"I can get them," answered Wu sinisterly.

And so, while Kennedy was drawing together the net about Wu, that
wily criminal had already planned an attack on him in an
unexpected quarter.

Down in Washington the very morning that our pursuit of Wu came to
a head, the officials of the navy department, both naval and
civil, were having the final conference at which they were to
accept officially Kennedy's marvellous invention which, it was
confidently believed, would ultimately make war impossible.

Seated about a long table in one of the board rooms were not only
the officers but the officials of the department whose sanction
was necessary for the final step. By a window sat a stenographer
who was transcribing, as they were taken, the notes of the
momentous meeting.

They had just completed the examination of the torpedo and laid it
on the end of the table scarcely an arm's length from the
stenographer. As he finished a page of notes he glanced quickly at
his watch. It was exactly three o'clock.

Hastily he reached over for the torpedo and with one swift, silent
movement tossed it out of the window.

Down below, in a clump of rhododendrons, for several moments had
been crouching one of the men who had borne the orders to Wu Fang
at the strange meeting on the promontory.