After a brief interval, a studio announcer came on.  “The relay transmitter must have been knocked out by the quake.  We return you now to our regularly scheduled program, but will keep you informed as bulletins come in.”

“Great balls o’ fire!” Chow gulped as Tom turned off the set.  “I sure hope all o’ those poor folks in cars got away safe!”

Tom rushed to a wall shelf and pulled out a book on geology.  He leafed quickly to a section dealing with known earthquake faults and the distribution of quakes.  When he looked up at the others, his face was grim.

“What’s wrong, skipper?” Bud asked tensely.

“That quake,” Tom replied, “wasn’t in a patterned zone any more than the Faber one was!”

Chow’s jaw dropped open in a comic look of dismay.  “You mean this here ole earth we live on is gettin’ all busted up an’ twisted around inside?”

“I wish I knew, Chow!” Tom paced worriedly about the office.  “It just seems queer to me that both of those quakes should have destroyed vital defense factories!”

On a sudden impulse, Tom snatched up the telephone.  His two companions listened as he put through a call to the FBI in Washington.  Within moments, a friend at the Bureau, Wes Norris, came on the line.

“Look, Wes,” Tom said, “is there any chance this quake that just happened at Medfield and the earlier one at Faber Electronics might have been caused by underground H-bomb blasts?”

“As a matter of fact, we’re checking on that very possibility,” Norris replied.  “In other words, sabotage.  Things are pretty hot around here since that news on Medfield came in, so I can’t talk much right now, Tom.  But I can tell you this,” Wes concluded, “we are investigating, and I do mean thoroughly!”

Bud and Chow were shocked when Tom reported his conversation with the FBI agent.

“Brand my rattlesnake stew!” Chow exploded.  “Any ornery varmint that’d cause an earthquake ought to be strung up like a hoss thief!”

“I agree, Chow,” Tom said.  “But how do we find out for sure?”

After closing time at the plant, Bud drove home with Tom.  Both Mrs. Swift and Sandy were upset as the boys discussed the situation.

“Tom, if this was deliberate,” Mrs. Swift pointed out, “Enterprises may be next on the enemy’s list!”

Tom did his best to allay his mother’s fears, but inwardly he himself felt apprehensive.  Any large-scale sabotage plot would be almost certain to include Swift Enterprises, America’s most daring and advanced research center.

When his mother went upstairs to her room, Tom suggested to Bud that they drive to the nearby State Police post.  Here he confided his fears to Captain Rock, an old friend of the Swifts.

“You have some request in mind?” Captain Rock inquired.

“How about making a search for any signs of suspicious digging or underground activity in the vicinity of Shopton?” Tom said.  “There would have to be an excavation of some sort in order to set off an underground blast.”