Teena moved up beside him on the wide center seat and took the starboard oar handle in both hands. After a couple minutes of splashing and going in circles, they settled down to pulling together smoothly and evenly.
“Hey, this is the best deal,” Eddie admitted.
“You see,” Teena said, “even girls can be some help.”
Eddie smiled. As they were approaching the near end of the under water sand bar, he craned his neck around.
“Good,” he said, “those two men have gone, so we won’t run across them again.”
They kept pulling together. The water turned light in color as the sun reflected off the yellowish sand lying a scant ten feet beneath the surface.
Suddenly Teena stopped rowing. “Eddie,” she said, “what’s that?”
“What’s what?” Eddie asked, resting on his oar.
“That clicking.”
“Clicking?”
He heard it then, almost beneath the seat. He glanced down.
“Yipes!” he exclaimed. “I—I forgot to switch off the Geiger counter before I put it in the boat. Boy, if the battery is weak, Dad’ll—”
He reached toward the switch. His hand stopped in mid-air. The needle of the radioactivity gauge was quivering far over to the right, and the clicking which had attracted Teena’s attention was much louder and faster than the normal background count.
“Teena! There—there’s radioactivity around here!”
“In the water?”
“No. Maybe underneath the water. Maybe on the sand bar. This is a sensitive Geiger counter. It could pick it up all right.”
“Hey, the clicking’s getting weak again,” Teena said.
“We must be drifting away from whatever is causing it,” Eddie said. He moved the Geiger counter up onto the seat between them. He put the earphones on. “Now let’s kind of circle around here and try to pick it up again.”
With nothing but a broad expanse of water and no marker to guide them, trying to locate the spot where the Geiger counter had sputtered to life was anything but easy.
“Eddie, I think we’re getting farther away all the time,” Teena said ten minutes later.
“But if we don’t find it now we might never find it again,” Eddie said. “Just a little more. Pull easy on your oar. We’ll circle to the left and—Hey, there it is!”
The rapid clicking through the headset filled his ears. “Hold ’er steady,” he said. He crawled quickly to the bow of the boat, lifted the heavy concrete anchor over the gunwale, and eased it down onto the sand bar with the Manila line attached.
“There. We won’t lose it now,” he said.
“Lose what, Eddie?”
“Whatever’s making the Geiger counter act up,” Eddie said.
“This would be an awful wet place to have to mine for uranium,” Teena said.
“It could be done,” Eddie insisted. “Boy, we must be right over it. Listen to those clicks. And look at that needle jump around.”
Teena looked over the side. “It looks to me like plain old yellow sand down there,” she said.
“Might be some uranium-bearing rock under it,” Eddie said. He leaned over his side of the boat. Although the sand bar was not far below, the water was somewhat murky, and the ripples on the surface made it difficult to see anything on the bottom. “Might be a tough job getting at it, all right, but—”
The rest of the words died in Eddie’s throat, as a glint of metal flashed in his eyes.
“Teena, there—there’s something down on the sand bar!”
“What do you mean, something?”
“Something bright. Like metal.” Eddie put his face as close to the water as he could without falling out of the boat. “I can see it now!” he exclaimed. “It’s about two feet long. Two or three inches thick. It looks round, and—”
“Eddie!” Teena said. “The metal tube you saw that day in the rowboat. You know, the day we came across those two men at the cove. Remember?”
“I remember,” Eddie said, for the thought already had sprung into his mind.
Now two other thoughts crowded in behind it. Both were puzzling thoughts which left his mind reeling.
What was the metal tube doing there below on the sand bar? Why, above all things, was it sending out radioactive rays?
“Eddie,” Teena said, “what are you going to do?”
Already Eddie had pulled off his shoes and T shirt. He slipped off his blue jeans, and stood in his bathing trunks ready to dive overboard.
“I’m going down and get that thing,” he said.
“Why?”
“Something’s mighty crazy about all this,” Eddie said.
