“Report to your ships,” he now ordered.
As Tom was about to leave base headquarters, Harlan Ames telephoned from Shopton. “Bad news, Tom. Dimitri Mirov has broken jail!”
178 THE ELECTRONIC HYDROLUNG
“Good night!” Tom stifled a groan of dismay. “How did it happen?”
Ames said the Brungarian had somehow fashioned a crude weapon and overpowered the turnkey. Disguising himself in the guard’s uniform, he had slipped out before his victim was discovered.
“He must have had outside help within close call,” Ames ended, “because he seems to have made a clean getaway. The State Police have spread a dragnet, but it doesn’t look hopeful.”
“He’ll probably duck out of the country pronto,” Tom surmised. “Anyhow, this won’t stop us, Harlan.”
By nightfall the little fleet of three undersea craft was speeding southward at periscope depth. Tom alternated at the controls with Zimby, two hours on and two hours off. Sleep came in snatches, the crewmen flopping on their bunks as the chance offered. Chow’s tasty meals helped break the monotony.
It was the following day when they reached the missile search area. Tom surfaced the Sea Hound and reversed blade pitch, then gunned the rotor turbines for an aerial reconnaisance flight, while the jetmarine and the other seacopter stood by in the water.
“Brand my guppies, it’s some ocean, eh, boss?” Chow remarked in an awed voice.
FLASH FROM THE DEPTHS 179
“Big enough, all right,” Tom agreed with a grin. “And plenty of water to search in.”
“No sign of the Navy,” Zimby said.