For a long minute there was no sound inside the cabin save the faint drone of the plane's engine. Like three men suddenly struck dumb, Dave, Freddy, and the Colonel stared at the redhead. Rather, they stared at the automatic he held in his right hand; held so that at the bat of an eyelash he could send a bullet into either of them, or into all three of them, for that matter. Then, finally, Colonel Welsh broke the silence.

"What in thunder is this?" he demanded. "Who are you two? What's the idea?"

The redhead hunched his shoulders and half nodded his head toward the pilot.

"That's Ike, and I'm Mike," he said with a chuckle. "But it isn't any act. We're just keeping you on ice for a while, Colonel. Be nice and you'll get back into circulation again in time. Be dumb, and you'll be dead."

As the Colonel struggled for words, Dave leaned forward a little, arms resting on his knees.

"This isn't the plane you flew last night," he said.

The redhead grinned all the more and shook his head.

"Nope," he said. "And that makes you a bright little boy—Flight Lieutenant Dawson. And that was nice flying last night. I thought that second time I had you cold. I guess you're as good at the controls as I've heard tell you were. Or was this English kid, Farmer, doing the flying?"

Dave didn't reply. He suddenly felt as though his seat had been jerked out from under him, and as if his brain were tumbling down through space. This redhead knew his name, and Freddy's, too? An eerie chill swept through him, and he impulsively looked at Colonel Welsh. The chief of U. S. Intelligence's face was bright with dumfounded amazement. He in turn was staring speechlessly at the redhead. The man with the gun dragged down a corner of his mouth in a scornful gesture.

"Why so surprised, Colonel?" he asked. "Did you think you were the only smart one in this war?"

"You won't feel so smart when you're facing a firing squad!" the Colonel clipped out. "And that's where you're headed. Both of you!"

"Well, what do you know!" the pilot cried out, and turned around just long enough to give the Colonel a horse laugh. "Maybe you ain't got it yet, Colonel, who's holding the gun. Snap out of it. I know it's tough, but there's nothing you can do about it. Don't be a sap and make us let you have it. We just want to keep you on ice for a while. That's all."

The Colonel seemed to swallow his wrath, because when he spoke again his voice was normal, and almost friendly.

"All right, we'll be smart," he said. "But where are we heading? And why are you keeping us on ice, as you call it? What good is it going to do you?"

"What good?" the redhead echoed with a laugh. "Well, about ten thousand dollars' worth, for one thing. For another—well, I guess we just don't like you."

A hard, glittering look leaped into the Colonel's eyes, and Dave could tell that the man was employing every ounce of his will power to stop from leaping from his seat and hurling himself at the redhead, gun or no gun.

"A couple of bought and paid for American traitors, eh?" the chief of U. S. Intelligence suddenly grated. "American by birth only. Actually lower than the rats in Berlin and Tokio are—the ones who are paying you your blood money. Well, paste this in your hats. You'll never live to spend that money. And that's a promise!"

The redhead simply continued to grin. Then suddenly the gun in his hand spat flame and sound, and Dave saw the Colonel's left shoulder strap fly off as though cut by a knife. The bullet tore on out through the side of the cabin. Colonel Welsh didn't so much as flinch, or even bat an eye. He held the redhead with a steady agate-eyed stare.

"Put the next right between my eyes!" he grated. "You'll still not be able to spend that blood money. You'll be run to earth like the anti-American vermin you are. And you'll be wiped out, along with the rest of your fifth column brood."

The redhead didn't say anything. Dave wasn't sure, but he thought he saw a look of fear flash across the man's unshaven face. However, it came and went in a flash. The pilot turned from his controls again, and gave the Colonel a long look.

"Maybe!" he finally said harshly. "That's the chance we take. But let's not kid each other, Colonel. The point is that the Carrier Indian won't be sailing with these two little heroes of yours aboard. Yeah! So don't look like you're going to faint. We know all about it. The boys we work for are smart. And your whole country is going to find that out in short order, too.

"You guys in Washington have got a New Deal. Well, another guy has a New Deal, too. I like his better. So don't waste breath trying to unsell me. It can't be done. I've been kicked around too much by your cops and F.B.I.

"I'm looking out for my own good, see? I found out how my pal and me can make dough easy, and we're making it. No more working my life away for nothing. I'm sold on my New Deal.

"Now shut up, and relax. My pal and me have dough to earn."

"Aw, let 'em talk!" the redhead said with a hoarse laugh. "Maybe they'll try selling us some of them Defense Bonds."

"And you shut up, too!" the pilot snarled. "I don't feel like hearing anybody talk, see?"

The redhead looked both surprised and angry.

"Okay, okay!" he said. "So nobody talks."

