That wasn't a pleasant thought, and it sent a clammy shiver rippling throughout his body. And the other new thought made him shiver all the more. Supposing--just supposing this cursed cloud weather carried all the way to Truk? Supposing the Nazi spy stayed up in it until he was well within the protective ring of Truk's Zeros? If that turned out to be the case, he wouldn't get a crack at that rat in a hundred years. Ten to one that Nazi knew some secret radio signal he could send out to tell the Japs who was approaching and not to attack simply because it was a Yank plane. Supposing ... And right then and there Dave Dawson stopped his supposing about things. In fact, he stopped thinking of all crazy things. The clouds above him suddenly ceased abruptly. The Pacific ahead suddenly became as though on fire from the dying rays of the setting sun. It was like flying out from under a huge pink roof. He came out like a shot from a gun, and almost in the same instant he saw a flash of red ... a flash of sparkling crimson caused by the sun rays dancing off the wings of a plane way off to his right and perhaps two or three thousand feet above him. The Nazi rat, or Freddy Farmer? That question burned in letters of fire a foot high in his brain, as he banked his Hell Cat to the right, and sent it nosing upward. CHAPTER SIXTEEN _Kismet_ Never before had Dave Dawson been so eager, so all on fire, to establish the identity of a sighted plane as he was now. Every nerve and muscle in his entire body became tensed, and actually ached from the strain. Time and time again, as the prop clawed his Hell Cat upward and to the right, he shoved up his goggles and dashed his free hand across his tired eyes as though by so doing he would improve his vision. Truth to tell, under any other conditions he would have been able to get a clear view of the plane even before he started to climb toward it. But the position of the dying sun, the glossy red surface of the Southwest Pacific below him, and the tiny patches of cloud that still hung in the sky were all against him. They all worked to distort the distant plane into all kinds of shapes and outlines. It was something like trying to study a fly through red-colored glasses as the fly circled about a brilliant white light. One instant he would almost see it clearly, and the next it would seem to fade from view altogether, and send his pounding heart racing up into his throat. "That Nazi rat, or you, Freddy?" he muttered aloud. "And forgive me, Freddy, but I hope that it isn't you. Because if it is you, fellow, then we have lost. He'd have to be out in the open now. So if that ship is yours, Freddy, it can't mean anything else but that he is way out in front of us, and too close to Truk for us ever to hope to get him. You see ..."