Rick stared at the gathering clouds for long moments, then put into words the thing that had been bothering him.
"You know, there has been a cloud over this vacation almost from the moment we landed at Charlotte Amalie. We didn't want to get involved in anything but diving and exploring, but we got pulled by the ears into a hot case. Steve warned us off that first day. The warning didn't help, because we got dragged back into things when we went swimming, and again at the hotel."
Three faces were turned toward him, listening. He was expressing what all of them had been thinking, too.
"We thought we'd leave trouble behind when we came here," Rick continued, "but it was waiting for us. We didn't look for it, until tonight."
He drew a deep breath. "Well, from now on we have to become the hunters. Steve Ames doesn't know there's anything strange going on here. We do, and it's up to us to find out what. The goings-on in the octopus cave have something to do with the case Steve is working on—and what Steve is working on has something important to do with national security."
He smiled grimly. "I know none of you will disagree with this, because it's the only thing we can do. Professor Zircon knew it tonight when he tried to excuse our looking in on the frogmen as curiosity."
Zircon nodded silently.
"From now on," Rick concluded, "we have to operate as unofficial JANIG agents, until we can get word to Steve Ames so he and his men can take over."