“Why won't they chase you?” Red Gleason wanted to know.
“Why?” Ogden laughed. “Because they'll think Barnes and his men committed the little act of piracy. You're known to be up in this section. But no one knows why. After we've loaded the gold aboard a yacht that is waiting a couple of thousand miles from here, your bomber and your men will be brought back near the scene of the holdup, Barnes. Destroyers will find your men adrift in the bomber without supplies, fuel, or radio. The bomber will be identified as the plane that carried' away the gold. And your men will be in it, dead.”
“It won't work,”' Bill said. “What about the gold?”
“There will be a little of it left in the bomber,” Ogden said. “Just enough to make it incriminating. They won't know what happened to the rest of it. They will think your men threw it over-board when they found themselves in danger of sinking. A very neat little scheme, eh? Right from the beginning it has worked like a charm.”
“What about me?” Bill asked. “If they don't find me in the bomber, they'll think I've double-crossed my men and got the gold away in some manner.”
“You?” Ogden said thoughtfully. “Oh, yes. I didn't tell you that you will be found dead in your Silver Lancer. That will puzzle 'em still more, eh, Barnes?”
“Yes,” Bill said, “that ought to drive 'em crazy!”
He reached forward and grabbed at the lapels of Ogden's jacket with his left hand and lifted him until his toes barely touched the ground. As Ogden started to squawk out a name, Bill's right fist caught him full on the mouth. The blow lifted Ogden through the doorway and out on the rocky ground.
Lippy Freeman had a gun in his hand as he came through the door. But he didn't use it. He pointed it at Bill's stomach while curses surged from his lips and he gave Ugly Barillo instructions.
Bill didn't even look toward Ugly as Ugly crashed a leather-covered blackjack on the side of Bill's head. His knees folded and he crumpled in an inert mass. An instant later Red crashed down beside him.
IX—RELEASE
WHEN Bill opened his eyes, the walls of the dark little hut danced back and forth. He fought an almost over-whelming nausea for a few minutes and opened his eyes again. He tried to struggle up from the bunk on which he was lying and found that his wrists and ankles and body were securely tied to it. A vision of Slip Ogden's sneering face floated before him and he cursed aloud.
“Are you all right, 'Bill?” Red's voice said from the darkness across the hut.
“Yeah,” Bill said savagely. “I'm fine! I'd like to——”
“Forget it,” Red said. “We've got to figure a way out of here. You've been out for hours. The BT-4 is riding on the harbor with those six biplanes of Ogden's. I heard her come in. They got her. I'm sorry to have to greet you with that. I found out from the plug-ugly who slapped you on the head that they got her by some ruse without injuring Bev or any of the crew. They dropped 'em off on an uninhabited island between Andreanof and the Island of the Four Mountains until they are ready to go back and turn 'em adrift aboard the bomber.”
“What about Shorty and Sandy?” Bill asked.
“I couldn't find out anything about them,” Red said. “You better take it easy and try to rest. You took an awful clip on the head.”
“I don't know what the hell else I can do!” Bill said. “No one has ever made such a sucker of me before. I've been leading with my head ever since this thing started. I deserve to get it clipped. Are you tied to your bunk?”
“Yes,” Red said. “But I think they'll untie us before they leave.”
“Leave?” Bill said sharply.
“They're getting ready to meet that gold carrier from .the Orient in the morning,” Red said. “They'll pick her up about four hundred miles south of here.”
“A nicely planned job,” Bill said softly. “They have men aboard to seize her and stop her engines when they come in sight. They'll take the gold off, load it aboard the bomber and fly it down near Midway Island to stow it aboard their yacht. The yacht will carry fuel for the bomber. After they've taken off the gold, they'll head for the South Sea Islands and disappear and my bomber and the Lancer will be found on the scene of the crime. Very neat, very neat.”
“We've got to stop 'em somehow, Bill,” Red said.
“Yes, we've got to stop 'em if we don't want to die. But how?”
Throughout the rest of the day they could hear the twin Diesels in the BT-4 being tested and re-tested. They heard the motors in the noses of the little red-and-black fighters roar to life and subside—heard the voices of their pilots as they worked over them.
Long shadows fell across the doorway and then night settled down on the lonely little island before any one came near them. Slip Ogden and Lippy Freeman and Ugly Barillo came back to their prison to gloat.
Freeman and Barillo put trays of food on the floor and unfastened their bonds. Bill's eyes locked with Slip Ogden's for a moment and held. Then he shrugged his shoulders and tried to eat the food before him.
“I thought you were a lot smarter than you are, Barnes,” Ogden said. “Any one of a hundred things might have spoiled my little scheme. But you stuck your head right in the noose and pulled it tight. Without your kind co-operation I might have failed. Now that gold is practically in my pocket. Because of your help I'm not going to pay you for that punch in the mouth last night. I'll let the boys pay you when they come back to put you in your Lancer. You're going to enjoy that.”
“Get out of here!” Red Gleason stormed at him.
“Close your trap, punk,” Lippy Freeman snarled.
“Let him talk. Let him talk,” Ogden said. “I like his spirit. At least he has enough guts to talk back.”
For fifteen minutes he tried to goad Bill into making some move for which he could retaliate. But Bill refused to even answer him. He kept his eyes on his food and would not be baited.
When they had finished eating, they were tied up again.
Slip wished them a mocking good night.
Throughout that long, horrible night Bill Barnes tossed and turned as much as the ropes that tied him would permit, cursed himself and his throbbing head. Both he and Red tried to free themselves, but their efforts only added to the tightness of their bonds.
“They have some kind of slip nooses on us,” Red gasped. “The more we struggle the tighter they get.”
“As Ogden said,” Bill grated, “we stuck our head in the noose and pulled it tight. But we're not through yet. We've got to get one break before this tiling is over.”
They were dozing at dawn when they heard the engines of the BT-4 and the motors in the noses of the red-and-black fighters roar to life.
Bill came out of the horrible nightmare that had engulfed him with his body soaked with perspiration. He struggled frantically for a moment while the cacophony of roaring motors beat against his eardrums. It took every bit of will power he possessed to lie still.
“It can't be true!” he said to himself. “If they succeed in using my bomber, it will be irrefutable evidence that I was helping them.”
Even if he escaped with his life, it would really be the end of things for him, he thought. Ogden would be clever enough to call his men by the names of Bill's men. He would carry out the whole thing before the officers and crew of the gold-carrying vessel to give the illusion that he was Bill Barnes. They would swear on their lives when it was over that it was Bill and his men. Not even the things they had done in the past could offset the evidence against them if they lived. And if they died, the reputation they had worked so hard to build would die with them.