Countdown

EXERTING every bit of resistance they could, Nancy and Ned tried to escape from their captors. But their efforts were futile. They were shoved toward the room with the boiling pool and put inside.

“That’s what happens to snoopers! ” Fortin shouted excitedly. “I won’t be thwarted in what I intend to do! ”

The heavy door was swung shut and locked. The captured couple was forced to hug the wall since the ledge around the water was only six inches wide.

“Oh, Ned, I’m so sorry, ” Nancy said. “It’s all my fault. I never should have asked you to come to this place with me.”

“I certainly wouldn’t have let you come alone, ” he replied. “Let’s not give up hope of rescue.”

Nancy nodded. Surely as soon as their friends realized Nancy and Ned had been gone too long, they would make a search.

“Only I hope they won’t be captured as we were! ” she worried.

Nancy and Ned tried changing their positions but almost tumbled into the water. To keep their balance they stood as straight and immovable as wooden soldiers.

“Something’s got to break soon! ” Ned remarked. “Maybe some of our captors will be afraid of a worse charge if they’re arrested and the authorities find us in this pool. One of them may open the door.”

No one did, however. Nancy and Ned assumed the men had left the basement. As the couple shifted their gaze, they noticed two tiny barred openings in the walls near the ceiling. One evidently admitted fresh air from the outside, the other from the basement.

Meanwhile, back at the Webster house the other young people were becoming more and more alarmed about their missing friends. Burt and Dave paced up and down the front yard. Bess nervously rumpled her hair, then smoothed it out and in a few seconds repeated the operation.

Finally George burst out, “We’ve got to do something! I just know Nancy and Ned were caught in a trap! ”

The rest agreed. “We’ve waited long enough, ” said Burt.

Bess offered to drop the others off at the moss-covered mansion. “I’ll drive over to the Nickersons and get help.”

When they reached the entrance, George and the two boys got out of the car and set off along the winding road that led through the jungle. They listened and watched carefully.

“Do we dare pound on the door? ” George asked.

Both boys vetoed this idea. “We’d surely be captured, ” Dave replied.

By this time Bess had reached the Nickersons. When Ned’s father heard her story, he immediately rushed to the telephone. First he called Mr. Drew and Mr. Billington, who notified NASA headquarters. He reported the group’s suspicions regarding the activities of the occupants in the moss-covered mansion, and the disappearance of Nancy and Ned.

“We’ll send men at once, ” the man at NASA promised.

Mr. Billington telephoned the local police, who also said they would rush to the suspected house immediately.

Twenty minutes later, just as Nancy and Ned felt completely discouraged, they heard a loud commotion outside.

“Open up! ” came a shout.

The couple heard no reply, but moments later there was a stampede of footsteps on the stairway to the basement. Fortin’s voice rang out, “Police! NASA agents! FBI! Open the secret lock, Longman! Let the animals loose! ”

The pounding on the front door became more insistent and a voice cried out, “Open in the name of the law! ” Inside the house the two dogs were barking madly.

The noise, coupled with Fortin’s orders to release the wild animals, made chills go up and down the spines of Nancy and Ned.

“This is horrible! ” she wailed.

Her remark was followed by screams from outside the house. Then came a roar. Had the animals attacked the law-enforcement men?

Suddenly there was silence in the basement. Moments later a voice called out, “Nancy! Ned! Where are you? ”

Mr. Drew!

“Oh, Dad, ” Nancy cried out, “open the door that’s below the vent near the ceiling.”

Within seconds the heavy door was unlocked and opened. Nancy and Ned had inched along the ledge of the steaming pool and now literally fell into the arms of their waiting friends.

Bess gave a scream of horror. “Oh, you might have fallen into the boiling water! ”

Nancy and Ned were pretty shaken by their experience, but recovered in a few minutes.

“Who’s with you? ” Nancy asked.

“FBI and NASA men and the police, ” George replied.

Quickly the couple reported what they had overheard before being captured. “I think I’ve deactivated the machine in the laboratory, but a NASA expert had better check, ” Ned said.

He walked over to open the heavy steel door to the laboratory. It would not budge. They all looked for a way to unlock it but could not find any.

“Let’s go upstairs, ” Mr. Billington suggested. “I want to see what’s happening.”

They hurried to the kitchen and watched from a window. There was a great deal of excitement on the grounds of the moss-covered mansion. Tranquilizer guns were being used on the escaping animals. Finally all of them quieted.

Longman came from the house with a policeman and one by one they dragged the beasts into their cages, then locked the gates. Looking around furtively, Longman tried to escape but was caught and taken indoors.

The Drews and their friends found that the suspects, handcuffed, had been herded into the living room. Nancy and Ned were asked to come forward and tell the officers what they knew.

Before beginning, Nancy looked over the assembled crowd. Fortin was missing!

“The ringleader-the scientist isn’t here! ” she exclaimed.

Nancy was assured that the man could not have left the house because it had been surrounded.

“Then I believe he’s hiding in his laboratory, ” she stated.

Nancy led the NASA and FBI men downstairs, while the police stayed to guard the other prisoners. Engineers from the Space Center tried to unlock the steel door but concluded it must be fastened inside.

Nancy and Ned pleaded with them to break in. “I tried to deactivate the beamer that’s going to destroy the rocket, ” he said, “but I can’t be sure I was successful.”

One FBI man suggested that they use a steel drill, but a NASA engineer said, “No. Vibrations might set off the beamer.”

Nancy caught her breath. Suppose Fortin had decided not to wait until the next day to use his nefarious machine! He might blow up the rocket at any minute!

