Dawson"s throat contracted so that he could hardly breathe. He gaped at the j.a.p in dumbfounded disbelief.
"Two days!" he heard Freddy Farmer choke out. "What day is today?"
"Friday, the thirteenth of the month," Yammanato replied. "And Friday, the thirteenth, is supposed to be an unlucky day in your country, is it not?"
"Friday, Friday?" Freddy Farmer mumbled over and over to himself.
"Why ... why, it was Monday night when we were at the Kahuku Point beach. I can"t believe it. It"s a blasted lie!"
"It is the truth, Captain Farmer," the j.a.p corrected him smoothly. "I am sorry that I cannot permit you to go outside and confirm it by asking anybody you might meet on the street. You will just have to take my word for it. It _is_ Friday, the thirteenth, and the American carrier force has been at sea for two days. Its destination is, of course, a matter of mystery to us. But of course it will not remain a mystery to us for very long. I ... You are sick, Captain Dawson? Kato! Get that chair for Captain Dawson. He is ill, or perhaps something I have said has upset him."
Dave wasn"t even listening. He probably couldn"t have, even if he wanted to. All the bombs and guns in the world were going off in his brain.
His insides felt as though they had shriveled up into nothing, and as if every drop of blood in his veins were trickling out through the end of his toes. The carrier force had come and gone? That n.a.z.i rat spy had not been caught, and he was now aboard one of the carriers? He made his contact with the man in Honolulu, who was obviously this Yammanato, and had obtained other information to be taken to Admiral Shimoda at Truk?
As well as the water flares? But it couldn"t be! It was impossible!
Yammanato was lying. Freddy and he couldn"t have been out cold from drugs from Monday night until Friday. That was crazy, screwy, and downright impossible.
"It is true, Captain Dawson, I am sorry for your sake, to say," the quiet voice of Yammanato filtered through his spinning and roaring thoughts. "And here is your proof. I didn"t think of it until just this moment. Stupid of me. I fear I have just been living amongst you Americans too long. I am becoming forgetful. But here, Captain Dawson.
See for yourself."
The little j.a.p had pulled a folded copy of the _Hawaiian Herald_ from his pocket, and was holding it up for them both to see. The big black headlines were just so many blurs to Dawson. His eyes flew to the date in small type, and all the life seemed to flow out of him.
It was Friday, the thirteenth of the month!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
_Fate Laughs_
"Well?" the quiet voice of Yammanato came to him, after a period of time which seemed to be no less than a hundred years. "Do you believe me, now? Or do you think I printed this myself for a little joke?"
Dawson didn"t say a thing, and neither did Freddy Farmer. It is doubtful if at that moment either of them could have spoken a word, even at the cost of their lives. The blackest and most inexcusable failure possible was theirs. It was complete and utter defeat for them. Every single step they had taken had been a step downhill toward failure and disgrace.
They had failed Vice-Admiral Carter, and they had failed Vice-Admiral Stone, and Commander Drake. And they had failed themselves. From the very moment the lightning had struck them as they crouched outside that shack near San Diego they had not done one single thing that wasn"t the wrong thing to do. Twice doom had reached for them, and missed. But not the third time. It was all over now. They had failed. To the end of their days they would not be able to hold their heads up among men. It would be far better if ...
"Good fortune is a fickle woman, Captain Dawson," Yammanato spoke again, as Dawson caught himself swaying like a drunken man. "She belongs to no one, for always. Even I have suffered from her fickle ways at times. But in your case you were doomed to lose. You were mere boys trying to beat men. To beat men who will one day become masters of the entire world. So do not let your sorrow and anger at yourself rob you of your desire to live. It was inevitable, this thing. You two were but two p.a.w.ns to be taken and removed from the game. We j.a.panese have made this thing happen to others before, and we will make it happen to still more in the future."
The pitch-black mood still engulfed Dawson, but he forced himself to rally his thoughts, and to regain control of them. He looked at Yammanato and regarded him, flint-eyed.
"Taking a couple of tricks isn"t winning the whole game, Yammanato," he said with an effort. "Okay, we didn"t catch that spy aboard the carrier, and the force has sailed. You forget the other thing. The other job we did accomplish!"
The little j.a.p just looked at him and smiled pleasantly.
"How many times, Captain Dawson?" he asked with arched eyebrows.
"How many times, what?" Dawson retorted.
"How many times has the famous American tendency to bluff been successful with you?" the j.a.p shot right back at him. "Another job?
Well, somehow I find myself not even curious any more, Captain Dawson.
Simply talking with you has satisfied me completely. There was no other job, and we all know that now."
"No?" Dawson flung at him. "That"s a horse on you, Yammanato! If nothing was bothering you, Farmer and I wouldn"t be alive now. It"s not the j.a.prat way to let their prisoners go on living for nothing. It won"t work, Yammanato. And I do mean _your_ bluff!"
The little j.a.p continued to smile, and then suddenly he looked almost sad and a little reproachful.
