“Clever, don’t you think?” Wayne smirked and puffed his cigar. “Even that fellow Flambo’s secretary fell for their superstitious tripe! But why sit here talking?
I have a job for you, Swift.”
160 TRIPHIBIAN ATOMICAR
Summoning the armed guard, whose name was Gursk, Wayne took the boys through several connecting mine tunnels.
“The workings extend for miles, like a rabbit warren, all through the valley,”
Wayne explained. “That’s how Gursk was able to pop up from nowhere and capture you.”
Besides Gursk, who kept his rifle aimed at their backs, Tom counted more than a dozen other men. Three of these, dressed in rumpled khaki shirts and shorts, seemed to be Europeans like Gursk. All were heavily armed. The others were whiskery, tough-looking mountaineers engaged in the actual work of ruby mining.
In a steel-walled chamber, Wayne showed the boys the ack-ack gun. Its telescoping mount enabled it to be drawn back underground.
At a number of points, the tunneling was pierced by vertical shafts leading up to ground level. These provided air and some light. “Of course the openings are camouflaged with brush and shrubbery,” Wayne told Tom and Bud.
At last they came to a heavy steel door. Wayne unbolted it and gestured the two boys inside. Tom’s eyes widened as he entered a large room. It was a scientific laboratory, crammed with the very latest research equipment!
The walls were lined with shelves of chemicals, electronic gear, handbooks and scientific journals, spectroscopic and X-ray devices, even an electron THE AMIR’S MINE 161