Part 3

"And I'll bet," Nelson went on, his eyes suddenly flashing and his voice quivering with excitement, "that Curtis has sent it after us. He always advocated the freer use of helicopters, especially the Diesel-engined type. It wouldn't surprise me if he's in it!"

"Ve can blast him out of the air mit Androka's ray!" Brandt said. "Like ve blasted those bombers!"

"Maybe!" Nelson's tone held a touch of doubt. "We can try!" He used his telephone to call Androka. "Get busy, Androka!" he said into the mouthpiece. "Blast it with your plane-destroyer! Come up right away!"

The old inventor's cracked voice answered over the wire. "I'll be with you at once!"

* * * * *

Nelson left the bridge and met Androka on the way to the room in the superstructure from which he operated the rays for the destruction of electric equipment.

The old inventor's eyes were blazing with an almost maniacal light as he fiddled with various levers and batteries. From high above them, in the fighting top of the steel foremast, came the humming of a powerful dynamo as the apparatus built up its tremendous voltage.

Through a skylight in the roof of his workshop, Androka sighted the hovering plane. He spoke into the telephone. In the turret top of the foremast, a weapon that looked like an old-style trench mortar was suddenly uncovered.

Androka said a few words in German into the speaking tube and watched, as the huge mouth of the weapon swung toward the hovering plane.

There was a flash, a shower of sparks; rays darted from the muzzle of the weapon in the mast turret. But the dynamic force that had blasted three navy bombers into helpless wreckage had no effect on the strange craft that hung suspended in the sky over the _Comerford_.

And then it seemed that the powerful rays struck something--something afar off that picked them up like a handful of thunderbolts and hurled them back. There was a report, like the blowing out of a giant fuse. The whole hull of the _Comerford_ shuddered, as if from the impact of a powerful electric shock. The vessel quivered from stem to stern. Lights dimmed, went out.

For fully ten seconds, there wasn't an atom of power on board the _Comerford_. She was stricken as if with a paralysis of her electric force.

Then the dimmed lights began to glow again.

Nelson looked at Androka, his cheeks ghastly. "What ... what happened?"

"The rays must have struck some electric cable carrying tremendous power--more powerful than any cable to be found on shipboard," the inventor explained, in a husky voice. "That would put so heavy a power load on it that the rays were no longer capable of short-circuiting it to extinction. They carried the overload back to us and burned out our generator."

"But that little plane," Nelson argued. "It couldn't--"

Androka shrugged his narrow shoulders and ran his fingers nervously through his gray beard. "There must be some other vessel near at hand--with power cables such as I have described."

Nelson cursed savagely and tore out of the room. He raced up the ladder to the bridge, tugged at Herr Kommander Brandt's sleeve.

"That fool Androka's rays have failed. They've short-circuited themselves. We've got to shoot down Curtis--that helicopter--with our antiaircraft guns!"

"Better have Androka release the radio and tell the others what we're doing," Brandt advised.

In the next few minutes, the radio silence was lifted long enough to let Nelson tell the rest of the convoy that an enemy plane was hovering over the _Comerford_.

Then a blast from the antiaircraft batteries of the cruiser screamed into the sky. Other armed vessels in the convoy cut loose with a fierce barrage.

A few minutes of bedlam. Then the firing ceased.

Nelson, sweeping the sky with his binoculars, saw the blasted fragments of wings and fuselage fluttering out of the clouds, to be swallowed up in the black waters. He handed the glasses to Brandt, saying: "I reckon that's the end of Curtis and his helicopter!"

Herr Kommander Brandt searched the sky for a moment, then explored the dark wastes of ocean astern.

"_Ja_," he agreed. "Ve must have blown him to bits. He ain't in the sky nor the sea!"

* * * * *

Other eyes were watching the fragments of aircraft wreckage that drifted with the eternal wash of the Atlantic waves astern of the convoy. Through the observation window in the helicopter's fuselage, Commander Bob Curtis grinned as he watched the sea-tossed remains of the dummy plane--a smaller replica of the helicopter--that he had thrown out as a target for the antiaircraft batteries of the _Comerford_.

Slowly he wound in the light cable by which the decoy aircraft had been lowered from the trapdoor in the helicopter's hull to take the full fury of the barrage, while Curtis and his pilot Lieutenant Jay Lancaster were hovering safely far overhead, protected by a cloud of vapor.

