by John Blaine
Striped shirt had caught him from behind. Now the dark man stepped in, fist cocked for a knockout punch. Rick saw it coming and braced himself.
The punch never landed. A crisp voice said, “Don’t do it!”
Encircling arms fell away. Rickturned, knees weak.
A man in Boy Scout uniform stood in the cabindoor, and in his hand was a Police Positive.
“All right,” the Scout said cheerfully. “Party’s over.”
CHAPTER XIX
Taped for Trouble
Another Scout leader moved into the cabin, followed by Scotty. Rick gave them a grin, then turned and picked up the gun behind Jan’s chair. He stuck it in his pocket and untied the girl.
The plastic cap was still on her head. He lifted it off gently and put it on top of the machine.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded, hand at her throat. “Yes,” she managed. “I can’t talk. Thegag .”
“Time for talk later,” Rick said. He started for Barby, but Scotty was already untying her. The moment her hands were free, she pulled the gag from her mouth and
announced, “Well! You took long enough getting here!”
Rick didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t have a chance to say anything. His sister rushed over, put her arms around him, and squeezed.
“You were wonderful,” she said. “Scotty, he held four of them at bay. I never knew you
could fight like that, Rick Brant!”
Rick grinned. “I didn’t do so much. You took one of them out of play by stamping on him. And Jan gave me an opening with as fine a kick as I’ve seen off a football field.”
The two JANIG agents had produced handcuffs, and the men and women were
manacled together in a continuous chain.
“Outside,” one agent commanded. “Get into the pram.”
“You’ve got nothing on us,” the man in the striped shirt protested. “We were only protecting ourselves against this wild man who barged in here.”
“Were you protecting yourselves against the two girls?” Scotty asked.
“We were holding them for the police,” striped shirt stated. “They sneaked aboard, probably intending to steal anything they could find. You’re going to get yourselves into a peck of trouble, my friends. There’s a law in the state against carrying firearms! A fine reputation this will give the Boy Scouts!”
The agent with the pistol said mildly, “You talk too much. Get in the pram.” To Rick he said, “We’re taking them to Spindrift. We’ll send the speedboat back for you.”
The four young people stood at the rail and watched as the crowded pram with its outboard motor chugged off to the island.
Barby pulled off her bathing cap, and Rick saw that she wore the Megabuck unit underneath. He pointed to it. “I tried to call you. Why didn’t you answer?”
Barby replied with anembarrassed blush that started at the shoulders and swept up until her face was bright red. “I forgot to turn it on,” she admitted. “Jan reminded me while they were tying her up. They hadn’t got to me, yet. One of the women was holding the pistol and pointing it at me. Jan sort of looked up and said, ‘We need an outside power to help us now. But we must be sure the power is turned on.’ Then I remembered. I pretended my head hurt, and pushed the switch.”
Rick looked at Jan. “That was clever. I’d been trying to reach Barby, with no success.
Then, suddenly, I heard her talking.”
“We knew you were close, because we could hear the plane.” Jan shuddered. “The men heardit, too, because they ran out right after they tied us up and put that thing on my head. The women guarded us, and one of them had just started the machine running
when the plane came right at us. We saw it, through the open door, and we thought you were going to crash!”
Rick grinned at Scotty. “That was our fast-acting pal. If he hadn’t done that, I’d never have had a chance to get aboard.”
“Good thing you figured out what I was doing,” Scotty admitted. “When I saw you moving fast toward the boat, I knew it was okay, and that I didn’t have to crash.”
Rick stared. “Do you mean you’d have actually crashed?”
“Not head on, because that would have hurt the girls. I was planning to swing at the last minute and try to knock the men off with the wing.”
Rick could only mutter, “My saintedaunt !”
Scotty turned on the girls. “And here’s the pair that made it necessary. What in the name of a painted parsnip were you two trying to do?”
Barby lifted her chin defiantly. “We had a good plan. Can we help it if it didn’t work?”
“Can’t answer that until we know the plan,” Scotty said reasonably. “Suppose you tell us.”
“Well, we needed evidence that the houseboaters were in the plot against our fathers, didn’t we? I knew we could get it, if we could plant a radio. So we made a plan.”
“Lotof good a turned-off radio would have done,” Rick muttered.
Barby glared. “We decided that we’d go swimming with the lungs. Then we’d come up right next to the houseboat, and we’d be so surprised! Of course the people would come out to see us,then we’d say I had a cramp, and could we please come up and rest.”
Rick listened, and he had to admit it wasn’t a bad plan at all-so far.
“Of course they would let us rest. Then I’d wait for a chance to put the radio behind a cushion, or in the crack of an armchair, or somewhere like that. I didn’t know exactly what I could do, but I knew if we could get aboard there would be some way of leaving the radio behind.”
The pram had vanished around the turn of the cove. The speedboat would come into sight any moment now.
“All right,” Rick admitted. “Let’s say it was a good plan. What happened?”
Jan took up the tale. “We didn’t want to try to swim all the way from Spindrift, so we took the row-boat and did exactly what Cap’n Mike did yesterday. We rowed along the shore with the aqualungs and got into the water right where we could see the houseboat.
