“I don’t get it,” Arv Hanson spoke up. “If they’re in firing range, we should have detected them, shouldn’t we?”
Tom nodded grimly. “Whoever our enemies are, they must have perfected a way to make themselves invisible to underwater detection.
“And we’ll have to do the same!” he vowed inwardly. Aloud, Tom said, “I hate to run from those sneaks, but if we stick around, we’ll be asking for trouble.”
Slowing the rotors to permit the craft to rise, Tom guided the Sea Hound back to the surface. Then he reversed blade pitch for air flight and gunned the atomic turbines. The seacopter rose steeply above the billowing South Atlantic.
Tom radioed a terse report of their experience to the task-force commander and in turn was told that none of the naval craft had either sighted or picked up any sign of a strange sub.
As they streaked homeward, Chow was still fuming. “Why don’t we post a dummy sub there to scare off the varmints?”
36 THE ELECTRONIC HYDROLUNG
“I’ll pass the idea along to the Navy,” Tom said with a grin.
Night had fallen when the searchers arrived back at Fearing Island. Tom cleared with the tower and landed, then went by jeep to base headquarters. He called Enterprises and learned that Bud’s condition was improved, and that Mr.
Swift had returned that afternoon. He spoke to him about the mystery sub.
“This is bad news indeed, son,” Mr. Swift said, after hearing how the attacker had defied detection. “You’d better inform Admiral Walter. He had to fly back to Washington.”
“I’ll call him right away,” Tom promised.