“Maybe so,” Teena agreed. “But Eddie, isn’t it dangerous? If that thing’s radioactive—”
“No. It’s not that radioactive,” Eddie said. “Those two men handled it all right. It’s some special kind of a tube. I’m going to take it to my dad.”
“Why?”
“Why!” Eddie repeated impatiently. “Because it must have something to do with that stolen radioisotope, that’s why.”
“Well, you don’t need to get sore at me,” Teena scolded.
“I’m not, Teena,” Eddie said, calming down. “But I’m not going to take the chance of leaving the thing out here and maybe not being able to find it again.”
“You sure it won’t hurt you?” Teena asked again.
“I’m real sure,” Eddie said. “I’ve seen that Geiger counter act up a lot worse over a small sample of uranium ore. Don’t worry. If it was really hot with radiation, those two men wouldn’t have been handling it either. Dad said that whoever stole the isotope would be an expert on knowing how to handle it safely. I’ll be right back.”
The cylinder was simple to locate.The cylinder was simple to locate.
The cylinder was simple to locate.
Eddie slipped over the side and into the water. He took a breath, nosed over, and kicked downward. It was a shallow dive compared to some he had made while skin diving for lobster. He stroked easily down to the sand bar. The bright metal cylinder was simple to locate even in the murky water. He grabbed it with his left hand and swam back to the surface.
Teena took it from him and laid it in the bottom of the boat. Then she helped him climb in over the stern.
“It doesn’t look like anything very special, does it?” she said.
“That’s why I thought it was for holding a jointed trout rod,” Eddie said, “but watch this.” He switched on the Geiger counter and held the probe near the metal tube. The earphones began to sputter with continuous clicks. The indicator on the dial jumped far forward.
“It’s a cinch there’s some radioactive stuff inside,” Eddie assured. “Let’s go. I’ve got to take this to my father.”
As they drew within a quarter of a mile of Anderson’s Landing, Teena said, “Eddie, what if those two men should be around the boat dock and see us with this tube?”
Eddie looked over his shoulder. He saw only one person on the landing. That would probably be Mr. Anderson.
“I’m sure they’ve already turned in their boat and gone on home,” Eddie said, “but just to be safe, we’ll do this.” He picked up his blue jeans which he had left wadded up in the bottom of the boat, as he hadn’t wanted to put them back on over his wet trunks. He pushed the metal tube into one of the empty legs. Then he wrapped the excess material around it. “There,” he said, satisfied, “no one can see it now.”
Mr. Anderson came out to meet them as they eased the rowboat gently up to the dock.
“Well, how did it go?” he asked. “Find any atoms?”
Eddie smiled. “Everything is made of atoms, Mr. Anderson,” he explained. “We were looking for uranium. That’s a special kind.”
“I guess it’s a special, all right,” the boat-owner agreed, “the way it can blow things to smithereens.”
Eddie didn’t argue, but he wished people would stop thinking that all radioactive materials were used to blow things up. He supposed, however, that since the atomic bombs were what really started what came to be called the Atomic Age, it would take some time to educate the public to the fact that atomic power was a much greater builder than a destroyer. Anyway, at the moment he didn’t want to get into a long discussion about it.
“We didn’t find any uranium, Mr. Anderson,” he said.
“But we had a swell trip,” Teena put in. “Thanks for letting us use the boat.”
“You earned it,” Mr. Anderson reminded them. “By the way, those two fellows who have been fishing over the sand bar came in a while ago. Didn’t catch a thing. Sure a stubborn pair, aren’t they?”
“Maybe they just don’t like to clean fish,” Eddie said. But he was glad Mr. Anderson had mentioned the men. It added evidence to his belief that they weren’t the least bit interested in fishing, anyway.
After cleaning up the boat, he and Teena started along the dock. Eddie carried the metal tube rolled up in his blue jeans.
“Any time you want a boat,” Mr. Anderson said, as they stepped off the dock and started across the beach toward home, “you’re always welcome to earn it the same way.”
