A SUSPECT TALKS
The next morning Tom was up at the crack of dawn, grimly determined to
find an answer to the earthquake menace. He ate a hasty breakfast, then
drove to his private laboratory at Enterprises. He instructed the
switchboard operator to shut off all incoming calls, then plunged into a
study of the mystifying problem.
Earthquake activity, Tom knew, tends to occur in circular patterns, like
bands around the earth--for instance, the circum-Pacific belt, and
another belt extending eastward from the Mediterranean through Asia and
on into the East Indies. Often these quake lines are visible as breaks
or ruptures along the ground surface, called _fault traces_. No doubt,
Tom thought, there were many more uncharted ones.
Could an enemy scientist be making use of these earth faults to produce
a man-made quake? Tom mulled over the disturbing idea.
"How would I tackle the job myself, if I had to undertake such a project
for national defense?" the young inventor mused. He felt a growing sense
of excitement as an idea began to take shape in his mind.
_What about an artificial shock wave!_
An hour later Bud Barclay walked into the laboratory and found Tom
hunched over a jumbled pile of reference books on his workbench.
"What cooks, skipper?" Bud asked.
Tom looked up, his blue eyes blazing. "Bud, I think I may have the
answer!"
Tom got up from his stool and paced about the laboratory. "Suppose the
Brungarian rebel scientists have invented some sort of shock-wave
producer--a device for sending vibrations through the earth's crust or
the mantle underneath."
"Okay, suppose they have," Bud replied.
Tom snatched up a piece of chalk and made some quick diagrams on a
blackboard. "Just this, pal. Let's say they set up two or three stations
around the world for sending out such waves in a definite direction.
Wherever the wave crosses an earth fault or another wave--_boom!_ An
earthquake!"
Bud stared. "No kidding, is that how those rats triggered off all these
quakes?"
"It must be," Tom declared. "It's the only possible explanation."
"Good night!" Bud gasped weakly. "What a weapon! Just push a button
every so often and you could blow up another country bit by bit--and no
one could ever prove who was behind the attack!"
Tom nodded. "Enough to make every American shiver, if he only knew!"
"What can we do about it?" Bud asked.
Tom resumed his worried pacing. "I'll have to invent a shock-wave
deflector, Bud. It must be done in a hurry, too. Our enemy may start to
destroy American cities as well as vital defense plants!"
Immediately Tom put through an urgent call to an eminent scientist in
Washington who was a member of the National Research Council. Quickly he
outlined a plan.
"Tom, I'll talk to the president's special science adviser at once," the
man promised. "I'll try to set up a meeting for ten o'clock tomorrow
morning at Enterprises."
Feeling relieved, Tom left the plant with Bud. The two boys drove off to
attend church with Mrs. Swift and Sandy. Then, after the Sunday midday
meal, Tom returned to his laboratory to work on ideas for a shock-wave
deflector.
Bud and Sandy, meanwhile, drove to the Shopton Yacht Club to inspect the
damage to the _Sunspot_. Tom had arranged with a salvage crew to tow the
disabled ketch back to its slip.
Monday morning, a sleek Air Force jet transport touched down at Swift
Enterprises. Aboard were a select group of top government scientists.
Tom and Bud greeted them as they disembarked on the runway, then drove
them to a conference room in the Enterprises main building.
"I'd say your theory is right, Tom, about the quakes being produced by
artificial shock waves," said Bernt Ahlgren, a tall, hawk-faced man with
a shock of red hair. He was a member of the Defense Department's
Advanced Research Projects Agency. "But how do we stop them?"
"I believe they can be damped out by opposing waves," Tom replied. "This
is assuming that I can design the right sort of equipment to do the
job--and also that we can set up a warning system to alert us of the
enemy shock waves in time." The young inventor sketched out the sort of
shock-wave deflector which he had in mind. The government experts were
very much impressed. In the session that followed, the visiting
scientists contributed many tips and suggestions. Tom noted them down
gratefully.
After a thorough discussion, it was agreed that the Defense Department
would set up detectors at fifty check points around the country. Tom
would choose the exact spots. Detection data from the check points would
be fed to an electronic computer. The computer would establish the
pattern, if any, of incoming enemy shock waves.
Dr. Gregg Miles, a seismologist from the Bureau of Mines, agreed to take
on the job of setting up the check points.
"Thanks for your prompt co-operation," Tom said, smiling gratefully as
the meeting broke up.
