Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 28, No. 3, November 12, 1927

After breakfast at Königsberg, ancient stronghold of the Prussian kings, the great twelve-passenger plane hopped off for Russia.

I

“Mr. Reading, the Department of State has borrowed you from the Air Mail Service for a mission of international importance. Can you be prepared to sail on the Leviathan tomorrow?”

“Yes, Mr. Secretary.”

If Reading felt surprise or any other emotion over the suddenness of the assignment, the wind-carved features of the flying detective gave no indication of it.

The Secretary of State smiled approvingly. “Your chief has informed me that you are accustomed to swift changes in the scenes of your operations as an investigator.”

“That is not difficult for a flying man, sir,” said the special agent. “We are used to traveling light and on short notice.”

“Evidently,” remarked the secretary. “I am told you left San Francisco for Washington only yesterday morning.”

“Yes, sir. The usually prevailing winds from West to East were unusually strong and helped me quite a bit. I had to make only one stop at Omaha.”

“Then you will need sleep, Mr. Reading. I shall have your passports, letters, and funds ready so that you may take the midnight train to New York.”

“If there is nothing to prevent, I should prefer to fly over this evening,” said Reading.

The secretary smiled again. “There is nothing to prevent. All the instructions you will require before leaving I shall give you now, verbally. I imagine that nothing would prevent you from flying on to Europe if a proper plane were placed at your disposal.”

“No, sir. Nothing but exceptionally stormy weather over the Atlantic.”

The statesman’s smile became a thoughtful frown. “You flying men make me feel as if I belonged back in another age.”

Something very nearly like that had been suggested not long before by Senator Borden, in a speech attacking the Administration and the State Department for holding up diplomatic recognition of Soviet Russia.

“But now to the point,” said the secretary, who loved this phrase but seldom conformed to it. “It will be necessary for you to sail on the Leviathan, for there will be a passenger aboard whose movements it will be your duty to observe.

“You have been chosen for this mission for several reasons. One is that it will involve flying and that as an investigator you are at home in that field. Another reason is that we are assured of your discretion. It is necessary that you know in advance what is involved.”

The secretary carefully and slowly wiped an eyeglass. He continued: “Despite nearly a decade of subversive activity by agents of the Soviet Government operating in the United States and in the countries to the South, the American Government has recently seriously considered resumption of diplomatic relations with Russia.

“We had come to believe that at last Moscow realized the futility of preaching revolution in other countries, and was ready to resume rightful obligations in the family of nations.”

Reading, remembering that the secretary had been a Senator, hoped he was not in for a speech.

“We received solemn assurances from the Soviet government,” said the secretary, “that our conditions would be met, and that not only would communist propaganda cease in the United States, but also in the Latin-American countries, where the ascendency of communist doctrine would be a source of apprehension to us.

“Three days ago we learned that Manuel Perez, whose activities we know have involved at least two Central American revolutions, and who has been a frequent visitor at Moscow in recent years, is again on his way to the Russian capital. He is on the Leviathan’s passenger list, and is ostensibly going to Paris for a holiday.

“Of course we could find an excuse to hold him and deport him to the southern port from which he came to New York, but we are most interested in learning whether his present journey means that Moscow is still active in the Americas.

“It will be your task to find out. I need not remind you that it is a delicate one.”

Reading inclined his head slightly.

“Your connection with the Air Mail service is known to the ship news reporters. If you are asked as to your purpose abroad it will be best to say that you are on leave and interested in observing the development of commercial aviation in Europe.

“It will be best, of course, not to attempt to follow Perez too closely when you reach the other side. If our information is correct he is likely to remain in Moscow for a week or two.

“Our embassy at Berlin has sources of information there, and after you reach Europe and before you go to Moscow it will keep you informed of any unexpected development.

“For the sake of appearances it will be advisable for you to spend a few days on the continental airways before starting for Moscow.

“As it is, the motives of your journey abroad may possibly be suspected; but that will make little difference, as Moscow watches closely the movements of all Americans who enter Russia, and you would be under surveillance in any event.”

Reading listened carefully to further detailed instructions, mainly as to methods of communication with the State Department through the European embassies. The great man shook hands with him and he took his leave.

The sun had dropped below the horizon of a roseate summer sky, and a twilight breeze from the southwest was speeding Reading’s plane toward the Atlantic seaboard. As he passed over the suburbs of Baltimore and headed across upper Chesapeake Bay he switched on his lights.

Then, three thousand feet below, under a faint purpling haze, twinkled the lights of Wilmington — Philadelphia and Camden — the Delaware River and Trenton — the great airship hangar at Lakehurst, with the Los Angeles, which had flown across the Atlantic from Germany, floating idly from its tall mast — Hadley Field at New Brunswick, the eastern terminal of the Transcontinental Air Mail Line.

He was expected, and the flood lights of the field made his night landing as easy as one at noon. He had left Washington a little less than two hours before. Before midnight he was asleep in his hotel in New York.

