Free Tom Swift and His Flying Lab by Victor Appleton II Page A

lost to view. Minutes later Tom whirled over the trees just in time to glimpse the plane taxiing into a large shed at the end of a meadow. Behind the shed stood an old farmhouse.
    "A private airfield!" Tom exclaimed. "I didn’t know there was one around here."
    Circling over the long meadow, which served as a runway, Tom banked to land. Making a short, sharp approach, he put his flaps and wheels down, throttled back, and glided in to a smooth landing.
    "There’s no way of concealing ourselves," he told his companion, "so be prepared for anything."
    When the plane had been braked to a stop, Hank jumped out, but Tom delayed a moment to radio their discovery to his father. As they were now too distant to use their televoc devices, Tom utilized the plane’s inbuilt radio set.
    "I’ll contact the local authorities," said Mr. Swift. "You and Hank get out of there! You’ve done what you came to do."
    "Say again, Dad? You’re breaking up…" He switched off the radio unit. "Now Dad and the folks at home know where we are, Hank," Tom said.
    "And so your greasy-haired pal and his buddies would be terribly foolish to mess around with us, wouldn’t they?" Hank was grinning.
    Tom grinned back. "Terribly. So it might just be a perfect time to pay a call on our country neighbors."
    "Absolutely," declared Hank, unbuckling his safety harness. "After all, we’re all fellow fliers!"
    There was no one in sight as Tom and Hank strode determinedly toward the barnlike shed into which the fugitive’s plane had been rolled and the door closed. Reaching it, Hank tried to swing the big door up and open.
    "Locked," he said.
    Tom pounded on the panel. "Open up in there!" he commanded. "We know you’re inside!"
    "Ah, the brilliant young Swift!" said a cool, calculating voice from around the corner of the shed, as four heavily armed men surroundedthem from behind. "It seems we are not inside after all. What a new experience it must be—to be wrong!"
CHAPTER 10
THE MYSTERIOUS FIREFIGHT
    TOM WAS NOT surprised to see that the man who spoke matched the description of the slick-haired man who had stolen his jetrocopter and frightened Sandy.
    "And so we meet at last, eh?" sneered the man.
    "Please!" retorted Tom. "We don’t even say that on television anymore!"
    "We are on television?" asked one of the others nervously. His voice was heavily accented.
    "Sure," said Hank smoothly. "It’s one of those reality shows. Your mother is watching."
    The sneering man nodded, as if in approval. "Yes, bravado in the face of death. That is a  good thing, I think. They say, you can live any day, but you die once only. "
    He made a gesture, and the four other men, clearly his subordinates, approached Tom and Hank. "Por favor, do not resist us," said one of the men. But there was no chance for resistance. The men produced strong-looking cords, intending to tightly bind their captives’ hands behind them.
    Suddenly Tom was struck by the realization that he and Hank were still wearing their televoc pins, which would allow their adversaries to perfectly mimic their voices and impersonate them!
    His hands raised, Tom said "Sterling!" sharply, as if warning his companion not to resist. Then Tom added, "There’s no need to pin us down, guys. You can lose the pins anytime." He hoped the Spanish-speaking group would assume lose the pins was American slang.
    Hank appeared to have understood. He shrugged his shoulders, arms upraised, and Tom saw him nudge the shoulder bearing the communicator pin with his jaw.
    "Turn around," ordered the man assigned to Tom. "Put your hands behind you." The young inventor knew that his hands were about to be tied.
    "Not too tight, please, Señor ." As Tom half-turned, lowering his hands, he managed to hook his televoc with his thumbnail and flick it off. A slight sound told him the tiny device had fallen to the dirt below. Guessing its position, he managed to step on it as if losing his balance while turning. The man tying him said