We had to. Otherwise, we would have gotten lost underwater.”
“But you had the wrist compasses, didn’t you?” Scotty asked. The boys had stressed that compasses were essential because low visibility in the waters off Spindrift made it very easy to lose one’s sense of direction.
“We had the compasses,” Barby said. “How do you think we swam right to the
houseboat?”
“Then why didn’t you get into the water out of sight of the houseboat?” Rick asked, and suddenly he knew. That would have meant plotting a compass course around a turn. So many feet in one direction, then change to another compass heading. He had explained it to them, but they just hadn’t learned.
It was not easy, he had to admit, and it took practice even on land. “Never mind,” he said. “I know the answer. Go ahead. Tell us the rest.”
Barby studied his face. “I guess you do know,” she assented. “Well, they told us later, on the houseboat. They saw us get into the water,then they watched our bubbles come right toward them. So when we got here, they weren’t fooled.”
“We went through with it, as we planned,” Jan said, “and we thought we were getting away with it. They were very nice. Of course we could come up and rest. They were glad to have us stop by. But when we got aboard, one of the women had a gun, and she made us go into the cabin and sit down. Then they started asking us questions.”
“What kind of questions?” Rick inquired.
“About why we had come.We stuck to the story, until they told us they’d seen us. Even then we didn’t admit anything. Then Barby started to threaten them.”
Scotty chuckled. “I’d like to have heard that.”
Rick watched the tip of the cove. The speedboat from Spindrift should be coming shortly. “How about the plane?” he asked suddenly. “What did you do with it?”
Scotty motioned to the other side of the houseboat. “It’s anchored. I lan
ded next to the JANIG team and got into the rowboat with them.” The Sky Wagon carried a small anchor and a few yards of anchor line in one of the pontoons.
“Okay. Carry on, Barby. How did you threaten them?”
“I was very logical,” Barby stated. “Wasn’t I, Jan?”
Jan nodded agreement. “You definitely were.”
“I started by telling them that they couldn’t possibly do a thing to us, and they might as well let us go right away.”
“Bet that impressed them,” Rick murmured.
“Are you telling this, or am I?”
“You are,” Rick said contritely. “Go ahead.”
“Well, I said my brother knew where we were, and they’d better be careful. It didn’t work. Then I pointed out that they didn’t even dare to kill us, because our bodies could be traced back to the houseboat. Everyone knew we’d just gone for a swim, and everyone knew we could take care of ourselves.”
Rick thought privately that any time Spindrift was in danger from then on, he’d make sure his self-reliant sister had a bodyguard at all times.
“I said other things, too, but finally they slapped me and told me to shut up.”
“Who did?” Scotty demanded.
“One of the women.It doesn’t matter, Scotty. It didn’t hurt. Anyway, they said we could stop worrying about what was going to happen to them. Then one of the men asked if we knew what had happened to the three scientists. We said yes. And he said ... he said . . .”
Barby suddenly turned white.
Jan finished for her. “He said they were going to erase our minds, too. Then they were going to put us back in the water.” The words were no sooner out than Jan had a delayed reaction, too.
Rick rushed the two of them into the cabin and made them sit down with heads bent low. Scotty found water and gave them each a drink.
“You’ve acted like a couple of champs,” Rick told them. “But for the love of mike, don’t faint now!”
Barby lifted her chin. “I have no intention of fainting,” she said defiantly. “It’s just . . .
well, it’s . . .”
“I know,” Rick assured her. “Take it easy, Sis.”
He looked up. The sound of a racing speedboat was echoing inside the cabin. Good.
They’d be home in a few minutes and his mother could take over. He gave the girls a comradely grin. What a pair!
The machine on the table attracted his eye. He walked over and studied it. The recording drum had wavy lines on it, probably the beginning of Jan’s brain pattern. It made no sense to him, but it would to Parnell Winston.
“They had you taped,” he told the girl gently. “But you saved your own bacon by telling Barby to turn on the radio. If you hadn’t . . .”
A shudder ran through Jan’s slim body. “I was taped for trouble. I’m glad you came through the door when you did!”
Rick’s finger traced a line on the recording drum.
“I’m kind of glad myself,” he admitted.
CHAPTER XX
JANIG Closes In
Steve Ames walked around the objects on the laboratory table. “Nothing deadly looking about these gadgets,” he said. “Which goes to show how misleading appearances can be.”
The objects included the barber’s massage machine, an ancient composition-board suitcase, the gadget from the houseboat, and a TV set with an indoor antenna of the kind known as “rabbit ears.”
Parnell Winston admitted, “There is plenty we don’t know about them, especially the
inside of that TV set. But we’ll learn.”
Steve smiled at the assembly of faces. In addition to the project team and the boys, Mrs.
Brant, Mrs. Morrison, and the two girls were in the group. So was Joe Blake.
Rick regretted that Jerry, Duke, and Cap’n Mike could not be invited. But the matter was still not for discussion with people on the outside. If a story ever could be made public, the Morning Record would be the first to have it, but in all probability the facts would remain buried for some time.
