Tom Swift and His Triphibian Atomicar (5 page)

Tom, too, was somewhat irritated by the highhanded demand. Evidently this Mr. Flambo was accustomed to having people jump when he issued orders. On the other hand, if he had flown all the way from the Middle East, there must be an important reason and it seemed only polite to see him.

Ed Longstreet chuckled. "My gosh, cuz!
You
must be the one with the rep—everybody’s trying to get some face time with you!"

Tom frowned a moment, then said, "Sorry to bail on you, guys, but maybe I’d better go back. You four go on with your day. Mr. Mirza can drive me back.
If
he doesn’t mind." Mirza gave a polite nod.

Arriving at the Citadel after a strained, silent ride, Tom found his visitor pacing back and forth in the lobby of the reception building. Flambo, a plump, hawk-nosed man with a trim black beard, greeted Tom with an angry glare.

"I have been waiting here for over four hours," he complained as they shook hands. "My time is of value to me."

"As is mine. A call that you were coming would have saved us both some inconvenience," Tom returned evenly. He suddenly realized that his father would surely have tried to contact him immediately at the facility. If he had missed the call, it meant that Flambo and company had flown to New Mexico as quickly as had the
Sky Queen
the day before! "I hope you have been comfortable."

Flambo snorted. "A ridiculous-looking cowperson brought me what he called
lunch
—a concoction of rattlesnake meat. An insult to my culture and beliefs, as I have come to expect among Europeans and Americans. Naturally I was unable to touch it."

Tom repressed a grin. He could just imagine!—and now he knew that Chow Winkler had arrived. "Chow probably thought he was paying you an honor, sir. He does prepare—er—unusual delicacies at times."

As he spoke, Tom looked over his visitor carefully. Flambo was dressed impeccably in a suit of shimmering gray silk. Tom’s eye was caught by his ruby tie clasp.

"Perhaps we can talk more comfortably in a private setting," Tom said. The man nodded curtly, dismissing the hovering Mirza with a wave of his hand.

As they walked across the grounds toward one of Tom’s lab buildings, the young inventor remarked, "I can’t help admiring your tie clasp, sir. That’s a Kabulistan ruby, isn’t it?"

Flambo bared his white teeth in a sneer. "I fear your knowledge of rubies is not so expert as your scientific skill, my dear Mr. Swift. This happens to be a pigeon’s-blood ruby—a gift from a colleague in India."

"My mistake," Tom said with a smile. But he was not entirely convinced.

When they reached the office adjoining a lab, Tom offered his guest a chair and sat down behind his desk. He wanted to look unintimidated. "What can I do for you, Mr. Flambo?"

There were no further pleasantries. "My company—
no doubt
you have heard of Pan-Islamic Engineering Associates—is making a great contribution to the Middle East, as you prefer to call the Muslim world," Flambo said proudly. "We are building roads, bridges, and refineries—all with technicians from our own countries. A far better way than letting greedy outsiders get a foothold!"

Tom nodded. "I believe science knows no national boundaries. All countries have a right to share in scientific progress."

Flambo scowled. "Unfortunately some countries use their scientific leadership to impose their will on less advanced areas."

"Some do," Tom agreed coolly. "Not the United States." Tom bristled instinctively. But then he recalled that his father had acknowledged, to Moshan Prandit, that such feelings were understandable.

Flambo shrugged impatiently. "It is no matter. My company could make good use of your new small-sized atomic dynamo, which we have read about in the journals with great interest. You must surely realize that such a power source has uses much more valuable than to run an electric automobile, even one that flies through the air. We are therefore prepared to offer any price within reason for the sole industrial rights to your invention."

Tom was startled. Then a smile spread over his face. "That’s the second time in a few days I’ve had such an offer, Mr. Flambo. My answer to both offers is No. When and if my midget power plant is perfected, I intend to sell or lease it for use wherever it can help mankind. That’s the way the Swift family does things, and it’s the policy of Swift Enterprises. We avoid politics if we can."

Flambo’s eyes blazed. "Meaning you and your government will make it available wherever you can use it as a tool for getting advantage over weaker countries!" he stormed.

The telephone bleeped. Tom picked it up, listened a few moments, then replaced the receiver with an amused look. "Excuse me a minute, sir," Tom told Flambo calmly. "Your secretary Mirza seems to be trying to get a foothold where
he
doesn’t belong."

