“You've heard about Slip Ogden?” Bill said to Shorty.
“Plenty,” Shorty said.
“He's running this show,” Bill said. “He has our bomber and is boarding a gold-carrying steamer on the Yokohama-San Francisco lane four hundred miles south of here. We've got to stop him. He has Claw Lawson and his cutthroat outfit with him. That's the set-up. Where did you find Sandy?”
“At Flat,” Shorty said. “His radio went bad and he was afraid to try getting to Unalaska without it. After I got him I couldn't make contact with any one. He left the Eaglet at Flat to have one of his tanks repaired. We shoved for Unalaska and the bomber was gone. Some natives told us about the half dozen red-and-black fighters, like the one that attacked Sandy. We combed the islands as far as the Andreanof group and spotted Bev and the crew of the bomber. I——”
“They're all right?” Bill broke in.
“They're O. K.,” Shorty said. “Bev told me——”
“We haven't time to talk now,” Bill snapped. “We've got to get there be-fore Ogden gets that gold aboard the bomber. I'm going up to his quarters to see if he left a chart that will tell me where he is going to intercept the steamer. Get Sandy in your Snorter. We've got to go!”
He started running toward the building where Slip Ogden and his men had been quartered. The room was a wreck, as though some one had made a hasty job of packing by throwing the things they didn't want on the floor.
That was where he found the chart that told him where he would find Ogden and his men. The spot was marked with a tiny cross and was almost due south.
The twin Diesels in the nose of Bill's Lancer were blasting when he reached the little dock. Red taxied it around close to the shore and Bill waded out to climb into the front cockpit.
“She's all right?” he shouted above I the roar of the engines.
Red nodded his head and Bill blasted the tail around and waved a hand at Shorty. He took the big ship down the harbor and lifted it into the air with his old reckless abandon. He flipped his radio key and spoke to Shorty on the radiophone.
“Give her all she's got,” he said. “We have about an hour's run. If those six red-and-black fighters, try to intercept us, you'll have to keep them busy while I go on to disable the bomber.”
“Let her ride!” Shorty said.
X—RETRIBUTION
THE
“Eight bells,” the captain called.
“Make it so,” the first officer said as the quartermaster struck the eight bells.
As the officers finished working up their positions and handed them to the master, the deep-throated drone of a twin-motored plane joined the throbbing of the ship's turbines. Startled, they shaded their eyes from the glare of the sun and gazed upward.
The first officer's eyes widened as he studied the shining monster. His interest in airplanes was second only to his interest in ships. He hurried into the chart room, came back with a powerful pair of binoculars, and turned them on the ship overhead.
“She's powerful and she's fast, sir,” he said. “And she's armed to the teeth. Five machine gunners' cockpits and a one-pounder besides her bombs.”
“What is she doing up here?” the captain wanted to know.
“She———“
“Get your hands in the air and keep 'em there!” a voice behind them said.
The voice was as hard as the sound of steel on steel. The captain thought about the cargo of gold they were carrying in their strong room as he raised his hands.
A half dozen shouts sounded from the decks below, followed by the jangle of the telegraph in the engine room. The steady, rhythmic hum of the turbines stopped as six red-and-black bi-planes roared out of the sun overhead and swept the decks of the ship with machine-gun bullets.
The big bomber circled back into the wind to glide downward as the
Five minutes later Slip Ogden directed the lashing of the bomber alongside a cargo port that was opened. There was a dull explosion inside the ship and men began carrying little iron boxes from the strong room to the open cargo port and across the port wing of the big amphibian. A flat-nosed man with a voice like an angry bull sat on the saddle of a portable machine gun above the port. He roared occasional orders at the white-faced passengers lined up along the rail.
The six red-and-black fighters had settled down on the waters of the Pacific with their idling props and machine guns pointed at the steamer's sides.
Slip Ogden laughed softly as a man reported to him that no radio message had gone out from the
“We'll be away from here in forty-five minutes,” he said. “Make a check on all our men and be sure they are all ready to go when we're loaded.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, and went back aboard the steamer.
The BT-4 was sagging low in the water as the last of the gold was stowed into her “bomb bay. The six red- and-black fighters were circling low over-head, ready to form a protective screen around the bomber when she left the water.
Four miles above the surface of the Pacific, Bill Barnes put a pair of binoculars against his eyes and studied the “six circling specks, the bomber and the steamer.
“All right. Shorty,” he said into his microphone. His voice was calm. “Stick your nose down. Get one of 'em on your first dive. Watch out for the one-Rounder on the BT-4. Don't give him a chance to get you under his sights; Let her go!”
Bill jammed the control stick forward and opened his throttle. The twin props of the Lancer whined in protest as a gale screamed and shrieked through the bracing struts. Down and down the two ships sped until it seemed they must fly into a million flaming pieces and dissolve into thin air.
Bill's mouth was a twisted slash across his face as he instinctively listened to the high-pitched whine of the motor “and tested the vibration with his own body. His knuckles showed white, so tightly were his fingers wrapped around the control stick—easing it backward ever so little to see how the ship responded, then slamming it forward again.
At ten thousand feet, as his Snorter reached terminal velocity. Shorty coaxed the stick back with the touch of a master, until the nose began to rise. Then he jammed it down again, racing neck and neck with Bill.
Slip Ogden's eyes became round with horror as the eerie scream of those four diving props permeated his consciousness and caused him to look overhead. For one instant the expression of cold ruthlessness was wiped from his face as those two harbingers of death roared down on him. Then he saw that his six red-and-black fighters were aware of the diving ships and were maneuvering to escape that first vicious attack.
“Have you picked your man?” Bill Barnes screamed into his microphone at almost the same instant the smug expression of confidence came back to Ogden's face.
“Yes!” Shorty roared back.
They eased out of their power dive and shallow dived to make their guns effective. As one of the red-and- black ships whipped around in a fast Immelmann. Shorty pulled his Snorter up into a loop. At the top he centered his controls. The weight of his body sagged on his safety strap as he hung head downward and lined up the bi-plane in his sights. His guns belched streams of death as his finger clamped down on his trip. The pilot of the red-and- black fighter tried to skid away. Then his nose dropped and the ship began to weave downward, half out of control. Shorty rolled his Snorter right side up and poured burst after burst into it as it started its last plunge and whirled into a spin.
The pilot of the ship Bill had singled out tried to escape in a fast climbing turn as Bill fired his first tracer. He eased his stick over and tapped his rudder as his guns began their song of death. His bullets wove a pattern from the hub to the tail structure. The bi-plane slipped off on one wing and yawed wildly as Bill pulled out and whipped the Lancer upward. He poured round after round into the whirling ship as it plunged to its death. There was no pity