II

Jim reading had returned from France a famous ace. His exploits in the Air Mail Service had added to his fame. He realized that it would be best not to dodge the ship news men, for if it became known after he sailed that he had made a mysterious departure, suspicion and conjecture might arise. This was, paradoxically, a secret mission which would have to be carried out largely in the open.

His replies to the reporters were truthful enough, so far as they went. The Secretary of State was pleased to observe, the morning after the Leviathan sailed, that Reading’s departure had been dismissed with a few paragraphs, and these buried under the news that Mary Garden had denied, before sailing for a grand opera star’s summer holiday abroad, that she had proposed marriage to Gene Tunney.

On the second afternoon at sea he was invited to make a fourth at shuffleboard and was introduced by a shipboard acquaintance to Manuel Perez as an opponent. There was none of the sinister spy about Perez. A handsome little Latin-American, his ivory smile well known in a hundred cafés in Central and South America and in Europe, he made friends easily.

Most of those who had met him on shipboard and in Paris, Madrid, London, Moscow, Berlin, New York and the Latin-American capitals probably classified him as one of the numerous wealthy Argentinians whose restless pleasure-loving take them everywhere.

He smiled engagingly as he bowed and shook hands with the wiry sandy-haired American. “Ah, I have often read of Captain Reading. I am glad we are opposed only at shuffleboard, rather than in the air.”

Reading’s squinty blue-gray eyes returned Perez’s smile. “You are a flyer, Mr. Perez?”

“Not an accomplished one, captain. I learned to love air travel on visits to Europe and recently I have been taking lessons in piloting.”

Reading was about to ask him whether he intended to do much air traveling in Europe on the present trip, but thought better, of it and decided not to.

“You will fly in Europe?” Perez asked Reading.

“I am not taking a plane with me, but I am interested in the development of commercial aviation in Europe, and while I am on leave I expect to use the opportunity to see something of it — riding as a passenger.”

“Will not that be a little dull for such a pilot as you?”

“No,” replied Reading. “There will be much for me to see which I have not seen before. I have not been abroad since the war, and passenger flying on scheduled airways has, as you know, only been developed since the armistice.”

For the remainder of the voyage Reading met Perez casually once a day or so, usually in the smoking room or on the promenade deck. The latter’s companions seemed to be casual acquaintances met on shipboard.

He enjoyed himself with the air of a man in easy circumstances going abroad for the summer pleasures of Europe. He talked readily of previous visits to European cities, but did not mention having been in Moscow.

Reading spent a day in London, mostly under the wing of the American Air Attaché, Colonel Barry Scott, and established contact with the ambassador, with whom he briefly discussed his mission.

“Probably it will be best,” said the ambassador, “if you are not seen too much at the embassies over here before you go to Moscow. An industrious branch of the Soviet political police operates in the European capitals.

“Because you are well known as an aviator it will do no harm, I suppose, to be seen about with the air attachés; you are naturally interested in aviation over here; but, so far as possible, you will, of course, let it appear that this is the sole reason for your contact with the embassies.

“When you return from Russia we shall try to make proper amends for our present necessary lack of hospitality.”

“I understand, Mr. Ambassador; thank you,” replied Reading as he rose to go.

Not altogether to his surprise he found himself a fellow passenger with Manuel Perez in an Imperial Airways plane in a pleasant Channel crossing to Paris. They parted at Le Bourget Airdrome.

“Perhaps we shall meet again in Paris,” said Perez. “I expect to remain some little time before going on to the Mediterranean.”

“I’m sorry, but I expect to fly on to Berlin by way of Amsterdam. I am specially interested in having a look at the Lufthansa organization, which seems to be spreading faster than any other airways development in Europe.”

“Ah, that will be interesting, I am sure,” agreed Perez politely. “I, too, intend to travel by airplane as much as possible this summer. Perhaps we shall meet again at one of the airdromes.”

“I trust so,” responded Reading.

He called briefly at the Embassy, where Major Henry Harrison, the Air Attaché, promised to inform him, through the embassy at Berlin, as to Perez’s movements. He took off the next morning for Berlin.

On the way to Amsterdam he flew over country in northeastern France and Belgium which brought back, to him memories of flying that had not been accomplished in limousine cabin planes. It was near Amiens that he had bagged his fifth German and his aceship.

The windmill country of Holland, with its dikes and canals, charmed him as a traveler, but not as an aviator. The riparious terrain offered few emergency landing fields.

At the Schiphol Airdrome near Amsterdam he changed to a Lufthansa plane for Berlin. It took off on schedule thirty minutes after the arrival of the ship from Paris. The pilot was a veteran of the German air force. For all Reading knew, he was now confidently trusting his life to a man who had earnestly tried to kill him a few years since.

The plane sailed over the picturesque Zuider Zee coastland and headed for the German border. Not far to the south of their course was Doom, where the pilot’s former boss was comfortably interned on a delightful estate that had belonged to a Dutch country gentleman.

