fever. Nina has done what she could. But there is no doctor, and it would mean her life to go to the Nazis in the village. Nina says that he has not long to live. And I have seen him, and so believe her!"