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Show in running without lights at high speed over an uneven roadbed, even a snake unseen on the track might derail them. Under way, Collins turned to Curt in the seat beside .him. "I've followed fol-lowed blind so far. Where are we headed?" Curt chuckled mirthlessly. "The one spot you want above all to visit." vis-it." After a moment, "We better have it out, Collins. Suppose we begin with you. How did you get in on this? I reckon I know, but I'd rather you told me." "I had a note from Bill Henderson. Hender-son. .He enclosed a letter from Mr. Mitchell" "One thing. Did you know of Mitchell's murder before you left the Zone?" "Yes. That's the reason I was sent Mitchell hinted in his letter at a Nazi movement here which would endanger the Canal, and he wanted someone sent to confirm some serious discoveries he'd made and take action. "But the letter was so involved and guarded and vague that we thought it crank stuff: We get more of that than you'd suppose. Nevertheless, Never-theless, we put out some fealers. No matter how wild the yarn that comes in, we can't ditch it in the waste basket. "Naturally we have some pretty good sources of information here and THE STORY SO FAR: Jeff CurUs and his wife, Lee, are already on their way to Tierra Libre when he receives a note from Zora Mitchell warning them not to come. When they arrive In Tierra Libre they find both Zora and her husband dead. It Is MltcheU's Job as chief engineer engi-neer for a fruit company that Jeff has been called to fill. Later Jeff's friend Bill Henderson Is killed, and Jeff suspects his employer, Senor Montaya, of murdering murder-ing him and the Mitchells because they had found a clue to the strange things going on at the plantation. Other sinister sin-ister figures are the company chemist, Dr. Toenjes, and the flyers, Ryden and Lannestock. A man named Collins arrives ar-rives from the Canal Zone to see Mitchell. Mitch-ell. A talk with Jerry Mclnnis has revealed that Montaya Is part German and Is dealing with the Nazis. Jeff has gone to find Collins. NOW CONTINUE WITH THE STORY CHAPTER XVI For several minutes neither man moved. Gradually Curt edged himself him-self Into deeper blackness, got closer, clos-er, put the figure between himself and light, the light from the Co-mandancia Co-mandancia not far distant. The outline out-line looked like Collins. He called the name softly. No answer. He tried again. "Yes," came the low acknowledgment. acknowledg-ment. Curt approached. "Looking around, huh?" No answer. "Find anything?" Silence. Then, "No." "Well, my friend, it's time for you and me to have a talk. First, your credentials. Let's see them." No move from the other at first, then an amiable "Sure," and Collins Col-lins reached into a pocket. "That's better. Lieutenant, Naval Na-val Intelligence, eh? Glad to have you. Shake." It was the handclasp :that turned the trick. Collins unbent. "I need friend here," he confessed. "You armed?" "Yes. Had my service pistol cached." "Good. It's nearly eleven. The village will be asleep by midnight, I expect Go back to your room. Unhook your rear window screen to be sure you make no noise later." "I did. Got out that way." Curt grunted. "Well, go back to bed for a while. You've likely sized up the place and know who's here?" "Sure." "Then when they're all abed and have had time to get to sleep, wake up Monahan. He's in the last room." "I know." "Bring him out along the main track to the motorcar shed, middle mid-dle " Curt broke off, stared toward Here a wide stand of manzanita! made a black blob on the landscape. land-scape. They dared not continue use of the motor, for sound rises and San Alejo was not more than a kilometer ahead and above them. Pushing the car up the branch line, and backing out by the third leg of the "Y" onto the main line again, they had the car headed foi Tempujo once more. They left it in the blackness of the low trees. Curt fumbled in the tool box, stuck a chisel into a hip pocket, and the two men struck off down the airfield branch. Stars there were aplenty and they gave some light but then was no moon and the going was rough. They followed the tracks to the spur that led to the bodega at the lower end of the field, then up this spur to the fence. This lower gate was locked, but Curt expected that He led the way along the fence until un-til they'd turned the corner at the end of the .field, then on to the copse of trees that sheltered the big