In a large room in the lab basement the four houseboaters and the barber waited under heavy guard for the arrival of a Coast Guard cutter. The barber was there courtesy of Captain Douglas, who had picked him up and delivered him to Spindrift after a call from Joe Blake.
Steve rapped for attention. “We’re about to tie up some loose ends, everyone. Let’s get seated, because the cutter will be here any moment.”
The room was sometimes used for lectures when Hartson Brant got his entire staff together, and there were plenty of chairs. In a moment the audience was seated comfortably and listening to Steve.
“You were all involved,” the agent began, “so I want you all to know what has been going on. Some details are not known to us, yet. But we’re continuing the investigation.
However, the part that involves you is finished, and you’ll probably never hear about the rest of it.”
Rick knew that was true. Who the houseboaters and the barber really were, who paid them, how they had been tipped off to the project in the first place, and similar details would remain locked in top-secret files somewhere inWashington .
“The key to the whole affair was uncovered inWashington yesterday. Most of you know about the physical arrangements on the fourth floor. In setting up the security system we checked all wiring, traced all phone lines, and in general made sure the place was not
‘bugged,’ which is the term we use for wire taps, hidden microphones, and so on.”
Steve paused, and Rick thought his friend looked a little embarrassed. “In spite of our care, it developed that we did have a hidden microphone picking up all conversation and relaying it to the enemy group. I can only say in our own defense that it was the kind of
‘bug’ we couldn’t have found without tearing the building apart.”
“It’s nearly impossible to take all modern electronic developments into account,” Julius
Weiss said. “We all know how thorough you are, Steve. Go on.”
“Thank you, Julius. Directly above us, on the fifth floor, was the Peerless Brokerage Company. It was a legitimate firm, doing a good business. We had no reason to suspect it, even though we checked out all firms both above and below us. Well, in checking on the houseboaters, we discovered that the firm had recently been taken over by a dummy corporation, and most of it was actually owned by the man Rick called ‘striped shirt.’ He bought the stock right after the project moved in on the fourth floor.”
“There was no change in the firm?” Dr. Morrison asked.“Nothing suspicious?”
“Nothing.The firm continued to operate as always. There was one personnel change. A lawyer, representing the new principal stockholder, took over one of the offices.”
Rick suspected that said lawyer was now in custody.
“As soon as we discovered the connection, we made a check. Under the floor in the lawyer’s office we found a ‘bug.’ A hole had been drilled into the floor structure until only a thin shell of plaster remained. The plaster was, of course, our ceiling. So actually the microphone was within a fraction of an inch of our room, but there was no way we could detect it. That’s how every move we made was anticipated, and why the enemy moved to Whiteside on the same day that the project moved to Spindrift.”
That explained a lot, Rick thought. “Did the barber tape the two scientists?” he asked.
“We think so. He’s the boss of the enemy team, Rick. We’ve found that during the period when he was inWashington , his massage machine was wired through to a room in the basement. The wiring went through the power cord into the electric outlet, and the impulses were actually transmitted over the power system and taken out of a plug in the basement. We found the machine where he had stored it.”
Rick knew that could be done quite simply. The frequencies of the electric current and the brain patterns were so different that they would not interfere with each other.
“He didn’t plan to use his machine in Whiteside,�
�� Steve went on, “because he left the mind-reading part of the machine inWashington .”
“Then why did he bring it?” Barby asked.
“We’re not sure. The likeliest possibility is that he wanted to continue using it as a massage machine, because he made a little money with it. I never knew an espionage agent who didn’t need money.”
Steve looked at Rick. “I’m a little surprised at one thing. Why didn’t the Spindrift twins suspect foul play when Hartson Brant ran over something in the speedboat?”
It was Rick’s turn to be embarrassed. “I guess we were so upset we didn’t think straight.
Why?”
“The mainland team found a log. It had a yokeOn it. Apparently the houseboaters had taken a lesson from the incident on the pier and were waiting for Spindrift traffic on the water. We think they waited until they heard the sound of the Spindrift speedboat, then took the pram and cut across the course hauling a log on a long rope.”
Scotty spoke up. “That’s what puzzles me, Steve.Why the switch from long-distance electronics to violence?”
“When we moved the project to Spindrift, we also removed the chance of taping project members in some natural setting like the barbershop. They had hoped to knock out the team without anyone suspecting it was enemy interference. That worked, at first. But moving the project upset their plans. They rigged the train deal that caught Marks. But even though it worked, it showed we were dealing with an enemy.”
“So they had to catch the scientists in order to tape them,” Scotty commented.
“Right.Of course they tried to do it in a way that looked natural in the case of Marks and Dr. Brant. Probably they hoped the attack on Duke, whom they mistook for
Morrison, would be taken as a holdup. They undoubtedly planned to allow time between the accident, or attack, and following through with the mind-reading machine, hoping that the two wouldn’t be connected.”
The pattern was clear, Rick thought. Like many such schemes, the moment a suspicion of foul play developed, the plan began to boomerang.