“The rat who fired that grenade at you I”
The prisoner was wearing a frogman costume and a mask which hid the lower part of his face. The man’s dark eyes glittered in hate, as Tom ordered him to remove his mask. Sullenly the prisoner obeyed.
Tom gasped. “Dimitri Mirov!” The name sent a shock through the Americans aboard.
“Wai, I’ll be jing-whistled!” Chow declared, then broke into a gleeful cackle.
Under then-scornful gaze, the Brungarian’s own eyes wavered and his shoulders slumped in an attitude of defeat. “What is the use?” he muttered.
“Again I have failed. My career is over now, just like my brother’s.”
Tom seized the opening. “In that case, maybe you’re ready to do some talking now.”
Mirov shrugged. “What do you wish to know?”
In answer to Tom’s questions, Mirov admitted that his group, composed of Brungarian rebel Navy men and rocket engineers, had sabotaged the returning Jupiter probe missile, hoping to obtain its data for their own use.
Their key agent in America was the man who
186 THE ELECTRONIC HYDROLUNG
had posed over the phone as Lester Morris and masterminded the other attempts to kidnap Tom. He had also taken the amulet bracelet from Ames’s jacket in a restaurant.
Mirov himself had been given the bracelet after his jail break. Pulling back the sleeve of his frogman suit, he displayed it with a momentary smirk of pride.
“I even got inside the grounds of Swift Enterprises and stole a plane that same night,” Mirov boasted.
Tom was startled. “How did you manage that?”
“Very simple. I thumbed a ride with one of your trusted workers on the late shift and showed him the amulet to identify myself as a Swift employee. The guard at the gate was fooled the same way.”
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