Suicide Ships

It is number one adventure, a K-7, former United States secret agent who operated in 22 countries on land on sea and in the air brings you a story of today.

Here is K-7. Ladies and gentlemen, recently the words suicide ships have appeared in public print. It is a sailor's term for freighters carrying what appears to be harmless cargo, yet often found to be bales and boxes bearing commercial labels that concealing smuggled ammunition and arms. When, as frequently happens, such criminally dangerous cargoes catch fire, the simplest thing

is to accuse the dockers and seamen in foreign ports of planting explosive inferno machines. Such is the background of my story which John Holbrook will introduce. Thank you, K7. The suicide ships case first came to a special agent B9's attention through commercial sources.

Underwriters, suspicious of the frequent fires aboard the ships of one particular line, asked him to investigate. The assignment took B9 and his assistant, Rita Drake, to the office of the harbor master of a foreign port.

Oh, coming special agent B9 and Mr. Aiken. Glad to see both of you again. Thank you. You have discovered something since you were here yesterday? Very little, Miss Year. However, thanks to your letter, I'm to start work tomorrow morning as a steveador.

That may give me the lead I want. Good. I hope you will be successful. I want to ask you a few more questions. These ships, before giving them clearance papers, do you inspect them? Well, yes, of course.

I men go below and look over the cargo and then examine the ship's papers. You accept the labels on all cargo as being authentic. We are forced to, Miss Year. I have no right to order cargo open unless I have reason to believe it contains smuggled goods.