Then over the German frontier and across the quietly flowing Ems River to Hanover, from which, after a brief stop for fuel, the plane took the air for Berlin. Soon Potsdam, and then the pleasant suburbs of Berlin. Reading reflected that since luncheon, and before dinner, he had traveled a path that had marked an epoch in history.

When he sailed from France after the Armistice he had thought — at least hoped — that he was through with international difficulties. Now he found himself mixed up in another, and in peace time. An unpredictable world!

He remembered that as an eager young cadet in wartime he had hoped to fly to Berlin ahead of a victorious army. Now he was flying into the German capital — with a former enemy pilot at the controls.

The plane half circled the big Tempelhofer Airdrome — the Tempelhofer Feld of imperial maneuvers — and glided down to a gentle landing before the Lufthansa hangars and waiting room.

A neat little lad in a dapper gray uniform took his bag to the waiting room, where customs officers only casually inspected his baggage.

His passport was examined and visaed, he signed the register of air passengers, and was ready to enter the service bus bound for Unter den Linden when his right arm and hand were grasped.

“Captain Reading, aren’t you? My name’s Patterson, air attaché at the embassy here. Harrison at Paris wired me you would be in on this bus.

“You must have had a good tail wind; your ship is twenty minutes early, and so I am a few minutes late. I welcome you.”

“Thanks, major. Good of you to come.”

“I’ve reserved a room for you at the Adlon, and we’ll drive there now, if you like. You’re to have dinner with me there, unless you’ve made another engagement.”

“No; I’ll be glad to accept.”

Major Patterson turned toward a stocky spectacled man in mufti who bowed slightly and smiled as he approached. The attaché greeted him.

“Good afternoon, Herr Direktor. Let me present Captain Reading, who has come from America on leave to observe the operation of your excellent airways. Captain Reading, this is Herr Mueller, a director of Lufthansa.”

After an exchange of compliments, during which Reading found the airways official spoke a more meticulous English than his own, an invitation to inspect the airdrome and the maintenance plant at Staaken was accepted for the following afternoon.

“During the war our friend Mueller was superintendent of one of the Fokker factories here that kept us so busy in France,” remarked Patterson as they drove away from the field. “Your pilot got five or six of us in northern France. Charming fellows to get along with now, though. Their planes and their beer and Rhine wine will be at your disposal while you’re here.”

Patterson swung his Lancia to the right, through the Brandenburg Gate and along Unter den Linden to the Adlon.

“Call for you in an hour, Reading,” said the attaché, and departed, to allow his guest time to bathe and dress for dinner.

III

The following morning Reading was presented to the ambassador, who told him that, operating through Deruluft, the Königsberg-Moscow branch of Lufthansa, the embassy had found no difficulty in arranging for a Russian vise of his passport.

“A year ago it would have been different — much different,” he said. “But now that they are expecting recognition and financial credits from the United States they are anxious to please.

“The Soviet Embassy here — it is near your hotel — seems satisfied that you are over only to study commercial aviation. They will learn that you are pitching right into it here, and that will help to avert suspicion. Patterson will look after you while you are in Germany, and he will arrange your contact with our sub-rosa agent in Moscow.

“In the Soviet capital you will, of course, be entirely on your own, as we have no embassy there, and if you get into trouble, and they find out what you are there for, you will have to rely mainly on yourself.”

Reading reflected that he had frequently got into and out of tight places without diplomatic assistance, but he realized the position of the ambassador, one of whose duties, during the breach with Russia, had been to warn American travelers that they entered that country largely at their own risk — when they were permitted to enter at all.

After his afternoon at Tempelhofer and Staaken he found himself regretting that such interesting inspections — for he was primarily an aviator — were not his sole mission abroad.

“These German pilots,” said Major Patterson, “are spreading German commercial aviation from London to Peking and from Stockholm to the Alps.

“They have nothing to compare with our Air Mail, but they are so far ahead in passenger transportation that it would take the rest of the world from three to five years to catch up.”

“The planes seem to move in and out of their airdromes with the regularity of railway trains,” remarked Reading. “Tell me about the line from Königsberg to Moscow — what kind of passengers travel over it?”

“That is an important question, particularly in view of the job you are engaged upon now,” said Patterson smilingly. “It’s hardly a secret here in Berlin that a very large percentage of them are diplomatic couriers between Moscow and Berlin — and undercover agents, mostly Soviet Russians, traveling between the two capitals.

“Many of them go through here to London and other European centers, and, at least until recent months, quite a few have gone on to New York and the Latin-American ports.

“A few business men, and still fewer tourists, make up the rest of the passenger lists. Often the planes — there’s one a day each way — are so loaded with freight and mail that there is no room for travelers.”

They were in the waiting room at Tempelhofer, waiting for an attendant to bring the attaché’s car. Major Patterson casually picked up the passenger register and glanced at the day’s list. A name caught his eye.

“Let’s go, Reading; here’s the car,” he said.

