Bud groaned faintly and started to revive. As his eyes flickered open, he saw his chum slumped over the controls.
“Tom! Are you all right?”
Frantically Bud gave his friend what first aid he could. Gradually Tom revived.
“Good night! What hit us?” Tom murmured.
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He sat upright. “Oh-oh! I remember now! That blast!”
Both boys turned and stared in horror at a reddish glow on their right. A quarter of a mile up the beach, the barnlike building was now a tumbled mass of ruins. Vivid flames and billowing smoke shot from one end of the wreckage.
Bud gasped. Then his eyes narrowed. “Do you suppose the place was booby-trapped, skipper? We might have broken a magnetic field and triggered off the blast as we came down!”
Tom shuddered. “It’s possible, all right.” Grabbing the microphone, he warmed up the radio and contacted Enterprises. After making a quick report on what had happened, Tom added:
“Call the nearest town and have them rush fire-fighting equipment! And send a cargo jet here pronto with gear to probe the wreckage! Better include some antiradiation suits-the ruins may be radioactive if the drone was inside when the blast went off!”
“Roger!”
The boys climbed out of the Whirling Duck and approached the scene as closely as they dared.
Suddenly Bud grabbed Tom’s arm and pointed toward the ground. “Take a look!”
In spite of the gathering dusk, the fresh tracks of heavy-duty truck tires could be seen in the light of the blaze. The truck had passed over a rutted dirt lane connecting the building to the