jerked forward.
"What's the matter, Bentley?" he snapped. "What—"
Then it came!
Of a sudden the loudspeaker seemed to burst into a din of raucous sound, which filled the cupola and brought a cry of alarm from every throat.
The first sound was like some rumbling detonation, brief yet reverberating. It was followed by a terrible, rending crackle! Horrified, the men in the cupola froze into rigid immobility, aware that something dreadful had just happened out in the night sky. And then, curdling their blood, came the hoarse scream:
"She's burning! She's burning!"
Pat Bentley had screamed those ghastly words! Screamed them more, it seemed, with horrified amazement than fright. Screamed them above that horrible, crackling roar.
"Fire!" Bentley shrieked, "It's broken out! The whole ship's burning like so much paper!"
"Bentley!" Helpless, the radio operator was wringing his hands at the microphone. "Good God, Bentley, what are you saying? What—"
The dreadful sounds from the night grew to a crescendo in the loud speaker. The crackling roar filled the room, And now, faint but horrifying, came other sounds—human cries. Cries of terror, of panic, of agony.
"God, she's going down! She's going to crash!" Bentley's frenzied voice came again. "The fire's creeping up—I can feel the heat—getting worse—worse! No hope! Going to crash—"
Abruptly the voice and the sounds ceased.
The radio went dead. In that awful moment, the aviation men's eyes showed the vivid horror of their air-trained imaginations. As if they could see a flaming Douglas plane, crashing like a fiery torch somewhere out in the night miles away. The fire consuming it, its radio crumpling, its passengers and its pilot caught helpless, without a chance of escape!
Then came swift reaction. The radio men hurled into a simultaneous rush of action. All other work was momentarily suspended. Both microphones carried frantic messages as their operators spoke in rapid fire.
"Trenton! Calling Trenton! Any more signals from Number One?"
"Balesville, Pennsylvania! Any reports of Number One in that vicinity?"
One of the operators picked up a phone. "Hangar Five! Send out planes to locate Number One!" He gave details, then: "Get me the commanding officer of Miller Field—Hello! Can you send out some flyers to aid in reported burning of transport?"
The continued calls set into motion every available machinery. As always, an air disaster brought swift cooperation from the Army Air Force, as well as from all commercial units.
The chief operator, having set such machinery in motion, spoke with gripping tension.
"We've got to get hold of Mr. Harvey! He must be informed of this at once. What a ghastly blow to the new line!"
Even as he spoke, out in the night, scores of searching planes were already taking the air. The hunt for the huge transport which had disappeared in the night was in full, feverish swing—
* * *
And meanwhile, outside a small shack rearing near heavy, wind-swaying trees, a group of shifting, shadowy figures, most of them in slouch hats with low-pulled brims, were gathering tensely.
There was a stench in the air—a burning, smoking stench. There was a dying, ruddy glow which flickered over coarse faces, over malignant, furtive eyes.
But the eyes of the group were all drawn hypnotically to a small closed coupe which had just emerged out of the night, come to a stop before them.
At first glance that coupe looked like the usual model of a well-known high-priced make of car. But closer inspection would have revealed the unusual heaviness of its metal body, the thickness of its glass windows. The window opposite the tense, dark figures was not quite completely closed; a crack showed on top. But glass protected the head of the car's lone occupant.
A face looked out through that glass—a strange, grotesquerie of a face whose features seemed to shimmer as if made of jelly. It was a ghastly sight, even though the men watching knew it was caused by some imperfection in the thick, bullet-proof glass.
Impossible to tell the true features of that distorted face. It remained, by virtue of the glass, a vague blur; frightening, yet malignantly compelling.
"And so everything has come off exactly as I planned!"
The voice came from the crack of the coupe's window. It was a ghastly voice, a sort of harsh whisper which eddied out into the silent night. It spoke in blighting malice.
"It has gone off like clockwork! And they will hunt in vain for the wreck! I commend you—all of you! Especially you three who were in the shack."
Slick, his head a dark shiny knob in the night, stepped forward with his nimble, jerky grace. Ape, still gripping the blue-steel tommy gun, stood grinning, while the man named Luke quietly lit a new cigarette.
"Hell, it was a cinch, Boss!" Slick spoke towards the car. "You had it figgered just right!"
An eerie chuckle sounded from the coupe, as the distorted face shimmered behind the glass.
"I always have things figured! And now we must prepare for my next enterprise! My work has only begun. The night is still young, and by midnight I strike again—this time in New York! There another enemy, perhaps even two, will pay for opposing me!" Harshly the whisper rose, with fanatical triumph. "Soon everyone will know the power of the Tycoon!
"And you, who are only one part of my mob, will see that you are not working for any small stakes. Before I am through, there will be millions—millions!" He repeated that word with avaricious greed which swiftly communicated itself to his listeners, to show in their evil faces. "Just obey my orders and nothing can stop us! Midnight tonight—remember, that is the time I have set. And I want you all to check your watches and synchronize them with my own now."
Watches came out or were turned up on wrists. The Tycoon gave the minute, and the watches were set.
"At midnight then," came the eerie voice. It lowered, giving further orders. Then the self-starter of the coupe whined; the engine purred.
"So I will go. And you will all hurry, too. I trust you checked up, as I said—on the dead?" he pronounced the phrase with grim mirth. "Did you take all the effects of Truesdale and Garth?" Hate threaded his tone as those names were spoken. There were gruff assents. "Good! And the pilot? You made sure of the pilot?"
As he spoke eyes shifted to the ruddy, dying glow. A few faces paled a little sickly.
"Yeah, I made sure he's dead," a squatly-built man stepped forward to answer. The ruddy glow revealed his squarish head, set low on wide shoulders. His face was crooked-featured, as if one-half of it had slid beneath the other. "I seen his brass buttons."
"You mean," the Tycoon said bitingly, "that there were two such men with brass buttons, don't you, Maxie? There was a co-pilot too."
Maxie's crooked face showed surprise. "But there was only one, Boss. I—"
"You bungling fool." The whisper lashed
