CHAPTER FOUR

_Dead End_

IT WAS EXACTLY five minutes to eight o’clock in the evening, and Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer were seated on the observation platform of the Administration Building at the San Francisco Air Base. In the tower above them the Control Officer was bringing in Air Corps planes, and sending them off, with clock-like regularity. For the last half hour they had enjoyed watching ships of all types and sizes come and go, but now that the time for Colonel Welsh’s arrival was drawing near, an eerie tightness seemed to grip their bodies, and the huge minute hand on the tower clock seemed to stop dead and not budge a fraction of an inch.

“If I start screaming, don’t let them lead me away to a padded cell,” Dave broke the silence. “But this waiting is getting me down for a fare-thee-well.”

“You’re not alone in that!” Freddy echoed grimly. “I swear I’ve been watching that clock up there constantly for the last hour. It’s stopped, I’m positive. But blast it, my own wrist watch says exactly the same time. Phew, how I wish he’d come!”

“I do, and I don’t,” Dave said. “There’s a chance, you know, that we may be all wet. Maybe what we have to report to the Colonel won’t mean a thing to him.”

“But he mentioned the Colonel’s name!” Freddy protested.

“I know, and that seems to clinch it,” Dawson said with a shrug. “But this war is so absolutely cockeyed it’s sometime hard to believe anything, even your own name.”

“You’re just getting jittery, Dave,” Freddy soothed. “Relax, old man. There’s absolutely nothing we can do but relax. We’ve reported the crash to the Commandant here. And the ambulance plane left long ago. So relax, old thing. Get hold of yourself a bit.”

“Like you are?” Dave said, and grinned. “If you don’t stop yanking on those fingers of your left hand, pal, you’re going to pull them right off. And besides, you drive me bats when you do it.”

“Do I?” Freddy Farmer snapped at him. “Then let’s make a bargain. I’ll leave the fingers of my left hand alone, and you stop snapping and unsnapping that blasted wrist watch of yours, what?”

Dave stiffened and glanced down at his wrist watch dangling by the loosened metal strap. He snapped it shut for the last time, and looked at Freddy. They both laughed, and a good bit of the tension from waiting was eased off. Then they instinctively glanced up at the tower clock, and felt even better. The big hands pointed exactly to eight o’clock.

“Well, that passed the time, anyway,” Dave murmured, and got up and walked over to the railing. “Now, if he hasn’t force landed, or something!”

“What a cheerful chap to have for a pal!” Freddy growled as he joined Dawson. “Fact is, he’s right on time. A penny to a crumpet that’s him up there just starting to circle and come down.”

Dave sighted along Freddy’s pointed finger and his heart leaped. An executive cabin type of plane was sliding toward the near end of the central runway. It had no markings other than the new Air Corps insignia of a white star on a blue field, with the old red disc missing. But staring at it, Dave felt certain that Colonel Welsh was aboard.

The two youths watched it slide down to a perfect landing, and then taxi directly over to the Base Commandant’s office. That was all the proof they needed. When you taxied directly to the tarmac in front of the Base office, you were somebody important. If you weren’t, you got the hide singed off you for not going to the arrival check-booth farther along the field. A moment or two after the plane had braked to a final stop, the cabin door opened and a tall, thin-faced man in the uniform of an infantry colonel stepped out and hurried into the office.

“You win a whole bag of your English crumpets, Freddy!” Dave cried. “That’s him. Come on. I guess we’d better go down and let him know we’re here.”

“As though the Base Commandant won’t tell him!” Freddy murmured. “Bit of a testy chap, wasn’t he, telling us to come up here and wait? That we were waiting for a Colonel Welsh didn’t seem to impress him a bit.”

“Why should it?” Dave replied. “We both know that the Colonel doesn’t advertise. Besides, if you were commandant of a Base this size you’d be testy, too!”

“I would not!” Freddy snorted. “I’d be way past that stage. I’d be completely balmy, and don’t think I wouldn’t!”

“Who says you haven’t been, for years?” Dave cracked, and started down the observation platform stairs fast.

On the ground he waited for Freddy; then the two of them started over toward the Commandant’s office. They had gone but halfway when Colonel Welsh came out of the office, saw them and hurried over. He smiled faintly, then gave Dave a sharp look.

“Too hot for a tunic, Dawson?” he asked. “That’s not a very military appearance you make. What’s this I hear about you reporting a plane crash? No, never mind. I don’t want to talk here. Follow me.”

