What Stan saw made him shove inside at once. Garret had vanished, but in his haste he had left a trail. One window was open. Stan saw clothes tossed about showing the haste with which he had changed. He leaped to the window and slipped out, letting himself to the ground.
As he pushed aside a thick bush near the wall he saw the street dimly. There was no one on it wearing a Royal Air Force uniform. The only person on the dark street was a man in civilian clothes. Stan stared hard for a moment, then sucked in his breath and started after the man, who was sauntering swiftly into the darkness.
At the first shaded light Stan realized that the man he was trailing was Garret, and that the officer was in a big hurry. He strode along, pausing now and then to peer back and to listen. Stan used the tactics he had learned in Colorado while hunting mule deer. He moved when Garret moved and stopped when Garret stopped. Sliding along noiselessly he shifted from one patch of black shadow to another.
Stan did not remember how many blocks they walked, but he knew where he was in a general way. When Garret ducked down a flight of narrow steps, Stan moved up and listened. The opening below was black dark. He heard a door open but saw no light. Then he heard a guttural voice challenging Garret. After that the door closed and there were no other sounds.
Stan listened for a full minute. As he stood there unmoving, a part of the black shadow along the wall, he considered the situation. He had left his gun in his room. He was unarmed and those below would have guns. A burning desire glowed within him, a desire to have a look at the men Garret was meeting. Carefully he felt his way down the stairs and located the door.
The knob turned soundlessly under pressure but the door was locked. Moving back up the stairs, Stan stood looking at the old house which rose above the basement where Garret had entered. The house was one of a row that had been hit by several demolition bombs. Most of the upper and the first story had been wrecked and the debris had not yet been cleared away. That was strange, because most of the other houses in the row had been damaged, too, but had been repaired.
Stan moved up the front steps, picking his way through a litter of brick and broken timbers. He saw a doorway ahead, with a door sagging open upon smashed hinges. Moving slowly and carefully Stan entered the room. A pile of plaster and brick lay on the floor with some broken furniture stacked in a corner. He was about to turn away, knowing that anyone below would hear footsteps above, when he saw a beam of light coming up through the floor.
Moving very slowly he crossed to the center of the room and bent down. A torn rug lay under a pile of bricks and the rug covered a broken board in the floor. Stan got down on his hands and knees. With great care he slid the rug back a little and more light shone through the hole in the floor. Stan lay down and put his eye to the hole.
He could see very clearly everything in the basement below the wrecked house. There was a table directly under him and on it stood a portable short-wave radio sending and receiving set. A light, swung from the ceiling, flooded the table and the room.
A little hunchbacked fellow sat before the radio with earphones clamped over a shiny bald head. Three men sat across the table from the radio operator. One of them held Stan’s attention. He was a short, thick-shouldered man with a bullethead that was covered with bristling, cropped hair. His eyes bulged and his mouth was a grim slash across his face. On the table at his elbow lay an English fire warden’s hat. He was tapping the table with a thick finger and talking to Garret.
Garret sat beside the radioman, his face black and dour. It was plain the man had been giving Garret a tongue lashing. The other two men, seated beside the speaker, looked to Stan like London wharf rats.
“Herr Kohle, you are a blundering fool. Seventeen bombers were lost tonight, and because you failed to do your duty. The
“But, Herr Naggel, I followed instructions. The O.C. ordered the three to return in the morning and that order was sent to you by Mickle,” Garret whined.
Stan made a note of the name Mickle. He had a hunch an orderly or a mechanic would be put on the spot once that name was traced to its owner.
“Now that the great blitzkrieg is set for an hour before daylight we cannot afford to take chances. You must do your part as planned.” Herr Naggel spread a map on the table. “Here we have the concentrations of planes in Belgium, in France and in Norway. One thousand planes will come over London. There will be no city left tomorrow night. We will walk out and join the refugees pouring out of London, and then make contact with the parachute troops and the men from the gliders.” He smiled wolfishly and licked his lips. “Those gliders are ready. You should see them. Three for each pilot plane and each will have its squad of men. At 20,000 feet the pilot plane will cut them loose and they will glide down upon England without a sound.” He laughed softly.
“They say there will always be an England. Bah. England is done.” He glared at Garret. “When the decoy bombers come over, you will lead your flight after them. Now that they have increased your squadron to twenty Spitfires, and the three American planes, they could do much damage. With early dawn light to fly by they might break up the whole plan.”
“I will take them on a chase that will lead them so far away they won’t get back. Send a big flight of Messerschmitts in after my squadron contacts the decoy bombers and have them start a dogfight. They never quit as long as there is anything left to fight. But you better send plenty of fighters.”
“That is planned,” Naggel said gruffly. “We cannot control the other flights that will go up, but yours is the key defense unit, the best they have, and it is most important in our plans.”
Stan bent forward and strained his eyes to see the markings on the map. He wanted to know where those three concentrations of invasion planes were. He was able to spot them because they were marked upon the map with red circles. He was pressing his face against the boards to see better when one foot slipped a little. His right boot scraped across the floor.
Naggel did not stop talking and none of the others seemed to have heard. One of the men beside Naggel lighted a cigarette and leaned back. The radioman turned a dial and began talking softly into the portable mike. Stan could not hear what he said.
Slowly Stan got to his feet. He had the information he wanted. The thing to do was to beat the Jerries to the punch. The Royal Air Force would blast every one of those air fields and get the enemy on the ground. But he had to get to headquarters at once, everything depended upon speed. Only a few hours remained for the job.
Stan slipped through the wrecked door and paused for a moment. As he started to move down the steps a dark shadow loomed behind him. Before he could leap aside a hard object crashed down upon his head. Red and white lights danced before his eyes and stabbing pains racked him. Then he slid slowly forward and fell on his face.
When Stan opened his eyes he was sitting in a chair with his head hanging on one side. He shook his head and groaned, then focused his gaze upon the leering face of Herr Naggel.
“You would listen?” Herr Naggel said slowly.
Stan said nothing. He expected no mercy from the men who had taken him prisoner. His head was splitting and he felt weak and sick. A thought stabbed through the pain. They had heard him when his foot slipped. The man at the radio had called to someone near by. His sky fighter training had been poor preparation for ground sleuthing, Stan decided.
“We will be gone in a few minutes, and when we go, we will leave a little comrade with you.” Herr Naggel motioned to a large grenade sitting on the table. As Stan fixed his gaze upon the grenade he realized that the radioman had gone, and had taken the portable set with him. Garret was gone, too, and he was alone with Naggel and his two rats.
Stan made another discovery. He was not bound. Likely the spies had not had rope or wire to make him fast, or they were sure their heavy Luger pistols would keep him in his place. Herr Naggel tapped the iron case of the grenade.
“The little one cannot be kept from exploding once the pin is removed. I will pull the pin and lock the door.” He smiled and his mouth twisted at the corners.
Stan rose to his feet. He was not so bad off as he had thought. Dizzy, but not out by any means. He staggered and swayed, putting on as good a show of grogginess as he could. Herr Naggel seemed to relish watching him struggle to remain on his feet.
The thing that was pounding away inside Stan’s head was the question: “How long was I out? How much time have I left?” He was not thinking about the almost certain death that stared him in the face. Naggel pulled out a big silver watch and looked at it.
