Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X Part 25

Chow frugally carted off his leftover supplies. Tom and Bud, meanwhile, went by jeep across the plant grounds to security headquarters.

Ames greeted the two boys enthusiastically. "Nice going on that earthquake situation, Tom!" he said. "And now I have some more good news. We've just nabbed the man who imitated your father's voice over the phone the other night."

"What!" Both boys were excited, and Tom added eagerly, "Who is he?"

"An actor at the Shopton summer playhouse."

"How did you find out?" Tom asked.

"I had a hunch," Ames went on. "If the impersonator wasn't a plant employee at Enterprises, then he had to be a person with a trained voice. That gave me the idea of checking on all actors and station announcers here in the vicinity. It paid off right away. The guy's name is Brent Nolan."

"Have you questioned him yet?" Tom asked.

"I'm about to," Ames replied. "Radnor just brought him in."

The security chief led the way into an adjoining office. A slender, good-looking young man with blond wavy hair was seated on a chair with Phil Radnor on one side of him and a Shopton police officer on the other. The actor was visibly nervous and perspiring.

"This is Tom Swift Jr.," Ames told him. "Brent Nolan."

Nolan nodded. "Yes, I've seen your picture in the papers many times."

The actor tried to force a smile but his face muscles twitched.

"I--I seem to have pulled a pretty dumb stunt by faking that phone call from your father. I'm sorry."

"What was the reason?" Tom asked.

Nolan fingered his wavy blond hair uneasily and swallowed hard. "A man named Professor Runkle paid me to do it."

"Professor Runkle?" Tom frowned. The name seemed vaguely familiar.

"He spoke with a foreign accent. Said he was doing research at Grand.y.k.e University," Nolan explained. "He told me you might be expecting a rare biological specimen from the East Indies. He said both of you were eager to get hold of it for research purposes, but he was afraid that you had outbid him. However, if he asked you straight out, you would guard the secret very jealously. So he hired me to find out."

"Didn't it occur to you he might be an espionage agent?" Ames asked coldly.

Nolan seemed shocked. "Believe me, I had no such idea!" he averred.

"Runkle seemed pleasant. He said it all was merely a short cut to save him from wasting any more time on the project. If Tom Swift had the specimen, he would quit. I--I guess I'm a little bit vain about the way I can mimic voices, and this gave me a chance to show off. Besides, I saw no harm in doing it."

"No harm?" Bud snorted. "You had Swift Enterprises in a real lather when we found out."

Nolan spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "I'm truly sorry," he repeated.

"How were you able to find out how my father's voice sounded?" Tom asked.

"I listened to a recording of a speech he made at the Fourth of July rally here in Shopton," Nolan explained. "I borrowed the tape from a local radio station. Guess that's how your security men got onto me."

"What did this fellow Runkle look like?" Ames asked.

Nolan thought for a moment. "Oh, he was past middle age, I should say.

Grizzled hair, thick-lensed gla.s.ses. And he was quite heavy-set."

"Hmm. Then it certainly wasn't Narko," Ames murmured to Tom.

The young inventor nodded. "I believe I know him. The name just came back to me. I met a Professor Runkle in New York about a month ago, at a scientific convention. He was a member of the visiting Brungarian delegation."

"We'll check on him," Ames promised. He turned back sternly to the young actor. "All right, Nolan, I guess you can go. But I warn you--no more impersonations."

After more fl.u.s.tered apologies, the actor hurried out, obviously relieved.

"What a dumb egg he is!" Bud muttered.

"In a way he may have helped us," Tom pointed out. "If the Brungarian rebels hadn't found out about Exman, we couldn't have lured them into that kidnap plot. It's already helped us to save the Bona Fide Submarine Building Corporation."

Monday morning Ames reported that Professor Runkle had left the country.

Tom was not sorry, since an arrest and public trial might have led to dangerous publicity about Exman. The probings of a sharp-tongued defense attorney might even have tipped off the Brungarian to Tom's real purpose in letting the s.p.a.ce brain be hijacked.

Meanwhile, a telephone call from Was.h.i.+ngton announced that State Department men were flying to Enterprises to confer with the Swifts about taking official action against the Brungarian attacks. The group arrived by jet after lunch. Thurston of the CIA was also present.

"The problem is this," a State Department official said as they discussed the matter in the Swifts' office. "Should we bring charges against Brungaria before the United Nations? Or should we rely on other means, short of war, to block the Brungarian rebel coup?"

Mr. Swift frowned thoughtfully. "It might be difficult to prove they were responsible for the earthquake attacks," he pointed out.

"I'd say it's impossible," Tom said, "unless we give away the secret about our electronic spy." He paused, then added, "Sir, if the State Department will agree, I'd like more time before you make any official moves."

The Quakelizors, Tom argued, seemed to offer protection against any future quake waves, unless the power of the shocks was greatly stepped up. Meantime, working through Exman, Tom might be able to provide the Brungarian loyalists with valuable information. "I'm hoping it will help them overthrow the rebel clique and their brutal allied military bosses."

The State Department men conferred, then Thurston spoke up quietly, "In our opinion, it's worth a gamble."

After the group had left, the Swifts resumed their sensing experiments in Tom's private laboratory. They were hard at work when the signal bell suddenly rang on the electronic brain.

The two scientists rushed to read the incoming message. It said:

EXMAN TO SWIFTS. ONE ENEMY EARTHQUAKE PRODUCER IS AT...

Here the message gave precise lat.i.tude and longitude figures. It went on:

RUIN OF SWIFT PLACE IN ONE WEEK.

Tom and his father gasped in dismay. "I thought the New York-New England Quakelizor was going to protect us!" the young inventor exclaimed. "Our enemies must have located another earth fault with Enterprises right in its path!"

Hastily opening an atlas, Tom fingered the location of the proposed source of attack. It was Balala Island off the coast of Peru.

"Dad, that settles it!" Tom declared grimly. "It's clear now that those Brungarian rebels want to destroy us and use Exman in some way to conquer the earth!"

"I don't doubt that you're right, son," Mr. Swift said grimly. "We must act fast! But how?"

Again, the signal bell interrupted. This time, Exman gave a number of military details, evidently picked up from orders issuing from Brungarian rebel headquarters. They concerned incoming troop movements from the north and operational plans for crus.h.i.+ng out the last pockets of resistance by loyal government forces.

Tom recorded them with TV tape, then s.n.a.t.c.hed up the telephone and called the Central Intelligence Agency in Was.h.i.+ngton. He relayed the information from Exman and asked if American agents could transmit it to the loyalists.