Dave nodded, but grinned inwardly, and dropped into step with the senior officer. The same old Colonel Welsh! He talked like a machine gun, and did things even faster. No wonder he got results where others had failed. He was a ball of fire on legs.

As though the two youths were not with him and he were trying to catch a train, the Colonel walked quickly over to the motor park, selected an Air Corps Staff car, and climbed into it. He motioned Dave and Freddy in back, tossed a slip of paper at a guard who hurried over, and stamped on the starter button.

“Car requisition signed by your Commandant!” the Colonel barked at the guard, and shifted into gear.

Dave and Freddy had ridden with the Colonel before, so they were already braced, and were not thrown completely out of the car as it streaked forward. A little under thirty minutes later the Colonel braked to a stop in front of an office building in downtown San Francisco, and got out.

“Follow me, you fellows,” he said, and hurried into the building.

The elevator let them off on the fourteenth floor. The Colonel led the way along the corridor and stopped in front of a door that was marked, “Civilian Defense, Third Division.” He tried the door, found it locked, and seemed strangely surprised.

“So?” he muttered to himself, and fished out a bunch of keys. “Must be late. But he should have been here hours ago.”

He stuck a key into the lock, twisted it, and pushed the door open.

“Inside, you two,” he grunted. “Select a couple of chairs and sit down. Maybe a couple of messages waiting for me. No questions. I’ll answer them all later.”

Dave and Freddy stepped into a fair sized office that smelled of dust and dead air. It was as though the office hadn’t been used in weeks. But it was all in a tidy condition. There were three desks, twice that number of chairs, an entire wall lined with filing cabinets, a two-way radio, a bank of half a dozen phones, and a lot of hanging maps of San Francisco and the West Coast areas. The two youths sat down and watched Colonel Welsh go straight to the biggest of the three desks. He picked up a small pile of mail, riffled through it, and then dropped the lot disgustedly on the desk.

“That’s funny!” he muttered in a low voice. “Closed tighter than a drum. Nobody here. No messages. I don’t get the picture at all. I don’t--”

Colonel Welsh stopped short and stiffened. Dave and Freddy jerked up straight in their chairs, and all three swung quickly around and stared at the door of a closet at the rear end of the office. For a brief second or two no one dared breathe. They had all heard it: the soft thump of something against the inside of the door.

“Sit tight, you two!” Colonel Welsh suddenly said in a low voice. “I think I have an idea what that was. Sit tight, though, and be ready for action just in case.”

Dave snapped his gaze back to the Colonel, and saw a small but deadly looking automatic appear in the senior officer’s hands as though by magic. The Chief of all U.S. Intelligence Services went across the office with all the noise of a chicken feather brushing across a strip of velvet. He froze at the door, then grasped the key that was in the outside of the lock, twisted it, and jerked the door open. He had stepped back quickly, but he checked himself in mid-stride and flung out his free hand and caught the body that fell out the door opening like a fence post. It was a man wearing civilian clothes, but with Civilian Defense insignia on his sleeves. He was bound round and round by ropes, and there was a handkerchief gag jammed in his mouth.

“Strike me pink!” Freddy Farmer gasped, and came up out of his chair like a shot.

“Sweet tripe!” Dave echoed, and got up also. “This is like a murder mystery, or something.”

“Never mind the comments!” Colonel Welsh snapped as he gently eased the bound man down onto the floor. “Hand me that knife on the desk, one of you. And you’ll find a small bottle of brandy in the lower right door of the middle desk. Confound my luck. This makes a mess of things, I’m afraid!”

A hundred and one questions hovered on Dave’s lips, but he had sense enough to keep them there. Explanations would come later--probably. But right now the idea was to act, not talk. He got the knife while Freddy fetched the bottle of brandy. Colonel Welsh prodded the gag from the bound man’s mouth, then slashed the ropes and pulled them off. Then all three of them started rubbing the man’s wrists and neck. He groaned slightly, and a moment later his eyes fluttered open. He looked up at Colonel Welsh, and seemed to recognize him, for the blood started coming back into his face.

“Don’t talk yet, Rigby,” Colonel Welsh said gently. “Take a sip of this, first. Just a sip. I don’t want you choking to death on me.”

The man smiled weakly and took a tiny sip of the brandy the Colonel held to his lips. The fiery liquid seemed to do wonders when it hit the bottom of his stomach. He panted a couple of times, gave his head a shake or two as though to clear away the cobwebs, and then started to hoist himself up on his feet.

