"005 (B019) - Pirate of the Pacific (1933-07) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

THE pursuit planes whirled a half dozen lazy spirals. Convinced the deadly work was done, the leader of the quartet angled for the shore, four or five miles distant. Once over land, he dived out of the cockpit. fell a hundred feet, and opened his parachute. The plane boomed away. Eventually, it would crash somewhere.



Two other pilots followed their leader's example.



The third lingered a bit above the grisly smear of oil on the Sound surface.



He chanced to notice a small object near the cloud of black smoke. This seemed nothing more than a floating box. It bobbed lightly on the choppy waves.



The flyer ignored the box. It looked harmless - a piece of wreckage. A few moments later, he winged to shore and quitted his plane by parachute, as the others had done.



The man might have saved himself a lot of trouble had he taken time to investigate the floating box he had 'noted. Close scrutiny would have shown the top and sides of the box were fitted with what resembled large camera lenses.



Inside the box were other lenses, spinning disks perforated with small holes, sensitive photo-electric cells - a compact television transmitter. Waterproofed electric wires led from this down into the water.



Long Island Sound was not deep at this point. The under-the-polar-ice submarine, Helldiver, rested on the bottom. The wires from the television box entered the undersea boat.



Before the scanning disk of the television receiver in the sub, six men stood. They were a remarkable group.i. Six more unusual men than these probably had never assembled. Each possessed a world-wide reputation in his chosen p profession.



There was "Renny," a hulking six feet four and two hundred and fifty pounds of him - with possibly fifty pounds of that weight concentrated in a pair of monster fists. Renny had a sober, puritanical face. About the only entertainment he permitted himself was knocking panels out of doors with his huge fists - a stunt he pulled at the most unexpected moments. As Colonel John Renwick, the engineer, Renny was known in many nations, and drew down fabulous fees when he worked.



There was "Long Tom," pale and none too healthy- looking, the weakling of the crowd in appearance. His looks were deceptive, though, as more than one big man had discovered. As Major Thomas G. Roberts, the electrical wizard, he had worked with the greatest electrical minds of his day.



"Johnny" - William Harper Littlejohn - was tall, gaunt, studious and bespectacled. He seemed half starved, with shoulders as bony as a coat hanger. Once he bad headed the Natural Science department of a famous university. His knowledge of geology and archaeology was profound. His books on these subjects were in every worthwhile library.