The only ship in the Paagumene Bay with Samson posts had been the Benton Harbor. That meant Cowan’s ruse to make Meyer betray himself had been successful. Peter Meyer had received his message.
Meyer, obviously, had been close by. That told Cowan that he had surmised the double cross Besi John Mataga had planned. Meyer’s arrival had precipitated a battle.
One of Mataga’s sentries must have fired on the ship, and Meyer, fearing a trap, had responded.
Steve Cowan stopped. What now? True, Meyer and Mataga were fighting, but that still didn’t help him. The shipload of chrome would be moving out, and the Japanese master spy, Koyama, was still loose. Also Isola Mayne was gone.
Nothing was settled, nothing was improved. He was free, but apparently helpless. Then he recalled the vague, misty dream of his flight to Oland Point, when he had been a prisoner aboard the plane. How long had they been in the air? He had no way of knowing, but he recalled the camel’s hump, and the dark sky.
The dark hump…Neangambo!
He knew then. A Japanese submarine had surfaced in Nehue Bay. Neangambo was an island in the bay, and the dark hump of the hill and trees could be nowhere else near here. It must be the ship that had brought Koyama.
He worked his way along the shore to the edge of a village and as he had hoped, he found a catamaran. He shoved off and after a moment was alone, and slipping across the dark waters.
* * *
IT WAS ALMOST daylight when Steve Cowan, drunk with fatigue and his head throbbing with pain from the beating he had taken earlier, reached the shore opposite Neangambo.
The ship he had seen leaving Oland Point, the Benton Harbor, was there, and not far away, moored to a piling, was his own plane!
Steve Cowan wet his parched lips. All right, this was it. It was the work of minutes to bring the catamaran alongside the Benton Harbor. He paddled around to the bow, moored the boat to the anchor chain, and went up, hand over hand, at the risk of crushed fingers.
The deck was dark and still. He moved aft, slowly. Voices came from the saloon port. He slipped closer, then glanced in.
Peter Meyer, his face sour, sat at one end of the table. Nearby, her hands tied, was Isola Mayne. Behind her was the maid. Koyama sat with his back to the port, and across from him was Besi John Mataga, his face dark with fury.
“So?” Koyama’s voice was sibilant. “You thought to betray us. Explain this, if you will.”
Besi John laughed harshly. “Don’t blame me for that. It was Cowan’s work.” He looked at the stout shipmaster. “Steuben, I think Cowan knew about what happened. You may resemble Meyer enough to fool some, Herman, but you didn’t fool everyone!”
The thin Japanese officer, Koyama, made a gesture of impatience.
“All this is beside the point,” he hissed. “Why did you kill our agent, the butler? The Burma man was valuable.”
“I tell you I didn’t know about it,” shouted Besi John, angrily.
The Japanese master spy’s anger increased. “You are a fool!” he snapped. “For that you will die.” He waved his hand toward the women. “They must die, too. No one who knows our plans must remain alive.”
Another voice, suave and smooth, broke in. “You must not do this, Commander Koyama. Miss Mayne is a famous actress, internationally known. She cannot disappear without causing complications. Better turn her over to my authority. I think I can make her see reason.”
Esteville! The Frenchman was in this with them. All of which explained why the substitution of Steuben for Peter Meyer had been successful. Without hesitation Steve Cowan turned and walked into the cabin.
Mataga saw Cowan first. Trapped and in danger of losing his life, the renegade had been waiting for a chance to escape from the ship. Like a flash he leaped from his chair, darted through another door and disappeared. A loud splash revealed he had gone over the side.
Steve Cowan was too busy to follow. As Koyama lunged to his feet and whipped out a gun, Cowan raised his automatic and fired twice.
The Japanese officer’s face turned sick, and he fell face forward across the table, dead.
It had happened so suddenly that it was like a slow-motion picture, but almost at once the saloon blazed with shots. Steuben grabbed for his gun, and lunged to his feet, firing desperately. Esteville crouched down, out of sight.
In a haze of powder smoke, Cowan saw Isola and the maid slip out of the door through which Besi John Mataga had disappeared. Steuben was down beside Koyama, now, the smoking pistol clutched in his lifeless fingers. Esteville was hiding behind a table. He had taken no part in the fight and there was no use remaining here any longer. Outside the crew had begun to shout and feet were approaching. So Cowan leaped through the doorway after the two girls, joining them at the railing.
A sailor, in plain sight, opened up with a rifle and Cowan knocked him spinning with one shot. Then with bullets from other members of the crew pattering around him, he swung over the rail and dropped Isola and the maid into the water near the catamaran.
More shots rang out and bullets snipped the water near the slim craft. Luckily the light, just before daylight, was not good, or they would have been slain. He continued to paddle furiously. Soon the freighter was out of sight and the firing stopped.
The plane was ahead, and Steve Cowan swung in close, then crawled aboard. He helped the girls into the cabin and slid into place behind the controls. After several attempts, he got the motors started and warmed them up.
When the ship was in the air, he took stock. The freighter below was moving now. They would get out, and get away fast. Soon Cowan noted two other freighters moving. A convoy, ostensibly bound for America, but, in reality, bound for Japan. The traitorous Pierre Esteville had made this possible.
But even well-laid plans can fail. Cowan swung his ship, and went down in a ringing, whistling dive. Then he opened up with the machine guns. His heavy projectiles blasted the bridge and ripped away the pilothouse windows. The freighter swung suddenly, and turned broadside to the channel.
Banking the Widgeon, Cowan swooped again. From stem to stern he plastered the freighters with gunfire. Then Isola screamed.
Cowan turned in his seat, startled. Besi John Mataga was standing in the middle of the amphibian’s cabin, the small hatch to the bomb bay swinging on its hinges. As Cowan slid out of the seat and faced him, he sprang.
There was no choice but to fight, so Cowan met the renegade’s rush. He got in one well-placed punch before Mataga closed with him, and the plane dipped dangerously.
Then they were locked in a furious, bitter fight. The plane was forgotten, there was no time to think, to reason, only to act. Slugging like a madman, he broke away from those powerful, clutching fingers. He smashed a left to Besi John’s face, then a right to the windpipe. Mataga gasped, and sat down, then lunged and tackled Cowan and they both fell.
Through a haze of blood, Steve Cowan saw Isola had taken the controls. Then the renegade lunged for him, knife in hand. Slapping the wrist aside with his left, Cowan grasped it in his right hand, then thrust his left leg across in front of Mataga’s and his left arm over and under Mataga’s right. He pressed down, and the half-caste screamed as his arm broke at the elbow, and his body lifted and arched, flying over the American’s hip.
The right door had been knocked open, and the maid had been trying, vainly, to get it closed. Besi John’s body caught in the doorway and then slipped through. He grabbed at the sill, desperately, and his fingers held for one breathtaking moment.
With a kind of dull horror, Steve Cowan saw Mataga tumbling down, down, down toward the waters of the bay. When he hit, a fleck of white showed, and he was gone.
Cowan turned, drunk with fatigue and punishment. Isola, her hair free in the wind from the open door, was flying the plane. She looked up at him suddenly, and smiled.
He looked down. A long, slim destroyer was sliding past Neangambo Island. Another was off Tonnerre Point in the distance. Evidently the situation was under control.
He collapsed, suddenly, upon the floor.
When he opened his eyes, the ship was resting easily on the water. He looked up. An officer in the blue and gold of the Navy was standing over him.
“All right, old man?” the officer asked, grinning. “You had a rough time of it. We had been checking Esteville, and were suspicious of Meyer. We have him—all of them—in custody.”