Crowd at Martins Creek
Rick and Scotty awoke to find four newcomers at Steve's house. Steve introduced them to Dave Cobb, electronics specialist; Joe Vitalli and Chuck Howard, JANIG agents; and Roy McDevitt from Wallops Island.
McDevitt, who had just driven over from the rocket range, was a tall, lean engineer dressed in slacks and a spectacular sport shirt emblazoned with tropical flowers. He shook hands cordially. "You're Hartson Brant's boys. We've certainly enjoyed having your family over at the island. When Barby and Jan leave, the whole base will go into mourning."
Rick grinned. "Somebody loses, somebody wins. We're anxious to have them back with us again."
Vitalli and Howard greeted the boys as old comrades. Although they had had no chance to become well acquainted, the two agents had been part of the JANIG team during the case of The Whispering Box Mystery.
Dave Cobb, who was scarcely older than the boys, had been hastily borrowed from the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. He spared no time for greetings other than a cordial wave, and immediately got to work on the rocket Rick had found in the cove.
The group pulled chairs up to the kitchen table on which Cobb was working, and watched.
Cobb studied the rocket for a few minutes, then took a pointed tool and pressed it into a spot five inches below the rounded nose. He rotated the cylinder and pressed a similar spot on the other side. Rick saw a thin line appear around the rocket below where Cobb had pressed.
The electronics specialist gripped the cylinder above and below the thin line and twisted. The nose of the rocket came off. Cobb pointed to a pair of metal prongs that extended out of the nose into the rocket casing. "Contacts," he said. "They press against strips inside the rocket casing. The whole assembly acts as a dipole antenna."
No one commented. Cobb took a tiny screwdriver and removed two screws from a metal plate in the bottom of the nose cone. The screws were long ones, holding the entire nose assembly in place. With the screws laid carefully aside, Cobb tapped the cone and the assembly dropped into his hand.
"A terrific job of miniaturization," he commented. "First-rate design." He pointed with a screwdriver to a segment about the size of two silver dollars stacked together. "Tape recorder. It accumulates data, then plays it back in a single high-speed burst."
Rick watched, fascinated, as the electronics expert identified components and circuits. The whole unit, scarcely larger than a common soup can, contained receiver, tape recorder, transmitter, batteries, and command circuits that could be triggered from the ground. It was a highly complex and beautifully engineered package for receiving data, storing it, then retransmitting it.
"But why?" Rick demanded. "Why send up a rockoon at all? What data does it receive and transmit, and what do the people at the mansion do with it?"
"What Rick is asking," Scotty observed, "is the question that has puzzled us since we got here. Why do the stingarees fly?"
Steve waved a hand. "Patience for just a few more minutes. Anything else, Cobb?"
The electronics expert shook his head. "Not unless you have specific questions. In summary, this is a very elegant little assembly of receiver, data recorder, transmitter, and command circuits."
"Fine. McDevitt, what about the rocket?"
The man from Wallops Island shrugged. "Nothing very complex about it. It's a simple solid-fuel rocket with star grain, fired by a squib that is commanded from the ground. A squib is simply an igniter to start the fuel burning. Battery power makes it glow red hot when turned on."
"How high an altitude would the rocket reach?" Steve asked.
"It's difficult to be precise, but I'd estimate the balloon carries it to ten thousand feet, then it is fired by signal from the ground at the proper time. The rocket would go to about one hundred thousand feet, plus or minus twenty thousand. In other words, I'd guess its maximum altitude at nearly twenty-three miles."
"Did you say fired at the proper time, or proper altitude?" Rick asked quickly. He wanted clarification of the point, although he was sure McDevitt had said "time."
"The altitude isn't important. I'd say time was the principal factor."
"But if altitude isn't important, why use a rockoon? Why not use a rocket launched directly from the ground?" Scotty demanded. He looked puzzled.
Rick looked at Steve expectantly. The young agent smiled. "Got the answer, Rick?"
"Maybe. It's a matter of secrecy, isn't it? The folks around here were puzzled by the flying stingarees, but they would have been more puzzled by rocket firing. They'd have been curious enough to want to know why the rockets were being fired, and it's certain that an investigation would have resulted. By using rockoons, with balloons that didn't look like balloons, Camillion confused the issue. People who reported seeing things got laughed at, mostly because they call any unidentified flying object a flying saucer. The rockets fired only when high in the air, where people wouldn't notice."
"Two did," Scotty reminded him. "Remember? We had two interviews where the people saw spurts of flame."
"Sure," Rick agreed, "but they had no idea it was a rocket taking off from a balloon. And only two out of the whole bunch even noticed flame at all."
Steve nodded. "You've hit it, Rick. It's the only answer that makes sense."
"Not until we know what data were collected by the rockoons," Rick said stubbornly. "That's the whole key. Nothing will really make sense until we know that."
"We ran the dates and times of sightings through the computer with a lot of other dates and times for various things," Steve explained. "I had a hunch, but the computer turned it into good comparative data."
"What data?" Scotty demanded.
"Every single sighting you collected coincided with the launching of a research rocket from Wallops Island!"
The boys sat back, openmouthed. Rick said, "So that's why the glow from Wallops Island in the south-eastern sky was so significant. That's what put you on the trail!"
"Right," Steve agreed. "The yellow glow is from sodium vapor rockets fired from Wallops. The rockets allow visual measurement of meteorological data. People around here are used to seeing them to the southeast, over Wallops. When I saw that sightings had been made over Swamp Creek at the time of sodium shots, I got an idea. It wasn't much to go on, but it was at least a good clue. The computer did the rest."
"Then Lefty Camillion and his friends have been intercepting data from our rocket launchings at Wallops," Scotty said unbelievingly. "But why? How could Lefty use data like that? It's all straight, unclassified scientific and meteorological stuff. He's no scientist."
Steve grinned. "I doubt that he even knows what the data are. He and his friends are a bunch of chuckleheads of the very worst kind. But about what he does with the data—Joe Vitalli has been doing some investigating along that line."
Vitalli nodded. "With the FBI. They put agents on the case and found out Lefty had been in touch with the Soviet Embassy in Washington, through a third secretary whose function it is to gather various kinds of scientific intelligence. We're not absolutely certain, but it looks very much as though Lefty plans to sell his data tapes to the Soviets."
"So that's why JANIG has moved into the case," Scotty concluded.
"On the nose," Steve agreed. "Now it's time to move in on our foolish friends at Calvert's Favor. Do you boys want to take a hand?"
"Try and leave us out," Rick said with a grin. "JANIG is welcome to assist us, but the flying stingarees are our babies. Scotty's and mine, that is."
"Be glad to have you help," Scotty echoed.
The JANIG men laughed. "You've got a point," Chuck Howard conceded.
"Want to plan the operation?" Steve asked with a twinkle.
Rick held up his hand. "Whoa! We didn't say that. You've got information we don't have."
"Only one piece of information," Steve replied. "The time of the next launching from Wallops Island."
"When?" Rick asked eagerly.
"At dusk tonight."