Patterson slowed down to light a cigarette as they passed out of the airdrome gate, and as he handed his case to Reading he smiled and said:

“Perez! Your friend got in from Paris this afternoon and is booked to leave on the express to-night for Moscow, via Königsberg. Plane leaves two hours after midnight, gets to the Prussian terminal a little after sunrise, and is due at Trotzky Field late in the afternoon.

“I heard one of the pilots remark that the ship is booked solid, but you’d best wait until to-morrow night anyway. I gather that has been your intention — not to keep too close to him until he gets to his destination. After dinner to-night I’ll tell you about our undercover man in Moscow and how you are to meet.”

“I have a hunch,” said Reading, “that I had better not lose too much time in following him into Russia. He seems to be in a hurry. But to-morrow night will be soon enough, I think. If we had been fellow-passengers to-night he might have got to thinking too intently upon coincidences of travel.”

IV

The trimotored metal monoplane, carrying twelve passengers besides its crew of pilot and mechanic, and more than a ton of freight and mail, took off and headed through the night toward the Baltic. Reading found himself thinking of what night-bombing raids might have accomplished during the war had these planes been developed then.

Sunrise dissipated a low down fog over which they had been flying, and there was no need for landing lights at Danzig, where they stopped briefly for fuel and clearance through the customs office of the Danzig Free State. An hour and a half later they were at Königsberg, ancient stronghold of the Prussian kings.

Then, after a quick continental breakfast, off for Smolensk, the first stop in Russia. The plane did not stop at Kovno, the capital of Lithuania, but dropped mail on the airdrome there.

On across little Latvia and over the Russian border, with a fair tail-wind helping them toward the Soviet capital at a rate of more than a hundred miles an hour.

The twelve hundred-mile journey from Berlin, consuming more than two days by train, would be made in about fifteen hours’ elapsed time.

Reading observed with keen interest the trench scars and shell holes in the country over which he was flying — left untouched as relics from warfare between Russia and Germany and civil wars between the Red armies and the military remnants of the monarchy. Unlovely terrain for a forced landing, he reflected.

The pilot, who had fought in the Russian campaign of Hindenberg, had skirted carefully along the border between Latvia and Poland. Neither German nor Russian planes were permitted to fly over Polish territory, and this made a slight detour necessary.

A forced landing meant confiscation of the plane and arrest of its occupants. When there was an opportunity to fly high over fog this detour rule was ignored. If Poland didn’t know it was being flown over, what was the difference?

As the plane approached a landing at the far end of the Smolensk military airdrome, which the Soviet government permitted commercial planes to use, the mechanic drew curtains over the cabin windows.

Travelers were not permitted to make close observations of the military establishment at Smolensk, an important key of offense or defense in Soviet strategy, particularly if Moscow needed to be defended against invasion.

Despite that he believed in the skill and carefulness of the pilot, Reading felt vaguely uncomfortable in this blind descent from the clouds to the ground. He knew, of course, that the pilot’s cockpit was not curtained.

Two-thirds of the way from Smolensk to Moscow the plane flew over Borodino, where the Napoleonic invasion of Holy Russia won its fatal victory and blundered on to Moscow and eventual disaster. If Napoleon could have invaded with a fleet of large planes, establishing bases behind him as he advanced—

A patriotically red sun was low in a hazily pink Russian sky when the plane landed on Trotzky Field.

As it wheeled to come down against a light breeze Reading, gazing over the almost Oriental sky line of Moscow, caught sight of the massive old Kremlin, behind whose walls the Soviet government lay intrenched — and without which walls its experiment in communism would have ended in its earlier stages.

Soldiers of the Red army were on guard at Trotzky Field, it, like the one at Smolensk, primarily a military airdrome. Reading’s baggage and papers were examined much more thoroughly here than at Berlin, and his passport examined carefully.

Himself the last passenger to turn over his passage ticket he found himself alone in a small office with the sharp-faced young man whose duty it was to check in the arrivals for the Deruluft company.

Patterson had instructed him to find a moment alone with this man, who now smiled shrewdly. “Captain Reading, I have taken the liberty of ordering a car for you and reserving quarters at the Savoy. Shall I call at your room at nine o’clock? My name is Alexander Moldenko.”

“Thank you; I shall expect you. Come directly to the room without announcing yourself at the desk.”

There was a knock at the office door, and the pilot of the trip, Hans Pohlig, entered. Speaking the careful English taught at German universities, he addressed Reading:

“If Captain Reading will consent, the pilots of our company who are in Moscow will be honored to have him at dinner tomorrow evening. You will perhaps desire to rest to-night.”

“Thank you,” replied Reading. “I shall be glad to come — but I must warn you that my German is limited and my command of Russian non-existent.”

Pohlig smiled. “Some of my brother pilots speak a little of your language, and I shall be pleased to act as your interpreter. Where may I call for you at seven o’clock to-morrow?”

“At the Savoy Hotel, if you please.”

“Thank you; I shall be there for you at that hour.”

V

“Perez arrived yesterday afternoon,” reported Moldenko, “and was admitted to the Kremlin this morning. He flies back to Germany in three days. I have reserved a place also for you, and will attend to the vise necessary for your departure.”