“Getting okay by the minute, sir,” he said. “If you’ll just help me to one of those chairs. The underpinnings are still a little rubbery.”

Colonel Welsh helped him across the office to one of the chairs. Then he let the man take another sip of the brandy. The second sip doubled the work of the first. The man pressed his hands to his face for a moment, but when he took them away there was plenty of color in his cheeks, and a clear light replaced the dazed glaze that had been in his eyes. He started to speak, but checked himself and looked down at his wrist watch. A worried frown creased his brows as he looked up again at Colonel Welsh.

“A good three hours ago, sir,” he said in a rueful tone. “I guess I must wear cotton stuffed in my ears. I didn’t--”

The man called Rigby stopped short and shot hard quizzical glances at Dave and Freddy.

“It’s all right,” Colonel Welsh told him bluntly. “Two of my men. Now, what about three hours ago? What happened? Give me all the details.”

As the senior officer spoke, he swept the entire office in one searching glance, then brought his eyes back to Rigby’s face.

“I was sitting there, as usual,” the man finally said, and jabbed a thumb at the center desk, “doing some Civilian Defense work, but waiting for contacts from you. Got your word that you would arrive this evening. Got your word, also, that Copper was coming up from Albuquerque. Well--I heard the door open a while later, but I thought it was some Air Raid Warden, and didn’t pay much attention until he reached the desk. But--then it was too late. He came to the desk like a shot of lightning, and the building fell down on top of my head. I guess--I guess, sir, you’d better dismiss me and send me back to laying brick, or something.”

The Colonel was silent a moment; then a soft, sympathetic sadness seeped into his thin face.

“We all fail to touch second base every once in a while, Rigby,” he said quietly. “Of course, it’s a mark against you, but your past service record can stand it. What about this man who slugged you? Get a look at him?”

“Just a look, sir,” Rigby said with a heavy sigh. “Medium height, medium build, and I think he was on the fair side a little. Ten million like him, I’m afraid. It was only a flash look I got. I--By George! Seven-Eleven, sir, do you suppose?”

Colonel Welsh’s face darkened with anger, but he slowly shook his head.

“No, I think not,” he said. “In fact, I’m sure it wasn’t. The pickings around here would be too small for Seven-Eleven. Besides, I have good reason to believe that Seven-Eleven isn’t even in the country.”

“But why slug me?” Rigby said in a low voice as though to himself, and stared around. “Can’t see that anything’s been touched. Besides, there’s not a thing here that would be of any use to anybody.”

“My message in code?” Colonel Welsh asked evenly. “You had destroyed it?”

Rigby’s face went pale as death. He clutched the sides of the chair seat for a moment, then shot out of it and over to the middle desk. When he turned around again his face was the color of chalk, and there was the blaze of a madman in his eyes.

“That’s what he got,” he said in a hushed voice. “I was just putting a match to your code note when he came in. I remember, now. That’s why I didn’t look up at once. I--I was trying to get the sheet burning.”

“But you didn’t,” Colonel Welsh said in almost a groan. “Well, and so that’s that. You better go drop in at a hospital, Rigby, and have them take a look at that lump on your head. Take a cab. I’ll contact you later.”

There was the hint of tears in Rigby’s eyes, and in his voice.

“Perhaps I’d better go jump off the Golden Gate Bridge instead!” he said with an effort.

“Don’t be a fool!” Colonel Welsh said not too unkindly, and went over to him. “It was just one of those things, old man. A mighty tough break, but it could just as well have happened to me, or to anybody in the Service. If you feel up to it, chase along to the hospital. I’ll contact you later. Now, don’t be a fool, Rigby. Don’t really get me mad, will you?”

“No, sir,” the other said as he walked toward the door. “But I don’t see why you’re not, now. Anyway--thanks, sir. I’ll make it up some day, I hope and pray.”

“I’m sure you will, Rigby,” Colonel Welsh said, as he unlocked the door and let him out. “See you later.”

The senior officer closed the door, locked it again, and walked slowly back to the middle desk. He dropped into the chair like a man who has aged twenty years in as many seconds. The gaze he fixed on Dave and Freddy was bleak, and laced with bitterness and misery.

“I wish I were a courageous man,” he said heavily. “I wish I had the courage to go jump off the Golden Gate Bridge myself. It surely would remove a lot of woe from my life!”