CHAPTER NINE

_Whispering Bullets_

THE SUN WAS a glittering bronze disc in the heavens when Dave eased back the throttle and sent the Vultee coasting down toward the surface of the Albuquerque Air Corps Base. The rest of the trip had been completely uneventful. It had been nothing but a scenic joyride that both boys had enjoyed to the limit. But now that Albuquerque was down there their minds put aside the beauty of the trip and came back to more serious things. One attempt on their lives had been made. Would there be another at Albuquerque? Also, would Colonel Welsh’s agents at Albuquerque have anything new to report? The Chief of U.S. Intelligence had not described his two agents at Albuquerque, but both Dave and Freddy would know them instantly--that is, when the identifying sentence was spoken to them.

As he guided the ship down Dave impulsively slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out the slightly gashed copper coin he had taken from the dead Tracey. Colonel Welsh had given it to him just before they went out to the Frisco Air Base. He had also given one to Freddy Farmer. It was, Colonel Welsh had explained, a special SOS signal for U.S. Intelligence agents located in and around the Canal Zone. It identified its holder as a member of the Service, and all agents seeing it were to drop whatever they were doing and lend instant assistance, regardless. When found on the body of a wounded man, the copper disc was a silent order for the wounded man to receive medical assistance at once--as he might possess valuable military information that approaching death was striving to cheat him out of delivering.

Dave fingered the silver-filled copper disc, and stared down at it thoughtfully.

“I hope I never have to flash you,” he grunted. “You’re certainly no lucky charm. Not to poor Tracey, you weren’t. Yet--you did tell Colonel Welsh who Tracey was, didn’t you? Well, here’s hoping you don’t have to tell him the same thing--about me. And how!”

“I say!” Freddy Farmer suddenly screamed in his ear. “Land on the field, not _under_ it, will you?”

Dave snapped his gaze front, gulped, and eased up the nose of the Vultee. He was unconsciously coming in very “hot,” and the surface of the field was much closer than he’d realized, so absorbed had he been with his thoughts about the copper disc.

“Just giving you an extra thrill, free of charge, pal!” he shouted back to Freddy. “Always aim to please the customer, you know. Okay! Mother Earth coming up. End of the line. There! Was that to your liking, sir?”

Dave settled the Vultee in a beautiful three-point, and gently braked it to a full stop. He sat there for a moment with his eyes on the Operations Tower. He got the flash to taxi in and sent the Vultee trundling along and down the cross runway toward the seemingly mile-long tarmac lined in back by an equally long row of massive hangars.

He finally slipped the Vultee in between a couple of bombers and killed the engine.

“I mean it, this time,” he said, turning around to Freddy. “End of the line, and all out. But sit here, if you like. Me, I’m going to report to the check-in officer, and then get me a bottle of pop, or something.”

Freddy Farmer brightened and scrambled down from his cockpit.

“I say, do you suppose I could get a spot of tea?” he asked.

Dave frowned and looked at him. In fact, he cocked his head first on one side, and then on the other.

“What size skirt do you take, and blouse?” he murmured, straight-faced. “As a girl you’d get it easy. These guys are very polite. But to ask for tea in that uniform, with pilot’s wings and all--”

Dave paused and sighed heavily. Freddy glared and took a quick step forward.

“That, my good fellow, is the last straw!” he cried. “Now your countrymen here will see what happens to a bloke who insults the honored and traditional drink of the English. I shall--”

Freddy stopped as a couple of mechanics came running over to the plane. They came to a halt and saluted.

“The check-in booth is over there, sir,” one of them said to Dave. “If you hurry, you’ll make it by two after one. We’ll take charge of your ship, sir. Nice trip?”

Two after one! Those three words were like three bombshells going off in Dave’s brain. They were the code words that would identify Colonel Welsh’s two agents who would meet them in Albuquerque. But only one, the taller, had spoken them. Dave looked at the shorter one and smiled apologetically, and touched a finger to his ear.

“Engine deafened me a little,” he said. “What was that?”

“The check-in booth, sir,” the shorter of the two mechanics said. “It’s close to two after one. You’d better step on it.”

Dave grinned and winked.

“Right,” he said. Then, arching one brow, “And after we’ve checked in?”

“You can remember something you left in the ship,” the tall mechanic said. “We’ll both be here wiping her off. Was it a quiet trip?”

“Not for two Waco pilots, it wasn’t,” Dave said grimly, and beckoned a finger at Freddy Farmer. “See you soon.”

“That’s the pair, right enough!” Freddy breathed softly as he and Dave headed over to the check-in booth. “And did you see how your news startled them?”

