CHAPTER IX
The Yellow Ground
Governor Luis Montoya could not be located. Neither his family nor his staff knew his whereabouts. There was great alarm over his unexplained absence. The police were searching for the missing executive, but with no success.
Hartson Brant called a council of war and told the scientific group that his most recent phone call to Guevara had even resulted in a turndown when he asked for more dynamite. The lieutenant governor evidently was not content with refusing to help, he was going to obstruct.
"There is dynamite on Trinidad," Hartson Brant said. "Plenty of it. I made a phone call to a friend at the U. S. Air Base there, and he agreed to get it for us. Rick, you and Scotty fly over to Port of Spain right away. The information is written down here." He handed Rick a slip of paper.
"If you leave now, you can get there before dark, spend the night and come back in the morning. Bring all the dynamite you can carry, with caps and a few reels of primer cord. We'll need more wire, too. Get hopping, now."
"Yes, sir," Rick said. He and Scotty ran to their room for toothbrushes, stuffed their pockets with extra socks and underwear, and ran to the parking lot for the jeep.
The weather was fine and clear, and the flight uneventful. When they landed at the U. S. base they found that Hartson Brant's friend, Colonel Tom Markey, had arranged for a full load of dynamite, and full gas tanks for the plane. The boys spent the night at bachelor officers' quarters at the base and took off at dawn, the Sky Wagon sluggish from its load of dynamite cases.
Back at the Hot Springs Hotel, they unloaded the dynamite from the jeep and stored it under police protection in the pump house. Then they went to look for the scientists.
Hartson Brant, David Riddle, and Julius Weiss were in the conference room working over drawings. Rick saw that they were sketches of a tunnel.