"Nothing yet."
Hank Sterling donned a hydrophone headset and listened intently. The
silence deepened in the _Sea Hound_'s cabin. Suddenly Hank stiffened and
the sonarman cried out:
"A blip, skipper! At two o'clock!"
It was moving rapidly on the scope--something streaking toward their
starboard beam!
"Good night! It's another missile!" Tom gasped.
He darted back to the controls and gunned the reverse jets just in time!
The missile flashed across their bow.
"Great bellowin' longhorns!" Chow gasped weakly. His leathery face had
gone pale under its tan. "The yellow-livered drygulchers!"
"I don't get it," Arv Hanson spoke up. "If they're in firing range, we
should have detected them, shouldn't we?"
Tom nodded grimly. "Whoever our enemies are, they must have perfected a
way to make themselves invisible to underwater detection.
"_And we'll have to do the same!_" he vowed inwardly. Aloud, Tom said,
"I hate to run from those sneaks, but if we stick around, we'll be
asking for trouble."
Slowing the rotors to permit the craft to rise, Tom guided the _Sea
Hound_ back to the surface. Then he reversed blade pitch for air flight
and gunned the atomic turbines. The seacopter rose steeply above the
billowing South Atlantic.
Tom radioed a terse report of their experience to the task-force
commander and in turn was told that none of the naval craft had either
sighted or picked up any sign of a strange sub.
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