“Have you found it possible to learn anything definite as to his reason for being here?” asked Reading.

“No, captain; I can give you only limited service in Moscow, and must not press my inquiries too closely.” He turned a wrist, as though he were turning a jailer’s key, and grinned a little apprehensively.

“I can make no other suggestion except that it is likely that his mission must be learned from the contents of his dispatch case when he leaves Moscow. I am not a member of the Communist party and must be careful.”

“Where is he stopping?”

“Here in the Savoy. You are likely to meet him. He has no reason to suspect that you are other than a member of the American Air Mail on leave and on a holiday tour of personal observation?”

“I don’t think so. I met him on the steamer coming over, and again at Paris, and casually mentioned that I expected to fly to Moscow if the opportunity presented itself.”

“That is well, captain, for if your reason for coming to Russia became known, or even strongly suspected, I should not like to guarantee your safety. Many things happen suddenly in Moscow.”

Reading considered his position. He was in Moscow, and in the same hotel with him was the man he had followed by steamer and airplane five thousand miles from New York. Perhaps Perez had already learned of his arrival. Would he suspect his presence? Reading had had practically no choice except to take the chance.

He could claim no protection from an American embassy if his purpose in the Red capital — the heart of Soviet Russia, Communists loved to call it — became known or even strong suspected.

He knew that the confessedly ruthless government, a sterner dictatorship even than that of the czar’s which it had displaced, would not hesitate to deal summarily with him if it regarded him as a serious threat to its international plans.

He must work quietly and carefully, and yet in the open. This could be no job of back-alley sleuthing. He determined to assume the initiative; to bring about as soon as possible another seemingly casual meeting with Perez.

Telephoning, he was told that Perez was not in his room, and had left no word as to when he would return.

Reading had decided upon a stroll in the direction of the Kremlin, and was crossing the lobby of the hotel when Perez entered. The American thought lie detected the merest flash of apprehension in the eyes of the little Latin as he caught sight of him, but his mobile countenance smiled a polite greeting as he came forward with outstretched hand.

“Travelers’ luck again, captain!” he exclaimed. “I had hardly hoped to meet with you again so soon — although I do remember you said that Moscow was included in the itinerary of your airways travel.”

“It is pleasant to find you here, Mr. Perez,” returned Reading. He was about to remark that the meeting was unexpected, but thought it best to let Perez volunteer an explanation as to why he was not in Paris or on the Mediterranean. This came quickly enough.

“The swiftness of air travel seems to increase the probability of such chance meetings of travelers who have met before, but perhaps you are surprised that I am here.

“I have had to interrupt my holiday to attend to business. The day after my arrival in Paris some South American connections cabled, asking me to make inquiries into the status of mining concessions which they have in the Ural region.”

A wave of the hand. “And so you find me here.”

Reading wondered whether to admire the other’s assurance or doubt whether, after all, he was not on a wild-goose chase. Tips such as that which had caused the State Department to commandeer the Air Mail detective’s services did not always assay according to expectations.

But he thought it best to let Perez know at once the time of his departure from Moscow, and so perhaps forestall any further suspicion that might arise from another forced coincidence.

“Why, my dear captain, I too have reserved a place in the plane for Berlin on Friday,” he replied. “It will be a pleasure to fly with you again.”

This with so convincing an air of amiability that Reading again found himself in speculation. If the Central American was, by chance, telling the truth, his visit to government offices meant nothing more than a business errand. Moldenko may have deceived himself.

But if Perez was in Moscow to convey revolutionary plans and funds south Of the Rio Grande he was working boldly, almost openly, and against all the established canons of international intrigue. If he concealed a suspicion of Reading would he change his plans and fly out of Russia in another plane?

In that case he might head for Riga, the Latvian port, and leave Europe via the Baltic. There were small steamers on which he might sail directly to a Latin-American port.

It might have been a mistake to let him know when he was leaving Moscow. But Reading hoped that his own apparent candor would serve to fend off any suspicion Perez might have.

Perez ascended to his room, and Reading was again moving toward the door when a voice hailed him from the room clerk’s desk.

“Jim Reading!”

He turned and saw David Rossiter of the New York Globe. They had been friends when Rossiter was a Washington correspondent.

“Dave, I’m glad to see you. I thought you had been sent to your London office. What are you doing here?”

“Transferred a month ago, when the first hint came that things were being patched up between Washington and Moscow. Nelson was glad to be switched to London and his favorite brand of Scotch, but said he was afraid he would have to use it as a chaser, after training on vodka for a year. You were going out. May I walk with you?”

“Of course — or would you rather come up to my room?” invited Reading. “I intended going out only for a short walk before turning in. My legs are stiff from sitting in a plane all day and no rudder-bar to kick.”

“Let’s walk then. Have you seen Red Square and the Kremlin at night?”

“No; I intended to walk in that direction.”

