"Open, please, yes. There is fire and smoke in there. Open, please, and we will put out fire, yes!"
Dawson and Freddy Farmer simply looked at each other, and winked.
Neither of them spoke a word, but each could tell that the other had exactly the same thought. In short, that the next few minutes could well mean success or failure for their hopes. There was not much smoke going up from the burning clothes and papers now. The fire had spent itself, and if help in the form of the Honolulu fire and police departments did not come soon, their mad play for freedom would have been all in vain.
And then suddenly from beyond the door a voice spoke that made the hair crawl on the backs of their necks, and made each wish with all his heart and soul that he had been armed. It was the voice of Yammanato, and it was not soft and quiet and polished now. It was high-pitched, even a little off key, and ringing with fiendish frenzy.
"Open at once or I will kill you through the door. Your trick has failed, do you hear me? It has failed, and if you do not wish to die a thousand deaths then open this door at once. Do you hear me? Do you hear me?"
Fists, and more than one pair of fists, pounded violently on the door.
The door squeaked and groaned a little but it did not budge a fraction of an inch. The furniture that the two air aces had piled up in front of it was made of heavy stuff and held the door fast.
"Open! Open this door at once! I have a gun. I am going to shoot!"
It was the man called Yammanato who screamed the words, and almost before their shrilling was lost to the echo there came the m.u.f.fled sound of two shots, and bullets tore through the heavy paneling in the door to lodge harmlessly in the bamboo chest.
"You see?" Yammanato screamed, seeming to beat the b.u.t.t of his gun against the door. "I have a gun, and I will shoot you. No matter where you stand I will be able to hit you. Kato is coming and he is strong enough to break down this door. I tell you, your trick has failed. Be not fools any longer, or it will go that much harder with you. Do you hear me in there? Do you hear me?"
Freddy acted as though he were going to fling some kind of a taunt through the door, but Dawson cut him off with a curt shake of his head, and then put his lips to young Farmer"s ear.
"Don"t ask for it, Freddy!" he breathed. "He might be able to place the sound of your voice, and plug us at that. Just keep mum. If we don"t get a break pretty soon, then ..."
Dawson didn"t finish the last. Rather he finished it with a soft groan and turned his head so that Freddy would not see the look he knew must be showing in his eyes. The sands of time were running dangerously low now. Was fate mocking their crazy efforts? Was this house where they were prisoners so situated that n.o.body outside would see that yellow smoke pouring from the skylight? Was this house set alone out on the outskirts of Honolulu? Had their desperate attempt failed after all, and in a few moments would that giant, Kato, smash down the door with his ma.s.sive shoulders? Would...?
The last thought was never completed in Dawson"s brain. At that moment from beyond the door some place came a cry of alarm, and the sound of feet running furiously up the stairs. Then the speaking voice came closer and Dawson could tell that it was Kato shrilling something rapidly in j.a.panese.
And then ... and then a voice roared and Dawson"s heart leaped with pure joy. It was a good old American voice and it seemed to boom right through the barred door.
"Hey you, what"s going on here!" it thundered. "Your place is on fire.
What"s in that room?"
"It is nothing, Captain," came Yammanato"s voice, very sweet and whining. "It was a cigarette that burned one of my jackets. It is all right, now, Captain. But thank you for coming to our aid."
"Oh, yeah?" said the booming voice. "Well, I"m not a captain, just a sergeant. And don"t tell me that a cigarette made that much smoke.
What"s your name anyway? What"s ... Yeah, up here, Mike! Come on up and bring those two guys with you. This looks screwy to me!"
"Coming, Sergeant!" cried out a second born-in-the-U.S.A. voice. "Hey, these guys look j.a.p to me!"
"But that is silly!" the whining voice of Yammanato was heard to protest. "We are all native Hawaiians. My name is Komo. I own the little souvenir shop down the street. Why, I have never been in j.a.pan in my life. You are mistaken, Sergeant. We are loyal Hawaiians. And it is true. I was smoking a cigarette and put it down to go out of the room for a minute. It fell out of the ash tray and onto a jacket that was on the arm of a chair. It is really nothing. No harm at all, save a hole in my jacket. And it was my favorite jacket, too."
And that was as long as Dawson and Freddy Farmer decided to wait. There were two Yank soldiers out there. Probably a couple of members of the military patrol in that part of Honolulu. Anyway, they were undoubtedly armed, and besides, the time to act had arrived at last. Dawson looked at Freddy Farmer, and they both nodded.
"Hold them, Sergeant!" Dave yelled at the top of his voice, and started heaving the furniture that blocked the door to one side. "That rat is lying in his teeth. He"s a j.a.p, and so are the others. We"re a couple of Air Forces officers held prisoner in here. We started the fire to bring help. Hold them, Sergeant; we"re coming out."
"Hey, what goes on?" came the booming voice.
But at that moment neither Dave nor Freddy wasted any breath replying.