Silence once more settled over the interior of the cabin, but it was the kind of a silence that feels charged with high voltage electricity, and apt to strike all over the place at an instant's notice. Turning his head, Dave snapped a quick glance out the window, but what he saw didn't help his spirits any. The plane was grinding northward over wild mountainous country that looked every bit as uninviting as that narrow strip of ground where they had force landed. Whether or not they had reached the Utah line, or were still in Arizona, Dave couldn't tell with that one quick glance. And he didn't bother taking a second look.

Fact was, it didn't matter where they were. Through a crazy twist of fate they were helpless prisoners in the hands of two men who would shoot them dead at the slightest provocation. The single warning shot that the redhead had snapped across Colonel Welsh's shoulder had been proof enough that he wasn't afraid to use his gun.

Yes, they were helpless prisoners. And their captors knew all about them: who they were, where they had been heading, and why. As those three truths came home to Dave, again he swallowed hard and shivered slightly. It was like a crazy nightmare, only it wasn't. It was stark reality; nothing out of a story book. The pilot and his redheaded companion had received orders to make sure that Freddy Farmer and he did not sail on the Aircraft Carrier Indian. They had tried the first time last night by attacking them with machine guns in a plane.

They had failed, yet in a way they had succeeded. They had drilled the Lockheed's engines and forced Dave to sit down on that narrow strip of smooth ground deep in a valley. Not knowing the exact results of their efforts, the two men had cruised about over the area as soon as it became light, and—by another crazy twist of fate—they had seen the smoke signal that had been sent up to attract help. Seeing that the plane had not crashed, the two men had done the logical thing, from their point of view. They had landed and picked up their prey. Kidnapped them, yes, but for a very good reason. Some other plane passing over might have landed and given them a quick lift to their destination. So the redhead and the pilot had picked them up to make sure somebody else wouldn't do it.

And the reason they hadn't been killed on the spot was simple to figure. Death in the dark during that air attack last night would have been different. The plane would have crashed and burned up, and when its charred ruins were found no one would ever had dreamed that bullets had sent it hurtling down to its doom. But three dead men lying beside a force landed plane was something else again. A scene like that naturally screamed murder all over the place. And so the redhead and his pilot had kidnapped them so that if another plane landed to investigate, it would look as though the occupants of the Lockheed had tried to find their way back to civilization on foot, and had become hopelessly lost in the mountains.

"But they know all about us! How?"

Dave didn't speak the words aloud. He spoke them only in his brain, but as he glanced at Colonel Welsh and met the man's eyes he knew that the senior officer understood what was in his mind, just as though he had heard the words spoken. Even as Dave met his eyes, Colonel Welsh bit his lower lip and gave a sharp little puzzled shake of his head. A hundred and one answers to the question leaped into Dave's brain, but every one of them seemed too fantastic even to bother considering.

However, fantastic or not, one thought kept hammering away until he was forced to admit that it at least must be true. It was that somebody close to Colonel Welsh—very close—was unquestionably in the pay of Berlin, or Tokio. Somebody in the drab, unpretentious building where Colonel Welsh maintained his real head-quarters was a traitor to the American flag, a paid rat of the lowest form who gnawed at the very heart of America.

But who? Dave thought of Captain Lamb, and Captain Stacey, and Lieutenant Caldwell—and shook his head vigorously. He thought of the man who had taken them up in the elevator—and wondered. He thought of the man reading the book in that room with the mops and pails—and wondered some more. In fact, he wondered until his head ached and his brain rang. It just didn't seem possible that any spy could get close enough to learn all that somebody had learned. That, however, was one of the many cockeyed things about war. The impossible was constantly popping up to prove to be a cinch. There were over two years of proof of that. Poland for one. The Maginot Line for another. And Crete, and Malaya, and Singapore—and Pearl Harbor, too, for that matter. All that had happened at those various places just couldn't happen. Only it had!

"So maybe Lamb, or Stacey, or—"

Dave cut short the unspoken thought. The pilot up forward had throttled his engine and was nosing the Stinson downward. Leaning over close to the window, Dave peered down and ahead. He saw a stretch of wild wasteland that seemed to extend to the four horizons. Scrub growth, a few patches of towering trees, and all the rocks in the world, it seemed, met his scrutiny. The plane seemed to be nosing down toward an area of tableland. And as Dave squinted his eyes he suddenly was able to make out a couple of weatherbeaten shacks built close to a patch of woods. He thought he saw something glistening just under the branches of the trees, but he was too high and too far away to tell what it was.

"Okay!" the redhead suddenly called out. "We're getting near the end of the line. Remember what I told you, you three. Be nice and nothing will happen. Get funny and I'll drill you and think nothing of it, so help me. I ain't a killer often, but when I am, I'm good. So watch your step."