“Thanks,” Eddie called back. “We may need one again before long.”
It was a little past three o’clock when they reached Eddie’s house.
“You certainly made it in good time,” his mother said. “Any luck?”
“Not at Cedar Point,” Eddie said. “But, Mom, we found something else. Where’s Dad?”
“He’s not home from school yet,” his mother said. “What’s that you have wrapped up in your jeans?”
Eddie told her quickly, without going into all of the background.
“You think it has something to do with the stolen radioisotope?” his mother asked in disbelief, when he had finished.
“I don’t know, Mom,” Eddie said. “But why would it be radioactive?”
“You haven’t opened it, have you?”
“No. It’s sealed tight,” Eddie said. “I—I thought Dad should do that.”
“You’re right. You run it over to school and find your father.”
Teena spoke up for the first time. “Eddie, if that tube really belongs out there and we took it, we—we might get in trouble.”
“Belongs out there?” Eddie asked.
“Maybe the Coast Guard is using it for some kind of a test or something,” Teena said.
That was a possibility which hadn’t occurred to Eddie, yet he quickly dismissed it from his mind. The two men who had planted it out on the sand bar certainly had nothing to do with the Coast Guard or anything like that. Nor would it have been in the shack yesterday evening.
“Not a chance,” he said. “Anyway, I’m going to take it over for Dad to see.”
“I’ll call him and tell him you’re on your way,” his mother said.
“You want to go along, Teena?” Eddie asked.
“What a question,” Teena said. “Sure, I want to go.”
“Eddie,” his mother reminded him, “you can’t go over to school in your swim trunks. Go slip on some denims.”
Eddie hurried to his room and put on some freshly laundered denims. Then, leaving the metal tube still wrapped in the blue jeans, he and Teena started down the street toward the college campus.
Mr. Taylor was waiting for them in front of the nuclear-science building. He seemed strangely excited. Eddie wondered what his mother had said over the telephone.
“Let me take it, son,” Mr. Taylor said, reaching out for the blue jeans in which the metal cylinder was wrapped. He turned to go inside.
“Can we come with you, Dad?” Eddie asked quickly.
“Of course, of course,” his father said over his shoulder. “Come along. If this is anything like your mother said, there’ll be a lot of questions to ask.”
Eddie’s father led them through his office and on into a dressing room where they pulled on specially treated white coveralls, gloves, and hoods which fitted over their heads. Each hood had a small glass window for looking out.
“Just an extra precaution,” Eddie’s father said. “Really not necessary, but we simply don’t take any chances with possible stray radiation.”
They went on into the large laboratory. Eddie had been there before. The sight of the fantastically shaped apparatus used in various atomic-research tests always excited him.
There were several men in the room. Each was dressed in white coverall-type protective suits similar to those he and Teena and Mr. Taylor wore.
In the center of the laboratory stood a square booth with thick walls and a glass window in the front wall. Eddie knew the walls were lead-lined, and the glass was a thick, specially treated type. All experiments which were the least bit hazardous were conducted inside of that six-by-six-foot booth. The radioactive materials were handled remotely by a strange steel-fingered device operated by a man who stood safely outside of the booth. Absolutely no chances were taken in the handling of radioactive materials.
Eddie’s father inspected the tube closely, as he went toward one of the many complex devices that filled the laboratory.
“It’s a careful job of machining on this tube,” he said. “Surely not the work of amateurs. Seems to be a lead alloy of some kind. Probably worked out in thickness and amount of lead in the alloy so as to allow just the right amount of radioactive rays to leak through without being dangerous.”
He flicked several switches and turned various knobs on the instrument under which he had placed the tube. Eddie watched dial needles quiver and lights flash, wishing he knew what they meant.
“All right,” his father said, turning off the machine, “you’re exactly right. There’s radioactivity inside that tube. Plenty of it, I imagine. Yet, only enough of it is allowed to leak out to furnish a tracer. It was a regular beacon leading you right to it with your Geiger counter.”