Tom hurried outside and found Chow Winkler holding Mirza tightly bound in the loop of his lariat, a security man with a cellphone standing nearby.

"Caught the sidewinder sneakin’ past my galley window—snoopin’!" the born Texan reported. "Jest enough time t’ grab my lariat and make a catch fer you."

Mirza was quivering, either from anger or fear, Tom could not decide which. The secretary’s face looked livid as he muttered something unintelligible.

"All right, let him go, Chow. I’ll take over," Tom said, taking over the rope. He warned his prisoner, "An atomic research station is a dangerous place to go wandering around, Mirza. Don’t try it again." He removed Mirza’s bonds, returning the lariat to Chow with a wink of gratitude.

"Reckon you’d better keep an eye on that boss o’ his, too," Chow warned. "I never did trust a critter that don’t appreciate good vittles!"

Tom grinned and started back to his office. Mirza accompanied him silently. In the meantime, Flambo’s temper seemed to have died down.

"Your answer to my offer, then, is a flat refusal?" he asked Tom.

"I’m afraid it will have to be, sir."

"Then there is no further point in my remaining here." Flambo turned and snapped an order to his secretary in what sounded, to the young inventor’s barely tutored ear, like Farsi or Arabic. Politely but firmly, Tom insisted on accompanying them to their rented car. Then he watched until the guard at the gate flagged them through.

Good night!
he thought ruefully.
Now I know what they mean when they say "everybody wants a piece of me"!

Twenty minutes later he was pouring a batch of molten metal from a miniature electronic furnace into a keg. The white-hot mass was a new alloy of the metal called Neo-Aurium, mined on the floor of the Atlantic, bonded to radiation-resistant Inertite. He was creating a container with a series of minute, bubble-like hollows in the center, into which the newly discovered stable isotope, a granule smaller than a grain of salt, would be inserted. Tom was wearing protective dark goggles and asbestalon-Inertite gloves and apron.

Suddenly, as he finished pouring, Tom’s ears caught a hissing, crackling noise behind him. He turned and gave a gasp of fear. His workbench was a mass of flames—which were shooting perilously close to a shelf full of flammable chemicals!

Tom pushed an alarm bell and grabbed up a fire extinguisher. Luckily he was able to douse the flames even before help arrived.

"What happened?" the chief of the facility fire crew asked, after making sure the danger was past.

"I’m not sure." Tom shoved up his goggles and began poking among the scorched debris. "Oh-oh! Here’s the answer," he announced a moment later. "The electrical lead to my glass pyrometer rod must have shorted. There’s a kink here, where the insulation probably frayed. Just an accident."

The crew left. Then Tom repaired the damaged electrical lead and went back to work. That evening, when Bud, Ed, Sandy, and Bash returned from Taos, the five young people enjoyed a snack of hamburgers and milk in the laboratory. Bud scowled suspiciously after hearing of the blaze and asked: "Did you say Flambo stayed in your office when you went out to rescue that sneaky secretary?" Tom nodded. "Then how do you know he wasn’t responsible for that electrical short?" Bud demanded. "He could have slipped into the lab while you were gone."

Tom frowned. "It’s possible. But why should he? I mean, I turned down his offer, but that’s hardly a reason to threaten my life."

"Some people take perceived insults very seriously in that part of the world," Ed cautioned.

"And of course, he may just be what Chow calls
plumb loco!
" offered Sandy.

Tom snorted. "We’re getting way ahead of the evidence!" Nevertheless, before going to bed that night, Tom sent an email message to Harlan Ames at Enterprises. He asked the security chief to check on both Flambo and Pan-Islamic Engineering Associates.

Some time after midnight, Tom was aroused by the telephone burbling on his bedside table. "I don’t know why I even bother closing my eyes," he mumbled to himself. He groped sleepily for the instrument. "Hello?... Tom Swift speaking. I think."

"This is Benn Garth in Taos," said an agitated voice at the other end of the line. "I just surprised a thief breaking into my studio. Thought I’d better let you know right away. He was that man with the turban who came here looking for you!"

"YOU mean Mirza?" Tom sat bolt upright, completely awake.