"We should thank you, Tom, for coming up with a plan to cope with this
fiendish threat," Ahlgren replied. The others heartily agreed.
Shortly after lunch, Tom was hard at work in his laboratory when the
telephone rang. It was Chief Slater at Shopton police headquarters.
"You'd better get over here fast, Tom," Slater said. "Samson Narko is
ready to talk!"
Tom needed no urging. "Right, Chief!"
As he drove into Shopton, Tom wondered what the Brungarian agent would
reveal. Was it possible that he might tip off the whole secret behind
the destructive man-made earthquakes?
Chief Slater was waiting in his office. "Narko showed signs of cracking
this morning," Slater told Tom, "so I notified the Central Intelligence
Agency. They're flying a man up here--in fact he should be here by now.
Narko won't talk till he arrives."
"How come?" Tom asked.
"Narko wants a bargain," Slater explained. "If the government will
promise to deport him at once without trial, he'll spill what he knows."
Tom whistled. "I sure wouldn't want to be in _his_ shoes when he gets
back to Brungaria! His bosses aren't stupid. They'll know he must have
made a deal to get off scot free!"
Just then a taxi from the airport pulled up outside police headquarters,
and the CIA official was ushered into Slater's office. He proved to be
John Thurston.
"Narko's waiting in his cell," Slater said, after an exchange of
handshakes. "Let's hope he hasn't changed his mind."
The Brungarian spy rose from his cot as the turnkey unlocked his cell
door.
"You are from Washington, eh?" Narko said to Thurston. "Very well.
I presume the police have told you my offer. Is it a bargain?"
Thurston was poker-faced. "You know the penalty for spying!" he snapped.
"In your own country it would mean death. Why should we let you off?"
Narko's calmness evaporated. Beads of sweat burst out on his forehead.
"I have done no harm and I know little or nothing of my superiors'
plans!" the spy said excitedly. "Why should I lie to you with my life at
stake? After all, I am only an insignificant agent. But one important
thing I do know--and this I will reveal if you promise to deport me at
once!"
Thurston eyed him coldly. "Very well," the CIA man decided. "You have my
word."
Narko sat down on his cot, breathing heavily. Then he looked up at the
three Americans. "Your nation's capital, Washington, D.C., is going to
be blown up!" the Brungarian asserted.
His words struck like a bombshell. Chief Slater and John Thurston stared
at Narko in open-mouthed astonishment.
Then Slater scowled. "What a preposterous story! I suppose they're going
to fly a plane over and drop an atom bomb--just like that!" He snapped
his fingers.
Thurston was also inclined to doubt Narko's story. Any such bold move by
the Brungarians, he declared, would amount to an act of war.
"It is the truth!" Narko shouted. "Do not forget--you have made a
promise."
Tom Swift did not share Chief Slater's and Thurston's skepticism.
Narko's words had chilled him with dismay. He called the other two aside
and gave them a quick whispered briefing on the theory he had discussed
with the government scientists, asking them to keep it confidential.
If the Brungarians indeed had a means of producing artificial shock
waves, Tom pointed out, they could easily destroy Washington without the
slightest risk to themselves.
Both Thurston and Chief Slater were alarmed. Turning back to Narko, they
grilled him for clues. But it seemed obvious that the Brungarian was
telling all he knew--or, at any rate, all he intended to reveal.
"We're wasting our time," Thurston said finally, with a look of disgust.
"But I made a promise in the name of the United States government and
the promise will be kept."
Turning to Chief Slater, the CIA man added, "Turn him over to the FBI
and have them take him to New York. I'll arrange for a seat on the first
plane for Brungaria."
Tom drove back thoughtfully to Enterprises. Bud was waiting in his
laboratory with news.
"Your dad went from Washington to Fearing Island and has gone up to your
space outpost," Bud reported. "He has to do some experiments for the
government project he's working on."
The outpost was a space station which Tom Swift Jr. had built 22,300
miles above the earth. It was a production factory for his famous solar
batteries, and also an immensely valuable setup for space research and
exploration.
"Think I'll radio Dad and let him know what's going on," Tom decided.
"He may have some good suggestions. He usually does!"
Tom warmed up his private transmitter-receiver and beamed out a code
call through the automatic scrambler. Seconds later, the loud-speaker
crackled in response.
But just as the outpost operator's voice came through, the radio set
exploded in Tom's face!