“Dad, you mean—”
“Let’s hold the questions a while, Eddie,” Mr. Taylor interrupted. “We’ve got a few tests to run on this first. There are some things we need to find out for sure.” He called to one of the young men working at the far side of the room. They talked for a few moments while the laboratory worker inspected the cylinder closely.
Then he took it inside the shielded booth and laid it on the table beneath the strange contraption with the protruding metal arms and pincers. Several other pieces of testing apparatus were placed on the table. Then he came back outside, closing the door carefully behind him.
“All right, Mr. Taylor,” the young technician said, “we’ll see what we can do with it.” He slipped his hands into the grips which operated the metal fingers on the far side of the thick, protective glass through which they watched.
Eddie and Teena looked on fascinated as, controlled from outside, the mechanical clamps on the metal arms inside picked up the tube. Then wrenchlike metal fingers wrapped around one sealed end. After much twisting and prying, the tight fitted cap came off.
“So far, so good,” the young scientist said. “Now let’s see what’s inside.” He moved his own hands and the mechanical fingers inside tipped the tube on its end. A small black capsule slid out onto the table. It was about the size of a dime-store beanshooter.
The metal fingers kept working until the cap sealing the small black capsule was removed. When it was tipped on end a yellowish powder trickled out into a small bowl which had been placed on the table inside.
The metal fingers continued working. They placed the small bowl with the yellow contents under one instrument after another. Knobs were turned and readings were jotted down. After the final test was made, Eddie’s father studied the results carefully. He compared them with the formulas on a piece of paper he had brought from his office.
While waiting silently, Eddie’s gaze went back to the large uncapped silver-gray cylinder still lying inside on the table. What appeared to be a corner of a sheet of paper jutted slightly out of the open end.
“Looks like there’s something else inside of that tube,” he said to the young technician beside him. Talking beneath his hood muffled his words, yet the scientist seemed to have no trouble understanding.
“By George, you’re right,” he said. He reached once more for the proper grip rings and levers to operate the robot fingers inside. “Let’s see what it is.”
He tipped the tube so the open end was down, then shook it. A large piece of rolled-up paper dropped out. As it fell to the table, it unrolled part way—enough, at least, for Eddie to see the blue color of its inside surface. He also saw the white markings.
“Blueprints!” he cried.
At the word, his father looked up from his own busy figuring. “You’re right,” he said. “They sure are blueprints. You kids certainly hit upon something big. Mighty big.”
“What do you mean, Dad?” Eddie wondered.
“There’s no doubt about it,” his father said firmly. “The material that came out of the small black capsule inside of that tube is a part of the stolen radioisotope. It’s mixed in with some other material to weaken its power. But I’m certain the radioactivity comes from small amounts of our isotope.”
“Then we’ve found the stolen isotope!” Eddie exclaimed. Although the idea had occurred to him before, hearing the proof of it was no less startling.
“Only part of it,” his father reminded him. Then he turned toward Teena. “Unless I miss my guess, those blueprints are some of the ones missing from Acme Aircraft Company.”
This seemed sheer fantasy, like something that might happen in a restless dream after eating too much ice cream and lobster salad.
“Come on, kids,” Mr. Taylor prompted, leading them back toward his office. “There’s a lot to be done. And unless I miss my guess, it must be done quickly—or we might be too late.”
Once back inside of his office, Mr. Taylor motioned for Eddie and Teena to be seated. Then he picked up the phone and made two quick calls. They also must have been local calls, Eddie thought, for within five minutes two men hurried into the office. Both were dressed in normal summer business clothes.
Eddie’s father introduced the dark-haired one in the light-tan suit as Mr. Paul Evans of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The other man was tall, light-haired, and blue-eyed. His name was Walter Jamison. He was from the Drake Ridge atomic reactor. Eddie’s father didn’t explain what either man was doing there, but Eddie had no doubts that their main interest was recovery of the stolen radioisotope. Probably they had been around the Oceanview College campus ever since the theft had taken place.