"Right. My studio is wired with a silent alarm because of the precious stones and valuable jewelry I keep here," Garth explained. "When the alarm went off, I jumped out of bed and dashed to my workshop just in time to grab him. But he put up a nasty fight and finally escaped out the window."

"What about my sister’s ruby ring?" Tom asked.

"Don’t worry. It’s still here in my safe. In fact, he didn’t take anything, so far as I can discover. I don’t know what he was after."

Garth added that he had called the police and they were mounting a thorough search for the suspect.

"Good deal," said Tom with a shrug in his voice. "Maybe he admired your jewels when he was there today—er, yesterday—and thought he saw an opportunity."

"I called partly to warn you that the fellow is a criminal—maybe even dangerous," Garth said. "Also to find out if you had any information about him."

Tom told as much as he knew about Mirza and his employer. "When they left here this afternoon, Flambo claimed they were going to fly back to New York," Tom concluded. "We should ask the police to check with the airport at Albuquerque."

"Good idea. I’ll notify the officer who’s my contact on the matter."

After Garth beeped off, Tom lay awake for over an hour, thinking.
Had
Mirza just been tempted by the sight of valuable jewelry lying about the studio? Or after all, was it Sandy’s ruby that Mirza had been after? But if so, why that gem in particular?

Mirza’s first appearance at the studio window had certainly seemed furtive and suspicious.
And Garth had just been saying, at that moment, that the ruby might have come from the Kabulistan mine!
Tom recalled. In either case, where did Mirza’s employer, Flambo, fit into the picture?

The thought of Flambo’s ruby tie clasp flickered through Tom’s mind as he finally dozed off.

As Chow served breakfast that all-too-soon morning, Tom discussed the late-night incident with Bud. "About time things got hot on this ‘case’!" declared the dark-haired pilot. "Er, no pun intended."

"So far this is much more
mystery
than
thriller
," chuckled his pal. "Smoke bombs, a few accidents, a breaker-inner, various weird industrial types—not much to shake a fist at."

Bud glanced up at Chow, pouring orange juice. "Good to see ya, wrangler man—though at first I thought somebody had left the door to the reactor open!"

"Fer once I agree, buddy boy," replied the rotund ex-Texan, glancing down at the explosive clash of colors on his billowy western-styled shirt. "Had t’pick up somethin’ kind o’ on the spur of the moment, fer the funeral. Leastways it’s got black in it."

The former chuck-wagon cook from the Texas Panhandle had first met the Swifts on one of their trips to New Mexico while planning the construction of the Citadel. On this morning, as usual, the roly-poly chef was decked out in a ten-gallon hat and gaudy sport shirt. Everyone who knew him considered it something of an official uniform.

Tom asked about the funeral. "Mighty nice," responded Chow, "takin’ account that y’got a dead body right spang in the middle of it. Good ole Pappy Burge!"

"Did you know him well?" inquired the young inventor sympathetically.

"Never met the feller. Jest went a-cause I knew a bunch o’ my old ranch pals’d be there." The cook approached the boys and spoke confidentially. "But y’know somethin’, you two? Dang if half o’ those old guys ain’t gettin’ fat and turnin’ bald! Brand my vitamin pills."

Soon Sandy and Bashalli arrived to join Tom and Bud for breakfast. When Tom told them about Mirza’s breaking into the studio, Sandy exclaimed, "And to think it might have been my ring he was trying to steal!"

Bud lifted a forkful of bacon and eggs. "Don’t take it personally, San. Maybe he can’t help it. Maybe he’s the Thief of Baghdad." Sandy, who was just finishing her orange juice, choked and sputtered with laughter.

Bud slapped her vigorously on the back, then turned to Tom. "Seriously, Skipper, I warned you the
turban-engine
creep and his boss were up to no good!"

"Right again, flyboy," Tom conceded with a grin. "When’ll I ever learn?"

"Don’t give this’n so much credit, boss," urged Chow. "It’ll make the muscles in his head grow as big as the others!"

Later that morning a phone call from the Taos police informed Tom that Flambo had arrived on schedule in New York. "But Mirza was not with him," added the police lieutenant.

"How come?" Tom asked.

"Flambo told the police that just before taking off from Albuquerque, Mirza had informed him he was quitting his job and refused to accompany Flambo on the flight back. Apparently Flambo was angry at his employee. He stated that he knew nothing about Mirza’s present whereabouts and cared less. I’m summarizing."