Freddy Farmer pressed as Dawson fell silent.

"Unless there's no connection at all," the Yank air ace finally
remarked.

"I'm afraid that doesn't make much sense to me," young Farmer said.
"What do you mean, no connection?"

"Well, figure it this way," Dawson replied. "Say that the President's
forthcoming trip to Casablanca is as much of a perfect secret as ever.
That--"

"But that's silly!" Freddy Farmer cut in. "The fact that this plane was
mysteriously attacked means that some blasted Nazi agent found out what
was in one of those sealed envelopes. I mean, that the next bomber
through would have the President aboard."

"Are you all through sounding off?" Dave snapped. "Or don't you want to
hear the rest of what I have to say?"

"Sorry, and all that!" the English youth snapped right back at him.
"I'll be still. What were you going to say, Dave?"

"Figure the President's trip business _out_," Dawson went on speaking
again. "Okay. So for what other reason should we be attacked by a
mysterious plane from a mysterious raider in the middle of the Atlantic?
I can think of only one, and this is it. Take it or leave it. The Nazi
U-boats aren't doing so hot for Hitler these days. We're sinking his
steel sharks left and right, and he's going to run out of them before
long. Okay. Where is a lot of our stuff going these days? To North
Africa. And a lot of it is being _flown_ over. Okay. The Nazis don't
stand a chance of going after our transports with their planes, like
they can on the supply route to England. So what do they do? They send a
sea raider out, fitted with a scout seaplane. The sea raider's detector
picks out one of our planes crossing at night, and the seaplane goes up
to high altitude and waits. Maybe those distress signals are part of
the gag to get our plane to go down for a look. Anyway, the seaplane
pilot drops his flares. They light up the target for him and also blind
those aboard the transport plane long enough for the Nazi rat to do his
stuff with his guns. And there you are. Take it or leave it!"

"Just the point, Dawson," Colonel Welsh suddenly broke in. "I don't know
_whether_ to take it or leave it. I certainly don't!"

"Oh, you there, sir?" Dawson gulped as he turned his head around. "I was
just--well--"

"I know, and I'm glad I heard what you said," the colonel interrupted
him. "I was certain that they were laying for us because they believed
the President to be aboard. Yet I swear I don't