Rick and Scotty nodded.
Preston continued, "The thing that's clear to us is that there isn't just an Earthman. There's a gang. Someone sabotages the rockets. Someone else steals the stuff from the warehouse. Someone else—and it looks like Mac and Pancho—takes the stuff to Careless Mesa, or Steamboat, or both. And someone else—the gang that captured you—gets it at Steamboat and takes it to Vegas. Then, I suppose, still another man or group gets rid of it through trade channels."
John Gordon had been listening without comment. Now he spoke up. "The pattern seems to indicate sabotage, in order to create a diversion for thieves. I can't buy it."
The boys and Preston waited for his reason.
"The thefts are peanuts. Oh, not in terms of ordinary thefts. But it doesn't seem reasonable that anyone, no matter how greedy or crooked, would destroy ten million dollars' worth of rocket to steal goods only a tiny fraction of that in value."
Gordon's comments were an echo of what Rick had thought when the theft of transistors first came to light. He simply couldn't believe theft was the only reason. He had also rejected theft as a means of hampering operations. While loss of parts was a nuisance, it wasn't crippling.
"Then the Earthman—I mean the Earthman who sabotages the rockets—has to be a part of the technical staff," Rick said.
Gordon and Preston nodded. "Because only the project people have ready access to the rockets," Gordon agreed. "Have you found out anything suspicious about any of them, Tom?"
Preston shook his head. "I've studied their security background investigations until I'm half blind. There isn't a thing that has even a remote connection."
Gordon added, "Maybe finding the actual saboteur is the toughest part, but there are some things about the thefts that aren't clear to me. For instance, how did Deadrock Ogg know the car would be traveling without lights? He told the boys how he planted himself at the Pahrump Valley turnoff because the sedan would have to turn on lights there. How did he know?"