"Appleton, Victor - Tom Swift Jr 05 - And His Atomic Earth Blaster" - читать интересную книгу автора (Appleton Victor)

Tom thought for a moment. "How about that break in the water main? Is it
repaired yet?"
"All fixed," said Hank. "Old Greenup had nothing more to gripe about, so he
went back to town."
"Thanks, Hank. You and your men return to the plant. The rest of us will try
to pick up a lead on Bronich and his two henchmen."
Sterling gave a friendly salute and left, as Tom, with the help of Bud and
Ames, resumed the job of following the tire marks. The prints wound through the
grove of trees and emerged on the other side, where the ground sloped down to
a winding dirt road.
"Not much hope of catching them now," mut-
18 TOM SWIFT AND HIS ATOMIC BLASTER
tered Bud. "They're probably miles away by now."
"Maybe we can still find the earth blaster," Tom said hopefully. "From what
happened, I don't think they intended to steal it in the first place-they just wanted
to make sketches of it while we were busy with that broken water main."
"I think you're right," Ames agreed. "They'd never stand a chance of getting
away with it, once a police alarm was sent out. And they certainly won't find it
easy to hide something as big as a tractor truck with that machine on it!"
With Bud at the wheel of the company jeep, the three followed the tire tracks
made by the truck on the dirt road. Two miles farther, near a bend in the Indian
River, Tom gave an excited cry.
"Look!" he shouted, pointing to the right. Close to the riverbank stood the
truck and the atomic earth blaster!
Bud slammed on the brakes and the jeep skidded to a halt. In a mad dash
Tom led his two friends to the riverbank.
"They must have had a boat cached here!" exclaimed Bud. "You can see
where they shoved it into the water when they made their getaway!"
But Tom was more interested in the earth blaster. He let out an angry groan
when he saw that the machine had been partly disassembled.
"Anything missing?" Ames asked nervously.
ATOMIC SPY 19
"Yes, the secret activator mechanism!" Tom cried. "The most important part
of the whole design!"
Bud slammed his fist against one of the heavy truck tires. "Those dirty,
sneaking thieves!" he raged. "And after all the work you've done on this blaster!"
"Don't worry," Tom said grimly. "They won't get away with this. I'll find
Bronich and put him behind bars, if it's the last thing I do!"
The others knew that Tom's words were no idle threat. In the adventures,
Tom Swift and His Flying Lab and Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship, the youthful
inventor had turned the tables on other foreign agents seeking to harm the free
world. And in Tom Swift and His Jetmarine, he had brought a gang of modern
pirates to justice. His most recent adventure, Tom Swift and His Giant Robot,
concerned the capture of a crazed scientist, bent on destroying Tom's robot and
his father's atomic energy plant.
Tom drove the earth blaster back to the plant, with Bud and Ames as his
escort.
"I'll alert the FBI and the police right away," the security chief promised as the
gate shut behind them.
With the machine safely housed in Tom's experimental laboratory, the two