“All right, Eddie,” Mr. Taylor said after the two men sat down. “Start from the beginning and give us the whole story. Don’t leave anything out. Teena, you see that he doesn’t.”
Eddie didn’t know exactly what his father meant by the whole story. But he started with the day when he and Teena had come upon the two men at the cove. He told about their somewhat strange actions, and the puzzling sight of the sealed metal tube lying in the bottom of the rowboat. He mentioned how the men had not had it with them when they returned the boat to Anderson’s Landing a while later.
He told about seeing the men fishing out over the sand bar the Saturday after that, and again today.
Then, to Teena’s surprise, he brought in yesterday’s lone hike out to the cove. He told of his curiosity over the tracks leading to the abandoned fisherman’s shack set back from the top of the bluff, and how he had been greatly surprised, at peeking through the crack in the door, to see the chubby man named Roy Benton inside, as well as a bright metal cylinder—like the one they had just taken apart in the laboratory—standing in a corner of the shack.
“Probably it was the same tube you just took apart,” Eddie said. “When Teena and I were rowing out to Cedar Point this morning, we saw the two men coming down the bluff carrying something shiny. Later, looking back from Cedar Point, we saw them anchored over the sand bar. Probably over the same place we found the cylinder.”
“It figures,” Mr. Evans, the FBI man said. “For the sake of argument, let’s say the two men are spies. Could be even more than two here at the college or working at Acme Aircraft.”
“Spies!” Teena gasped in disbelief.
“Maybe they’re both hiding at the shack,” Eddie said excitedly. “You’d better go arrest them!”
“Not so fast,” Mr. Evans said. “Arresting them isn’t nearly so important as finding out where the remainder of the radioisotope is hidden. Getting hold of the rest of those missing blueprints also is much more important than arresting two men.”
“In fact,” Mr. Jamison added, “arresting them too early might tip off the whole operation, and everyone would run for cover before we could pin anything down.”
Just then Teena’s father came hurrying into the office. “Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, Steve,” he said to Mr. Taylor, “but we were trying to locate another very important set of blueprints. More secret guidance-system parts. I absolutely can’t figure how those blueprints can keep disappearing, and—”
Eddie’s father held out the rolled-up blueprints which had been inside the metal tube. “These wouldn’t happen to be the ones, would they, Tom?” he said.
One glance, and Mr. Ross’s face took on an expression of mixed pleasure and amazement. “They certainly are!” he exclaimed. “But how—”
The FBI man interrupted. He brought Teena’s father up to date on the story thus far. Mr. Ross looked over toward Teena and Eddie. As pleased as he seemed over the recovery of at least part of the missing blueprints, he appeared even more concerned over something else.
“If I had had any idea that you two were getting mixed up in anything like this,” he said, “I’d have insisted that you stay home and play scrabble or checkers or something safe.”
“We—we weren’t mixed up in anything, Mr. Ross,” Eddie said quickly. “At least, we sure didn’t know we were, and—”
“I believe,” the FBI man cut in, “that we’d better get down to cases. We may not have much time to solve this problem. Let’s see what we have to go on thus far. Then we’ll try to plan our next move.”
Eddie listened as Mr. Evans reviewed the situation point by point. Two men—the one called Simms and the other known as Roy Benton—were involved in stealing the blueprints and the radioisotope. Mr. Evans didn’t seem at all worried about capturing them when the time was ripe. On each of the last three Saturdays, including today, Eddie and Teena had seen them fishing, or pretending to be fishing, over the sand bar in Moon Bay.
“We might assume, then,” the FBI man said, “that on the past two Saturdays the men’s real purpose for going out in the boat was to drop other metal tubes overboard. Other tubes similar to this one.”
“And remember,” Mr. Taylor said, “the first time Eddie and Teena saw them was the very Saturday after the isotope was stolen from the college.”
“Right,” Mr. Jamison said.
