Unable to contact the president, he called the police chief direct. Due to the secrecy of the Hemispak project, Tom did not want to reveal all of his reasons for suspecting foul play. The chief, satisfied with Tom’s explanation of not being able to locate his father, promised to start work on the case at once and offered to send a police plane out to the wild country over which Tom was flying.
“The sooner it gets here the better I’ll like it,” the young scientist said.
“It will be there in about one hour,” the chief assured him. “Our new twin jet will be at your disposal.”
“Good work, Tom,” Bud said. “How about your taking the Sky Queen down?”
The boys had barely exchanged jobs when Bud noticed something peculiar on one of the mountainsides not far from the place where the presence of uranium deposits had been detected.
“Look!” he exclaimed.
A thin spiral of black smoke was rising from a spot located among huge rocks and boulders. At first the boys thought it might be a forest fire, but they discounted this theory because of the sparse growth near the spot.
As if to confirm their thoughts, the smoke sud-THE HOMING MISSILE 139
denly began to act in a decidedly controlled fashion. The thin, continuous spiral disappeared completely for a moment. Then there was a short, abrupt puff.
“What’s going on?” Bud asked, perplexed.
Tom did not reply but held the Flying Lab still in mid-air. There were two more short puffs, then nothing.
“If that’s meant to be the Morse code, it’s the letter S,” Tom remarked. “Three short puffs or dots!”
“For Swift!” Bud exclaimed excitedly.
“Or SOS. Look! Here come some more.”
A long, larger puff went skyward. This time it was followed by two more of the same size and timing.
“That’s an O!” Tom exclaimed.
Both boys waited tensely for another series of three short puffs that would complete the universal call for aid. But no more smoke signals came.
Instantly the same idea flashed into the minds of the two boys. Was the smoke an interrupted appeal for help from Mr. Swift, or perhaps the missing scientists they had come so far to find?
“Or,” Tom wondered aloud, “is it some kind of trap?”
“If it is,” said Bud, “I vote we stay up here until the police come. I have an idea your old friend Pedro Canova may be waiting for us down there. And I’m not looking forward to meeting him.”
“Me either.” Tom managed a grim smile. “I want to meet Canova again, but I want to do it under my conditions.”
For the next hour Tom cruised slowly about the area. There were no more smoke signals and no sign
140 TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING LAB
of an approaching plane, though the boys kept a sharp lookout for the police.
As Tom guided the Sky Queen over the treacherous terrain, weather conditions changed and the pilot had moments when, because of the up-and downdrafts created by the steeply rising mountains, a second’s hesitation would have been fatal.
“Some of these thermals are really terrific,” he told Bud. “They would be great stuff to fly a glider over! A pilot could break an altitude record every time he got off the deck.”
At the end of two hours there was still no sign of the escort from Bapcho.
Arvid Hanson had joined the boys and was gazing anxiously about him.
“I certainly hope nothing has happened to those policemen,” he mused. “I’m beginning to wonder if the rebels of Verano could have listened in on your call and intercepted them.”
“That’s an idea, Hanson,” said Bud. “Maybe they were Torced down.”
“We’ll look for them,” Tom said.
He set a course straight for the capital of Bapcho but proceeded at slow-cruising speed so that all those in the plane might carefully scan the ground below.
“Not a sign of them,” Tom said finally, after they had traveled two hundred air miles. “I’ll radio the tower and find out if they’ve left.”
This time he was unable to contact either the airfield or police headquarters and finally gave up.
“I’m going back,” he announced.
Taking a different and longer route, the travelers still kept sharp watch through a telescopic lens for
THE HOMING MISSILE 141
any sign not only of the missing scientists but of any camp site they might have. Nothing was visible.
“What now?” Hanson asked, as they once more neared the terrain from which the smoke signals had come.
“We’ll go down in that landing area I found,” Tom decided. “Okay with you fellows?”
“Sure,” they answered in unison over the intercoms.
