“Whoa! Hold it, skipperl I think we have company on the starboard beam!”
Bud jerked his head around in surprise. “You mean the Sea Hound?”
“No, she surfaced,” Mel reported. “Can’t make this out yet, but it could be another sub.”
Bud turned the controls over to Zimby Cox. Then he rushed to the scope and examined the blip. “Seems to be moving away from us on a westerly course. It’s about two miles from here.”
He donned the hydrophone earset and listened. “It’s no seacopter, nor a jetmarine either,” he announced presently.
119
120 THE ELECTRONIC HYDROLUNG
“A Navy sub, maybe?” suggested Zimby.
Bud shrugged. “Let’s find out.” He ordered a change of course, hard to the right, and gunned the jets to bring the jetmarine directly on the mystery object’s trail.
“It’s a sub, all right,” he said a short time later, listening again over the hydrophones.
“Pretty close to Fearing Island, isn’t it?” put in Mel Flagler. “That’s a government-restricted area.”
Bud nodded grimly. “But staying just out of sonar range from the base.”
The jetmarine closed steadily on its quarry. In a few minutes they were able to make it out dimly through the cabin window, dead ahead.
“That’s sure no U. S. Navy sub that I know of,” Bud said. “Probably an enemy snooper.”
“What if they spot us?” Zimby asked.
Bud chuckled. “That’s the beauty of it, pal! Don’t forget. With this new antidetection gear we’re invisible to them. At least as long as they don’t run into us or we into them,” he added.
“Or unless they have superdetection equipment we don’t know about,”
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