“As I remember, it startled us, too!” Dave said with a chuckle. “Come on, step on it! I want to get back and find out if those two have learned anything new.”

Freddy quickened his step to keep pace with Dave, and together they hurried over to the check-in hut and through the door. A young Air Corps lieutenant looked up from a desk and greeted them with a smile.

“Sign here, Captains,” he said, and pushed a loose-leaf book across the desk. “Passing through, or are you reporting for duty?”

“Passing through,” Dave said as he signed his name, and gave the pen to Freddy. “Have any orders come through while we’ve been in the air?”

The young Air Corps lieutenant swung the book around, looked at the two names, and shook his head.

“No sir,” he said. “Nothing for either of you. We received word you’d taken off from Frisco Base. You landed on the way down?”

“No, why?” Dave asked.

The young lieutenant grinned and nodded his head at the clock.

“A Vultee is a pretty fast ship, Captain,” he said.

Dave frowned, and then suddenly the light dawned.

“Oh, sure, I get it,” he said. “We went sight-seeing. This is my Chinese friend’s first visit to this country. I took a little time out to give him a good look.”

The young Air Corps lieutenant was staring puzzle-eyed at Freddy Farmer as the two aces walked out of the office. Outside, Dave took a quick step away from Freddy, and waited for his pal to go into action. But Freddy just kept on walking.

“Be calm, old thing,” Freddy said quietly. “That was a compliment you paid me. The Chinese are a wonderful people. They’ve been proving it to the world for the last five years. So, trot along with me, my funny boy. I won’t hurt you.”

“Smack-o!” Dave grunted as he flushed a little. “I guess that one sort of upped and backfired in my face. Darn right the Chinese are okay. Let’s forget the whole thing, huh?”

“Done with, already,” Freddy grinned. “And how about _you_ stepping on it this time? I’m anxious to hear what those two agents of Colonel Welsh’s have to say. But I can’t say they look much like agents.”

“And just what does an agent look like?” Dave chuckled.

“Oh, rather homely looking,” Freddy said. “Flat-headed, flat feet, and bow legs. Just an ordinary horrible looking chap. You’re an agent, aren’t you--of a sort?”

“Why, oh why do I keep opening my big mouth?” Dave wailed. “That’s twice in as many minutes. You’re catching on too fast, my little man.”

“Could be I was really ahead at the start, you know?” the English youth shot back at him.

Dave made noises in his throat and clamped his lips shut tight. In silence the pair walked the rest of the way to where the two Intelligence agents in mechanics’ garb were wiping off the wings of the Vultee. When Dave and Freddy came up they continued wiping the wings, but both edged over so that they could talk in low tones without appearing to be talking at all from more than fifty feet away.

“What’s that about the two Wacos?” the tall one asked. “What happened?”

Dave bent over to inspect a section of the wing and in rapid sentences told of the little adventure on the way down. The two mechanics whistled softly and shot both Dave and Freddy looks of frank admiration.

“I say, anything new at this end?” Freddy murmured.

“Nothing yet,” replied the shorter of the other two. “We’ve checked and rechecked, but as yet we haven’t got a nibble.”

“Nibble?” Freddy echoed, and frowned in perplexity.

“An idea of who, and how, about Tracey,” the mechanic explained. “And--well, the two of us feel like going out and cutting our throats.”

“And _how_, we do!” grated the taller mechanic. “Of course we didn’t know who he was. It’s part of our job to meet all foreign ships landing here. I mean, planes that don’t belong to this field. We met Tracey’s ship, and we serviced it for him. If I had only known, I’d have watched it like a hawk until he’d taken off again. But we didn’t know a thing about him until a couple of hours ago when Colonel Welsh got us on the wire to explain about you two coming down. He didn’t tell us where you were headed, just that you were two after one, and that those were to be the identification words.”

The man looked questioningly at Dave, but the Yank ace just grinned, and shrugged.

“Oh, we’re just out for a bit of fishing, you know,” Freddy Farmer offered the information presently. “We’re hoping we have all kinds of luck.”

“I’m hoping for you,” the tall agent mechanic said. “We both are. That means you’re just passing through, huh? When do you want your ship ready? And I guess we might as well patch up those two bullet holes.”

The last caused Dave almost to jump out of his shoes.

“Huh?” he gulped, bug-eyed. “Bullet holes? Where?”

The tall mechanic pointed to the left side of the fuselage at a point exactly between the forward and rear pits. There were two neat bullet holes in the dural covering, not over an inch apart. Dave stared at them and felt beads of sweat break out on his forehead. A foot farther front and they would have been in his spine. A foot farther to the rear and they would have been in Freddy’s legs.