“So,” the FBI man picked up the line of thought, “the question is why the men dropped the metal tubes out on the sand bar. It’s a fairly safe bet that each tube contained a little of the radioactive material, plus other blueprints. Let’s assume that the reason behind the whole thing is to smuggle the blueprints out of the country.”
“That would go for the isotope, too,” the man from Drake Ridge said. “It was a new secret isotope, you know. Various foreign governments would like to get their hands on it.”
“But the men didn’t talk like foreigners,” Eddie said.
“Of course, they wouldn’t,” Mr. Evans said. “Might not even be foreigners. Unfortunately, there are a few greedy people who will do almost anything for money.”
“Even spy?” Teena said, aghast.
“Even spy,” Mr. Evans said. “But what we need to find out is how anyone is managing to smuggle the stuff out of here.”
“Probably by boat,” Mr. Jamison said.
“The Coast Guard keeps close tabs on all boating,” Mr. Evans said. “And the bay’s too shallow to allow ocean-going ships inside.”
A thought sprang into Eddie’s mind. “Mr. Evans,” he said, “I found a rubber strap on the beach last week. It looked like a strap broken off a swim fin or something like that. It—it has some foreign printing on it. I have it at home.”
His announcement had an immediate effect. “That should give us a real clue,” the FBI man said quickly. “It makes sense, too, that the cylinders would be recovered by skin divers. Perhaps foreign divers similar to our own frogmen.”
“It would have to be done after dark,” Mr. Ross said. “Otherwise they would be seen. And how could anyone locate a small cylinder like that under ten feet of water at night.”
“I think I can answer that,” Eddie’s father said. “In fact, Eddie and Teena found that answer. It could be located with a Geiger counter.”
“That’s it,” the FBI man agreed. “For instance, they could use a rubber boat to sneak in under cover of darkness. They would know the approximate location of the cylinder.”
“How?” Teena’s father asked.
“By some established plan. Probably by triangulation. They could use the lighthouse for one reference point. Perhaps some other signal light on shore would give them a second point.”
Quickly, Eddie told him about seeing the heavy-duty battery lantern in the shack. “They might use it for a signal light,” he said.
“Very possible,” Mr. Evans agreed. “Anyway, a little quick figuring would locate the spot on the sand bar where the men had dropped the cylinder. A Geiger counter could pinpoint it quickly. The diver would recover the cylinder, climb into his rubber boat, and paddle back out—” His words dwindled away to thoughtfulness.
“Paddle back out to what?” The man from Drake Ridge voiced the thought that was in all their minds.
Eddie wondered if the same answer that immediately occurred to him was shared by the others. Although soon after the article had appeared in the Oceanview newspapers most readers had discarded it as nothing more than an unfounded rumor, Eddie had never quite forgotten it. Nor had the Coast Guard officially withdrawn its belief of what had been sighted by its radar equipment that Saturday night two weeks ago.
Now there seemed no argument. It was, in fact, the only logical method by which the isotope and the plans could be smuggled away without detection.
“The submarine!” Eddie exclaimed.
The parts of the mysterious jigsaw puzzle had begun to fit into a rough pattern, with Eddie and Teena furnishing most of the key pieces. Mr. Evans glanced at his wrist watch.
“It’s now a quarter after five,” he said. “The supposed submarine sighting took place on a Saturday night two weeks ago. That same day Eddie and Teena saw the men out over the sand bar. They saw them again last Saturday. Probably another pickup took place that night. It’s logical, therefore, to assume that the third pickup is scheduled for tonight. That doesn’t give us much time to set our trap.”
“You’re the boss,” Mr. Taylor said. “You tell us what you want us to do.”
“That’s right,” Teena’s father said anxiously. “I can’t overemphasize how important it is that those blueprints don’t get out of this country.”
“First I have several urgent phone calls to make,” the FBI man said quickly. “Must get the wheels turning at once.”
“There’s a phone in the empty office next door,” Mr. Taylor volunteered. “Help yourself.”
