erican uniform; if he landed, he ran great risk of
being noticed and attacked at once.

Lance saw immediately that there was only one way out. It was sure
death, but Hay had expected death, and so must he.

His lips set in stern resolve. It meant good-by--farewell to the girl
he'd left behind, farewell to life, farewell to everything--but not
for a second did he debate the course he would take.

* * * * *

Lance glanced at his watch. Nine-thirty. The torpedoes were even now
on their way, hurtling along miles above the earth. In fifteen minutes
they would be over San Francisco. In fifteen minutes the Singe beacon
had to meet them.

He was not familiar with the Slav plane's instruments, but he judged
he'd traveled some hundred and twenty-five miles; was nearing the
outskirts of San Francisco. The air below would be thick, probably,
with enemy scouts, but his appearance should pass unchallenged as long
as they didn't glimpse his betraying uniform.

He set the plane's nose down in a long slanting dive.

Whipping through the clouds, the guarding search-rays of San Francisco
were soon visible. Lance saw a few patrols of enemy scouts; he clung
to the clouds, decreased his speed, and began circling over the heart
of the metropolis itself.

Twenty to ten.

Occasionally a Slav plane flashed by him. Thank God, they didn't
challenge! Lance went still lower. Finally, at a thousand feet, he set
the helicopter props in motion and hung in mid-air--directly above the
very center of the city.

Sixteen minutes to ten.

Now!

* * * * *

In the American front-line trenches, massed troops crouched
expectantly. Clustered on every air base were flights of planes, each
one crammed with bombs. Far behind, the Yank gun-crews edged nervously
up to their mighty charges, and fingered anxiously the stubby gas
shells which soon would be flung through the dripping night.

And at Base No. 5 a very uneasy Colonel Douglas paced back and forth
in his office, muttering: "No news from Lance! No news from Lance!
God! He can't have failed! But why doesn't he show up?"

He had not failed.

Hovering in the plane over San Francisco Lance squirmed round in his
seat, reached back into the fuselage, and pressed rapidly the studs on
the Singe beacon. A high whining noise pierced instantly through the
plane. And up stabbed the beacon, invisible, deadly--up, up, up to a
thin realm miles