buildings. build-ings. The blackness here was so thick it felt solid as they pushed into it. "I doubt if we need to worry about a guard inside," Curt muttered. "The fence is ordinary protection and they couldn't keep a watchman at this end of the field without his showing a light at times. Lights down here would cause speculation if seen from San Alejo." He seized hold of the fence and pulled and pushed experimentally. "I don't know," he confessed, "but I suspect it's strung along the top for alarm. In any case, it'd be darn near impossible for us to get over that barbed stuff in the dark. We'll burrow under." They used the flashlight, playing it close to the ground. Putting the chisel to work to loosen the earth, Curt scraped away with his hands until they had a hole through which they could crawL He had a sudden thought. "Hey, take off your clothes! I've got fresh ones at Tempujo for myself, my-self, but if I give you any others it might be noticed." "Right" Collins stripped to his shorts for the forage, and, minus a gun belt, had to carry his automatic in his hand. They circled the three buildings build-ings cautiously, the two hangars, the adjoining shed-roof between, duplicate du-plicate of the hangars at the other end of the field. "Haven't yet cut the grass here," commented Curt. "Huh. Probably don't intend to it's a better indication indica-tion that the buildings aren't in active ac-tive use." High in the walls was a continuous continu-ous horizontal strip of windowing in ground glass. Not the faintest glimmer of light showed anywhere. "Absolutely perfect camouflage from above," growled Curt "Look how they built the center portion around trees. The trunks go up the mess-hall. Some groups were breaking up for the night, judging from the sounds. " middle of the yards. Got that? Enough for now. Get back to your room, I'll see you later." Curt returned to his bungalow, Collins disappeared into the night. Outside the mess-hall Emilio was having a few last words with his erstwhile partners before heading for the engineering bungalow. Curt had barely time to climb in, hobk his wiivlow screen behind him, hang his clothes over a chair as they had been earlier, and stretch out under the mosquito bar. He'd have to leave the magazine against the door and hope that Emilio would give it no thought, or at worst suppose sup-pose a freak burst of wind had knocked it to the floor. He heard Emilio fumble at the lock, the slight scrape of the magazine maga-zine as the door pushed it back over the floor. A shadow blocked out the light at his bedroom door. He simulated sim-ulated deep breathing and closed his lids until' he could see only through his lashes. Emilio looked and listened, then withdrew. Presently the porch light snapped off, the front door clicked shut, and Curt heard the man's steps headed for the bachelor quarters. quar-ters. They sounded sharp on the asphalt walk. The luminous dial of his watch told Curt it was 11:30. Later than he'd thought. He lay relaxed for a few minutes, but dared not close his eyes, afraid he would fall asleep after his full day. Soon he got up, dressed again, this time taking his hat, and let himself out the front way. He rec-onnoitered rec-onnoitered carefully. Avoiding the street lamps. Curt made his way to the rendezvous and waited impatiently until at last two figures, little darker than the background itself, came toward him. He recognized Monahan' s stride. "Good man. Slats," he said when ihey were close enough. "This will do you out of your sleep, but it O can't be helped. Get yourself cudgel and keep alert. Collins and I will be gone three or four hours. We mustn't be longer, for the place'll be stirring to life soon after that Hang out at my bungalow, Slats. Anyone starts snooping around, conk him. Tie him up, only don't let anyone find out I'm missing, miss-ing, and don't be recognized yourself. your-self. Got me?" "Got yuh." The motorcar shed was an open front building with three short tracks. His own car was headed out, fortunately the first car on its track. Curt remembered the speedometer and disconnected it. There must be no miles ge record on this trip. Curt didn't open the car wide. The engine was smooth enough, but iron wheels on iron rails in this still night air rang alarmingly loud to men who needed silence. Further. This lower gate was locked. there throughout these countries. First thing was to check up on Mitchell the type of man, how responsible re-sponsible he was, and so on. Well, while