Outside, on the dimly lighted sidewalk, Rossiter became the inquiring reporter,

“I’m your friend, Jim, but I am also Moscow correspondent of the Globe. I learned at the Deruluft office that you had arrived; they told me you were to be here for a few days as part of a trip to look over the European airways. Is that all, or you up to something else?”

In Washington Reading had learned to trust this newspaper man, and had several times confided in him and been quietly helped by him in his investigations. He knew that Rossiter would not violate a confidence in order to put over a news beat.

Rossiter respected Reading as one of the few agents of the government he knew who was not a publicity hunter. They had formed a real friendship. Neither attempted to use the other, but they had both gained in exchanges of information in times past.

It was known to the detective that the newspaper man had frequently been in the confidence of high government officials, especially in the State Department.

Reading now decided to confide in Rossiter, and was about to answer his question when the other added: “But if you are here on something you can’t talk about, forget the question and any personal inclination you may have to answer it.”

“I’m going to tell you what has brought me here, Dave. We may be able to help each other.”

Rossiter listened in silence, then whistled softly.

“It’s lucky I haven’t filed a little yam I’ve written about Perez’s visit here. I had a talk with him to-day and he gave me the same story he told you.

“That wasn’t worth cable tolls to New York as a news item if accepted as the truth, but I happened to know something of his previous activities in connection with Moscow, and I suggested in my yam that part of his business here possibly was political.

“My copy might have been rejected by the censor, anyway, but it might also have put the foreign office — and Perez — on guard.

“Instead, I’m going to file a couple of hundred words of innocuous stuff taking him at his word — Vast Opportunity for Latin-American Trade Relations with Russia, and that sort of thing.

“The Soviet foreign office watches closely every bit of copy that goes out of Russia, and if there is any skullduggery on with Perez it will be best to have them think there isn’t any suspected.

“I don’t think any of the other correspondents working here now know about Perez’s past jobs nor have talked with him since he arrived.

“There is so much to keep an eye on in Moscow, and throughout Russia and Siberia, that we have a news-sharing arrangement. This week I am looking after aviation, among other things, and I’ll give the rest of the gang what I am sending out, together with a little story on the American aviator visiting the Moscow terminal of the European airways. Not the whole truth, but a useful grain of it, anyway.”

Reading smiled. “No wonder they made you a news censor when you were in the A. E. F.”

“I wasn’t any too fond of that job,” said Rossiter. “But as a newspaper man I’ve nursed along many a story under cover that premature bean-spilling would have spoiled.”

“I have good reason to know it, Dave,” said Reading.

They were passing the great wooden tomb of Lenin, before the massive walls of the Kremlin, above which floated a large red flag.

A powerful light from within the walls played upon this flag and, aided by a light wind from the northwest, made it a livid flame against the dark sky. Four soldiers of the Red Army guarded the tomb, which was weirdly illuminated by red flood-lights.

They stopped. Whereupon a disreputable droshky also stopped, a few feet away. An even more disreputable-looking and ragged izvostchik offered his services. Rossiter waved him away. The droshky, drawn jerkily over uneven coblestones by an ancient nag of a horse, rattled off.

“Lenin, before he died,” said Rossiter, “had come to realize that undiluted Bolshevism wouldn’t evolve Utopia in Russia.

“If he had lived he would have modified the dictatorship of the proletariat very considerably. He had already made a beginning in that direction and, Marxian fanatic though he was, he saw clearly that Russia could not bring about world revolution without first demonstrating the success of its own.

“He is now venerated as a saint of the Russian people — a veneration he would have scorned and despised. Behind those walls two factions and two second-rate leaders fight to inherit the leadership that was Lenin’s.

“These groups he ruled with an iron hand until he died. One faction — the extremists who still believe in a world revolution — is led by the former East Side New York pamphleteer, Trotzky; the other, the moderationists, is controlled by Stalin, the political boss of the Communist party.

“Just now Stalin seems to have the upper hand, and that is why Washington has been led to believe that it may be possible to deal with Moscow.

“But Stalin does not sufficiently dominate a powerful section of the Communist party that insists upon continued work for a world revolution. The outside world is able only to guess what is going on behind those thirteenth century walls, where Bolshevism is in a state of political siege.”

“About Perez — what is your guess?” asked Reading.

“He is one among dozens who have been working as international agents for Moscow, operating in strategic countries the world over. China, for instance.

“Penfield, our Shanghai man, in confidential dispatches to New York has told us that Soviet Russia’s hand is likely to be shown openly in South China before the end of 1926 — less than six months from now.

“Perez is, of course, a liar, especially on the face of his statement that he will have concluded his business here and be ready to leave in three days.

“No business, except something prearranged, cut-and-dried, could be concluded between Russians and a Latin-American in that space of time.

“You have been south of the Rio Grande, and therefore know something of business methods there. Well, even Honduras is a high-pressure country compared with Russia. If an invading army should ever get inside the Kremlin it would be tripped up and helplessly entangled by red tape.”

Reading was silent as they walked back toward the hotel. He was as far from a plan of action to get definite proof of a Russian plot in the Americas as he had been when he first met Perez on the Leviathan.

