Panting, Lance surveyed him, then turned to get the gun. He felt the shock of thudding flesh in his legs, and fell again with Ranth scrambling on top of him. Steel-ribbed hands pounced on his throat, gouged savagely, while the man above grunted thick curses from his slavering mouth. Lance struggled fiercely; saw a curtain of black rush down. Desperately he hooked a booted leg up, craned it over Ranth's back, tugged. The terrible fingers loosened. Lance shook them off, rolled the other over and leaped once more to his feet, right hand clenched and ready.

Ranth staggered up. The young man measured him, pivoted, and smashed his beefy jaw with a clean swing that had every ounce of Lance's hard young body behind it.

The orderly shot back as if struck by a locomotive. He crashed into the radiophone, splintered the delicate instruments and slumped, eyes glazed, to the ground.

He was out. Dead out.

But how much bad he got through on the radiophone before being stopped?

Had he told where the rendezvous, was to be? Told the time and place, and warned the Slavs to look for Hay?

Lance sighed, and was conscious that his left eye was rapidly closing, that a lip was split and his whole body sore. He slung Ranth over his shoulders and trudged wearily back to the base.

He told his story to Colonel Douglas' amazed ears. Ranth, come back to life, was slapped in handcuffs, and for some time the colonel put him through a stern inquisition.

But his lips were sealed. He would not divulge how much he had succeeded in pa.s.sing on to the Slavs.

"A brave man," Douglas observed grimly when Ranth was carried off to the brig, "but it's death for him, the same as it would be death for Hay were he caught."

"I don't think he had a chance to get much across, sir," Lance said.

"I was right on him almost as soon as he got there. You won't let this cancel our rendezvous?"

Douglas' thin lips smiled narrowly. "No. You'll be taking a greater chance, Lance, but we must gamble on how much the Slavs know. You're game, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir!"

Wednesday night came. Thunderstorms muttered to each other on the lowering horizons; gusts of fierce, wind-driven rain slanted down on the dripping base; occasionally a crooked finger of lightning probed the black sky and lit the whole sopping countryside with a searing, flashing glare.

The night patrol had taken off. A single plane, wet and gleaming under the sobbing heavens, stood on the tarmac, two heavily coated figures before it. Presently three more figures, carrying some bulky black object carefully between them, emerged from one of the buildings.

Tenderly they placed this object in the lone plane, which had been stripped of radio outfit and gas bomb compartment to provide room.

Then the two original figures were left alone once more before the fighting machine. Far to the rear, the heavy American guns barked in their regular nightly bombardment.

"A good night for it," Colonel Douglas, scanning the sky, said, "and also a bad one. If only that d.a.m.ned lightning would stop!"

Lance, pulling on thick gloves, did not reply. The colonel consulted his watch.

"What time do you make it?" he asked.

"Exactly eight," the other answered.

"Right. At eight-six, you leave. At nine, on the dot, you meet Hay at Sola Ranch. At nine-ten, the torpedoes take off. At quarter to ten, they arrive over their destination--San Francisco and the surrounding territory. And quarter to ten, if things go correctly--which they must!--is the minute that ends the Slavish invasion of America. At ten minutes to ten, five minutes after the torpedoes strike, our troops charge forward in general attack. G.o.d be with you, Lance! The fate of America is resting on your shoulders to-night, remember!"

"I'm remembering."

Colonel Douglas looked at the young man's grim, set face, looked at his lithe, clean-limbed figure and his steady black eyes which burned with a purposeful fire. And the colonel smiled.

"We'll win!" he said.

An orderly sped from his office, saluted, and rapped crisply:

"Order just received from Washington, sir, to proceed."

Lance clasped Douglas' hand, and leaped into the snug, enclosed c.o.c.kpit. The four motors bellowed as the thin-sprayed oil cascaded to them. The helicopter props spun around.

"Go to it, kid!" cried Douglas. "Spy or no spy, you're coming out on top! And give Hay a last handshake for me!"

And he swung to the salute.

Lance extended his hand. Then he gave his ship the gun, and the tiny, streamlined scout teetered, roared, and rose with a scream into the dripping darkness high above.

The Torpedo Plan had started.

PART IV

Lance hung for a moment at one thousand feet. A crack of lightning lit the base below for a second, and he perceived the colonel's straight figure with hand outstretched. Lance grinned, and gunned to forty thousand--an easy flying height, with his superchargers pumping and air-rectifiers normalizing the enclosed pilot's seat.

"But what," he wondered, as he stopped the helicopters, "did he mean by 'give a _last_ handshake'?"

He was soon to find out.

Behind him, in the fuselage, nestled the weird cl.u.s.ter of machinery which was the Singe beacon. It certainly did not look imposing--a ma.s.s of spidery tubes mazing round a bulky black box, which was, Lance guessed, some new type of generator. Out of the top of the device sprouted a funnel-like horn, from which, on the adjustment of the beacon's control studs, shot the nullifying ray. Lance could not suppress a shiver as he thought of the earth-shaking cataclysm that ray would conjure from the infinitely high heavens.

At forty thousand feet he was above the storm clouds, whose pitchy, vapor-drenched blackness effectively blanked out all sign of the earth. He might have been flying in outer s.p.a.ce. Keeping a careful eye on his instruments, he set a course for Sola Ranch. He kept his speed around three hundred, wishing to meet Hay exactly at nine.

But--would Hay be there?

How much did the Slavs know? How much had Ranth got through before he stopped him?

A frown creased his brow. It was best not to puzzle over that question. Best just to go ahead, and keep going.

At about three minutes to nine he set the plane's nose down through veils of clammy cloud. This was mountainous country, spa.r.s.ely patrolled by Slav ships. Lance hovered cautiously over the firred mountain tops, getting his directions, shooting wary eyes through the magnifying mirrors in search of enemy scouts. He saw none. Satisfied, he cut the Rahl-Diesels, gunned the helicopter props and dropped lightly down on the stubbly field of Sola Ranch.

To left and right loomed the dim outlines of the lonely mountains.

Before the war, the owner of Sola Ranch had grown apples; this field had housed a few horses. It made a perfect meeting place--secluded, misty with the clinging mountain vapors, far apart from the war.

Lance felt like a prowling werewolf there, waiting for its ghostly mate.

Rain was still splattering in desultory bursts, but distance muted the rumbling salvos' of thunder. His watch told him it was one minute to nine.

Now--what?

Hay, or a swooping squadron of Slav planes?