While the federal investigator was in the next room telephoning, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Ross, and the man from Drake Ridge talked over what they knew so far.
“Apparently what we have to go on,” Eddie’s father said, “are some assorted guesses, none of which may prove to be positive facts.”
“Well, guesses will have to do for the moment,” Mr. Ross said. “We have to have a starting point.”
“All right,” Mr. Taylor agreed, “here’s what we have. Two men seem responsible for both the stolen isotope and the missing blueprints. Eddie and Teena both saw the tall one called Simms on the college campus about a week ago. He must be familiar with our atomic-research department in order to know of the delivery, and to plan a method for stealing the isotope. In that case, he shouldn’t be difficult to trace.”
“Dad,” Eddie said suddenly, “doesn’t everyone who works around the atomic lab have an identification badge with his picture on it?”
“You’re absolutely right,” his father said, getting up quickly. “And we have duplicates of the pictures right here in our files.” He pulled a thick album from a steel drawer. He thumbed through to the ‘S’ section and opened it in front of Teena and Eddie.
“That’s him!” Eddie said, pointing almost immediately to the picture of the thin-faced man. His name was listed as Harvey Simms. Underneath the photo the man’s job title was typed in a single word—Custodian.
“Now I recognize him,” Mr. Taylor said.
“I’ve seen him working around. A quiet person. The kind you hardly notice.”
“That’s the way he would want it to be,” Mr. Ross said.
Teena and Eddie went through the entire book of pictures without recognizing any as the man called Roy Benton. Mr. Ross picked up the telephone and called the Acme Aircraft Company personnel department. He gave Roy Benton’s name and the description Eddie and Teena had furnished.
“See if you can get a line on such a person,” Mr. Ross instructed over the telephone. “Call me back as soon as you can.” He gave the number, and hung up.
“Now, then,” Eddie’s father picked up the conversation again, “after managing to steal certain blueprints during the week, the men would naturally pick Saturday—their day off—to schedule the pickups by the submarine. We’re still assuming, of course, that a submarine actually is being used. It seems the only logical means of getting in and out past our alert Coast Guard. By timing the patrols, they would know when to surface. They would know how long to allow for their divers to row into the bay, get the tube, and return to the sub before the patrol doubled back. It’s possible, even, that the submarine carries a small seaplane. After returning to unpatrolled water, they could launch the seaplane to deliver the cylinder to some surface vessel, or possibly to an island or other land base. The submarine itself probably stays around for other pickups.”
“Those are possibilities,” Mr. Ross admitted.
“I mention it,” Eddie’s father said, “only because, if it’s true, the tubes which have been picked up off the sand bar are already delivered. In that case, your blueprints and my radioisotope are no longer secrets. If not, however, both still must be on the submarine. No sub could shuttle back and forth to a foreign shore fast enough to make delivery and get back within a week’s time. This is only a guess, but they may lie a few miles offshore during the week as a safety measure and to conserve fuel. They come in and surface just outside the bay each Saturday, under cover of darkness. When they have everything they’re after, they’ll head home. Since they already have sufficient samples of the isotope, my guess is that they are now after the final blueprints. The small samples of the isotope are now used only as tracers to help locate the submerged cylinders.”
Teena’s father seemed immensely impressed by Mr. Taylor’s reasoning. “It so happens,” he said, “that the blueprints we discovered missing today—added to the others—complete the entire layout of our new secret missile-guidance system. In the hands of an unfriendly nation, there’s no telling to what improper use the guidance system might be put.”
“Then,” Mr. Jamison said, “this must be the end of their assignment—tonight’s delivery of the final blueprints.”
“That’s right,” Eddie’s father said. “That’s how it would appear.”
Mr. Evans came back into the room. “I’ve been arranging a little surprise party,” he said, with a rather tense smile. “I couldn’t help but overhear you, Mr. Taylor, while I was waiting for one of my calls. I think you’ve got that submarine angle pretty well figured out.”