"I am afraid you have absorbed too much American propaganda," he said softly. "Not all j.a.panese are alike in the matter of waging war ... and winning. There are many like I am. The thrill of the battle is not death for my enemies. It is the defeat and the complete humiliation of the enemy that pleases me most. Why have you not long since been dead? I will gladly tell you, Captains Dawson and Farmer. Because killing you would not bring me half the joy or the satisfaction of letting you live to return to Vice-Admiral Stone, and Commander Drake, as two items of proof that their stupidity is no less than your own. Your deaths would mean nothing to me because I have nothing against you as individuals.
You are, as I have said, merely two p.a.w.ns that I have won, and which it pleases me to return to the loser ... for what you are worth. No, I have no desire at all to kill you. In a week, or two weeks, or perhaps longer, you will be drugged again and returned to the very spot where we captured you. I will have left the Islands by then. Of course, if when you again awake from the drugs, you wish to take your own lives, that is something that will be out of my hands. But I have a feeling that you will not do that. You Americans appear to have one admirable quality, stupid as it is. You find it difficult to realize when you are defeated."
The j.a.p stopped talking, smiled broadly, and made a little gesture with his hands, palms upward.
"And now I must leave you," he said. "No, you are not to be tied up again. Kato is a little over-zealous on some things. You are free to move about this room as you wish. Blankets will be given you to sleep on. There is already some furniture here. Make what use of it you like.
I am sure you will have no complaint about the food we will give you.
No, your confinement will not be too severe a hardship in a physical sense. And one more thing. If you are overcome with the desire to escape from this room, you are quite welcome to try. Kato! Come with me."
Yammanato raised his voice slightly on the last, and then calmly turned his back on the two air aces and walked toward the door. Wild madness seized hold of Dawson and he was tempted to fling himself at the little j.a.p. But he had just enough cold, hard common sense left not to make the slightest move in that direction. Kato was sidling around them, his jet black eyes glittering and alert. And Dawson knew that the giant son of Nippon had the power in either hand to snuff out his life with a single blow. So he stood stock-still and inwardly prayed that Freddy Farmer would do the same. And Freddy did.
As he reached the door Yammanato turned and looked back at them inquiringly.
"There is something else," he said. "Or maybe there isn"t. Have either of you a reasonable request to make? Say, something that might add to the comfort of your visit? After all, you can expect to be my guests for a considerable length of time."
Dawson started to shake his head, and hot, blistering words rose up in his throat. But at that very instant the glimmer of an insane hope winked in his brain.
"Yes, I"ve a request, Yammanato," he said, and pointed upward. "The stink in this place would suffocate me in a day. How about opening that skylight and letting some fresh air into the place?"
The small j.a.p"s eyes flew to the window, and Dawson could tell he was gauging its height. Suddenly he lowered his eyes to Dawson"s face and smiled and nodded.
"Certainly, Captain Dawson," he said. "I will have Kato open it at once.
Even by piling up the furniture I do not think you could reach it. But if you can ... my very best wishes, Captain. It is sixty feet from that skylight to the ground, and nothing but sheer wall. Nor does that let out on any roof. It is simply an opening in the side of the building.
For ventilation, of course. Kato! Open that skylight."
The big j.a.panese hesitated while the shadow of a scowl pa.s.sed across his face, and then he went over to the side wall and unhooked the pair of lines that controlled the skylight. He pulled down on one hard and the hinged window opened with a rusty squeak. Then he yanked viciously on both lines and they parted in a shower of dust high up by the skylight.
Rolling up the lines that dropped to the floor, the big j.a.p stuffed them in his pocket and glared at Dawson and Freddy Farmer. Yammanato laughed softly.
"I"m afraid that Kato has more confidence in your ability to escape, Captains, than I have," he said. "But now if it rains you will probably get wet."
"We won"t mind," Dawson said with a stiff grin. "And thanks for the fresh air, Yammanato. It"s certainly needed around here."
The polished j.a.p gave him a brief smile, a longer searching look, and then nodded and went outside with Kato at his heels. The big brute of a j.a.p jerked the door shut with a bang, and the two air aces heard both the key twisting in the lock, and a bolt ramming home. Then all was silent again.
But not quite completely silent. There were faint, new sounds that came to their ears as the two youths stood there in their room prison. Sounds that came down through the skylight high above their heads. The faint murmurs and whispers of a city of some one hundred and thirty-five thousand population. The sounds of Honolulu. They both listened to the sounds for a moment, and then looked at each other.
"Too bad we didn"t go down in flames in that Fortress!" young Farmer broke the silence between them bitterly. "What a blasted mess we"ve made of everything. Gosh! I was never so disgusted with anybody as I am with myself right now!"
"Yeah," Dawson mumbled with a grimace. "I"m sure not in love with me, that"s a cinch. The carrier force already two days at sea, and that n.a.z.i rat still aboard one of the ships! When he proved that to us it hit me as hard as hearing that we"d lost the war."
Freddy Farmer gloomily agreed with a silent nod, and not words. Dawson bit his lower lip in meditation, balled one clenched fist into the palm of the other hand, and cast furtive glances at young Farmer out of the corner of an eye.
"Are you game, Freddy?" he presently asked in a low voice.