“Holy smoke!” he breathed. “Sweet tripe! I had no idea!”

“Take a good look, and remember it, old thing!” Freddy Farmer said dryly. “Next time don’t be so blasted heroic, and give the other bloke first cracks. Don’t give him first cracks at all.”

“Don’t rub it in!” Dave growled. “Besides, I couldn’t open fire on them first. We weren’t sure about them until they started shooting.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Freddy said as a sort of apology. “But just the same, don’t give the next bloke the same kind of opportunity.”

Dave shrugged and turned to the taller of the two mechanics.

“We’re heading south,” he said. “Just where, you can guess. When we leave depends on the Commandant here at Albuquerque. We won’t be taking this Vultee. But getting back to poor Tracey, did you happen to see anybody hanging around near his ship? Did you see much of him? I mean, we got the idea that he discovered somebody was on his tail, and sort of kept out of sight while he was here. Do you know if that’s right?”

The two agents, serving at Albuquerque as mechanics, frowned in deep thought, and then exchanged glances at each other.

“If we’d only known who Tracey was, we’d have kept our eyes open,” the tall mechanic said, and gave a little shake of his head. “It so happened, though, we did see him around and about a couple of times. He was with the field Commandant, Major Larkin, for a while. And we saw him with a couple of the pilots, whom he seemed to know. He told us that he was pulling out of here first thing in the morning. But it wasn’t until close to noon when he appeared on the field. Naturally, we didn’t ask any questions. As I’ve said, we didn’t know a thing--then.”

“I wish we had!” the shorter of the two mechanics muttered. “He didn’t look so hot to me. I mean, I thought he’d had a big night with the boys, and had cracked his head on something. He had a fair sized piece of plaster on his forehead over his left eye. He certainly didn’t look so good. But of course we didn’t say a thing.”

Dave Dawson was silent for a moment. His brain was turning back in memory to those moments he had spent with the dying Tracey in that desolate mountain valley. He remembered the gash on the man’s forehead. The surgeon’s plaster had probably been torn off in the crash. At the time, though, Dave had believed the head injury to have been caused by the crash.

“So an attack was made on him here?” he murmured more to himself than the others. “That’s pretty positive. But he survived it, so somebody--probably the same rat--doctored his oxygen tank, knowing that he’d go for altitude to get over the mountains. Maybe this is a dumb question, but who here would know he was headed for Frisco Air Base?”

“Any number of people, I’m afraid,” the tall mechanic replied with a shrug. “The check-in officer, the Commandant, the operations officer, and--well, any of the pilots he happened to mention it to. Why? Anything special behind that question?”

“Just grabbing at straws,” Dave said with a sigh. “It’s pretty certain that somebody here, who knew his take-off time, sent word to Frisco, so that the rat, or rats, at the Frisco end could check and make sure.”

“What’s that, Dave?” Freddy Farmer spoke up with a frown. “Why did anybody in Frisco have to know, if the poor chap’s oxygen tank was fixed up?”

“To make sure the tank _did_ knock him out and make him crash, and die,” Dawson replied grimly. “It wouldn’t gain them much to make that sneak attack on Rigby’s office if Tracey were going to make contact with Colonel Welsh, anyway.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Freddy nodded. “So some blighter here who knew his take-off time is our man, or at least one of them.”

“Sure,” Dave grunted, and made a sweep of his hand that took in the entire Base. “So take your pick. The old needle in a hay stack, Freddy. A dead end street, I’d say. Well, I guess we’d better report to Major Larkin, and find out how soon we’re leaving.”

“Yes, that would be a good idea,” the taller of the two agents replied. “But here’s a tip. If you’re staying here for the night, don’t go for any walks in the dark. I think it would be wise to stick in the officers’ mess, and relax, if you get what I mean.”

“I guess I do,” Dave grunted, and gave the tall one a searching look. “Somebody _we_ don’t know _knows_ that we have arrived, eh?”

“Yes, that’s the idea,” the tall mechanic said with a faint grin. “We realize now that Tracey didn’t bump his head into any door while he was having a good time with some of his pilot friends.”

“Not a chance!” the shorter mechanic said grimly. “My guess is that he got popped at. Whispering bullets in the dark. And it wouldn’t be the first time, either. The rats we’re up against always deal from the bottom of the deck. So watch your step. And of course, we’ll be watching you.”

“That’s a deal,” Dave said, and gave them a friendly grin. “If we stay the night we won’t do any sight-seeing after dark. Well, we’ll be seeing you again. So long, for now.”