Rossiter proceeded to the telegraph office, and Reading returned to his room, where he smoked a cigarette and called it a day.

Through his window came the soft strains of a café balalaika orchestra playing “The Three Guitars,” which he remembered having heard in a restaurant in Second Avenue, which advertised an exiled chef from Moscow.

VI

At the dinner of the Deruluft pilots he found himself among his own kind and enjoyed it. Besides his pilot of the flight from Germany, two or three others spoke a little English.

His French helped him out with the Russian flyers of the Deruluft staff. These aviators a few years ago had fought against one another in the clouds over western Russia and eastern Germany; they now ate and drank together like squadron mates.

Moldenko was present. He indicated two diners at the far end of the table. They were opening a Bottle of vodka. “Do you see the big Russian, Radin, with his arm around the German pilot, Koenig?” They had begun to sing a Russian song, which Radin evidently was teaching Koenig.

“They seem like old friends,” Reading smilingly observed.

“They have been friends,” said Moldenko, “since they met after the war, and Radin recalled Koenig as the pilot who shot him down near Kovno.

“They had a party to celebrate then-reunion under polite circumstances, and the Russian got revenge by drinking Koenig into a forced landing under the table.

“Radin will pilot you and Perez to Germany. There will be no other passengers. Express freight and mail have taken most of the plane’s capacity.”

“What about Radin’s capacity?” asked Reading. “I shouldn’t like to take off with him if we had to leave in the morning.”

“He does not fly to-morrow, and I have never known him to take a drop to drink the night before going on flying duty. As a war pilot he was known as a headlong and a relentlessly vicious foe, but he has proved to be a capable commercial pilot.”

The following day Reading was a guest at Trotzky Field. He was not asked to inspect military machines, but a speedy little sport plane was tuned up and he was invited to fly it. Before taking off he was advised of a rule against flying over the Kremlin.

He delighted the Deruluft pilots and mechanics with an acrobatic exhibition, and was about to come down for a landing when he looked down and saw another plane of the same type taking off.

He rightly guessed that he was being challenged to a sporting dog-fight, a form of exhibition flying which can become almost as dangerous as the real thing if one or the other of the pilots, moved excessively by professional pride, presses his opponent too closely.

The ascending pilot proved to be Radin. Reading earnestly hoped that the Russian’s head had cleared. Pilots regard half an hour’s flying as the best of all hangover cures.

Probably Radin had come up as much far this as anything else. He waved a hand and grinned at the American as they went into action at three thousand feet above the airdrome.

Reading had courteously waited for Radin to make the first attack. It came in a diving rush from blinding sunlight high and to the rear.

If Reading had not thrown his ship into a swiftly zooming loop there would have been a collision. Radin’s left wing missed him by less than a yard.

“The lad plays rough,” thought Reading, and went into action. A thousand feet down, the Russian came out of his dive to find Reading plunging with the speed of gravity and a wide-open motor down on his tail.

His swift descent was almost vertical, and if he had not swerved at the last moment he would have crashed into his opponent’s cockpit. Radin, possibly because he was not at his physical best, had been outmaneuvered.

It was a brief dog-fight, and Reading gave the critical spectators on the ground ample reason to believe that he might have defeated Radin at the Russian’s best. Bearing in mind that first savage rush of his opponent, Reading retained the offensive and soon forced him to land. The Russian nearly crashed.

Laughter at Radin’s expense was mingled with the applause of both the Russian and German pilots for the visitor. Radin’s twisted smile when he extended punctilious congratulations had something in it that caused Reading to wonder if it would not have been more diplomatic to avoid so pointed an issue.

Then he noticed that Manuel Perez had joined the group of spectators since his take-off. A moment later when he looked for him he was gone. Radin, too, had disappeared.

As Reading approached the hangars he was met by Rossiter, who had accompanied him to the field.

“Give them a polite excuse for returning to your hotel,” he said in a lowered voice. “I’ve just learned something that will mildly interest you.”

After an exchange of compliments with his hosts, Reading drove off with Rossiter in the latter’s car.

“Jim, that was a pretty piece of work. But you came close to letting that bird get you in the first round. I don’t suppose you were looking for anything as realistic as that first diving attack?”

“No,” replied Reading. “He was sure enough coming for me. Probably he misjudged the distance, or maybe he just wanted to show off a bit at my expense.

“Anyhow, I thought it best to bear down on him from then on. He drank quite a lot last night, and I wasn’t sure that he might not have carried on this morning.”

Rossiter was silent for a moment. “You’d better not fly to Germany with Radin and Perez,” he said. “And don’t accuse me of trying to swerve an officer from his duty until I’ve told you what you’re up against.”

“All right, Dave; like a good newspaper man get to the point of your story.”

“While the pilots were making a fuss over you after you landed, I noticed Radin stride off to one of the hangars. He seemed to be slightly drunk and more than slightly sore. A pretty good pilot, but a vain one, shown up by the visiting American, he was feeling his humiliation very keenly.