“I spent a hitch in the Navy,” Eddie’s father said, smiling. “Operating seagoing vessels—surface or subsurface—falls into a general pattern.”
“True,” Mr. Evans agreed, “and I doubt very much that any submarine refueling tanker would be hanging around even several hundred miles out. Like aircraft traffic, shipping is run pretty well according to schedule. A wandering tanker would simply invite curiosity. But be that as it may, the immediate task is to capture that submarine—if submarine there is. We’re still going on guesses.”
“What do you want us to do?” Mr. Taylor asked.
“It won’t be necessary for any of you to do anything,” the FBI man said. “I’ve lined up all the assistance needed. Everything is set.”
“You’re going to arrest those two men, aren’t you?” Eddie blurted out. “They—they’re traitors!”
“They won’t go anyplace,” Mr. Evans assured him. “The important thing right now is that we don’t tip off our plans. Possibly they have various signals worked out with the submarine. Things have to go right on schedule, or we might lose the whole battle. Benton and Simms are small fish and can be landed any time we want. The big thing is the delivery of those blueprints and the isotope. That’s what we’ve got to stop.”
The telephone on Mr. Taylor’s desk rang. “It’s for you, Tom,” he said, handing the instrument to Teena’s father.
“File clerk?” Mr. Ross said, after listening a few seconds. “How about that! Thanks. No, don’t say a word to anyone.” He hung up, and turned to the FBI man. “Well, there’s your Roy Benton. A file clerk. New man. Been at Acme just a little over a month. Can’t figure, though, how he managed to get into the secret blueprint files. They’re kept locked up.”
“Professional spies have ingenious ways of working,” Mr. Evans said. “Anyway, it’s pretty plain now how both the radioisotope and the blueprints happened to disappear. One thing’s equally certain. This is all part of a carefully worked out plan. The job now is to stop that plan—and stop it tonight.”
“Oh, I’m frightened,” Teena said. “Spies, and submarines, and—and—”
“Aw, Teena,” Eddie said, “there’s nothing to be afraid of.” Yet he had to clasp his own hands tightly together to keep them from shaking.
“All right, everybody,” Mr. Evans said, looking at his watch, “within an hour everything will be set up. I’m not free to reveal our plan. However, since you are all involved in this thing, I have no objection to your witnessing the outcome. If an outcome there is. Remember, we’re going primarily on guesses. So, if you want to drive quietly out to the lighthouse, I’ve arranged—”
“Lighthouse!” Eddie exclaimed. “We know Captain Daniels. He’s a good friend of ours.”
“I know,” Mr. Evans said. “I talked to him on the phone. He’s a Coast Guard man, you know. And the Coast Guard is mighty important to tonight’s activity. You might find what goes on out there, and in the bay, extremely interesting to watch.”
“Can Teena and I go?” Eddie asked anxiously.
“Of course,” Mr. Evans said. “Without you two, we wouldn’t have a thing to be working on, would we?”
Eddie flushed with pride.
“Of course,” the FBI man went on, “you will have to ask your parents.”
Eddie looked pleadingly at his father. Neither Mr. Taylor nor Mr. Ross voiced any objection.
“All right,” Mr. Evans said, rising, “there’s no time to waste. I’ll see you folks a little later.”
He left the office. The others sat for a moment as though trying to catch their breaths over the rapid developments of the past hours. Mr. Jamison excused himself to report back to Drake Ridge.
“Tom,” Eddie’s father said finally, “we’d better call our wives and tell them we and the children will be home late.”
“Unfinished business,” Teena’s father said thoughtfully.
“That’s right. Unfinished business.”
Teena and Eddie, with their fathers, had hamburgers and milk at a roadside stand. As soon as it was dark, they drove toward the lighthouse. They parked the car off the paved four-lane highway which ran several hundred yards back from the rocky point upon which the lighthouse stood. The twisting, twin-rutted road leading to the lighthouse was much more suitable to a jeep than to a modern low-slung car.