Curtis thrilled with a sense of keen satisfaction, because many of his own ideas were embodied in this helicopter. For many months of his spare time, he had worked in the navy's chemical laboratories on the aluminoid paint formula that rendered it practically invisible, especially when enveloped by the cloud of gas that could be released from the series of valves in the fuselage by touching a key on the instrument board. The collapsible dummy plane, which could be towed at a safe distance as a decoy for ambitious antiaircraft gunners had also been Curtis' own idea.

For hours after that, the helicopter drifted in the sky, high over the convoy, which, Curtis found, was still enveloped in the zone of radio silence, for he could neither send nor receive any message through the ether.

Finally, he touched Lancaster on the arm and spoke into the mouthpiece on his chest: "The _Comerford's_ running alongside the _Carethusia_. If the other ships try to interfere, the _Comerford's_ guns are heavy enough to sink them. There's only one thing to do. We _must_ break that zone of radio silence!"

"But how--" Lancaster began.

"Listen!" Curtis said, and spoke rapidly for the next few minutes.

Lancaster began to maneuver the helicopter, throttling down the frontal engine, and reversing the lateral engine, so that the plane glided in slow circles, like a swooping hawk, till it was about three hundred feet above the _Comerford's_ mastheads.

Curtis shook hands with Lancaster. The latter murmured "Good luck!" and Curtis crawled out of the cockpit and back into the plane's small cabin. He loosened the fastenings of his 'chute pack, saw that his automatic was safe in its holster.

Then he pushed open the escape hatch and jumped out into space.

From the plane's cloud-gas valves, a mass of opaque vapor streamed, enveloping him in a fog-like cloud that combined with the blackness of the night to render him invisible to those on the ship below.

The 'chute opened out, and Curtis found himself descending on the _Comerford_. By kicking with his legs and manipulating the cords, he maneuvered the 'chute so that he would land in the mizzen-mast turret. From what Androka had once told him--perhaps in an unguarded moment--he felt certain that the radio silence was projected from this point.

The cords of his 'chute tangled with the basket-like structure of the mast. Curtis got out his knife, cut himself free of the 'chute, then scrambled down the mast till he was at the entrance to the turret.

He pushed his way into the small chamber and found himself facing two sailors, in United States naval uniforms, but they uttered harsh exclamations in German at sight of him, and went for their holstered automatics.

Curtis brought his gun up, pointed it, and squeezed the trigger--once--twice--three times--four--

The first German sailor's face took on a look of surprise, the guttural curses died on his lips, as he slumped forward in a bloody heap. The second man uttered a scream and clutched at his chest, as Curtis' lead tore into him. Then he fell beside his companion.

* * * * *

A huge dome stood in the center of the turret, with antennae radiating out from it in every direction. Curtis could hear the low, humming drone, as of a powerful dynamo at work, and he could see a heavy cable, which evidently fed this dome of silence with its power.

He found a switch and shut off the current; then he attacked the cable with the pliers he had brought with him. One by one, the thick strands of wire began to part--

Behind him, a harsh, inhuman cry caused Curtis to look around swiftly. Instinctively, he dropped the pliers, reached for his automatic, then hesitated, his finger on the safety catch.

Zukor Androka stood in the turret entrance, his gray hair floating in wisps around his head, his eyes ablaze with a maniac's fury, his hands extended toward Curtis like gouging claws.

"You ... you ... you have ruined my invention!" Androka murmured, in a heartbroken voice. "You have wrecked the zone of silence!"

Curtis took a step forward, seized the Czech inventor by the shoulder and shook him.

"You dirty little traitor!" he barked. "You've lied and cheated--sold out to the Nazis you profess to hate!"

Androka looked at him, terror-stricken, evidently recognizing him for the first time. "You--you're Commander Curtis!"

"Yes!" Curtis gave the inventor another shake and released him. "And you helped steal my ship--tried to ruin me as an officer of the United States navy!"

"Listen!" Androka moved closer to Curtis, then fell on his knees in an attitude of supplication. "Listen to me!"

Curtis stared at him coldly. "I'm listening, Androka. But talk quickly!"

"Commander, I was forced to do this. I had to do it--to save the lives of my people back in Prague. My daughter--"

"Yes," Curtis cut his protestations short. "I know about that!"

