The elderly scientist had been given a light dose of the chemical so he would recover quickly. On the evening he was released from the hospital, Kessler related, Dr. Grimsey had been kidnapped. The gang then injected him with truth serum to elicit all the information his impostor would need to carry out the deception.
“And the next day,” Kessler ended, “I took his place at Enterprises.”
“Where is Dr. Grimsey now?” Tom asked.
“He’s being held as a hostage at Group Q’s secret laboratory and headquarters.”
“Where’s that?” Ames demanded.
Kessler asked for a map and pinpointed a spot many miles from Shopton.
“The gang is based in an abandoned sanatorium high in the mountains,” he explained. “It’s miles from any village and surrounded by pine forest. The only approach is by a dirt road leading up the mountainside.”
The sanatorium, Kessler said, had been cleverly rebuilt with a sliding roof which opened at night to expose an elaborate antenna system. The Group 146 3-D TELEJECTOR
Q scientists had also perfected an artificial cloud and mist spreader to use whenever it was desirable to mask their operations.
“Hauling in this outfit could be quite a job,” Norris remarked with a thoughtful frown.
“Don’t think you’ll take them by surprise,” Kessler warned. “There’s a radar-alarm system for aircraft and the dirt road is monitored by television… . You have another problem, too.”
“Meaning what?” Tom asked.
“The Orb life. As I’ve told you, it seems able to monitor human communications. They may transmit a warning to Group Q.”