He laughed a dry laugh at his ranting words, and then sobered instantly. He happened to glance impulsively off to his left and for the fleeting part of a second he thought he saw the shadowy silhouette of another plane sliding along through the pinkness that fused and engulfed everything. But when he took a second and longer look there was nothing but a limitless expanse of cloud and fog. At the end of a half-hour or so the fog beneath him thinned out considerably. He could see faint patches of the Pacific. And then after ten minutes of that the fog disappeared entirely. Rather it rose up to merge with the clouds and leave an area of clear air some five hundred feet high, and the horizon-to-horizon reaches of the mighty Southwest Pacific at the bottom. Holding the Hell Cat to its course Dawson scanned the surface of the water in all directions, but he did not see a single sign of a ship. Nor did he see any planes when he searched the area of clear air all about him. He was still alone in a world of his own, and for a couple of minutes he toyed with the idea of climbing above the clouds, just in case the fleeing Nazi had done that, and he might be able to spot him. He finally killed off that idea, though, for the principal reason that it would slow down his speed, and he did not have to have anybody tell him that speed right now was the most precious thing in his life. Speed and time. The two things that can change the whole course of the world. And which have many times, as history will prove. Right now, they hung in the balance again. At least for him. The speed of his roaring Hell Cat. And the time it would take him to get to the Truk area so that he might cut that Nazi rat down into the depths of the Pacific to stay there for all eternity. And so that the information he was taking to one Admiral Shimoda might be food for the fishes, too. "And there won't be any little item of him getting me, instead," Dawson grated softly, as a little inner voice seemed to mention that possibility. "I've never scrapped him in the air, but he's one guy I _know_ I can nail. I know it, because I know I've _got_ to! So that's how it stands, Lady Luck. Just give me the break of being able to catch up with him, and then leave the rest to me. Swell-headed and cocky? Okay, so I am! But let me at him and I'll get him, just the same!"