"I know what I said," Dave growled. "But if it was that, we wouldn't be here. Alive, I mean. We'd be dead. Why kidnap us in the dark of night, and at a lonely spot like the one where we were? Why not just give us both the works, and be done with it? With us dead they haven't a single thing to fear about that Nazi spy being identified. Or ... oh my gosh!" "What, Dave?" Freddy Farmer asked quickly when Dawson let out the sudden exclamation and then lapsed into a sort of breathless silence. "Nothing, nothing, Freddy," Dave replied. "Let's skip it. I wonder where the heck we are, anyway. Sure is a mixed-up business, isn't it? I wonder ..." "Here, none of that, Dave!" young Farmer snapped. "I can see through you like glass, old thing. You suddenly thought of something that gave you a fair jolt. You want to spare me by not telling me. I want none of that sort of thing, and you know it, Dave. So come on. Out with it, old chap. What was the sudden thought?" "Oh, look, Freddy, let's just skip it and ..." "Dave!" Freddy cut him off again. "That's not being quite fair to your pal, don't you think, what?" Dawson didn't reply for a long moment. He struggled with himself, and then sighed softly. "Okay, Freddy," he said slowly. "But of course it's a crazy, screwy thought. Doesn't make any sense at all. Really, to tell the truth, it ..." "Just tell it to me, Dave," young Farmer said quietly, and fixed his eyes on Dawson's face. "That maybe this is _it_, Freddy," Dawson finally said, and gave a jerk of his head to include the room in which they were bound prisoners. "Maybe they didn't want to leave any signs, such as a couple of bodies, and so forth. Maybe they decided that it was best for you and me just to disappear, and ... and here we are. But I tell you, pal, it's really a screwy thought. Absolutely absurd. You shouldn't have forced me, kid." Freddy Farmer didn't say anything when Dawson finished speaking. He closed his eyes for a moment, licked his lips, and then opened his eyes and appeared to stare thoughtfully into space. Dawson started to speak again, but Freddy smiled a little and shook his head. "That's all right, Dave," he said quietly. "Perhaps you are right, and then again, perhaps you are wrong. And I do think you're wrong. As I look at it they simply wouldn't take the chance." "Take what chance?" Dawson demanded. "That we'd escape from this place, wherever it is," the English-born air ace replied. "They'd kill us and leave us here, never to be found perhaps. They wouldn't let us go out the slow way, knowing that we might possibly escape by some miracle. They'd make sure, don't you see?" "Yeah, I get your point, Freddy," Dave said with a nod. Then, grinning broadly, he added, "Well, didn't I just get through saying that it was probably a cockeyed thought?" "But I wonder _why_ they want to keep us alive?" Freddy Farmer murmured as though he were too busy with his own thoughts to hear Dawson's question.