Commander Drake, of U.S. Navy Intelligence, took off his cap and ran fingers through his hair, and gave a little shake of his head. He had just completed a minute inspection of the house where Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer had been held prisoner, and now he stood with the two of them in the very prison room. The sergeant, who it seemed was named Ryan, and a whole squad of troops were standing guard on the building.
The two still cringing brown men, who Commander Drake guessed were Koreans, were in the sergeant"s custody. And the street out in front was now packed with the curious who had been drawn like flies to the scene.
And incidentally, the bodies of Yammanato and Kato had been carted away from the public view.
"It"s still like somebody telling me a crazy dream he had!" Commander Drake gasped, and jammed his cap back on his head. "I can still hardly believe it!"
"Well, it was real enough, sir," Dawson said with a grin. "There are a couple of witnesses right here to back up that statement. But as the old saying goes, truth is lots of times stranger than fiction."
"You"re telling me!" Commander Drake said, and made a gesture with one hand that included the entire house. "This nest of the little yellow rats right here under my very eyes all this time. And it took you two to smoke them out. And I don"t mean that as a pun. Why, heaven knows how much information they"ve collected in this very house, and then slipped out of the Islands to be used against us. Why, that radio down in the bas.e.m.e.nt is just about as powerful as the naval radio at Kaneohe."
"I sure wish that Yammanato hadn"t gone yellow and taken his life,"
Dawson said grimly. "That"s why I shot him in the hip. To save him for you, I hoped."
"Well, don"t let it make you feel too bad," Commander Drake said with a shake of his head. "There"s one thing about a j.a.p, and I suppose we should give him some credit for it. I mean, when he doesn"t want to talk there"s nothing in the world that can make him talk. When you shot him he knew that he had failed, and would be in disgrace as long as he lived. So the only thing left for him to do was to take his life.
Yammanato, he called himself, eh? Well, I"ll bet a small sum of money that I won"t find him listed under that name, or even listed as living here, when I look him up. Dawson, and you too, Farmer, do you realize what you"ve done for me? Why you"ve accomplished in a day what I haven"t been able to do since the time of Pearl Harbor. Why, what there is here in this house may prove to be of inestimable value to the Navy, and to the Army, too. Those files in that room downstairs may have every j.a.p spy this side of Tokyo listed."
"I hope so, sir," Dawson murmured as he stared up at the smoke-smudged skylight. "But as far as I"m concerned it"s a failure. Farmer and I missed the boat. And that is exactly what I mean."
"Quite," Freddy Farmer echoed gloomily. "If we hadn"t been so utterly stupid as to let ourselves get captured that night, we might have identified that n.a.z.i who is aboard one of the carriers. He might even have led us here, and the whole thing would have been cleared up very nicely. As Dawson says, it"s a blasted failure for me, too. Good heaven!
Just think of what may happen to that carrier force. You say you didn"t gain an inkling of his ident.i.ty, sir? Not one of the fighter pilots aboard the three carriers made any suspicious moves."
Commander Drake didn"t reply for a moment or two. He frowned, pursed his lips, and balled one clenched fist into the palm of the other hand. Then he sighed, and shook his head.
"Not one blessed thing," he said sadly. "When you two seemed to have disappeared from the face of the Islands, I took the job in hand and personally checked every fighter pilot aboard. Not to anyone"s knowledge aboard, of course. And I had what men I could spare check on fighter pilots" moves ash.o.r.e for the day they were in port. Of course I didn"t have enough men to a.s.sign one to each fighter pilot, but I doubt if I would have been any more successful.
"But the force sailed!" Dawson said with a groan. "Why? Couldn"t you have got Vice-Admiral Stone to delay sailing? Or couldn"t you have taken every fighter pilot off the carriers, and replaced them with others? I mean ... well, wasn"t there _something_ that could have been done, sir?"
Commander Drake shook his head, and sighed again.
"No," he said quietly. "The mission that force is on now has been planned for months. To hold it up would upset our entire plan of war in the Pacific. The carrier force simply had to sail on schedule. There wasn"t anything else we could do but take the chance that that n.a.z.i spy won"t be able to get away with whatever he plans to accomplish."
"But why won"t he, sir?" Freddy Farmer protested. "n.o.body knows who he is!"
The Naval Intelligence officer gestured with his two hands, palms upward.
"You"re right, n.o.body does, Farmer," he said. "But all the fighter squadron and division commanders were called before Vice-Admiral Stone before the force sailed. They were told the whole story and ordered to keep an eye on their pilots at all times. Because of one rat in their midst all the others have got to suffer for it. But that"s the way it is. Also, certain other officers aboard the carriers were told the story, and they will keep a strict watch of the deck beginning with sundown. And another precaution has been taken, also. It"s probably the one that will get us the best results, if there are to be any results."
"And what precaution is that, sir?" Dawson asked as the commander paused for breath.
The Naval Intelligence officer permitted a faint smile to light up his grave face for a moment.
"That was my contribution to the affair," he said. "A part of the destroyer escort will sail the same course but exactly four hours behind the carriers. You heard that j.a.p in San Diego tell the n.a.z.i that the flares will burst into light some three to four hours after they have been in the water. Well, the destroyers will steam four hours behind the carriers, so their look-outs should certainly spot any flares, if there are any about."
