Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift Jr 04 – And His Giant Robot

“I’ll be right over with a crew,” Tom told him. “Stay around but don’t get too close. This may be a trap.”

Tom clicked off the set and called Phil Radnor, chief security police officer of the Enterprises plant. Radnor said that he would organize a group of reliable men and join the boys at the main entrance gate.

A motorcade was formed and was soon weaving a rapid but careful path through the highway traffic outside Shopton. Up front in a jeep were Tom and Bud. Seated behind them, alert and ready for any sudden action, sat Radnor and a guard. The second vehicle contained several mechanics and laborers.

Following it was a large truck pulling an aircraft trailer. To the top of this flat conveyance an entire plane, with the wings dismantled, could be lashed and towed away.

The cavalcade swung off the main highway onto a narrow, rutted road, densely lined with trees whose branches intertwined overhead. The pace of the vehicles slowed down and their headlights stabbed through the gathering dusk, groping around bends in the road.

Slim was waiting in the shadows. He guided the boys and the security guards on foot through the woods and into a long, narrow clearing. At the end of it stood Tom’s jet plane, the forward half between giant trees with spreading branches.

Tom swung himself onto the right wing. Cautiously he made his 24 TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT ROBOT

way to the canopy and beamed his flashlight inside. No one was aboard.

“The bubble’s open. I’m going inside,” Tom said.

He lifted the canopy and stepped down into the plane. Bud followed. A quick look around revealed that nothing had been damaged, but the relotrol was missing.