As Tom throttled back and started to descend he detected a puff of white smoke miles below them.
“Somebody’s firing at us!” he told Bud. “But if it’s ack-ack, they’ve another guess coming. They can’t reach us at this altitude.”
The boys scanned the sky for a shell burst. When none appeared, Tom was seized with a feeling of curiosity.
“Flip on the radar, Bud.”
“Roger.”
Instantly the scope above their heads revealed the ghostly figure of a moving object.
“Tom! What’s that?”
“You’ve got me. It’s not a plane. But it’s coming closer.”
Instinctively Tom sent the Sky Queen into a speedy climb.
“We’re not shaking it off!” Bud yelled. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
T’om grabbed his binoculars and focused them on the strange object which was rapidly overtaking them, “If it’s what I think it is,” he said tersely, “we’re up against a demon of an enemy.”
142 TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING LAB
“How do you know, Tom?”
“That thing is a magnetic homing missile. If it touches us, we’ll be blown to bits!”
“Look out, Tom! Here it comes!”
The young inventor kicked left rudder, cartwheeling out of the way as the missile, a flat saucerlike affair, whizzed past to starboard.
“Good grief!” Bud shouted. “It’s turning and chasing us!”
Tom had read about a weapon like this in scientific journals. Perfection of such a magnetic homing bomb, which would cost a fabulous amount of money to build, still was considered several years off. Was this the first one, made by a nefarious enemy? And was the Flying Lab to be the test victim of this lethal aerial barracuda?
With only seconds to figure out his defense in a game of life-and-death tag, Tom suddenly sent the Sky Queen into a screeching dive.
Bud braced himself. “Tom, what are you doing? We’ll crash!”
Tom had no time to reveal his strategy. The big plane shot earthward, aiming straight for a towering peak!
CHAPTER XVIII
CAMOUFLAGE
“THIS IS IT!” Bud whispered weakly as a crack up on the mountain peak seemed imminent.
But Tom knew what he was about. Bringing the nose of the Sky Queen up in split-second timing, he missed the mountaintop and zoomed skyward again in a maneuver that flattened Hanson and the boys to their seats and drained the blood from their heads.
Then came an earsplitting explosion as the bomb, carried downward with terrifying momentum, crashed into the mountain and disintegrated. Tom had outmaneuvered the missile’s homing device.
“Whew! That was too-oo close,” Bud said, opening his eyes. “You can mop the floor with me, Cap. I’m a wet rag.” Then, slapping Tom on the shoulder, he added, “I thought you’d gone loco. Boy, you really can handle this crate.”
Tom mopped his brow. “I guess it’s been only a couple of minutes since that missile shot up at us,”
143
144 TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING LAB
he said, “but it certainly seemed like hours to me.”
Hanson was grave. “We’re not facing amateur scientists on this jaunt,” he said. “They’re going all out with the most up-to-date methods to stop us.”
“You’re right,” Tom said between clenched teeth. “And we mustn’t waste any time rounding them up.”
“You mean you’re going to Hemispak headquarters?” Hanson asked.
“No. To investigate those smoke signals. There may be more of them.”
“Probably not until tomorrow,” Bud remarked. “It’ll be dusk in a few minutes.”
“That makes it ideal for us to land,” Tom said. “To avoid any more bombs and make it seem as if we’ve been frightened and are running away, I’ll pretend to head for home.”
“But you’ll circle back behind one of these mountains and come in from the rear.” Bud grinned.
“Exactly.” Tom grinned back. “If we make a low-altitude approach and landing, I may be able to set the Sky Queen down without any spies from Verano spotting us.”
Tom flew far across the border into Bapcho territory before turning the Flying Lab around, then circled back on a much lower level. Skimming along as close to the mountainous terrain as he dared, he took the ship straight down and landed in the small valley he had detected hours before.
“You did it!” said Hanson. “I’m sure none of our enemies would suspect we’d attempt a landing.”