Androka fumbled inside his coat and pulled out a sheaf of papers and blueprints. "Here, Curtis! These are the designs, the secret details of manufacture, and the formulas for my inventions--the zone of silence, the destroying rays that wrecked those bombers, and the gas. I'm giving them to you. I'll never use them again--no matter what happens to those I love. I swear it!"

Curtis took the papers and thrust them into an inner pocket. Then he knelt and quickly completed his task of severing the strands of the cable.

He pushed past the groveling form of Androka, and the still corpses of the two sailors, climbed down the mast to the superstructure, and headed for the wireless room.

The operator sat at his table, a cigarette drooping in the corner of his mouth, half asleep.

Curtis clubbed him efficiently with the butt of his gun. The man slumped forward with a groan and lay still. Curtis hauled him to one side and then sat down to send:

"Come aboard U. S. Cruiser _Comerford_ at once. Ship in hands of Nazis, in plot to steal the _Carethusia_. Commander Curtis speaking from the _Comerford_. Lancaster, summon help--"

Curtis stopped and hurriedly cast aside the headphones. The sound of heavy footsteps outside warned him of impending danger. He reached for his gun, released the safety catch, and whirled about.

Men were crowding the doorway of the wireless room--men in whose throats rumbled the angry cry of a baffled wolf pack, whose eyes gleamed with the savage light of murder.

The wireless room was abruptly full of powder smoke, punctuated with gun flashes, as he sprayed bullets at the doorway. The steel door protected him; his attackers were exposed.

He saw that the crowd had given way before the figure of one man, bolder than the rest--or perhaps more desperate--pushing forward, a blazing automatic in his hand.

Curtis recognized the white, hard-lined face, the pale, cruel eyes, set under shaggy blond brows, now blazing with a wild, half-insane light--Nelson! Curtis was busy shoving in a new clip of ammunition--

A shot from Nelson's pistol went wild, shattered the lights, throwing the wireless room into almost total darkness. His second bullet seared Curtis' jaw, a burning, flesh-tearing wound. Another smashed into his shoulder--high up.

Curtis felt sick as he felt lead splintering the bone. He fired--and missed. His shoulder ached--He gritted his teeth, steadied his aim, and let Nelson have it again.

In the faint light that came in at the entrance, he saw Nelson's white face suddenly become a crimson mask. His body fell backward--outside.

Curtis dashed forward and slammed the steel door, bolting it, locking himself in. A terrible wave of nausea rose up within him. The pain of his wounded shoulder was like torturing knives turning in his flesh, grinding against the shattered bones--

He felt his fingers relax on his gun, as his knees buckled under him, and he sank to the floor.

The next thing Curtis knew, he was in a ship's cabin in bed, his wounded shoulder incased in a comfortable surgical dressing. A brown-skinned Filipino mess boy poked his head in and grinned in friendly fashion. On his cap, Curtis read the lettering "U. S. S. _Lexington_" and knew that he must have been taken on board the big aircraft carrier.

The mess boy ducked out as quietly as he had looked in, and a few minutes later, the _Lexington's_ commander entered.

"Congratulations!" he said cordially, after asking Curtis how he felt. "Everything worked out perfectly. The new helicopter had its first chance to demonstrate its efficiency and came through a hundred percent. You were right also in your theory that the _Lexington's_ power cables, with their tremendous current-carrying capacity, would shatter the rays into worthless junk. The power from our cables kicked back on Androka's invention and smashed it!"

Curiosity prompted Curtis to ask a question. "What ... what became of Androka? Did he--" He paused as he saw the gleam of horror in the other man's eyes!

"Androka got panicked," the commander of the _Lexington_ said, "when he saw that the _Comerford_ had been surrounded by the fighting vessels of the British convoy, and he knew that both his inventions were wrecked. I guess seeing Nelson dead softened him up, too."

"So what did Androka do?" Curtis asked. "Blow up the ship?"

The _Lexington's_ commander shook his head slowly. "No; he blew _himself_ up--in his work-room--with some explosives he'd been experimenting with!"

Curtis leaned back on his pillows. The excitement of listening to the other's story had made him a little tense. He felt he needed to relax.

End of Project Gutenberg's Silence is--Deadly, by Bertrand L. Shurtleff