“Did you hear any gunfire, any explosions before the blackout?” Kane asked him.
“No. Nothing but the whistle of an airplane.”
“Do you think the missing men might be in other boats that weren’t picked up?” Kane questioned.
“It’s possible.”
A Coast Guard officer stepped into view. He told Kane that survivors of similar attacks on other vessels had also mentioned hearing a plane just before everyone had blacked out.
“In those attacks the robbers took everything of value before the passengers revived,” the officer said. “But they didn’t sink the ships.”
“Kane, I’m signing off,” Tom announced, then dashed out of the office.
He leaped into a jeep and drove rapidly toward his father’s laboratory. On the way his anxiety for Uncle Ned increased by the minute.
“The news will be a shock to Dad,” Tom murmured worriedly.
Ned Newton and Mr. Swift, close friends for years, had worked and fought their way together through countless tight situations. The two men had combined also in the building up of the old Swift Con-WING-TIP ESCAPE 3
struction Company, a widely known concern which manufactured Mr. Swift’s various inventions.
In its many branches throughout the country the company had installed its own TV network. This was used also by the new Swift Enterprises, a gleaming four-mile-square stretch of modern buildings and crisscrossed airstrips where Tom and his father carried on experiments.
At this moment Tom’s usual smile of pride in them was absent. His thoughts were centered entirely on the terrible climax to Uncle Ned’s business trip to South America.
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