we were doing that we got word of his murder. So that seemed to indicate a pretty thorough investigation investi-gation was needed. I drew the detail. de-tail. "While over in Soledad getting the lay of the land, I heard of the other two deaths. That clinched it. The next step was to get in here on the ground, ferret out what was going on." "Is that what you were doing, snooping around the docks at Tempujo Tem-pujo tonight?" Curt chuckled. "What did you think you could learn there?" "Listen, man," retorted Collins in a huff, "I couldn't just walk in here, look around, and ask questions. I had to get established first, so as to be accepted. You've planted me up river where there's obviously nothing noth-ing to see. I've had one definite objective since our plane faked trouble the other day, but it's a't San Alejo. Meanwhile, until I can get to it, there's no harm looking around where I can." "Okay, okay," Curt apologized. "No offense. We'll give you a crack at that objective right now. Mitchell Mitch-ell wasn't hitting the pipe. I've been smelling trouble myself for the two weeks I've been here, but only tonight to-night did I click on it." He told Collins the story Montaya had given him about the hangars first built, later abandoned to storage stor-age purposes because the flyers pointed out the bad location. He told of the boxed airplane wings he'd seen the day of his arrival. ar-rival. "I know," put in Collins enigmatically. enigmat-ically. "I had a talk with the men of that plane when they put down at Puerto Soledad." Curt grunted and went on. He told of Mitchell's rising suspicions over a shipment from Japan or through Japan, he added of eight long, square-end boxes. Heavy boxes, like overstuffed coffins, Monahan Mon-ahan had told him. . He told of having seen only yesterday yester-day another pair of big, heavy square boxes marked generators, from Germany via Vladivostok. So far as he knew, and he was pretty familiar with the project by now, they had no use tor generators of that size, nor were any on order that he knew of. and he'd had accesspresumablyto ac-cesspresumablyto all engineering engineer-ing equipment orders then placed. They reached the airfield spur. through the roof. I'll bet not a square foot of these buildings can be seen from the air. Only the tracks leading in here would tell anything, and they can't be avoided. But even the tracks, with the weeds not kept down, probably look like a cart path." They were now in front. Down at the other end of the field only a few night lights showed. "This loading platform along the front," went on Curt. "It's anchored only lightly to the buildings and the : ground. My guess is it could be picked up by a couple of dozen men and swung out of the way in a few minutes. Pretty darn clever." True, this loading platform, the height of a flat car, was not solid. It jiggled to a healthy push. "Well, we can't force the doors, obviously." "Can we dig under as we did with the fence, or do you suppose there's a floor?" Curt pondered. "Bound to be a cement floor," he decided. "Anyway, "Any-way, we couldn't tamp down earth inside when we left. No, the wall is only corrugated sheet iron. t's find a section to pry loose." They searched along the back of the buildings, coming finally to a spot where Curt could use his chisel again with least likelihood of its being discovered. It took some minutes min-utes before they had one sheet of the sheathing sufficiently sprung to give them entrance. There was noise to this job, try as they would to muffle it, but they seemed to have the field to themselves. They crawled through the opening. Only Curt had a flashlight. He played it about experimentally, then more boldly, taking care that neither the beam nor a reflection from it should hit the strip of windowing. Then it fell on something and stopped dead! Directly above them spread wings of death. "By God, Collins! What'd I tell you!" His words sounded hollow, and echoes slapped back at them from the walls. The finger of light picked out the fuselage of a huge plane that towered above the two men, played along it back and forth. A long, slender, cigar-shaped body, its nose of glass, two-motored, its wings appearing stubby from this angle. "A Heinkel!" exclaimed Collins, and again echoes reverberated. A Heinkel it was. But on the under side of its wings and on the side of the fuselage was lettering and the circle-within-a-star-within-a-circle emblem to identify it as an American plane! (TO BE LONTIMED) |