Both were straining every ounce of their strength to push the furniture aside and get at the door. It seemed to take them years to do it, and they heard sounds and yells outside. They still paid no attention. And then finally the last of the furniture was out of the way. Dawson grabbed the door k.n.o.b, turned and yanked the door open. Two big husky members of the military police stood outside blinking at him in dumbfounded surprise. In one corner of the landing the two little brown men cringed. But Yammanato and Kato had obviously ducked past the two soldiers and were racing down a flight of stairs at top speed. Dawson took it all in at a glance, and yelled at the blinking sergeant.
"Stop them!" he cried. "They"re j.a.p spies. Stop them even if you have to shoot!"
The sergeant still gaped blankly, but the private first cla.s.s who was with him seemed to collect his wits. He spun around and made a grab for Kato.
"Hey you, hold on there!" he barked.
But the giant j.a.p had no intention of doing that. As he went down the stairs he shot out a huge fist. It caught the American soldier square on the chin and knocked him head over heels as though he were no more than a toy doll. But Kato did not take into consideration that Dawson was up on his toes, and fighting mad. As the soldier went toppling over the gun in his hand flew from his fingers. Dave dived and caught it before it struck the stair landing. He fell on his side but twisted around on the top of the stairs. A split second later the gun in his hand spat out flame and sound. Kato"s head snapped forward as though he had been brained from behind by a baseball bat. His big feet lost their footing on the stairs. He stumbled and then went crashing forward to fall headlong down the last seven or eight steps like a slaughtered ox. Even before he crumpled in a heap halfway through an opened door that led out onto a sun-filled street, blood was pouring from the bullet wound in the back of his head, and he was stone dead.
In dying, however, Kato had saved the life of his master, Yammanato.
That is to say, his falling body blocked the entire stairway so that Dawson was unable to shoot at Yammanato, who was a few steps ahead of the giant j.a.p. However, Dave did not waste any time cursing his luck.
Scrambling to his feet, he went down the stairs in just three leaps, hurtled over the prostrate Kato and bolted out into the sunny street.
He spotted Yammanato not over thirty yards away racing headlong up the sidewalk on his right. To Dawson"s surprise he didn"t see any gun in the j.a.p spy"s hand. Yammanato had either thrown it away, or had stuck it in his pocket when the two Yank soldiers had come running into the house.
But even if the j.a.p had had a gun in either hand, it wouldn"t have made any difference to Dawson. The tables were turned, now, and it was Dawson"s time to do the talking.
"Stop, you j.a.prat!" he shouted, and raced up the sidewalk like a streak of lightning.
If the j.a.p heard the challenge he paid no attention. He increased his speed if anything, and Dawson suddenly saw that he was making for a narrow alley another fifty or sixty yards ahead.
"Stop, Yammanato!" Dave yelled. "Your last chance. Stop, or you get it!"
But Yammanato did not stop. That he heard Dawson was proved by the fact that he flung a single look back over his shoulder, and then raced full out for what he hoped would be the safety of the alley up ahead. He never reached that alley, though. He missed it by a good twenty yards.
Dawson"s single shot seemed to knock Yammanato"s feet right out from under him, and spin his body in the air like a human top. The j.a.p hit the sidewalk on his face, and slowly rolled over onto his right side.
The instant the j.a.p went down, Dave slowed up and went ahead cautiously, his gun out in front of him on the alert for instant action. He had not forgotten the gun that the j.a.p had fired through the door of that smoke-filled prison room. And when he saw Yammanato slide his right hand inside his jacket he almost pulled the trigger of his gun again, but not quite. Perhaps he could not shoot a man sprawled on the ground, even though he were a filthy j.a.panese. Or perhaps it was for one of many other reasons. At any rate, he withheld his fire.
And then Yammanato"s hand came out from inside his jacket, and it happened. For a brief instant the Hawaiian sun gleamed on the polished blade of a six-inch knife. Then the blade disappeared as the j.a.p plunged it with both hands to his heart.
"The stinker!" Dawson heard his own voice pant as he raced up to the j.a.p. "Takes his own life rather than face the music. Just an old j.a.p custom, I guess."
But Yammanato was not yet quite dead. He stared up at Dawson out of half closed eyes that gleamed with fiendish hate. And then suddenly his lips slid back over his teeth in a sort of wolfish grin, and faintly spoken words came out from between them.
"Good fortune is a fickle woman. I have so spoken."
And with that the j.a.p died. Dawson saw death steal over the Nip"s face.
The light in his eyes went out, he stopped breathing, and all that remained was the blood that had once given him life seeping out past the knife blade and staining his white silk shirt a deep red.
"If that was supposed to be an exit line, Yammanato," Dawson grunted down at the dead man, "it was very corny. Plenty corny."
And then as he straightened up, Freddy Farmer and the two soldiers came dashing up, and all three of them started talking at once.
"Hold everything, everybody!" Dave cried, and held up his two hands.
"The rat"s dead as a doornail, and now all of us have got things to do, but fast!"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
_All Or Nothing_