“I can’t figure it myself, Wes-unless they were planning to raid and loot Enterprises after the place was thrown into disorder,” Tom deduced. “What about Narko himself? Has he talked yet?”
Norris replied that although he had not interviewed Narko himself, FBI agents who had grilled the spy had failed to elicit any information.
48 THE VISITOR FROM PLANET X
“Here’s something else, though, which might interest you,” Norris went on.
“We now have reports that at the time of the Harkness and Medfield disasters, seismographs recorded simultaneous quakes off the coast of Alaska near the Aleutian chain. Tremors were also felt off the southwest coast of South America.”
A new factor to consider! Tom frowned in puzzlement as he hung up the telephone after completing his talk with the FBI man.
After Tom had repeated the conversation to his companions, Bud said, “You mean the H-bomb idea goes out the window?”
Tom shrugged. “Wes says they’ve found no evidence to support the theory of man-produced underground blasts. It just doesn’t jibe with those other remote tremors. They’d be too much of a coincidence, happening at the same time!”
“Then the quakes at Harkness and Medfield were real earthquakes!” Sandy put in.
“Looks that way,” Tom admitted. “Those other tremors Wes mentioned follow a natural circum-Pacific belt which is well known to seismologists. I’m no expert, but perhaps they could have set off chain reactions below the earth’s crust which triggered the two quakes in this part of the country.”