"My compliments, sir," Dawson said with a smile. "That was a very good suggestion. It should work. And if you must know, it makes me feel a little better about the safety of that carrier force. But now I"d like to make a suggestion to you, sir, if you don"t mind? Or to be exact, it"s a request. Something I"d like to ask you to do."
The commander nodded and waved one hand.
"Then go ahead and ask it by all means, Dawson," he said. "What is it, anyway?"
Dawson hesitated a moment while a faint frown played across his brows.
"I feel a little better about the safety of the carrier force, sir," he said presently. "But I still feel that Farmer and I have failed in what we set out to do. So if you could arrange it, Commander, I"d like to ask you to arrange for us to see Vice-Admiral Stone. And as soon as possible, too, sir."
"That"s just about the easiest thing for me to do, Dawson," the Navy officer said with a grin. "I got in touch with the vice-admiral fifteen minutes after your phone call brought me here on the run. I gave him most of the picture then, and he was very pleased. Naturally he"ll want to congratulate you. I"ll drive you to the Kaneohe Naval Air Base right away. That is, just as soon as I leave some instructions for the guards downstairs. I"ve a car right outside."
"Thank you, sir," Dave told him. "I"d be very grateful if you"d be kind enough to do that."
"Wait right here and consider it done," Commander Drake said, and moved toward the door. "I won"t be five minutes."
"Now what, Dave?" Freddy Farmer asked as the Naval officer disappeared.
"I certainly don"t feel like seeing Vice-Admiral Stone. At least not right away. Even in spite of the luck we had in this Yammanato business, I couldn"t look the vice-admiral in the eye and not feel that we hadn"t let him down something frightful. And that"s to say nothing of how we let down the officers and men in that carrier force."
"Yeah, I know what you mean, Freddy," Dawson said with a nod. "And I feel pretty much the same way. But I"m willing to face the look in the vice-admiral"s eye if I can only get him to let us carry on with the unfinished business."
For a brief instant young Farmer stared at him as though he were slightly crazy.
"Unfinished business, Dave?" the English-born air ace presently gasped.
"You mean that n.a.z.i spy?"
"Certainly," Dave said. "What did you think I meant? As long as that guy and I are alive in the same world I"ll not have a moment"s peace of mind. Sure I meant him. And I still want to show him up for the sneaking skunk he is, hiding in a U.S. Navy uniform!"
"Well, naturally I want to do the same thing," young Farmer said quickly. "But I don"t think I quite follow you. How in the world do you figure you can reach him? The carrier force is almost three days out from Pearl Harbor now."
Dawson opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment Commander Drake came back up the stairs.
"Let it ride, Freddy," he said in a low voice. "You"ll hear me explain it to the vice-admiral. And maybe it would be bad luck if I spoke about it first to anybody else. Just cross your fingers and hope."
"I"ll do both of those things, right enough," young Farmer replied. "But you had better make it pretty good, what you"re going to say to the vice-admiral. He may be pleasant enough to us, but I fancy he won"t fall all over himself with joy at seeing us again."
"Just do what I said!" Dave growled as he moved toward the door. "Just keep your fingers crossed, and hope, that"s all."
A short time later Commander Drake ushered Dawson and Freddy Farmer into Vice-Admiral Stone"s quarters. The base commandant seemed genuinely pleased to see them. In fact, he said so, and congratulated them on the Yammanato business.
"Commander Drake told me over the phone that there is enough stuff there to sink a ship," he said. "That"s fine. Now maybe we can spend all our time thinking about the j.a.ps away from Pearl Harbor, instead of those who are here, and about whom we know nothing. It was a good job, you two, and I thank the powers that be that you came out of the thing with your skins. I must admit that we worried more than a little about you when you did not return here to the base last Monday night."
The vice-admiral paused and suddenly turned full face to Dave Dawson, and gave him a searching look.
"I have a feeling that you have something on your mind, Captain Dawson,"
he said. "Am I right? And if so, then go ahead and speak. You have my full permission."
Dave hesitated and glanced sidewise at Freddy Farmer for a little moral support, but the English-born air ace was watching the vice-admiral.
"I"m no good at making speeches, sir," he said a moment later. "And I certainly won"t take up your valuable time trying to make one. I only want to say this, sir. The job in so far as Farmer and I are concerned is not finished. We came out here to the Islands to identify him so that he could be put where he wouldn"t give anybody any trouble. But we didn"t do that, sir, and it was through our own fault. You warned us that we might be marked men, and we were dumb enough to forget your warning and walk right into something that only phenomenal luck got us out of. I suppose everybody makes mistakes, but only fools make the same mistake twice. And that"s just what we did. Once outside that shack in San Diego, and once last Monday night up by Kahuku Point beach. In short, sir, I want, and I"m sure Farmer does, too, another chance to grab that n.a.z.i spy with the carrier force."
"Well, for a man who says he can"t make a speech, that one wasn"t too bad, Captain Dawson," the vice-admiral said with a smile. "But aren"t you forgetting that the carrier force has sailed? That it"s almost three days out from Pearl Harbor?"
"No, sir," Dave replied instantly. "Naturally I haven"t forgotten that.
But ... well, look, sir. Technically, we are under your command right now. I was wondering if you couldn"t order us to fly to the carrier force. Aboard one of the mail Catalina boats. A Cat-boat could reach the force quite some time before the force is within fighter plane range of Truk. That"s true, isn"t it, sir?"