Quickly she told about the telescope in the tower which she and Ned believed was part of Fortin’s setup.

Ned added, “Perhaps it’s a sighting device to locate the exact bearing and elevation so Fortin can aim the parabolic reflector antenna in his workshop.”

“We’ll go right up there, ” one engineer stated. He and the two FBI men hurried to the third floor.

Meanwhile, the other NASA man put a radiation detector against the steel door. The results were negative.

Nancy and Ned returned to the living room. The saboteurs waived their constitutional rights to have a lawyer present and confessed their guilt. All were taken to jail except Longman.

“He will remain here with two detectives until the authorities can make arrangements for the wild animals to be moved, ” said one of the policemen.

The trainer told them he had become involved in Fortin’s sabotage plan after forging the scientist’s name on some bank checks. To avoid arrest, he had acceded to Fortin’s demands that he care for the animals and keep intruders away.

“Fortin is a brilliant man, ” Longman went on as the other prisoners were led off. “But Fortin became obsessed with some dangerous political ideas and joined a radical group. I’m glad he’s going to be prevented from doing the terrible thing he planned.”

George asked Longman about the boiling pool. “Did Fortin build it? ”

“Yes. It was one of his cruel ideas to dispose of intruders in case his animals didn’t get them.”

The trainer was questioned about how the authorities could get into the laboratory but he declared he did not know. They also asked him if Fortin could destroy the rocket from his basement laboratory. Again Longman insisted he did not know.

Guards were left at the moss-covered mansion inside and out. Two FBI agents had been stationed in the basement. Periodically they tried to persuade Fortin to give himself up but there was no response from inside the laboratory.

The Drews and their friends had mixed feelings about the mystery. It had been solved, but the instigator of the dreadful plot might still be able to destroy the rocket and possibly the three astronauts as well.

When they reached the Nickerson home, the young people were bombarded with questions by Ned’s mother. She took a sensible view of the whole matter.

“I’m sure that if there is the slightest bit of doubt about the safety of those astronauts, NASA will not allow them to climb into the rocket.”

Harboring this comforting thought, everyone went to bed feeling a little better. They were up and dressed by six the next morning. During breakfast they watched the television news. According to the report the moon shoot was planned for nine o’clock and at the moment all systems were go.

When the young people reached the building where the news media offices were located, they signed in. Together they walked out to get into buses and were taken to the Press Site.

“What a huge place! ” Bess remarked.

The structure was really a large covered stadium. On each tier were long counters containing telephones. Behind them were rows of chairs, each one numbered. Nancy’s group climbed the steps and found seats which had been assigned to them.

Men were bustling about, many with cameras, some with tape recorders, others with portable typewriters. Nearly everyone had binoculars.

In front of the Press Box was a long open lawn beyond which the Banana River gleamed in the sunlight. Near the shore, television and newspaper cameras had been set up by photographers. Across the river on Merritt Island stood the rocket, about three miles away, with condensed moisture, caused by the liquid oxygen, pouring from the base of it.

Every few minutes there would be an announcement and the young people would hold their breath. Was the countdown still on and would the rocket take off?

“Oh I hope Fortin was captured and had no chance to use a secret device to hurt the astronauts! ” said Bess.

“I hope so too, ” Nancy replied.

There was a long wait before lift-off time. Nancy asked Ned if he would go with her to inspect the various trailers she had noticed off to one side of the Press Box. They went down and were told that these contained the broadcasting stations. Stepping across numerous cables, the couple walked along the row, then turned back. Behind the Press Box they found a snack bar.

“Let’s grab a bite, ” Ned suggested.

While he bought hamburgers and milk, Nancy tried to phone the Billington house, but all the circuits were busy. When she and Ned returned to their seats, they learned that their friends had also been down to get a second breakfast.

As the countdown drew nearer zero, everyone who had been wandering around came to take their seats. Typewriters were clicking everywhere and cameras with telephoto lenses were busy.

Nancy wondered if ever again she would be so excited. Some time later she encountered another mystery, The Quest of the Missing Map, which also brought her some harrowing adventures.

It was five minutes to nine. The countdown for the moon shoot proceeded. Finally the announcer called out the final seconds:

“Three... two... one... zero! ”

There was a burst of orange, green, and yellow gases from the base of the rocket. As it zoomed upward, enveloped in a varicolored cloud, the noise was ear-splitting and the grandstand shook as if a giant hand were shaking it violently.

“It’s off! ” someone shouted.

Nancy and her friends were holding hands, their nails pressing into one another’s palms.

“Nothing is wrong so far! ” Nancy thought, as a white vapor trail formed behind the spaceship. “Oh, I hope—I hope—”

The rocket curved slightly and in a few moments disappeared among the clouds. Bess said shakily, “Ev-everything’s A-OK! ”

Seconds before this, a shout of triumph had gone up from the onlookers. Nancy and her friends did not cry out. Instead they were silently saying prayers of thankfulness.

When Nancy was breathing normally again she picked up the telephone in front of her. The main switchboard connected her with the Billington house.

Mr. Drew answered. “I knew it was you, ” he said. “Everything’s A-OK here too. Fortin finally gave himself up, and his spy was caught. The transmitting antenna was ruined. The news was immediately telephoned to the Cape. This is why the astronauts were allowed to climb into the rocket and it was able to lift-off on time.”

“Oh, Dad, that’s wonderful! ”

The lawyer chuckled. “You’ll be interested to know that Fortin blames his failure on your detective work. But I’m terribly proud of you! ”

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