“Perez, who had come to the field after you took off, followed Radin into the hangar. The greaser said something to him, and they climbed into the cabin of an idle plane. He looked around once to see if any one was near, and didn’t notice that I was watching them.

“I followed and went around to the other side of the plane, where I got out of sight, and into a packing box standing on the hangar floor between this plane and another one.

“The cabin door on my side of the ship was not tightly closed — Perez probably hadn’t noticed it — and I could hear what they said. They spoke in French, and I got most of it.

“Perez either is sure that you are on his tail, or he suspects it so strongly that he has convinced those he is acting for that, to make sure, an accident had better happen to you before you leave Russia. He has found out that Radin has gone deeply into debt with gamblers in Moscow and is in desperate circumstances.

“There was no frame-up to drive you into the ground in that show to-day. But Perez saw that Radin was ripe for something of the kind when he came down. He is a vindictive bird, for it didn’t take Perez long to convince him.

“For five thousand rubles you are going to be polished off after the ship leaves Smolensk — somewhere in wild country between Vitebsk and the Latvian border.

“Radin at first shied at murder, but Perez convinced him that it was a patriotic duty to Soviet Russia to exterminate an enemy. Most of the pilots are not particularly ardent Communists, but Radin happens to be one.”

Reading smiled grimly. “And just how is this job to be done, Dave?”

“I’m getting to that. There is to be motor trouble and a forced landing. You will, of course, get out of the plane to stretch your legs while the trouble is located and repaired.

“Perez will club you from behind; you will be lifted back into the plane, and when it is on its way again you will be thrown out.

“This will be reported as an accident when Perez and Radin get to Königsberg, and your body will be aboard the plane to prove it.

“It will have been crushed by a fall of a thousand feet or so, which happened when you opened a door to throw out some waste paper and the plane lurched suddenly in rough air and threw you out They landed and recovered your body.

“Even if there is suspicion there will be no one to prove anything, and there will be the mutually corroborative testimony of Radin and Perez.”

“Sounds like a workable scheme, if the victim wasn’t looking for it,” remarked Reading, “and I guess I’ll give them a chance at it.”

“Don’t be a damn fool, Jim. You might be able to handle them in a fight, but you’re taking an unnecessary chance.”

“What about my chance in Moscow, if the word is out to do me in? No, I guess I’ll sit in.”

VII

Smolensk, and then Vitebsk, merged into the landscape in the wake of the plane. Wooded country, wild and sparsely inhabited except for wolves and bears, lay four thousand feet below.

Perez had been, as usual, a delightful traveling companion; the charm of his smile never faded when he addressed Captain Reading, who smiled back at him with squinting gray-blue eyes.

Radin hunched morosely over his controls. He had shaken hands with Reading at the field, but avoided conversation.

Just before the departure Moldenko had found opportunity to tell Reading that Perez’s dispatch case had been concealed in the wing of the big monoplane, to avoid inspection of it by the German customs officers at Königsberg.

The motor began to miss. Reading could not, because of Radin’s bulk, see what he was doing, but he knew that he was manipulating the throttle and preparing to cut the switch. Less than a mile ahead was a level clearing, with plenty of room for an emergency landing and take-off.

Perez feigned a look of alarm and clutched at the sides of his seat as the plane circled downward.

The motor had stopped, and the wings made a swishing sound as they cut through the air in the glide to the ground.

Radin made a perfect dead-stick landing, and crawled down from the pilot’s seat to the ground. He offered his cigarette case to Reading and Perez when they stepped down from the cabin.

“We may as well have a smoke before we see what is wrong with the motor,” he said with a casual air. “I think it is only a fouled spark plug.”

“Thank you,” Reading replied. “I’d be glad to help with the motor.” His right hand was in his coat pocket and it held an automatic.

Perez, slightly behind and to Reading’s right, struck — and as the detective stepped lightly aside, the butt of Perez’s weapon harmlessly bludgeoned the air of western Russia.

Reading kicked his legs from under him and sent him sprawling. Then he stepped back and covered both men.

Radin quickly abandoned a move toward a pocket of his flying suit. Perez’s weapon had been sent flying. Reading recovered it and forced the Soviet agent to disarm the pilot. He pocketed both weapons and kept the conspirators covered with his own. They scowled sullenly but said nothing.

“Radin, your motor has a self-starter. Get back to the controls. Perez, enjoy the remainder of the flight to Germany in the seat beside your companion. I will ride in the cabin behind you.

“In return for your freedom when you reach Germany you will now give into my care the dispatch case in the wing compartment to your right. You will say nothing about our little forced landing.”

At the American Embassy in Berlin the contents of Perez’s dispatch case were examined and their essentials cabled by code to Washington. The plans involving the Panama Canal remained in Reading’s keeping until he delivered those interesting documents in Washington.

Later, the Secretary of State informed the press that “recent reports to the effect that an agreement had been reached on the basis of which the United States of America would extend diplomatic recognition to the government of Soviet Russia have been premature and unwarranted.”